[nekokami]

The state of ebooks right now reminds me a bit of the state of anime (Japanese animation) videos in the US a few years back. It was difficult to get copies at all, and most movies and TV series were not translated to English yet. The copyright holders weren't convinced the market was there. So fans would buy laserdiscs from Japan, transcribe the audio, translate it, and add English (or other language) subtitles to videotapes, which they would then swap or sell at cost. There was a tacit understanding that the Japanese copyright holders would look the other way so long as a commercial translations were not yet available, knowing, presumably, that this activity was building a potential market for them. When "real" translated copies of the same titles eventually came on the market, those fans stopped distributing their versions (most did, anyway), and many made a point of purchasing the commercial copies. It didn't hurt that the newly available commercial copies were often on DVD with many "extras" that the fansubs hadn't had -- choice of dubbing vs. subtitles, choice of subtitle language, extra interviews, etc., and were generally of much higher video quality than the VHS tapes that had been traded around. Anime is now a top-selling video category in the US.

It would be nice to see the same sort of attitude from book publishers right now. Good reading devices are in the early stages, and the market is not yet developed. We're in the "chicken and egg" state of not having a large enough market for publishers to see the value of making their content available in electronic format yet, but there also isn't enough content yet to drive many customers to invest in these early reading devices. (I know, some people are perfectly happy reading on a PDA or phone-- I think most prefer a larger screen for serious reading, and one which can be read in a wider variety of lighting conditions than a laptop, e.g. outdoors.)

Fan distribution of eBooks-- at least, those that are not yet available as commercial eBooks-- could really help build this market. It is happening anyway, as we all probably know. Book fans who are able to get copies of favorite books in txt format now may be quite willing to pay for higher quality formatted versions later-- especially if publishers follow the example of the anime distributors and add in some extras to sweeten the deal-- multiple language versions, for example, or previously unpublished author essays or reviews. Publishers also need to remember to keep prices comparable to what customers are used to paying for similar goods -- DVDs were not generally able to command a much higher price than VHS tapes without including a lot more content.

And, as we've all commented here, publishers really need to pay attention to how customers use existing books, including loans and resales, when considering issues like cost and DRM. Books are owned for generations; they are often given away, loaned, or sold; they are often bought second hand. Publishers may not like these facts, but they are a part of the book culture that is not going to change quickly, if at all. I personally think DRM is against the interests of publishers as well as readers, because I believe most customers would be willing to pay a reasonable price for a legal copy of anything they care enough about to download and read, and a free sample is likely to generate more sales, not less. But if publishers insist on crippling copies of their books with DRM, perhaps they need to consider the movie rental analogy, and charge a fraction of the price they would expect to get for the full version of a book. I personally would rather pay paperback-comparable prices and get paperback-comparable rights.