MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Analyst predicts $750M worth of Kindle sales by 2010

6charlong · 05-19-2008, 02:02 PM

I think that we make a mistake when we concentrate on eBook hardware. Content is the key. The market will change when content developers--meaning the publishing houses--realize how inefficient paper books are. In particular, how much land, labor, capital and energy are needlessly wasted to produce books, magazines and textbooks on paper.

When the publishing houses work out the real economics involved they will start new projects as eBook developments, working on an eBook edition directly with authors right from the start. Starting with an electronic edition enables publishers to make files they can easily port to paper books for more or less simultaneous publication on paper. The database of eBooks available for sale can be allowed to grow indefinitely, preserving a copy of every book the house has published, and at the same time giving the public the chance to buy vastly more books than the trickle we now have.

Amazon is important because they have successfully used the internet to sell books in greater volume than any other “bookstore” in the world. Amazon achieved this by reducing wasted land, labor and energy and at the same time giving their customers more selection, better prices and greater convenience than any other bookstore could. The Kindle is the logical next step because eBooks further reduce those costs with the added efficiencies of greatly reduced energy costs over transporting paper books, as well as big reductions in the labor and capital needed to publish, stock, ship, and warehouse books.

Publishers have always been extremely conservative about new technologies (I think publishing “paperback books” was their last big innovation in the US). When they see the efficiencies demonstrated by Amazon and Borders (Borders is the actual vendor for Sony eBooks), the publishing houses will eventually get behind the innovation.

I think the role of hardware in all this is to give people something affordable--perhaps something like the Mentor--and in a variety of form factors. I’m probably just rehashing what everyone on this forum already knows.

Oh well.

05-19-2008, 02:02 PM	#23
6charlong friendly lurker Posts: 896 Karma: 2436026 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: US Device: Kindle, nook, Apple and Kobo	I think that we make a mistake when we concentrate on eBook hardware. Content is the key. The market will change when content developers--meaning the publishing houses--realize how inefficient paper books are. In particular, how much land, labor, capital and energy are needlessly wasted to produce books, magazines and textbooks on paper. When the publishing houses work out the real economics involved they will start new projects as eBook developments, working on an eBook edition directly with authors right from the start. Starting with an electronic edition enables publishers to make files they can easily port to paper books for more or less simultaneous publication on paper. The database of eBooks available for sale can be allowed to grow indefinitely, preserving a copy of every book the house has published, and at the same time giving the public the chance to buy vastly more books than the trickle we now have. Amazon is important because they have successfully used the internet to sell books in greater volume than any other “bookstore” in the world. Amazon achieved this by reducing wasted land, labor and energy and at the same time giving their customers more selection, better prices and greater convenience than any other bookstore could. The Kindle is the logical next step because eBooks further reduce those costs with the added efficiencies of greatly reduced energy costs over transporting paper books, as well as big reductions in the labor and capital needed to publish, stock, ship, and warehouse books. Publishers have always been extremely conservative about new technologies (I think publishing “paperback books” was their last big innovation in the US). When they see the efficiencies demonstrated by Amazon and Borders (Borders is the actual vendor for Sony eBooks), the publishing houses will eventually get behind the innovation. I think the role of hardware in all this is to give people something affordable--perhaps something like the Mentor--and in a variety of form factors. I’m probably just rehashing what everyone on this forum already knows. Oh well.