In a recent discussion regarding the bookselling/publishing industry, the discussion moderator asked this question: “How can we get bookstores and the rest of the traditional publishing business into the twenty-first century? Any ideas?”

I replied there, but as I thought about it, I came to the realization that my observations might be of interest to those outside the discussion, so I’m expanding on them here.

Once when I was in the Navy, I had the chance to ride on an aircraft carrier. It was the USS Eisenhower, with about 6,000 souls on board. The Eisenhower was a huge ship, with tremendous mass and thus, tremendous momentum. Once she got going in a particular direction, it was very difficult to either turn or stop her, and it would be impossible without destroying the vessel if those at the helm didn’t want to change direction or stop.

The bookselling and publishing businesses are conjoined in a way that is much like that carrier.

Unless and until major publishers stop making these returnable deals with the bookstores, most booksellers will want all books to be returnable.  People are like that: once they’ve had what they consider a “good deal” for a while, they tend to think of it as a right instead of a privilege.  But the large publishers at the top make so much money from the present system that they don’t want to change it, and most fear that, if they do, booksellers will not order so many books from them.

Those same large publishers also fear that, with a more level playing field, booksellers will order more books from small-press publishers. After all, you’re a bookseller and you have been considering ordering some of those small-press titles, but didn’t because they weren’t returnable.  Suddenly the system changes and no books are returnable, so why wouldn’t you order some of the small-press titles?

So, the larger publishers and the majority of booksellers (the chains, especially) are joined at the hip in this, and they stand at the helm of the good ship Brick and Mortar Book Business. It will take a major blow to the vessel in some way to make them reconsider their direction of travel.

Of course, in the last few months, sneak and not-so-sneak attacks by the Online Bookstore Guerrillas and the E-book Commandoes have made those at the helm nervous. As recently as yesterday, Amazon and MacMillan got into a tiff over ebook pricing, and several MacMillan titles were pulled from Amazon because of it.  Also, recently at least one publisher has decided to shoot themselves in the foot by announcing publicly that they will delay releasing ebook versions of their new hardcopy releases for as long as four months.  This rather graceless announcement cause no small amount of anger in the community of ebook readers, and many of them said they would simply abstain from buying that publisher’s titles, in any form.

We have to remember that Amazon, the largest online bookstore in the world, has recently revealed that on Christmas day sales of ebooks outstripped sales of hardcopy books, and that they announced this week that for every ten hardcopy books they sell, they sell six ebooks.  My friend, those are compelling numbers!

Amazon has also been known to land salvoes amongst the small-press and independently-published authors. (Remember when they were going to turn off the “Buy Now” buttons for any POD books not printed by them?)

My opinion? The only way you will get the industry to change direction is at the point of an economic sword. In other words, both booksellers and large publishers will have to be hit in their wallets, and hit hard. Booksellers must realize and accept that they will have to change their way of doing things and order books responsibly, without being able to return them. Book publishers will have to realize that printing 25,000 (or more) copies of a book in their first run with no guarantee of sales is lunacy and ecologically irresponsible… no less so than driving a Hummer to take  your kid to soccer practice.

But booksellers have been in this mode since the Depression, and large publishers run their business to a great extent on hyperbole nowadays, so large print runs are indicators of “blockbuster” status, and making such a realization hit home will need to be done dramatically. Thus, the economic sword. Both will need to be pushed to the realization that their present business models are untenable, and if they continue they will run their ship aground. But doing so will be very, very difficult, and in the end, may not work at all, leaving the only ships afloat those whose bookselling businesses are primarily online.

Already the vicious cycle is begun: Because of low sales from a poor economy, bookstores are closing all over the country.  Yet, Amazon, B&N Online, and other online bookstores have growth.  As people get out of the habit of going into brick-and-mortar bookstores because they need to drive farther and farther to find one, more and more will close, forcing buyers to go to online sources.  And if the bookstore will not (or can not) keep copies on hand, but rather has to order a copy of the book I want, why should I drive fifty miles to do that?  I can order from an online bookseller, and have it without spending money on gas.  So, bookstore traffic dwindles even more.

It all feeds on itself, and unless something drastic happens to interrupt the cycle, it will not stop.