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Bookstore sales have been sinking steadily since 2007 and, though e-book sales are soaring by nearly 50% last year in the adult books category alone and 475% in the children’s category, according to the American Association of Publishers, that still doesn’t compensate for the loss. It seems e-books are just taking a larger slice out of an ever-shrinking pie.
自2007年以来，书店的销售量开始持续下降。与此同时，根据美国出版人协会的统计，电子书单在成人类书籍的销售上就比去年迅速增长了50%，儿童类书籍则增长了475%——即便如此，这也没能弥补整个出版行业的损失。电子书似乎也只是逐渐占据了这个不断萎缩的市场中较大的份额而已。
According to one analysis, the average U.S. non-fiction book is now selling fewer than 250 copies per year and fewer than 3,000 copies over its lifetime. The complexity of the business, the razor-thin profit 1)margins, the bookstore bankruptcies, combined with technological 2)incursions and crazy competition, only contribute to the sense of tragedy of Titanic proportions.
(In the Movie, Titanic)
Man: It’s the end, boys. We’ve done our duty. We can go now.
Brooke Gladstone (Host): Yes, it’s time for our annual update on the state of the publishing industry. So let’s begin with a survey of reading habits released this month by the Pew Research Center.
It turns out that 41% of people who have owned a tablet or e-book reader for more than a year say they’re reading more books than ever. But only 35% of those who own either device for six months or less say that.
That could mean, according to Mike Shatzkin, head of The Idea Logical Company, a publishing consulting firm, that people read more when they get a device. But it could also mean that the heaviest readers shifted to the digital formats first.
If the recent converts are not so 3)voracious, then don’t look to e-books to save the industry. Probably the weirdest finding is that 42% of e-book readers read those books not on Kindles, cell phones or iPads; they read them on their computers. I asked Mike Shatzkin—what’s up with that?
一项分析显示，美国一本非虚构类书平均每年销售量不到250册，总销量也达不到3000册。这个行业的复杂性、微薄的利润、书店的破产，再加上科技的涌入和激烈的竞争都导致了一个像泰坦尼克号一样的悲剧性结果。（电影《泰坦尼克号》中）男子：结束了，伙伴们。该做的我们都做了。我们现在可以离开了。
布鲁克·格拉德斯通（主持人）：没错。又到了一年一度我们对美国出版业状态做一个新了解的时候了。那么，我们从皮尤研究中心本月发布的一项关于阅读习惯的调查报告开始吧。
这份报告指出，在拥有平板电脑或电子书阅读器超过一年以上的人中，其中41%表示他们的阅读量比起以往有所增加；然而在拥有以上任一电子设备半年或不足半年的人当中，仅仅35%的人表示阅读量增加。
迈克·谢兹肯是一家出版咨询公司——创意逻辑公司的总裁，根据他的说法，这有可能意味着当人们拥有电子设备的时候，他们的阅读量更大。但这也可能表示，最热爱阅读的人最先向电子阅读形式转变。
如果最近的转变并不是那么迫切的话，那么就别指望电子书能拯救整个行业了。或许最怪异的发现还是42%的电子书阅读者并非在烈火平板电脑、手机或是苹果平板电脑上阅读，而是在电脑上阅读。我就此询问迈克·谢兹肯——这是怎么回事？
Mike Shatzkin: Isn’t that amazing? There’s a lot of debate about what that means. There were a lot of people who said, “yeah, I read on the computer because I’m reading professional stuff.” I’m reading things in my office. But I also remember five years ago when 4)Harlequin started a short romance series, and the reason they told me they did it at the time, was that so many of their books were sold to people who read them on their computers at work, when they maybe should have been doin’ something else, that they wanted to have short stuff that can be read during a lunch hour.
Brooke: Beyond the changes in the reading habits that the Pew Study tracked, you’ve also written about changes in how publishers imagine their role.
Mike: The value that a publisher has brought historically I summarize this way: We can put books on shelves. And for 100 years that’s been a great business. It is not gonna be a great business for the next 10 years. It’s gonna get worse and worse. They’re gonna have to find some other value 5)propositions.
Brooke: Like what?
Mike: Well, I think that the main one is to be able to promote books better than authors can. You can’t just publish any subject that comes along and let the bookstore sort out who the right customer is. You have to think about what areas you’re gonna publish in, and you have to publish in those areas over and over again, so you know those communities and those communities know you. And you add flexibility to sell them things that you might otherwise not have been able to sell them before that are related.
