If publishers are going to stop shedding staff and imprints and find the bottom to this market and quickly they are going to also have to start focus on their pricing strategiess. This may be happening but I’m not reading about it. A book like a CD or a newspaper or an automobile is no longer worth what the industry thinks its worth. The music industry knows this but it hasn’t caught on in other industries. The perceived value of things is shifting downward and has been doing so for some time. That is the big question facing company executives and if a $25 US hardcover still makes sense to them then they stand about as much chance as a GM car dealership, Hybrid car or not. It will be interesting to see whether Random House Canada and the other biggies keep their prices down to 2008 levels when the Canadian Dollar rose against the US Dollar or start taking their trade paperbacks back up over the $20 mark.

I wonder how this will affect my career as an aspiring book indexer? Why I would even consider being an indexer is a mystery to me, now this is just about the sweetest icing on the cake, ain’t it?.

When I heard Harper Collins was having trouble, I thought “oh no, this is bad”. But then I realized that I was really bored so I made a sandwich.