I was in New York City today and took a shot of this iPhone sign with my iPhone. Stores like this are cropping up all over the city. It just testifies to the incredible demand for the iPhone. If you can’t read the sign it says, “Apple iPhones Unlocked In Stock.”
Such sights made me think about e-books and the relative lack of demand for them. Is it DRM, is it eBabel, is it expensive readers—just what is keeping the demand down? Clearly, as the iPhone shows, if consumers want something, they will demand it and get it. I see nothing like this demand for e-books. Is is just us techies who want them? Does the public even know about them? Do they really want them? I don’t have any answers, but I found the iPhone signs pretty depressing in that regard.
Just how do we get this thing rolling? If the iPhone shows anything it seems to me that this whole thing won’t take off until some really savvy marketing wiz takes it on – Sony and Amazon don’t seem to have cut the mustard in this regard. Why not? Or is it that e-books are only a niche product?
Moderator: See Making Social DRM work for e-books—with maximum privacy protection, as well as Library books you can KEEP forever—and other ideas to help public libraries survive the digital era. – D.R.
It isn’t ebooks alone — it’s all books. They’re not a mass medium in the same way that music and video are. And the trend has been toward marginalization.
Now that we’re seeing an astonishing growth in the number of books published (a 33% increase last year alone) and in the number of authors, I wonder whether we’ll see that trend reverse. Of course, most of those books sell less than 100 copies, but something is definitely happening out there.
Most importantly, all those new authors are promoting books, and more aware of books. I think it’s like parenthood. When you’re a new parent, suddenly you see babies everywhere. They were there before, but now they’re all you see, and all you talk about. This can start a baby boom. Maybe we’re about to see book boom.
As for the lack of excitement about ebook reading devices, I think that the tech just isn’t quite ready for primetime, but it’s getting a LOT closer. Don’t despair yet.
I think the problem is that the public is wary of paying several hundred dollars for a device that locks you into a particular DRM’d format, then breaks after 12 months (2 days after the warranty expires) and takes your library to DRM heaven (or perhaps the other place).
Not everyone in the world earns enough money to think of their expensive purchase as a “disposable” item.
If MP3 devices cost $500 and you couldn’t rip your own CD’s I wonder how popular they would have become. Probably just another rich executive toy instead of hanging off the ears of half the population. It was the “free” content, i.e. your existing CD collection, podcasts and freebies that fueled its growth. Once we all got used to the system people decided it was easier to download than wait 4 weeks for a CD on backorder.
I am holding out high hopes for something like the Asus EEE – a much better deal and will handle books, music, browsing and other small computing jobs.
I think it is merely the price of the devices currently. Once prices of readers come down, reading on devices will go up.
It’s hard to compare the iPhone to the Amazon Kindle. People chose the iPhone because it did a lot of things in a really nice wrapper, but mainly, it is a phone. They pay a premium for the look and some of the other features.
Only those who can afford it will purchase a Kindle or the cheaper Sony Reader. For those who can’t afford it, they continue to shop for dead tree books at Amazon or their local retailer.
I don’t believe John Q. Public lays awake at night worrying about DRM, I think it is the high cost of the devices.
Paul asks:
“Is it DRM, is it eBabel, is it expensive readers—just what is keeping the demand down?”
I think it’s all of the above plus one more – the price of ebooks. The vast majority of people I’ve talked with will never pay the same price for an ebook as for the print book. Most would not even pay the same price as for the paperback version. Further, when we discuss the limitations of ebooks in regards to loaning or giving to a friend or selling them (does a “used ebook store” even make sense?) the interest in ebooks fades pretty quickly.
Most people I talk to about this love the idea of ebooks but the current mix of hardware price and capabilities, the existing DRM (I think Social DRM is a non-starter), the various formats and ebook prices just don’t have any mass appeal.
I agree with Carol – it will be interesting to see how much mass appeal the impending flood of mini-notebooks such as those from Asus will have in the marketplace.
I don’t know that the pricing of the devices is so much an issue — after all, probably 90% of the population has Adobe Reader on their computer and knows how to use it — or they have the equivalent. Reading a book on a computer is easy. It’s not an issue.
On the other hand, not being able to share an ebook, as well as the fact that all major publishers (note, small press ebook publishers are more reasonable with pricing electronic versions) seem to think readers will pay $17.99 for a new release ebook is keeping it down.
If the major publishers would just remember that paying $17.99 for a keepsake hardcover and buying fiction just to read are two different things and price them accordingly……
H.
