Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
The market for music and video tends to be teens and young adults. The market for ebooks (and books in general) is likely older, though obviously there is a big market for kids. I don't think those demographics changes anything that I said. For the most part, Apple saw the iTunes store originally as a way to sale hardware (iPods) while Amazon sees kindles as a way to sale eBooks. Different business models on what they make money on. I do think that the explosion of tablets on the market has dramatically changed the dynamics of the ebook market from the ereader only market.
Right now, there isn't much competition for Amazon in the eBook market, but I don't see anything that inherently keeps someone with reasonable capitalization out of the market, i.e. no barrier to entry. Getting the contracts with the various publishers (i.e. building a catalog) and making it easy to buy and read an ebook from you are the keys.
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I think the demographics are significant in that adults have a bigger budget and control the budget for their children as well. besides being willing to spend money on a book for themselves many parents are more than happy to foot the bill for a book(s) for their children even if the books are pure entertainment. Maybe they are also willing to spend the same amount on songs for their children, but after the first thousand or so many draw a line and say you have lots of music, use your allowance. I have seen it happen often.
And tastes vary much more widely with books. I have heard numerous people, more young than adults say can I have copy of that with a song or a game. Rarely have I been asked for or offered a copy of an ebook and I discuss them a lot with people. Only once and it was actually a free book
I think that this may be at least in part because people have tried to do so, and failed, but some of it just attitude. A lot of people did not borrow or lend paper books except from the library so this how they treat eBooks.
I cannot see an incentive for even moderately successful publishers and authors to go DRM free although I know many have. For a new, or unsuccessful author it is possibly a good thing in that if no one is buying what is there to lose.
Some DRM free books have been wildly successful, but books with DRM have also been wildly successful and seem to continue to be so. Many many more both trad pub and Indy.
I actually think Apple is quietly regretting removing DRM from music, but that horse has left the barn.
And I think the big barrier in the US at least for anyone to overtake Amazon presently, although I am sure someone will, is the wide variety of things people already buy from them because of price, availability and convenience.
Take a lot of capitol to compete with them overall, Kobo only manages because of its readers, and the fact that Amazon does not cater to the epub crowd.
Helen