What Is An Ebook, PT XXV:In E-Books, Publishers Have Rivals: News Sites

[stonetools]

This NYT article points out that publishers are facing yet more competition in the ebook world: from news sites.

Book publishers are surrounded by hungry new competitors: Amazon, with its steadily growing imprints; authors who publish their own e-books; online start-ups like The Atavist and Byliner.

Now they have to contend with another group elbowing into their territory: news organizations.

Swiftly and at little cost, newspapers, magazines and sites like The Huffington Post are hunting for revenue by publishing their own version of e-books, either using brand-new content or repurposing material that they may have given away free in the past.

And by making e-books that are usually shorter, cheaper to buy and more quickly produced than the typical book, they are redefining what an e-book is — and who gets to publish it.

On Tuesday, The Huffington Post will release its second e-book, “How We Won,” by Aaron Belkin, the story of the campaign to end the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. It joins e-books recently published by The New Yorker, ABC News, The Boston Globe, Politico and Vanity Fair.

LINK

What's interesting is that the definition of ebook is pretty much a moving target, as various authors seek to use the ebook form to publish content. Most of the discussion on this forum takes as its starting point ebook=novel. However, it seems more and more likely that in the future ebook is just as likely to be long form reporting, essay collection, extended magazine article, short story, novella, or excerpt from serialized novel.That means that some of the expectations that we hold dear about what an ebook should be might have to change, based on content.

I'm also wondering whether there will be anything left for the newspaper industry to do. CLassifieds are migrating to Craigslist, opinion and commentary to the blogs. It looks like long-form reporting might be migrating to ebooks. That just leaves local news-which is done by local TV. Are newspapers doomed?