They say it’s just around the corner - the “iPod moment”. Books are about to go digital at last, according to many publishing pundits, and the publishers are pre-emptily crying poverty.

On the heels of the recent WGA writer’s strike, book publishers are already showing authors their empty pocket linings stating that the swing to digital publishing and distribution is a long term, low-profit investment for them.

It will be years before we are even close to making money from this and I think we should see a little bit of latitude from authors.

Large publishing houses are stating that although there are lower physical production costs for an electronic distribution, titles still require editorial, sales, marketing, promotion and publicity. Add to this list the new costs of converting files into multiple formats [eh?],  digital warehousing, anti-piracy protection,  and content and metadata tracking.  Random House have suggested this additional investment will mean they will not turn a profit until beyond 2013.

The argument about royalties centres around a proposed 15% royalty on net receipts from digital sales. It is higher than the standard 10% for hardback sales, but significantly lower than the current 25% rate for ebook sales in the US.

Ebook makeup is still extremely low, however with less than 1% of the entire US book market. At such a rate, it is not surprising that the costs per unit sold seem pretty high right now.

The question for me is whether the publishers are not forward thinking enough to appreciate that aggregate costs will drop significantly as the market grows, or whether they are merely looking to engineer inflated profits when that time comes.

It is a difficult space to predict, but I feel that publishers need to break away from seeing the digital market as simply a non-paper version of the printed market. As the music industry has been forced to learn over the past year or two, the it is the millions of digital consumers who will ultimately dictate how the digital space is exploited.

We currently see top name artists pushing their content out for free (Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead), and new artists doing the same to build reputation and audience. I suspect we will see the same for the publishing world. Who might be the first big-name author to distribute a brand new book in electronic form, completely free of charge?

PublishingNews last week reported that although high street booksellers achieved a reasonable Christmas period, they are starting to feel the pinch from online stores. Some of the independents - who are not large enough to provide their own online services - are actually closing their doors for good.

I doubt it will be wise in 2008 to walk into an independent bookshop an mention Amazon - that’s already happening and it seems it is starting to grind on the shop owners’ ears. But can smaller booksellers compete with the likes of Amazon and the large book stores with their online offerings, many of which are rapidly competing with the prices Amazon offers? Diversification may be the key.

The Christmas shopping season is every retailer’s savior, generating around 80% of annual turnover. The problem independent booksellers face is not the Christmas price competition from online stores, but the difference in shopping behaviour during the festive period. Shoppers are far more concerned with ticking off that present list than enjoying the experience a bookstore has to offer, even one like Silverdall in Kirkham, Lancashire, which boasts an ice cream parlour and café.

Independent shops have always, throughout history, struggled to directly compete with larger organisations, and the current year-by-year growth of online shopping is no different. Every industry has gone through significant transformations as a result of electronic commerce and independent booksellers will need to adapt or die. It’s a harsh world, but those with imagination and passion will win through - while those who stick to their guns and insist on running their businesses “the good old way” will fall by the wayside.

In the UK, the number of independent bookstores fell from 1,560 in January 2005, to 1,424 today. To be honest, with all the recent fuss over the internet attracting so much trade, I would have expected far more closures over the past two years.

A Today’s Publishing prediction:

Large booksellers will focus more and more on internet stores as they reach a broader market, are cheaper to maintain, and provide a high level of control, monitoring. As demand grows, so the smaller high street chain stores will decline offering the independent bookseller a clear opportunity to provide exceptional service and a more personalised experience.

The New York Times has released a list of what they regard as the 100 notable books of the Year 2007.

Split into Fiction & Poetry, and Nonfiction categories, this list comprises a broad selection of reading matter from the past year. Each listed title on the above page, links to a full review of the work.

Of interest to me as a writer is each book in the list is accompanied by a one sentence description. A great lesson in how to put together those always tricky to create straplines. The list page is worth a visit for that alone.

The list will be published in the December 2 print edition of the Book Review.