Asking Why Trade Publishers Fail Is the Wrong Question

Your average trade publisher is a laundry list of bad business characteristics:

• Consumer customers (the worst/least predictable kind of customer).
• Entertainment good (the worst/least predictable kind of product).
• A market that’s shifting increasingly to the blockbuster model (the worst/least predictable kind of market).
• Dominated by vendor duopolies (Amazon and B&N in the states, Amazon and Waterstones in the UK).
• No access to customer data...