迈克·谢兹肯：这难道不奇妙吗？对于这种行为意味着什么存在很多的争论。有很多人这样说：“没错，我之所以在电脑上阅读是因为我读的都是专业性的东西。我在办公室阅读这些东西。”但我还记得五年前，禾林公司出版了一个短篇爱情小说系列，当时他们告诉我他们之所以做这个的原因是，大部分买他们书的人都会利用工作时间在电脑上阅读那些书，但是这个时间他们应该有正事干，所以，他们想要一些能在午餐时间阅读的短小的读物。
布鲁克：除了皮尤研究所跟踪到的阅读习惯的改变，你还写了关于出版者对自己的角色定位方面的变化。
迈克：出版人有史以来都有一种价值观，我是这样总结的：我们把书摆上架子就行了。100年以来，这都是很棒的生意。但在未来十年，它可就辉煌不再了，而且还会逐步走下坡路。出版人必须另找出路。
布鲁克：比如说？
迈克：嗯，我认为最主要的一点是在推广这个方面，要能够比作者做得好。你不能随随便便就出版一个信手拈来的主题，然后让书店去定位目标客户。你要考虑清楚，你想出版的书是哪个领域的，然后你要不停地专攻这些领域，这样一来，你就会了解那些群体，而那些群体也会了解你。这样你就可以向他们出售一些在此种联系建立之前你无法向他们销售的东西。
Now, one of the things that’s been happening because of the e-book revolution, is that 6)genre fiction—romance, thrillers, 7)sci-fi—has done very well because there are a lot of people who read one or two or three romances or thrillers. They eat ’em like candy. The establishment can’t keep their habit fed. So they’re willing to try something different and new, particularly if it’s cheap. The successful self-published writers have been all been in genres. They haven’t been literary fiction. And they haven’t been writing biographies of Steve Jobs, for example. That book has got to cost a half a million dollars to write.
You’ve got a serious journalist spending several years trying to do this, with a research team. There’s no way that a book like that gets written, unless some publisher or somebody writes a check for a half a million or a million bucks.
Brooke: If 8)Walter Isaacson can’t get paid what he needs to write the biography of Steve Jobs, a guaranteed bestseller, then the problem is, is that the public doesn’t want it enough, not that Amazon is driving down the prices of e-books.
Mike: No, that’s actually just not true because you now have a market which is 9)bifurcated, and you have lots and lots of books, most of the branded books that are between 10 and 15 dollars. And they 10)yield revenue of X, which actually would support Walter Isaacson. And you have lots and lots and lots of books that are one dollar, two dollars and three dollars, and some of those are selling a lot of copies. So what happens in this new economy that we’re in is that the total amount of revenue generated by bestsellers drops 11)precipitously, and Amazon doesn’t care about that. If we lose major publishers, what we will lose is the books that won’t even be written!
Brooke: Mike, thank you very much.
Mike: You’re quite welcome.
现在，由于电子书革命的冲击而产生的影响中，有这样一个现象：通俗小说——比如爱情小说、惊悚小说、科幻小说——市场都比较好，因为很多人会阅读一本、两本甚至三本爱情小说或是惊悚小说。他们消化这些书籍就像吃糖一样。而现有的东西无法满足他们的胃口。所以他们会愿意尝试一些新的、不同的东西，尤其如果这些新东西价格便宜的话。那些成功出版了自己作品的作者都专供通俗小说领域。他们不写纯文学小说。举个例子，他们也没有撰写史蒂夫·乔布斯的自传，写这本书得花费50万美元。
找一个认真的新闻记者，再配上一个调查团队，干这事也得花上几年的时间。像那样的书没法写，除非有哪个出版人或是什么人愿意支付五十万，甚至是一百万美元。
布鲁克：假如沃尔特·艾萨克森没有得到他为史蒂夫·乔布斯写自传所需要的钱——这本书无疑会很畅销，那么问题就是社会大众并不是那么需要它，而并不是亚马逊拉低了电子书的价格。
迈克：不，这其实不对，因为你知道这个市场已经被分割了，你出版了很多很多书，大多数品牌图书的售价在10到15美元之间不等，这些书为你带来的收入比如说是X，这笔钱就可以支持沃尔特·艾萨克为乔布斯写自传。与此同时，你还有大量的售价在一美元、两美元和三美元的书，其中一些销量很大。我们现在处在这个新经济环境下，由畅销书所带来的总收入骤减，而亚马逊对此无所谓。如果我们流失掉了一些重要的出版商，那么我们失去的将是那些甚至还没写出来的书。
布鲁克：迈克，非常感谢你。
迈克：不客气。
自2007年以来，书店的销售量开始持续下降。与此同时，根据美国出版人协会的统计，电子书单在成人类书籍的销售上就比去年迅速增长了50%，儿童类书籍则增长了475%——即便如此，这也没能弥补整个出版行业的损失。电子书似乎也只是逐渐占据了这个不断萎缩的市场中较大的份额而已。
According to one analysis, the average U.S. non-fiction book is now selling fewer than 250 copies per year and fewer than 3,000 copies over its lifetime. The complexity of the business, the razor-thin profit 1)margins, the bookstore bankruptcies, combined with technological 2)incursions and crazy competition, only contribute to the sense of tragedy of Titanic proportions.
