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Originally Posted by simon462
I have seen forecasts that there will be 2Bn ebooks read in 2015
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Read, not bought. I read ebooks over 20 hours/week, and buy less than $20/month.
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and the general view is that the market will be dominated by Amazon, Apple and Google.
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That's a very reasonable statement.
I won't be buying from Amazon, Apple or Google anytime soon--I don't buy DRM'd ebooks. But I'm in a minority among ebook buyers. Most will buy them however they're offered (some of those will become non-customers later as the hassles of DRM convince them not to buy any more ebooks, especially if the format or device becomes obsolete); others will buy in whatever format, then crack the DRM so they can read the ebook the way they want to.
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However, there should be room for other players particularly if you could link up with a major brand eg one of the TV companies.
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There's a lot more room for other players by *not* hooking up with major media cartels. Plenty of small, independent bookstores & publishers are making plenty of money without allying themselves to anything.
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The majority of books sold are best sellers - fiction, biography, business top 20 etc. The publishers, who are quite small businesses compared with A, A and G would prefer to be able to deal with additional outlets and may be happy to co-operate. Thoughts?
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The "big 6" bestseller publishers are *not* quiet players in this game, willing to cooperate with bookstores. They've jumped into the arena as direct sales entities, forcing ebookstores to sell under their terms, and at their prices of choice.
If you want a strongly competitive ebookstore, look into (1) search engines and (2) customer service. The store that can compete with Amazon is one that allows customers to search by genre, price, series, filetype, and "buyers also bought." And it's one that answers customer questions accurately & politely--which means an understanding of copyright law, ebook software options, and the website's interface.