Lean, Mean, Synergy-Realizing Machine

It's McGraw-Hill's turn to realize some synergies.

That's MBA-speak for giving people the sack.

In books, it's all about the digital as publishers see their sales climb in e-books while hard copies sink. There's nothing complex about what's happening. E-books are cheaper than hard copies, and people who love to read will find a way to feed their addiction in whatever way they can afford.

And when you say e-book, you're saying affordable, just like the paperback when it was first introduced. With e-books, you can download one to just about any device, from a phone to a computer, and access to these devices is surprisingly common.

So McGraw-Hill doesn't need such a large sales force to drag hard copies around the country, plugging the wares. A sales rep can sit at home in rumpled jammies and fire off e-mails with excerpts attached, fully ready to download to EPUB or PDF or whatever format applies.

Buy this book, all ye indie book shops, and there's the rep reaching all of them at one go. Highly efficient. Highly lacking in the need for many reps to perform such a simple task.

As for the shop owners who enjoy face time and discussing what's on offer, well, there's FaceTime on Apple's iPhones, isn't there?

And don't keep the rep on the line for long periods of time. They're doing the work of three or four in this future world of publishing, in which every publisher must be a lean, mean, synergy-realizing machine to stay competitive.