(In the Movie, Titanic)
Man: It’s the end, boys. We’ve done our duty. We can go now.
Brooke Gladstone (Host): Yes, it’s time for our annual update on the state of the publishing industry. So let’s begin with a survey of reading habits released this month by the Pew Research Center.
It turns out that 41% of people who have owned a tablet or e-book reader for more than a year say they’re reading more books than ever. But only 35% of those who own either device for six months or less say that.
That could mean, according to Mike Shatzkin, head of The Idea Logical Company, a publishing consulting firm, that people read more when they get a device. But it could also mean that the heaviest readers shifted to the digital formats first.
If the recent converts are not so 3)voracious, then don’t look to e-books to save the industry. Probably the weirdest finding is that 42% of e-book readers read those books not on Kindles, cell phones or iPads; they read them on their computers. I asked Mike Shatzkin—what’s up with that?
一项分析显示，美国一本非虚构类书平均每年销售量不到250册，总销量也达不到3000册。这个行业的复杂性、微薄的利润、书店的破产，再加上科技的涌入和激烈的竞争都导致了一个像泰坦尼克号一样的悲剧性结果。（电影《泰坦尼克号》中）男子：结束了，伙伴们。该做的我们都做了。我们现在可以离开了。
布鲁克·格拉德斯通（主持人）：没错。又到了一年一度我们对美国出版业状态做一个新了解的时候了。那么，我们从皮尤研究中心本月发布的一项关于阅读习惯的调查报告开始吧。
这份报告指出，在拥有平板电脑或电子书阅读器超过一年以上的人中，其中41%表示他们的阅读量比起以往有所增加；然而在拥有以上任一电子设备半年或不足半年的人当中，仅仅35%的人表示阅读量增加。
迈克·谢兹肯是一家出版咨询公司——创意逻辑公司的总裁，根据他的说法，这有可能意味着当人们拥有电子设备的时候，他们的阅读量更大。但这也可能表示，最热爱阅读的人最先向电子阅读形式转变。
如果最近的转变并不是那么迫切的话，那么就别指望电子书能拯救整个行业了。或许最怪异的发现还是42%的电子书阅读者并非在烈火平板电脑、手机或是苹果平板电脑上阅读，而是在电脑上阅读。我就此询问迈克·谢兹肯——这是怎么回事？
Mike Shatzkin: Isn’t that amazing? There’s a lot of debate about what that means. There were a lot of people who said, “yeah, I read on the computer because I’m reading professional stuff.” I’m reading things in my office. But I also remember five years ago when 4)Harlequin started a short romance series, and the reason they told me they did it at the time, was that so many of their books were sold to people who read them on their computers at work, when they maybe should have been doin’ something else, that they wanted to have short stuff that can be read during a lunch hour.
Brooke: Beyond the changes in the reading habits that the Pew Study tracked, you’ve also written about changes in how publishers imagine their role.
Mike: The value that a publisher has brought historically I summarize this way: We can put books on shelves. And for 100 years that’s been a great business. It is not gonna be a great business for the next 10 years. It’s gonna get worse and worse. They’re gonna have to find some other value 5)propositions.
Brooke: Like what?
Mike: Well, I think that the main one is to be able to promote books better than authors can. You can’t just publish any subject that comes along and let the bookstore sort out who the right customer is. You have to think about what areas you’re gonna publish in, and you have to publish in those areas over and over again, so you know those communities and those communities know you. And you add flexibility to sell them things that you might otherwise not have been able to sell them before that are related.
