出版商否认亚马逊电子书销售数据

    上周，2011美国图书展（BookExpo America）在纽约贾维茨会议中心（Javits Center）开幕，展会现场人声鼎沸，到处都在忙着握手和签名售书。所有出版社都带着销售代表、编辑和作者齐聚一堂。会场气氛是积极的，装满纸墨校样的手提袋可能都会让你忘了近日亚马逊(Amazon)电子书销量已超过出版物一事。

    “哦，历史上曾有过这样的时刻，平版书销量超越精装书，电视机销量超越收音机，”《纽约书评》杂志（New York Review of Books）的副发行人凯瑟琳•泰斯谈到，“将来iPad销量也会超越Kindle。这样的转变将持续出现。”

    言之有理，但会不会有这样的时刻，即随着消费者追赶电子书和数字化浪潮，亚马逊将使实体书店濒于灭绝？这个时刻会到来吗？书店店主们现在有这种担心吗？

    “我认为电子阅读将占据部分市场，但印刷版的文学小说仍会有市场，”位于布鲁克林Greenpoint 的WORD书店店主克里斯汀•奥诺拉蒂表示，“人们发现下载找书更容易，特别是像詹姆斯•帕特森（世界顶级畅销书作家，被誉为美国惊悚推理小说天王——译注）这样的通俗小说。这让人沮丧吗?是的，就像人们去好市多超市（Costco）买书一样。但我们不反对电子书。”

    事实上，WORD的网站也通过Google Books出售电子书，下载后可在iPad、iPhone、黑莓（Blackberry）、Android、Nook或索尼(Sony)阅读器上阅读。缺点？“[谷歌电子书] 与Kindle不是很兼容，因为Kindle是亚马逊的知识产权，”她解释道，在谈到Kindle销量新闻时，她说“我绝不相信亚马逊说的话。”

    这种观点得到了一些人的认同。普林斯顿大学出版社（Princeton University Press）的一位代表在被问到这条新闻时，也表示“我想看看具体的数据。”

    但消费者前沿调查（Consumer Edge Research）的法耶•兰德斯表示，亚马逊的消息是真的——一直以来她都在跟踪亚马逊的销售数据。在谈到一些出版商否认该消息时，她称，“没有（出版商）愿意说这对他们的业务不利……这对亚马逊是个好消息，但如果人们都在亚马逊上买电子书，下载至Kindle，他们就不会再到实体书店买书了。”

    奥诺拉蒂表示，WORD书店经营得很不错，尽管图书零售商Borders倒闭、大型连锁书店前景可能惨淡，但小型独立书店实际上欣欣向荣。在这次展会中，她碰到了位于布鲁克林Cobble Hill的BookCourt书店的书商、畅销小说集《Other People We Married》的作者艾玛•斯特劳布。斯特劳布听到亚马逊的新闻似乎较为平静，表示图书出版业的电子化趋势并不意外，已有越来越多的作者涌入Twitter，根据网上的读者互动进行自我调整。

电子书业务模式

    但奥诺拉蒂和斯特劳布都没有Kindle，她们表示即使要买一台电子书阅读器 (奥诺拉蒂有一台iPad)，也不会是Kindle，因为她们想要更多的自由，不想只从亚马逊购买电子书。这种抱怨可能不会使Kindle增速有太大放缓。消费者前沿调查研究了300个曾购买和阅读电子书的人，其中138人表示只用Kindle， 28人使用邦诺（Barnes ＆ Noble）的Nook电子书阅读器。

    兰德斯表示，Kindle电子书要击败出版物仍可能面临一道障碍，即盈利能力。电子书销量的增长并不一定意味着印刷书会消亡。至少人们仍在阅读。但电子书销售的每个环节利润都较低，她认为可能会有一个皆大欢喜的结局，“有迹象显示电子书和印刷书都会有人购买，因为拥有Kindle 的人们都属阅读者。”

    亚马逊最近还宣布将建立自己的大众图书出版社，并挖来了前Hachette的拉里•基尔希鲍姆负责运营。这条新闻让出席图书展的一些人更加不安。

    消费者前沿调查在2011年5月9日的一份报告中解释到，“亚马逊早已是美国第二大印刷书销售商和最大的电子书销售商。积极进入图书出版业可能会强化和巩固公司的影响力。我们预计传统图书出版社将有很多抱怨，它们早就对亚马逊的影响力心怀不满。”

