Reading Jason Boog's article about the woes of the book industry, I found more reasons to appreciate the independent, innovative publishers who have given me a chance to reach an audience. The publisher of Kunati Books, in particular, is fearless in pursuing new ways to give both writers and readers scope for imagination.

AbellaBooks.com is the place to buy and sell new and used cheap discount textbooks, DVDs, CDs, general reading, and reference titles.

AbellaBooks.com

Abella Books, is among the nation’s oldest, and largest buyers and sellers of New, Used, reconditioned, pre-owned K-12 and college student textbooks. As a result, purchasing your pre-owned textbooks has never been easier. We have nearly doubled the size of our textbook inventory to provide you with unparalleled access to the highest quality pre-owned textbooks at cheap discount prices.

So the publishing world is on the skids because of outdated business models, superstore bottom lines, and CEO mis-hustling. How New York.

How about this tidbit. When I retired I thought it would be interesting to teach an intro journalism course at a local college; the course was also the gateway to the college's published weekly newspaper. The first 200 word article submitted for publishing had 167 errors in syntax, construction and spelling. Literacy....sigh.

So, extra, extra, read all about it: people with no hands aren't likely to buy gloves.

As the Potter phenomenon shows, there are plenty of people who love to read - and that's what publishers need to encourage: a love of reading among the general public. Every penny spent on adult literacy programs and children's book distribution will pay back a hundredfold over time.

Take a lesson from the oil industry - faced with a global oil glut in the 50's, they encourage the American love affair with the automobile - especially the high-powered muscle car, now reinvented as the SUV. These cars are thirsty for gasoline, and so gas sales are high.

Or, take the tobacco industry - they get kids hooked in their teen years because studies show most lifelong heavy smokers pick up the habit when they're teenagers - strawberry cigar, kids?

The difference is that if you're marketing reading, in an effort to increase book sales and the general readership, you don't have to sell your soul beforehand.

Maybe a video game angle could be introduced - read the book, play the video game, and if you don't read the book, you can't proceed in the video game... have to make it a good video game, though. Etc. Some proportion will go on to become avid book-buyers, and there you go.

Borders stock is 35 cents/share today. There are only a few major outlets for trade book publishers: Borders, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Baker & Taylor, and Ingram (the last 2 are wholesalers). When times were better, Borders and Barnes & Noble were opening hundreds of new stores, so publishers' sales boomed. Once the new store construction tailed off, the returns percentages rose, because stocking any new store reduces returns percentages radically. Now that new bookstore construction is a rarity, and Borders is under great stress (including the closure of many unprofitable or marginally profitable Walden locations), book publishers don't have a growing healthy market.

As for "hedge fund investors" buying book publishers, most publishing houses were never owned by those folks. Most publishers are part of larger media entities. And book publishing goes through buy/sell cycles. In the 1970's Random House was owned by RCA, and CBS owned publishers, too. This was decades before CBS became corporate cousins of Simon & Schuster.

As for the concentration of textbook publishers, it's much easier to raise profits when there are fewer players. The few players left can either fix prices outright by meeting in the back of a dark bar (not hard to find, most bars are dark) or signal price increases to each other through the trade press and other indirect ways.

What hurts trade book publishers large and small isn't large advances or hedge fund guys. Or Kindle. It's bookstore location shrinkage.

And to the folks who mourn the thousands of closed mom & pop bookstores: (1) they had a lot of trouble just paying their bills, so their suppliers weren't totally in love with them (2) they weren't economical to service since low volume isn't usually economical (3) their prices were often list, not discounted, so readers had greater trouble affording them. Of course, publishers liked the power they had over mom & pop: no mom & pop could negotiate terms or pricing because almost any publisher was bigger than mom & pop.

And booksellers must compete for real estate against all other retailers. The whole American retail economy is terribly weak, so why should bookstores be exempt? If you're a landlord with a decent location, would you rather have a drug store paying $30/foot or a bookstore paying $9/foot?

Thanks for the links to these excellent web sites!

I too have decades experience in publishing-K-12 Textbooks- and am one of the December casualties at said now Irish-Owned megalith.

While E-books and technology solutions could help with distribution issues, there are many deeper issues keeping publishers from operating within a responsive and successful business mode. I have to echo the previous posts about supervisors and CEOs who have absolutely no idea what exactly publishing entails.

This could not be more true than for K-12 adoption states such as my own-California- where a labyrinth of complex regulations and requirements requires experience and foresight that does not come easily to financial manager types. The vast outlay of resources to begin to meet state mandated requirements takes years to grasp, and even then, the wiser financial gurus learn to delegate to those who hold this knowledge.

As an avid reader, I must tell you, I will miss the tactile pleasures of books once they leave us as a media format. I don't enjoy reading on a screen in the same way, but am glad some readers can. There is nothing to beat holding up a used text to find where the pages fall-usually the key ideas in nonfiction, or the climax in fiction. I LIKE to see the notes of previous readers sometimes.

I've sold and serviced both print and technology programs K-12. Most K-12 school sites are NOT equipped to handle more than a small percentage of teaching and learning in electronic media. They don't have the facilities or the teachers trained to do so, and few have sufficient IT staff to maintain systems on that level. And the myth that providing licensed technology will be cheaper and more efficient is just that: taking site licenses into account, tech is usually much more costly than a print program. Print programs can be used by multiple classes, evening, saturday, summer school, etc. for one price. Tech programs involve a licensing fee based on the number of users.

I do agree, and have said for some years now that niche publishers will return to ascendance in the coming years. I have always worked supplemental groups for the big 4 publishers, who have gobbled up smaller text presses and grouped them together. Now many of the big 4 are retiring these imprints, letting valued programs die on the vine, despite strong user interest and solid sales. They simply can't figure out how to administrate what they have. There appears to be a trend of smaller imprints being bought BACK from the heavy hitters. I hope that continues.

Please do another story about K-12 publishing. There is SO much happening that's not represented by the trade side!