Colour me excited. In recent months, a few things have happened in our sunburnt country that have left it teetering on the brink of the ebook mainstream. And they said it would never happen in our backwards, sundrenched, animals-made-from-bits-of-other-animals land.
So look out North America, Britain and others … Here are five reasons why we’re about to enter the ebook big-time. (Please suppress any laughter – we’re painfully aware you’ve been enjoying these conditions for years).
1. Amazon just dropped the “Whispernet tax” for Aussies
Early this week, some eagle-eyed readers here noticed that books they had on their Kindle wishlists got $A2 cheaper across the board overnight. Yes, Amazon had dropped the unofficial $2 “tax” for ebooks – thought to be used to compensate for the currency exchange, and pay Whispernet’s 3G partners in Australia. This is likely due to the strength of the Australian dollar – it recently surpassed the value of the greenback.
Now we are on a level playing field, price-wise. All we need is the abolition of the geo-restrictions that prevent non-US residents accessing about 1/3 of Kindle titles.Anyone holding their breath yet?
2. REDgroup finally has the “full set” of major publishers
Bookseller chains Borders (AU), Angus & Robertson, and Whitcoulls (NZ) will soon have access to e-titles from all major publishers in Australia. Parent company REDgroup last week signed an deal with Hachette Australia to sell the publisher’s ebooks through their Kobo-powered stores and apps. It will take a while for full catalogues to be converted and uploaded to digital stores, but I would expect a majority of titles available from many publishers by Christmas. REDgroup’s digital publisher list now includes Allen and Unwin, Harper Collins Australia, Hachette Australia, Macmillan Australia, Simon and Schuster Australia, Penguin Australia, Random House Australia, Mills and Boon/Harlequin Australia, Lonely Planet Text Publishing, Scribe, Black Inc, The Vulgar Press, Hardier Grant, Murdoch, University of Western Australia, Wakefield Press and Spinifex.
3. An ebook price war! Finally!
“Captain, captain! Look – on the horizon – competition, ho!!” On the good ship digital publishing, Borders AU has fired a shot across the bow of Apple and Amazon, cutting their prices across their ebook range. Local titles are now commonly cheaper at Borders.com.au than in Amazon’s Kindle store, and much cheaper than in the iBookstore – although few titles are found in all three as yet. Will this prompt Amazon to finally disregard/drop their geo-restrictions. Probably not, but I’d expect the tipping point for that move to be viable to come soon.
Then we’ll have a real war.
4. Apple has joined the party
Local ebook content went live into the iBookstore last week, so iPad users can now buy local titles through the device’s native bookstore.
Was the launch all plain sailing? Nope.
Many local publishers were told by Apple that their books would be aboard at launch, then were surprised and excluded when the local content went live. They weren’t happy. Apple has recently hired a iBookstore rep here, so maybe the liaison will get better.
Price is also an issue – especially since the demise of the Whispernet tax (see above). Ebooks in the iBookstore are usually at least $4 more expensive than Amazon – and now Borders, when available. The range is also pretty light – 40,000 (with many of those freebies) compared to Amazon’s 450,000+ titles available to Aussies.
5. The Agency is in town
Sounds counter-intuitive, but the rise of the agency model here could signal that our market is finally being taken seriously. That is, rather than writing it off as a backwater, publishers are starting to apply the same sales rules here as in the bigger markets.
Just to be clear, I am vehemently opposed to the agency model, but it can be seen as a litmus test of the regional market’s worth in publishers’ eyes. As a publisher, you wouldn’t insist on the agency model being applied if you didn’t think the market had the potential to be big enough to take seriously.
I think, until now, that was the case here. That’s why we’ve taken so long to get a digital publishing industry. Now online booksellers here are telling me that they expect more publishers to “go agency” in the near future.
Sad, but true. This is clearly the downside of joining the big league.
Editor’s Note: Australian journalist Jason Davis also runs the Bookbee and EbookAnt web sites. PB
Hopefully Graeme Samuel will be vehemently opposed to their price fixing, too!
Maximum fine is only ten million dollars though, unfortunately, I think.
The removal of the $2 ‘tax’ has nothing to do with the strength of the Australian dollar. The only reason Amazon would remove it is an agreement with a mobile operator in Australia, so that they’re no longer paying international data roaming fees. Since it’s now gone in Australia, they must have come to such an agreement.
Geo-restrictions are not Amazon’s to drop. There are two things controlling Geo-restrictions. The first is an international tax decision to count the point of sale of electronic goods (music downloads, ebooks, etc) as the location of the buyer, not the seller. The second is the contracts between authors and publishers. The only that that would remove geo-restrictions completely would be a change in the international agreement on point of sale. Otherwise it’s entirely up to publishers and authors negotiating new contracts with non-exclusive world-wide ebook rights.
If ebook buyers in Australia ended up using illegal download sites the booksellers only have themselves to blame. Even old law-abiding me has been very tempted when I can’t buy what I want in Australia. And as the books probably come from an off-shore site anyhow I don’t think this can be justified. As for pricing – no longer can booksellers bleat about shipment costs (funny that it was always cheaper to ship the paper book to Australia from Amazon USA than buy it locally.)
I think the big booksellers in Australia thought that if they ignored ebooks they would just “go away”. As a marketing strategy, take 1 out of 10 for a smart plan. it ain’t going to happen guys!
“REDgroup finally has the “full set” of major publishers”
Well Kobo’s New Zealand storefront and the Whitcoull’s site certainly haven’t been flooded with all these additional books from the publishers “full” catalogues. Maybe by Christmas 2011!