I don’t think it’s just prices and all that. A lot of readers want the book in their hands, the turning of the page, the smell of the ink and paper, being able to annotate, stick your finger into a page you want to refer to, dog ear pages and watch their favourite books become worn at the spine, sit on the sofa with a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. They just don’t get the same vibe from ebook readers or computer screens as they do from a book. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but people do, and they judge it by it’s size, thickness and binding too. Plus a lot of readers love browsing for books in a shop or library, and the atmosphere of being surrounded by books. And they love to display their books on their shelves like a collection.
I’ve started a Facebook group for people who prefer printed books to ebooks and this is basically what I’m hearing from the people who have joined, and from people in a forum I go to.
People shop with their hearts as well as their heads.
So… the people in a forum dedicated to printed books tell you that everybody likes printed books… and that’s it?
As with so many other things, you need more than the responses from one side to make a case. For instance, a few voices from Japan, where people read books and manga on cellphones during commuting, where the e-book market is growing exponentially faster than it is in the U.S.
Or those of us right here, who have graduated from the “judging a book by its cover” hangup. Those of us who haven’t bought a printed book in over a year, because we’re mindful of the incredible waste and pollution created by producing paper, driving it around, keeping it cool and de-humidified and lit up nicely for the store-browsers.
Here’s a newsflash for you: We have hearts, too.
Did I say or imply that EVERYONE likes printed books? I can’t see that I did. I said a lot, not all. I know that there are people who like ebooks too (as this page shows), that they have a market, and that when the prices of ebook readers come down that market will probably grow. And I never implied that the opinions of people who have already given up printed books for ebooks aren’t valid, or that such people don’t exist. The environmental issue too is one that needs to be improved upon in the book industry and indeed all industries worldwide.
Paul Biba asked what is keeping the demand down. I was just trying to give some of the reasons I’ve heard people who are not interested in ebooks give for their lack of interest.
And I wasn’t saying that people who like ebooks are heartless. I was just saying that people shop with their emotions and what appeals to them personally. If a particular brand of food tastes better to them a lot of people (note not all) will buy it regardless of whether there are cheaper options, even when they’re skint, because they like what they like. So if a person likes the aesthetics of reading printed books for the reasons that I listed then they’ll want to buy printed books even if being able to keep lots of books on one device is more convenient. If they prefer the aesthetics of ebooks, or if aesthetics aren’t important to them or as important than other considerations, then they’ll buy ebooks. That’s all I meant.
I’m sorry if I misunderstood, but to my ear you did imply that cold computerized e-books couldn’t match the magical, romantical, quaintly old-fashioned ways of the vaunted printed page. Then you implied that the people who prefer those printed books have hearts that they shop with, unlike e-book aficionados. But if you maintain that those are the feelings of “other people,” I’ll let that pass as my error and move on.
Despite the preferences and opinions of print lovers, however, consumers are getting over the need for the perfect romantic atmosphere, the tactile response of paper, and the habits of bending page corners in favor of new, convenient ways of reading, scanning, bookmarking and annotating. They are also learning that, when they get truly immersed in a novel, they don’t even notice the package anymore… it becomes irrelevant. And they’re realizing that their entire library doesn’t have to take up a room… it can take up a pocket now (like the 98 books I have in my breast pocket at this very moment). And the people who are learning these things are spreading the word.
Not that they have to spread the word to the younger generations, who figured out these lessons on their own due to growing up with computers in front of their oatmeal-smudged fingers. The advantages of digital media and the wasteful limits of paper are plain to them, and day by day they are replacing those of us who grew up on paper. Eventually, it will be their world, and all those printed books will just be cool things to buy Grandmom for her birthday.
So, with all due respect for paper lovers, I’d suggest they pick up their Royal typewriters and move over. E-books are not coming anymore… they’re here, they’re gaining popularity, they’re gaining support, and they’re gaining market share. Spending too much time romanticizing about printed books will probably do as much good as wishing for stone tablets to come back.
I don’t have time to write a long essay although one should but it is all about DRM which protects the publishers the authors and peolple making money out of selling books..but no concern for the end user us the readers. For years I have bought ebooks (my wife and I) now sometimes because of changing computers or devices we can’t access our paid for books because of DRM. Some of the books we bought from companies like mediabay that are no longer in business and we can’t get access to our licences anymore very frustrating. So now we still occassionaly buy ebooks from fictionwise or audible.com (holding to the hope that they remain in business)but with reserve just in case like the others they were to go under we would be stuck with usesless books. WE would buy much more books if we could be assured that once paid the books would be ours to enjoy forever like our other paper books.
So a message for the geeks that designed DRM find a way to put it on the books in a way that the buyer is as much protected as the seller we may regain confidence in the ebook business.
It is very much a matter of trust..confidence..and utmost good faith..Give us a reason to trust