The Norwegian book industry is fighting e-books

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by hernep

That's is exactly the situation we have in Finland. Finnish novels are more or less the same price regardless of format.

I'm guessing all smaller countries have this problem. They've got too much invested in every step on the way out to the consumer and are terrified of changes.

[SameOldStory]

I was more than a little serious when I asked about the, supposed, dominance of English language ebooks. Is there any real concern that some European languages, especially in smaller population countries, may wither away?



I just did a quick check.
Norway — Population 4,854,000

New York City Population — 8,008,278

[thinkpad]

I don't think a language will wither away as long as it's what you learn in school and then read in newspapers and magazines and listen to on the television.

There is however a great risk that people will read domestic authors in a lesser scale and turn to the ones writing in English, because of the easy access. I for one read more foreign authors than I do Norwegians.

[meromana]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

And that's the kind of forward thinking that has made the Norwegian publishing industry the powerhouse it is today.

Countries and companies that resist change that consumers are clamoring for, can expect to wither on the vine. History shows us this repeatedly; you cannot halt progress by trying to rig markets or artificially prop up industries. This is a basic fact of economics--one our politicians and corporate big wigs often try to ignore, but a fact nonetheless.

--Maria

[mikaelalind]

Sweden has a similar position. Several publishers and bookstores are owned by the same companies. The publishers also own Elib, the company that distrubutes e-books. The difference is that the e-books also are available from the public libraries.
One of the smaller publishers have admitted that might be a mistake, since it cuts into their sales. Which are true, I rarely buy Swedish e-books. Why should I? Free vs. 18 euro... Free wins. Now, I might buy them in paper for my mum, but that's another story

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by TotallyEpic

I don't think eBooks are as much as a target for piracy as other forms of Media. Most countries have public libraries with free access to most books people would want to read. Other forms of Media such as Film and Music don't have a free alternative, so they are more susceptible to piracy.

Have a look on any BitTorrent tracker and you'll see there isn't a whole lot of eBook piracy, except for a few of the top bestsellers. I think if you price the books appropriately, and don't use any intrusive methods of anti-piracy, you'll probably see a lower rate of piracy than a DRM'ed book.

I have to disagree here. For torrents you are correct. However, here in the Netherlands there is an active piracy community regarding e-books and especially epubs. The industry keeps their prices high and a *lot* of books are available via other means. A lot of people either remove DRM and distributes or scan complete volumes (and not only small books) and distributes them.
A lot of books can be obtained that way. Current books, but also books that will probably never be available as epub. The first category I have a problem with, the second a whole lot less.
The second category is mostly SF and Fantasy. Just to pinpoint the nerds I guess...

[Belfaborac]

"Have a look on any BitTorrent tracker and you'll see there isn't a whole lot of eBook piracy"

Eh...wrong. There's a huge amount of pirated books on any of the big trackers and added to that there's quite a few private trackers and sites dedicated to audio and e-books. Pretty much everything you could want is available and new books appear within days of first being published.

[SameOldStory]

More than a few decades ago the company I worked for set up a new 286 (or 386 maybe) computer for me. I don't know how much the computer was, but the word processor cost about $550 and DBASE III+ was about $600, or more. Those kind of prices invite copying, and I'm sure that more than a few people I worked with had a copy at home.

If we see a price as high as, or higher than, the cost of a hard cover book many of us will say FU and go to the darknet. On the other hand we see places like Baen Books, and have great loyalty to them for having prices that range from free to very reasonable.

European publishers/sellers are only doing themselves harm.


As a side note. Are there any companies in Europe doing what Amazon, SmashWords, and others are doing - bypassing the "regular publishers" and selling well done books by smaller publishers/self publishers?

[JeremyR]

This is a little ironic, since Amazon basically made their whole initial advertising scheme for the Kindle 3 about buying the works of that Stieg Larrson guy (who has to be some sort of Scandinavian)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

You're actually right. We have gone from a country with fearsome warriors to people who doesn't dare to stand up to anything. The roads and public transportation are a joke compared to what it could have been but do you think we protest, no we just bottle it up and go on. I blame it on the oil. We're rich but lack foresight and innovation and have become lazy.

Are you sure you're not Americans?

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

The publishers in Norway have indicated that they wish to charge more or less the same price for the e-book as that of the paperback. Good luck with that. All that will happen is that people start to read more foreign authors, turning their backs on the domestic market.

While higher than people would prefer, I don't think that the ebook nearly matching the paperback price should be a dealbreaker and if it is for somebody then they were probably looking for a rationalisation to pirate ebooks anyway.

[ski_power]

Pirating books has always come to me as a joke especially those 'collections' on the darknet. Imo movie/music media is far more 'common man' worth than books, so does this mean book piracy is just to show off to others, your collections?

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by ski_power

Pirating books has always come to me as a joke especially those 'collections' on the darknet. Imo movie/music media is far more 'common man' worth than books, so does this mean book piracy is just to show off to others, your collections?

I knew some people who spend all their time just collecting them, and telling each other daily the juicier titles they have stashed. Never heard them say they read any of them though.

[ski_power]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

I knew some people who spend all their time just collecting them, and telling each other daily the juicier titles they have stashed. Never heard them say they read any of them though.

Thats pretty stupid. Why bother with ANY collection (books, music, movies) if you're not going to use it? I guess its just the hoarding mentality of some people.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by ski_power

Thats pretty stupid. Why bother with ANY collection (books, music, movies) if you're not going to use it? I guess its just the hoarding mentality of some people.

Some people collect stamps