Trains, Planes and Kindle

by C.L. Phillips

You have an historic front row seat to one of the biggest shake-outs in industry in the last hundred years.  Thousands of MBA students can tell you the death of the railroad industry happened when the railroad robber barons failed to understand the threat of new technology, namely the automobile and airplane.  Railroad barons thought they were in the railroad business.  Big mistake.  They were in the transportation business.  What all the Harvard MBA case studies forget to say is that the buggy whip makers laughed as they watched the railroad barons suffer at the hands of the upstarts.

Is the same thing happening in the publishing industry?  The big publishing houses are eerily similar to railroad barons.  Entrenched.  Mature.  Proven.  And like the railroad barons, they have no idea what the end game is.  In forty five years, aviation transportation progressed from the Wright Brothers first flight on the beaches at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to the Berlin Airlift, the largest humanitarian rescue effort at that time.  No railroad could save Berlin in 1948.

Forty-five years.  Sounds like a long time, doesn't it?  Consider this - the first IBM personal computer hit the streets in August, 1981, a mere twenty nine years ago.  What do you think your personal computer will do in 2026?  Better yet, what do you think the Kindle will do?

Amazon is executing a brilliant strategy.  Gillette gives away razors and sells razor blades.  There's no confusion about what a razor does or why you need one.  Amazon will follow the same strategy with the Kindle.  People will continue to read using the format they love most.  Just as some men prefer the straight razor, others the electric razor, and others the Gillette, we will find people reading hardback, paperback, and electronic books.

Planes, trains, and automobiles.  Straight razors, electric razors, Gillette razors.  Hardback, paperback, e-books.  They are all here to stay.  The real question is who are the buggy whip makers?  Who will be left completely behind as the industry transforms?

One thing is certain.  Stories will always be told.  Doesn't matter if we are scribbling on cave walls, drawing in the dirt around the fire, or pounding our keyboards in silent desperation.  The story will survive.  And so will the storyteller.
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C.L Phillips writes mystery novels while nestled under a hundred-year live oak tree in downtown Austin.  Except in August.  C.L writes about the the gap between what people want and what they actually do.  Broccoli or chocolate chip cookies, anyone?  Check out her web site:  www.clphillips.com
or find her onTwitter:  @clphillips787