E-books Survey
Prospects for ebooks and e-publishing.
Background: History of E-Publishing
Once text could be put in digital form, and dissemination made easy
by the Internet, e-publishing became an exciting prospect. Word
processing programs appeared in the middle 1980s, and few offices
were without them by 1990. Launched commercially in 1993, the Internet
had linked a million machines a year later and has now penetrated
50% of American homes and businesses. Hardware and software continue
to improve. The 1998 RocketeBook and the Softbook readers were bought
by Gemstar in 2001, who re-engineered them as REB 1100 and REB 1200
machines {1}. Some of today's e-book readers will play music as
well, and models under development will be more versatile and comfortable
to use.
Everyone agrees that e-publishing is here to stay, and will revolutionize
the industry. {2} Dozens of e-publishers already exist, and many
of the larger booksellers already have an e-book department —
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Random House, etc. One small e-reader
can relieve students of their heavy burden of textbooks, and vast
areas of the developing world will gain access to information
and educational opportunities that were unthinkable before.
But how much e-publishing is profitable now? Publishers are cagey
about figures: they emphasize the future, that they're in for
the long haul. Heartening stories go the rounds, particularly
Stephen King's Riding the Bullet, an e-book novella that
earned him $450,000 in 3 days (though excess bandwidth charges
took back $110,000). {3} Nonetheless, bestseller sales in e-books
are typically 1,000 - 7,000 per year, {4} which is small by traditional
publishing standards. Too many sites proclaim, "You too can
have a profitable e-publishing business — just buy our e-book
to learn how."
In short, e-publishing is not easy money yet, and perhaps never
will be. Market research is essential, to see not what people
should pay, but what they really will pay for. The publishing
trade still does this badly, lacking the interactivity that the
Internet can bring.
As for e-book standards, common sense and the history of technology
suggest backing the companies with good track records and marketing
muscle, i.e. Adobe (Acrobat) and Microsoft (Microsoft eReader).
Current Problems
If the advantages of e-publishing are obvious — lower production
costs, smaller print-runs, shorter times to market, greater power
and profits to authors and adventurous publishers — why hasn't
the industry surged ahead? Probably because of:
- hardware costs. Most e-book readers are still too expensive,
nothing like the $50 to $100 that buys a CD player. {5}
- proliferating platforms. Acrobat, Microsoft e-book, Gemstar,
PalmOS, etc.— which platform should authors write for and
readers stock their library with? Hardware and software can
be discontinued without warning, and no one wishes to buy into
obsolescence. {6}
- limited range of titles. Lists are steadily increasing, but
only a small fraction of print books are also available as e-books.
- quality filters are unclear. Traditional publishing builds
on specialist skills — MS selection, editing, proofing,
typesetting, illustration, warehousing, marketing, reviewing
— each adding a quality filter to the final product. Buyers
of e-books do not have these reassurances. {7}
- preference for printed books. Despite advantages of backlit
pages, graphics and multimedia, electronic readers are not yet
as comfortable as the traditional paper book.
- fragmented nature of publishing business. The USA has over
50,000 publishers. {8} Add publishers in Canada, UK and Australia
and the total in the English-speaking world may exceed 100,000.
Not all are profitable. Many publishers are small, local and
specialized. Publishing, accounting, warehousing and marketing
procedures vary widely, as does the software employed. Hence
a broadly-satisfied reading public, but also great waste and
difficulties in implementing common IT standards. {9}
- e-books are not easily returned. Books are distributed with
hefty discounts (55% at Amazon) on a sale or return basis. Print-on-demand
books are more costly to produce and do not encourage returns:
comparatively few bookstores therefore stock them. {10}
2004-2005 is being suggested as the time when these problems
will be overcome, and e-publishing really takes off. {11}
2001-2002 Performance
Conversion rates for online book sales are 42% in the case of
Amazon, but average 5-8% overall. {12} Mainstream publishers are
beginning to take up material originally self-published or published
in electronic form. {13} The year saw a steady growth in e-book
sales, with the main publishers reporting year on year increases
from 40% to 100%. Palm Digital Media alone sold 180,000 e-book
titles in 2001, and 5 million copies of Microsoft Reader were
downloaded for use on desktops, notebooks and pocket PCs. {14}
2003-4 Prospects
We have not found a reliable Internet survey of immediate prospects
for e-publishing and e-book marketing. All the same, trade articles
and the output of e-book hardware suggest an accelerating acceptance
of e-publishing, and no doubt more success stories. The really
exciting new developments — lightweight flexible screens,
wireless downloads — are proven technology, but cheap products
are still some years away. Nonetheless, and more than other forms
of ecommerce, e-publishing will change entertainment habits, and
widen educational opportunities.
Subscription Services
Very different from e-books are subscription services. While
the distinction between content downloaded and content read online
may seem purely technical, Internet users do not like subscription
charges. The content providers argue, very understandably, that
their material costs money to collect, analyze and present, and
that charging is becoming more necessary, {15} if not acceptable
now that advertising revenues have dried up. {16} But 70% of online
adults in a recent survey could not understand why anyone would
pay for online content. {17} Only 12% in fact paid up when faced
with subscription charges,{17} and anecdotal evidence suggests
that even that 12% can be optimistic. Content providers trying
to estimate future conversion rates should note that commercial
schemes for individual pages are even less popular. The book format
makes a difference.
References and Sources
This page was written in 2002. Please consider our e-book
for a current survey, and to view references and information sources.
Company | Disclaimer |
Email
Copyright © 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 LitLangs All Rights Reserved
