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Why isn’t there an iPod for electronic books (eBooks)? And where’s the eBook equivalent of an iTunes store?
Last month (SEP) Sony launched two products in the US that it hopes will address both issues. The Sony Reader is a paperback-sized device with a 15cm screen that can store about 80 eBooks, or hundreds on a plug-in memory card. The $350 Reader is joined by a new online service, Connect, which offers more than 10,000 eBooks from publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins and Harlequin (www.sony.com/reader).
So is the eBook market finally coming of age? Nick Bogaty, executive director of the International Digital Publishers Forum (IDPF, www.idpf.org), says: “I’ve always said that four factors need to be in place for the market to take off. You need a device that makes reading pleasurable, content at the right price, a great selection of content and eBooks that are easy to use. We’re definitely getting closer to these goals.”
On the face of it, an eBook is an attractive proposition, not least because it can offer features difficult or impossible to find in a printed book, such as hyperlinks, multimedia content, cut and paste, high degrees of interactivity and updated content. It can be downloaded and read instantly, and publishers don’t have to transport huge volumes of books around the country and store them in warehouses. It can be read on a PC, a PDA, a smartphone or a dedicated device, like Sony’s Reader. But despite these benefits, even Bogaty admits that eBooks are still a cottage industry. The US market was worth about $15 million in 2005 and sales for the first half of the year totalled only 907,000. In 2004, US firms published 2.3 billion books worldwide; only 0.1 per cent of them were eBooks.
The eBook sector has faced four major hurdles: construction, cost, content and culture. Constructing a reading device is much more challenging than making a digital music player, says Bill McCoy, general manager of Adobe’s e-publishing business: “Music has been digital since the CD, so it’s quite simple to do. And digital players use a very simple interface — headphones. An eBook reader needs sophisticated display technology and a long battery life?
Paper remains the best medium for text reading, and until recently it has been hard to offer similar clarity on a screen. But the development of e-ink technology, which uses millions of black and white microcapsules on a screen, from the E-ink Corporation has dramatically improved text on a screen.
So who’s using eBooks? Leaving aside database-type products and technical manuals, the answer is a wide range of readers. “All major publishers have eBooks, and that includes front catalogue as well as back catalogue. Around 60 to 70 per cent of the New York Times bestseller list is available in eBook form,” says Bogaty.
