Why the commercial ebook market is broken

[Moonraker]

A very interesting blog on this subject, well worth a read.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...ook_marke.html

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

A great read, with plenty of good and succinct points (much of which isn't news around here!). Charlie's description of a book club-type bundling system could well be the best idea for getting e-book readers into adult's hands.

The article doesn't touch on the other potential market for e-books, namely, children. While book club reader bundling may be good for adults, I think we could get children into the habit of reading e-books by creating scholastic bundles of textbooks... essentially to convince parents to buy them their first reader, hopefully to save long-term on the price of expensive textbooks purchased over the next 16-plus years. Hook 'em young, and get their parents on-board. (Of course, this won't happen either if scholastic publishers don't get on-board.)

But as Charlie points out, the raw economics of the e-book reader just aren't great. Though there's nothing wrong with the concept of a reader as general consumer device, maybe the reader must be considered more of a "luxury" device, the high-end single-use version of the general purpose electronic organizer/mobile office/applications device, aka the PDA. And as long as people can read e-books on PCs, PDAs and smartphones, the need for a standalone reader is always going to be limited.

When "need" is limited, you have to sell to "want," through cool factor, economic incentive, or social pressure. I think we'd all agree that the current e-book readers (and, in fact, e-books themselves) have a cool factor for gadget lovers, but absolutely no social pressure or economic incentive. So, until some manufacturer, publisher or partner solves the "want" equation, we will watch the e-book and reader market continue to grow, but very slowly.

[nekokami]

Nice. Given the prevalence of sf in the ebook "darknet", I would have thought the Science Fiction Book Club would be a great candidate for this sort of idea, but they weren't at all interested when I asked them about it in email last year.

As I was reading this, I realized that the only reason I wanted a dedicated reader was because I wanted the notation feature -- both the eBw 1150 and the iLiad have this. Otherwise I think I would have been satisfied sticking with my laptop. I like the convenience of the dedicated readers, and certainly the e ink screen on the iLiad is beautiful, but it wasn't that high a priority for me.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by nekokami

As I was reading this, I realized that the only reason I wanted a dedicated reader was because I wanted the notation feature -- both the eBw 1150 and the iLiad have this.

Which ably illustrates my point. Right now, there is nothing unique to a dedicated reader that I need or want, because my PDA is a perfectly good e-book reader for me. And the cost is too high (for me) to justify making a spontaneous purchase. I will need another reason to want or need one.

Actually, as an author seeking to sell in the e-book market, if I conclude that obtaining a Sony Reader, for instance, would somehow improve my product, thereby improve my sales, and make me more money... the Reader would become a business expense or investment, giving me a good "want" reason. But we're talking about the consumer end of this, which is completely different.

[RWood]

Let's see Steve, you sell your books for $2.50 each (a real bargin) and the Sony Reader costs $350. Now assuming all of it is pure incremental revenue (aside from things like PayPal fees and Visa clearing fees) then you need to sell 140 additional books to break even. Will this bring new sales that you otherwise would have missed?

As for the comment in the blog and notes about wanting a reader that was not encumbered by DRM, the Sony Reader has DRM but it also offers many other formats such as TXT, RTF, PDF (if formatted for its screen), and LRF. To me the Reader is not encumbered by DRM.

Neko's comments about the notational features is interesting as I have always been one that never marked up books. Even most of my college texts were unblemished. (I also never liked buying used textbooks that were marked or highlighted, maybe the person who sold the book failed the course and the highlights are all meaningless points and they missed the main thrust of the text.)

It is a good blog and well worth the effort to read. Thanks Moonraker for posting

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

FYI, my sales fees are small, so maybe round up the total to 150 books sold to break even. (Obviously, I'd be hoping for much larger numbers than that to make such a purchase worthwhile... say, sales breaking the hundreds of thousands! )

It's hard to see how selling in a clean LRF format would result in over 150 more sales. There would have to be something else to add to the formula, to make it work. And ultimately, it's all a gamble, even the best plan may not work. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't be worth trying.

If only I were Steve Jobs in disguise. Then I bet I could come up with something... let's see, where's that turtleneck...?

[yvanleterrible]

Well Steve! Maybe not now but in a while it might be interesting.
You have to put your foot in the door while it can open.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by RWood

Neko's comments about the notational features is interesting as I have always been one that never marked up books. Even most of my college texts were unblemished. (I also never liked buying used textbooks that were marked or highlighted, maybe the person who sold the book failed the course and the highlights are all meaningless points and they missed the main thrust of the text.)

That's the weird thing. I don't write in books either -- ever. Even if I mark the inside of the cover with my name, because I'm loaning a book out, I prefer to use light pencil. The closest I'll come to writing in a book is to put in a sticky note, which may or may not have a coment on it.

I do, however, write on photocopied articles, which is a lot of the reading material in my graduate classes, especially while researching for a paper. These days, professors often email these articles to us as PDF files, or we download PDFs from journal database services. I used to print them, use a heavy-duty 3-hole punch, put them in binders by class, and make notes on them, then I would have this ever-growing pile of binders of annotated printouts. That's why I looked for a used iLiad. (If I'd been just a bit more patient, I could have stayed with the eBw 1150, as it turns out, but I do like my iLiad, and I'm still hoping to somehow get the kind of research tools I really need onto the unit.)

[yvanleterrible]

I don't write in books either, I guess it's an old habit brought about by library borrowing.

One thing I like about the reader is the bookmark function. After I've completed the reading of a book, I go to the office, take a notebook out and go back to the marks to transfer what interesting thing made me click it.

Once in a while I forget why I put up a mark. It would be nice to be able to annotate to the reader as things come along without having to resort to paper and pen. The Iliad has an edge there but being able to type in directly would be much better.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Once in a while I forget why I put up a mark. It would be nice to be able to annotate to the reader as things come along without having to resort to paper and pen. The Iliad has an edge there but being able to type in directly would be much better.

A sort of "post-it note" function. Open a little notepad-style window, add your note, close it, and the note is bookmarked to that page. I've never written in books either, but being able to bookmark with notes wouldn't be bad.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

A sort of "post-it note" function. Open a little notepad-style window, add your note, close it, and the note is bookmarked to that page. I've never written in books either, but being able to bookmark with notes wouldn't be bad.

Precisely!

And having a little keyboard such as the Kindle prototype that Amazon was working on, would greatly speed things.

[RWood]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Precisely!

And having a little keyboard such as the Kindle prototype that Amazon was working on, would greatly speed things.

That sounds like the start of an ad campaign for Amazon.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Well, any ad campaign at all would be welcome...

[UncleDuke]

publishers are greedy money grubbing short sited &^$&$ and those are the ones i like. the rest are worse. having all of the traits that endear used car and snake oil salesmen to us they are like politicians that would trade one sale today for a thousand next year. long term markets mean nothing as long as they get their bonus today. but i am being too nice to them.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Good thing publishers don't hang out in these forums... they might think we don't like them!

Yes, I agree that the publishing market has sort of warped itself over time into an industry that has given itself wholly to the profit line, and acts accordingly. In general, when industries reached that point, they used their influence (especially in government) to make sure no one could rock the boat. Publishing (and music) is doing that now in pushing DRM, for instance.

Fortunately, when the public has had some power in the matter, and demanded change, change has happened. With e-books (as with music), the public is capable of making its own books, selling them independently, creating and using their own standards and practices (and software), and largely ignoring the pub industry and their co-opted regulators if they so choose. The public's actions will guide e-books' future, and the publishing industry will have to change, whether they like it or not, or die.