IBS Bookmaster surveyed 158 publishers at the
London Book Fair. You can find the source
here. The survey had 7 questions on ebooks. I'm not going to quote the last 3 becuase the poll respondents are asked to make guesses about the future.
Here is the data:
Quote:
Have you put arrangements in place to sell your book titles in digital form?
Yes – 53% / No – 43% / DK - 4%
If so, how:
40% Directly through your web site?
21% Via a digital library managed by a third party?
6% Other?
33% Don't Know
Have you made any plans to digitise your backlist titles?
Yes – 40% / No 45% / DK - 15%
Where do you store your digital content?
36% In your own digital repository?
28% In a third party digital store?
7% Via Google Book Search?
29% Don't Know
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If you look at the data, you'll see that only 84 out 158 respondents have plans for ebooks. The number is disappointing, I agree. But there is a silver lining, and that is the 68 respondents who answered no. These are publishers whom we don't have to convince to drop DRM. With luck, we might get them to go directly into DRM free distribution.