    商业图书出版商就没那么担心了。“我们看到了数字化潮流，这没问题，” 《哈佛商业评论》出版社（Harvard Business Review Press）的销售总监玛丽•多伦表示，“这样的行业趋势是合理的。对我们而言，我们的读者是富裕的、受过教育的、对新技术敏感的商旅人士；我们希望能赶上读者的步伐。”

    而Wiley & Sons'商业出版社的约翰•赫尔姆斯对这些新闻的解读是总结性的。“我们都认为这是一个新机会，”他说，“你也只能这么看。”

    New York's Javits Center was a crowded, noisy hothouse of handshaking and book signing this week at BookExpo America. Every publisher and imprint was there with marketing reps, editors, and authors on hand. The mood was positive and, judging from the tote bags full of paper-and-ink galleys, you wouldn't have known that e-book sales had recently overcome print book sales at Amazon.

    "Well, there was a time when paperbacks surpassed hardcovers. And when television overcame radio," reasons Catherine Tice, associate publisher of the New York Review of Books magazine. "There will also be a time when iPad sales surpass Kindle sales. Shifts will continue."

    That makes sense, but what about a time when consumers follow the lead of their e-books and go digital, leading Amazon to cause the extinction of brick-and-mortar bookstores? Will that time come, and are bookstore owners worried?

    "I think some portion of the market will get lost to e-reading, yes, but literary fiction will still do well in print," says Christine Onorati, the owner of WORD bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. "People find books, especially commercial fiction like James Patterson's, so much easier to just download. Is it disheartening? Yes, in the same way that it is when people go buy a book at Costco. But we're not against e-books at all."

    Indeed, WORD sells e-books on its web site through Google (GOOG) Books, which you can read on your iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Nook, or Sony (SNY) reader. The drawback? "[Google e-books] just don't play nice with a Kindle, because that's proprietary to Amazon," she explains, before adding of the Kindle sales news: "I don't believe a thing Amazon says anyway."

    That opinion was echoed a few times. A rep from Princeton University Press, when asked his opinion on the news, said, "I'd like to see the numbers."

    But Faye Landes of Consumer Edge Research says Amazon's (AMZN) news was true indeed -- she tracks their sales data. "No one here wants to say this is bad for their business," she says of the publishers seemingly in denial. "It's good news for Amazon, but if people buy all their books on Amazon, for Kindle, they aren't going to spend at bookstores anymore."

    Onorati says that WORD is doing quite well, and that with Borders going out of business and the possible dire future for big chain stores, small independent book shops have actually thrived. At the expo, she was hanging out with Emma Straub, herself a bookseller at BookCourt in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and also author of the well-received new story collection Other People We Married. Straub doesn't seem thrilled with Amazon's news but does say the move toward everything 'e' in the lit world is unsurprising, as more authors flock to Twitter, for example, and adjust to reader interaction on the Web.

The e-book business model

    But neither woman owns a Kindle, and both say that if they were to get an e-reader (Onorati does have an iPad) it would not be a Kindle, since they want the freedom to buy e-books from places other than Amazon. That common complaint may not be slowing the Kindle down too much. In a Consumer Edge Research study that surveyed a group of 300 people who all buy and read e-books, 138 of them said they do so exclusively on a Kindle. That number for the Nook from Barnes and Noble (BKS) was 28.

    The real potential problem with Kindle e-books pushing print books off the mountain is profitability, Landes says. Higher sales of e-books doesn't have to mean books will die. People are still reading, at least. But everyone involved makes less money from the sale of an e-book, though she acknowledges that there is the potential for a happy ending: "There are indications that people will buy both e-books and print books, because the type of people who have a Kindle are readers."

    Amazon also recently announced that it will launch its own general interest trade publishing imprint, for which it has poached Larry Kirshbaum, formerly of Hachette, to run. This news had some people at Book Expo further aggrieved.

    A May 9, 2011 report from Consumer Edge Research explains: "Amazon is already the second-biggest player in physical books in the U.S. and the biggest player in e-books. An aggressive move into book publishing will likely enhance and consolidate the company's power. We expect to hear a lot of bellyaching from traditional book publishers, who already in many cases resent Amazon's power."

    Business publishers are less concerned. "We're seeing a migration to digital, but that's okay," says Mary Dolan, sales director for Harvard Business Review Press. "It makes sense that the industry is going in this direction. For us, our audience is affluent, educated, mobile, and tech-savvy; we want to be where our readers are."

    And John Helmus, of Wiley & Sons' business imprint, approaches the news from a bottom-line point of view: "We're all looking at this as another opportunity," he said. "That's the only way you can look at it."