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Falbe Publishing · 10-05-2008, 03:03 PM

The cover story of the December 2008 Writer's Digest magazine explores the growing impact of digital books on the publishing business.

I'm not finding this article online, so I'll paraphrase or quote some interesting points.

The article notes the resurgence of ebooks since the fizzled push for digital book publishing in 2000/2001.

With ebooks actually taking off, Bob Sacks, president and publisher of Precision Media Group declared that ebooks were the future and added, "There was a point eight years ago in which they started and crashed. That's not going to happen this time. We've passed the point of no return."

The article then cites some interesting figures from the Association of American Publishers.

2002 - Estimated $7.3 million in net ebook sales.
2007 - Estimated $67.2 million in net ebook sales.

Then, WD reported that at the 2008 BookExpo America, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that since the Kindle launch, sales of content for the device accounted for 6 percent of Amazon sales revenue.
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Not bad in less than a year, I say.
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The last half of the WD article addresses how the digital content platform might help or hurt the income of writers. Points were made about how e-publishing would help more people be exposed to an audience, but Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild warned that:

"When it comes to digital media...often a single player gets early control and winds up taking home the majority of the profits, as with digital music and Apple's iTunes. He says Amazon is building up its ebook library, and once it's in place, such dominant systems are hard to dislodge."

Aiken went on to say, "If this goes wrong, it could drain a lot of money from authors and publishers. Whatever promise the new media has could all be taken by one company, leaving authors and publishers to scrap over the money that remains."
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Well, I certainly imagine that this is Amazon's goal. It makes business sense.

Overall, it's an interesting article that avoids the usual print media approach to reporting this subject as a books vs. ebooks thing.

10-05-2008, 03:03 PM	#1
Falbe Publishing Gadget Slave Posts: 264 Karma: 600001 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Battle Creek, Michigan Device: Sony PRS505SC	Cover story Writer's Digest: Future of Ebooks, Amazon, etc. The cover story of the December 2008 Writer's Digest magazine explores the growing impact of digital books on the publishing business. I'm not finding this article online, so I'll paraphrase or quote some interesting points. The article notes the resurgence of ebooks since the fizzled push for digital book publishing in 2000/2001. With ebooks actually taking off, Bob Sacks, president and publisher of Precision Media Group declared that ebooks were the future and added, "There was a point eight years ago in which they started and crashed. That's not going to happen this time. We've passed the point of no return." The article then cites some interesting figures from the Association of American Publishers. 2002 - Estimated $7.3 million in net ebook sales. 2007 - Estimated $67.2 million in net ebook sales. Then, WD reported that at the 2008 BookExpo America, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that since the Kindle launch, sales of content for the device accounted for 6 percent of Amazon sales revenue. ---- Not bad in less than a year, I say. ---- The last half of the WD article addresses how the digital content platform might help or hurt the income of writers. Points were made about how e-publishing would help more people be exposed to an audience, but Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild warned that: "When it comes to digital media...often a single player gets early control and winds up taking home the majority of the profits, as with digital music and Apple's iTunes. He says Amazon is building up its ebook library, and once it's in place, such dominant systems are hard to dislodge." Aiken went on to say, "If this goes wrong, it could drain a lot of money from authors and publishers. Whatever promise the new media has could all be taken by one company, leaving authors and publishers to scrap over the money that remains." ---- Well, I certainly imagine that this is Amazon's goal. It makes business sense. Overall, it's an interesting article that avoids the usual print media approach to reporting this subject as a books vs. ebooks thing.