迈克·谢兹肯：这难道不奇妙吗？对于这种行为意味着什么存在很多的争论。有很多人这样说：“没错，我之所以在电脑上阅读是因为我读的都是专业性的东西。我在办公室阅读这些东西。”但我还记得五年前，禾林公司出版了一个短篇爱情小说系列，当时他们告诉我他们之所以做这个的原因是，大部分买他们书的人都会利用工作时间在电脑上阅读那些书，但是这个时间他们应该有正事干，所以，他们想要一些能在午餐时间阅读的短小的读物。
布鲁克：除了皮尤研究所跟踪到的阅读习惯的改变，你还写了关于出版者对自己的角色定位方面的变化。
迈克：出版人有史以来都有一种价值观，我是这样总结的：我们把书摆上架子就行了。100年以来，这都是很棒的生意。但在未来十年，它可就辉煌不再了，而且还会逐步走下坡路。出版人必须另找出路。
布鲁克：比如说？
迈克：嗯，我认为最主要的一点是在推广这个方面，要能够比作者做得好。你不能随随便便就出版一个信手拈来的主题，然后让书店去定位目标客户。你要考虑清楚，你想出版的书是哪个领域的，然后你要不停地专攻这些领域，这样一来，你就会了解那些群体，而那些群体也会了解你。这样你就可以向他们出售一些在此种联系建立之前你无法向他们销售的东西。
Now, one of the things that’s been happening because of the e-book revolution, is that 6)genre fiction—romance, thrillers, 7)sci-fi—has done very well because there are a lot of people who read one or two or three romances or thrillers. They eat ’em like candy. The establishment can’t keep their habit fed. So they’re willing to try something different and new, particularly if it’s cheap. The successful self-published writers have been all been in genres. They haven’t been literary fiction. And they haven’t been writing biographies of Steve Jobs, for example. That book has got to cost a half a million dollars to write.
You’ve got a serious journalist spending several years trying to do this, with a research team. There’s no way that a book like that gets written, unless some publisher or somebody writes a check for a half a million or a million bucks.
Brooke: If 8)Walter Isaacson can’t get paid what he needs to write the biography of Steve Jobs, a guaranteed bestseller, then the problem is, is that the public doesn’t want it enough, not that Amazon is driving down the prices of e-books.
Mike: No, that’s actually just not true because you now have a market which is 9)bifurcated, and you have lots and lots of books, most of the branded books that are between 10 and 15 dollars. And they 10)yield revenue of X, which actually would support Walter Isaacson. And you have lots and lots and lots of books that are one dollar, two dollars and three dollars, and some of those are selling a lot of copies. So what happens in this new economy that we’re in is that the total amount of revenue generated by bestsellers drops 11)precipitously, and Amazon doesn’t care about that. If we lose major publishers, what we will lose is the books that won’t even be written!
Brooke: Mike, thank you very much.
Mike: You’re quite welcome.
现在，由于电子书革命的冲击而产生的影响中，有这样一个现象：通俗小说——比如爱情小说、惊悚小说、科幻小说——市场都比较好，因为很多人会阅读一本、两本甚至三本爱情小说或是惊悚小说。他们消化这些书籍就像吃糖一样。而现有的东西无法满足他们的胃口。所以他们会愿意尝试一些新的、不同的东西，尤其如果这些新东西价格便宜的话。那些成功出版了自己作品的作者都专供通俗小说领域。他们不写纯文学小说。举个例子，他们也没有撰写史蒂夫·乔布斯的自传，写这本书得花费50万美元。
找一个认真的新闻记者，再配上一个调查团队，干这事也得花上几年的时间。像那样的书没法写，除非有哪个出版人或是什么人愿意支付五十万，甚至是一百万美元。
布鲁克：假如沃尔特·艾萨克森没有得到他为史蒂夫·乔布斯写自传所需要的钱——这本书无疑会很畅销，那么问题就是社会大众并不是那么需要它，而并不是亚马逊拉低了电子书的价格。
迈克：不，这其实不对，因为你知道这个市场已经被分割了，你出版了很多很多书，大多数品牌图书的售价在10到15美元之间不等，这些书为你带来的收入比如说是X，这笔钱就可以支持沃尔特·艾萨克为乔布斯写自传。与此同时，你还有大量的售价在一美元、两美元和三美元的书，其中一些销量很大。我们现在处在这个新经济环境下，由畅销书所带来的总收入骤减，而亚马逊对此无所谓。如果我们流失掉了一些重要的出版商，那么我们失去的将是那些甚至还没写出来的书。
布鲁克：迈克，非常感谢你。
迈克：不客气。