Making Friends with the Cannibal: Why Print Publishers and Online Partners Need to Link and Make-up

Since Gutenberg (1439 to its latest incarnation) publishers have excelled at finding and developing editorial talent and producing books that feed the need for both art and information. So why haven't audiences and sales registered their appreciation at the till? While there are a myriad of factors that contribute to the complexity of the book industry, if we were really honest we'd admit that we're better at making books than selling them.

Meanwhile, the explosion of the Web and its huge but fractured audience has made individual contact with readers, existing and potential, possible at the stroke of a key, but the Net as a content provider consistently disappoints as a medium rife with trustworthy editorial leaving readers at loose ends as they search for needles in haystacks. Consider what would happen if these two industries joined forces to share content and market without sacrificing brand and ownership.

Canadian publishers, and their American counterparts, are in possession of thousands of titles and professional and expert writers have no shortage of content, but can't afford to rely on the whimsy, discounts, returns policies, poor exchange rate, and short shelf life of just traditional stores and an abbreviated season to recoup their costs and get the word out.

Online sites are so desperate for content they're relying on aggregated and anonymous content from questionable sources to draw readers and advertisers. Can these two industries scratch each other's backs and finally offer readers of both formats what they need and want?

Of course they can, if they’d just talk to each other. A little liaising, an open mind, the right contractual agreements and some imagination - territorialism parked at the door - would go a long way to making online content stronger and book sales more robust.

-Joy Gugeler