WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 19smaller than that of California.
The train makes a stop at Watrous, about 85 miles from
Mozart, Saskatchewan. Mozart has a population of 25; fi ve
streets run through the hamlet, each named for a composer:
Gounod, Haydn, Liszt, Schubert, and Wagner.
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Book printing was another sad tale in 2019, following
on 2018’s news of company bankruptcies and industry
consolidation. As Quad tried to complete its merger with
LSC (spun off from the former R.R. Donnelley), the Justice
Department blocked the effort, and LSC shares now trade
for about 20¢. This is a company with 22,000 employees
and 2018 sales of $3.8 billion. A billion dollars of those
sales were books; LSC is the largest producer of books in
the U.S.
Scholarly publishing seems to be facing tougher challenges
than trade publishing, though the situation is less dire than
what textbook publishers are facing. Scholarly books are
selling fewer copies per title, mainly because of declining
library purchases. Libraries are also cutting back on journal
subscriptions, while individuals can access most journal
articles gratis (if not legally) via Sci-Hub. Simultaneously,
there’s a growing trend toward open access both for journals
and for books.
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On the last day of the journey, the train made a sched-
uled stop at Hornpayne, Ontario (population 980),
where it picked up a handful of passengers. One of them, a
schoolteacher who teaches grades six, seven, and eight in the
town’s one schoolhouse, sat opposite me at lunch. We com-
pared reading notes. She told me that she was in the middle
of a great new book: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and
Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe’s tale of
the Troubles. I showed her the copy on my phone—I’d begun
reading the same book the night before.
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Audiobooks are the good news story of 2019; sales are
up again some 25%. In a Pew Research Center survey
in 2019, one in five Americans said that they listen to audio-
books (vs. 65% reading print books). The consultancy
Deloitte believes that 20%-plus growth will continue for
the next few years. The enabling technology for listening
continues to improve; sales of smart speakers and in-ear
headphones are off the map.
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The train arrived in Toronto after midnight on
December 28, by then less than half a day late. Snow,
which had been plentiful there earlier in the season, did not
fall again that year. ■plans for fall 2019 were already in place when he took over
in September.
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One of the highlights of a cross-country train trip is
time spent crossing the Rocky Mountains. The winter
days are too short to properly enjoy this segment of the
journey, though we traversed the eastern approach before
dark on the first day. By early on in the second day we had
passed into Alberta, stopping first in Edmonton, the capital
and second-largest city in the province. Fresh snow had
fallen, covering everything in sight. When it snows, I think
of the French-Canadian poet and singer Gilles Vigneault,
who famously wrote, “Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver”
(“My country is not a country, it’s winter”).
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Library e-book lending was a hornet’s nest in the second
half of 2019. Macmillan codified its antipathy to
libraries by instituting price shifts amid harsh new restric-
tions on e-book lending. I can’t remember the last time a
major publisher took an action so widely and loudly reviled
by customers and readers alike.
I’ve always felt that libraries are a net benefi t to publishers,
one of the top sources for book discovery. But it’s safe to
assume that Macmillan CEO John Sargent is no fool, nor is
he deaf to the complaints. It’s frustrating that neither the
libraries nor the publishers appear to be investing in defi ni-
tive research that could establish whether libraries help or
hinder e-book sales—this doesn’t have to remain shrouded
in mystery and anecdota, sparking bitter disputes.
Speaking of hedge funds, libraries, and e-books, a big
surprise at Christmastime was KKR’s purchase of library
e-book and audiobook supplier OverDrive, captured at a
price estimated near $750 million. KKR (formerly Kohlberg
Kravis Roberts), with total assets of $200 billion, had
purchased audiobook publisher RB Media in 2018.
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After the majestic Rocky Mountains come the Canadian
Prairies, the northern version of the U.S. Great Plains.
They start east of Edmonton, ending past Winnipeg,
Manitoba—a distance of nearly 1,200 miles. Many travelers
find the journey tedious, but the sameness induces a Zen-like
trance, well suited to contemplation.
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The proposed merger of Cengage with McGraw-Hill
Education captured most of the headlines in textbook
publishing in 2019—a merger not yet consummated by
year-end. Textbook publishing has gone from bad to worse
over the last five years; the proposal was not a shock.
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The towns dotting the Prairies are small in population:
Viking, Alberta, 1,083; Unity, Saskatchewan, 2,573;
Melville, Saskatchewan, 4,562. Few Americans appreciate
that Canada’s total population, just under 38 million, isDIGITAL PERSPECTIVES|Column
Thad McIlroy is an electronic publishing analyst and author, based on the
West Coast and at his website, The Future of Publishing. He is a founding
partner of Publishing Technology Partners.❖
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