Quote:
Originally Posted by Cthulhu
You know, I try to keep a positive attitude about all this.
There seems to be a trend in publishing these days, I don't know how big or strong, that is working to change the way books are distributed. It is the practice of members like Steve himself, and others, like Cory Doctorow, et al, are taking of distribution themselves.
Doctorow said something that I find quite prescient:
"Obscurity is more a threat than piracy ever can be." Of course, the notion of popularity would be a stronger inducement is we lived in a "Wuffie" world, but even so, a fan base and the esteem of customers is important.
|
Cory isn't exactly taking on distribution himself.
Cory provides free electronic versions in an assortment of formats, under a Creative Commons license. But he is also published in paper by Tor. He's making a bet that the free electronic copies will will raise his profile, and get more people to buy the paper editions. Thus far, it seems to be working: he quit his day job at the EFF a while back, and is full time freelance now.
He has no idea what the new publishing landscape will look like when the dust settles, but he's willing to experiment. He's helped by the fact that he is a techie, and
can handle his own electronic distribution. He's also helped by the fact that Tor is willing to let him make his books available free in electronic form. Most publishers contract for exclusive rights to a book and would have apoplexy at that concept.
The progenitor is likely the Baen Free Library, providing full electronic copies in an assortment of formats of books in Baen's backlist. Credit Eric Flint for pushing the idea, and Jim Baen for having the good sense to listen.
Baen is promoting
authors. You download and read one or more books by an author in their stable, decide you like the author's work, and Lo!, you find yourself buying the author's latest book in hardcover. (Participating authors also tend to see a gratifying pop in sales of backlist titles.) I had an email exchange with Jim a while back where he stated he didn't see pure electronic publishing as a source of profit at the time. The Free Library was promotion for the dead tree editions, pure and simple, and very successful promotion. Baen credits the Library with driving their transition from a struggling mass market PB house to a thriving hardcover publisher with a 70% sell through rate.
More recently, Baen is proving through the Webscriptions program that there is a market for pure ebooks.
Quote:
I see a future for dedicated Readers. I foresee there being maybe three classes: 1. smallish, like the SONY PRS-500/505 for fiction and basic non-fiction; 2. a larger, more reference material/pictographic focused unit, somewhere around A4 or A2 even, for big texts. Something with a foldable or split screen for big illustrations, maps, diagrams, &tc; and finally 3. A full colour version of either 1. or 2., or maybe something even bigger, like a fully mutable mammoth picture frame or coffee table display, rather than a coffee table book.
Hmm...I guess that my optimism lies more with the technology, than the single application of digital text.
If someone creates a screen with colour and the same dimensions as the average comic or graphic novel, I bet we'd have our "killer app."
|
No, you have a platform that can host a killer app. What the killer app is is still not clear.
I'm not in the market for a dedicated reader. I use a Palm OS PDA because I need a device that can do other things besides display ebooks. I'm willing to carry a cell phone and a PDA. I'm
not willing to carry a cell phone, PDA,
and a dedicated ebook reader. I'd happily buy a device in a larger form factor with a larger screen if it supported color and provided the functions my PDA does as well as displaying ebooks, but supporting color knocks eInk out of contention. Color eInk is in the lab, but won't be available in devices for several years at current best guess.
______
Dennis