Publishing and the Tech Industry

The battle between Hachette and Amazon has been raging for almost a year and it may take as long again to reach a resolution. I am a Literature graduate who wants nothing more than to make my way in the publishing industry, but I previously worked at a tech company where developers laboured over innovative solutions to historic problems and congratulated themselves daily on being the future. 

My partner is a developer, he scoffs at my enormous book collection and if he had his own way would pair our furniture down to a sofa and a series of interactive screens. This being the case I straddle the line between the worlds. I write books, I paint, but I am also designing a computer game using entirely digital media. 

Now the publishing industry desperately needs developers on its side if it’s to survive, an uncomfortable fact for some die-hard book lovers to accept, but a necessary one. The problem is that developers feel that the publishing industry has allowed itself to die, and they’re now awaiting its inevitable descent into history. To them Amazon is progress. Self publishing is progress. To a lot of developers the internet has removed the need for many traditional institutions. 

I argue that quality control has its place and so does the recognition of art and the ability to invest in the important works of the future. They argue that internet consumers provide all the quality control a product needs, that if a book is good the internet will hear about it, if it’s bad it will disappear into oblivion. I happen to think that the publishing industry can adapt to incorporate the internet as an essential medium, and that a middle ground will be reached. The fact is that this battle between Amazon and the main publishers: Hachette, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Penguin Random House, needs to be fought before a way forward can be forged. These publishers are trying desperately to catch up after some bad initial decisions, like forfeiting control of the price at which ebooks could be sold through Amazon, the devastating mistake that has spawned these disagreements.   

When the dust settles the publishing industry will have no choice but to embrace the developers and hack a solution out of this technical thicket. Unfortunately, while publishing houses are beginning to recognise the need for in-house developers, the current job descriptions being drafted and released confirm how out of step the industry is with the turning tide of future economics. 

For instance, any developer will laugh at the idea of accepting a job in London for 18-24k a year. The technology industries are on the up, and as a result their wages reflect this. A publishing house would have to look seriously at doubling that figure to attract a quality developer, and it would have to put up a fight for them as well. 

To make things worse most developers will not take a job in publishing for their love of books and literature. It’s a cut-throat world they live in. Developers have to hone their skills regularly to stay ahead of the curve and this means paying attention to current and future technological trends. Anyone who allows themselves to fall behind are left behind, as the Pirate Code would have it.

If the publishing world is to adapt in this changing environment, it is going to have to invest real money in developers. There will be no sympathy, and they will not be persuaded to help otherwise.