/Big Question/ Bye, the book
10/01/2008 | Filed under Discover > Big Question
Does Amazon’s move into the ebook market herald the beginning of the end for the humble paperback?
Content specialist
Siim Vips
Modera
It’s good news that people are moving to ebooks as long as they’re environmentally friendlier than paperbacks. As ebooks become more user-friendly and durable, the natural result will be wider adoption and usage by all demographic groups. I would expect that the breakthrough for ebooks will come with some new technology that will make ebooks a must for everyone, such as the ability to refresh your experience with any number of books you’ve read instantly at your fingertips – entertainment on the go.
Even if ebooks became mainstream, there will still be people who will love the old-fashioned nostalgia of a good paperback. Same as there will always be people who will prefer transistors and cassette decks instead of portable music players such as iPods.
Siim Vips is a software development and content management specialist at Modera, a software company specialising in CMS development
Domain specialist
Eleanor Bradley
Nominet
In the wake of the digital music revolution, it’s unsurprising that interest in the development of ebook technology is growing rapidly. Any company that can successfully manufacture a product that transforms the way consumers purchase and interact with books (as the iPod has done for music) stands to make an absolute fortune.
However, that success is by no means guaranteed, as there are some major challenges to overcome before readers will start burning their books in favour of a Kindle. The biggest is surely convincing us to pick up an electronic gadget instead of one of the most simple and effective inventions of all time, which has remained virtually unchanged for centuries. Any ebook device will need to have the same visual appeal, weight and portability as a book, and somehow replicate the interactive experience for the reader without physically turning pages.
Until this hurdle can be cleared, other potential barriers – the hefty price tag, the aesthetic appeal of the design and the rights protection technology such devices use – will merely be side issues. The Kindle illustrates that progress is clearly being made, but the paperback will be spared from the bonfire for some while yet.
Eleanor Bradley is director of operations at Nominet UK, the country’s first and foremost authority for the .uk domain TLD
Web app expert
Deri Jones
SciVisum
Pundits have been predicting the demise of the book and the rise of the ebook for a long time. In 1994, when I was running the early ISP EUnet (bought by PSINet in 1995), a regular conversation I’d have with various folk in the book trade centred around getting ISBN and book catalogues online. But even back then, there was fear from the publishers that the internet was a threat to their book sales. If that fear caused any of these businesses to “hold back” on the internet, they’ve surely regretted it over the last 10 years. But, just maybe, now is the time for those early fears to actually become reality. Perhaps the technology of ebooks is ready for mass adoption, and Amazon’s involvement will provide enough market push to make it happen.
Either way, I’m sure the publishers will be having strategy meetings and scratching their heads – if books go the download route, how can they best make money? I hope publishers don’t look to the music and video download markets for role models, or else they too will become over-focused on the threat of illegal downloads, with the likely consequences of making legal book downloading a nuisance.
I can remember a previous ebook initiative that enabled you to download novels and read them on your laptop, but the portable ebook hardware wasn’t available then. I believe this never took off because of the lack of titles, and because laptops just don’t make convenient take-anywhere, read-anywhere book replacements.
Amazon’s Kindle is a better platform, and one that you wouldn’t feel too silly taking to the beach or reading at a cafe. But it’s still not quite the familiar, user-friendly device that a paperback is. Although text-searching may be a key winning feature for some readers, including academics, I suspect it wouldn’t be for the majority of people who read paperbacks as a leisure activity. Technologically speaking, you could be surprised that book downloads didn’t take off before music downloads – the file sizes are much smaller than for audio and video files. I think the fact that the book format is paper and not electronic is the difference. Whether a CD or an LP, it’s easy to use a PC together to record music and then upload the file to a local PC or a website.
Overall, I’d say the situation is the same as it was in 1995 – the days of the book are numbered! But quite when ebooks will exceed 50 per cent of the market could easily be another 10 or 20 years.
Deri Jones is CEO of SciVisum, a web and application testing service based in Kent
Ecommerce specialist
Chris Barling
Actinic
I haven’t got my hands on a Kindle yet, but standing back, you have to say that there’s a tremendous logic to this kind of product. When you think about it, disseminating stories and information using paper-based products is inefficient. Lumberjacks (famously) cut down trees, the wood is processed into paper, the paper is printed and bound, then an army of lorries carry books around the world and they finally end up cluttering the houses of sad people like me.
So, why haven’t publishers already gone the same way as the music companies, and books the way of the CD? Two reasons spring to mind: converting books into digital format is far more difficult than music, so people-power hasn’t taken over, and no one has got the combination of range, price, ease of use and reading experience quite right.
Perhaps Amazon’s Kindle will succeed where others have failed, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Books have been the preferred means of transferring knowledge since the printing press was invented 600 years ago. They may not be state of the art, but they’re convenient and they don’t require batteries.
Chris founded the well-known ecommerce software development company Actinic in 1996
Tech journalist
Scott Carney
This is actually an issue that I’ve thought a lot about. While the Kindle looks like it was forged in the same drawing room as the original Game Boy, I can imagine a world not so far from now where paperbacks are all but extinct. Imagine a device that’s about the same size as a normal hardback book that can store a whole library of information. Then imagine that it also works something like a tablet PC, so that you can write notes in the margins and edit those notes like a wiki. Then you can trade or upload your margin scribblings to a website and share them with everyone else who read the same book. A device like that would change our relationship with literature in general. It would make library research incredibly simple and bring together new fan communities.
However, it could mean bleak things for the pocketbooks of authors around the world. While it would be simple to distribute a manuscript to a wide audience, without odious DRM, I’m not sure how authors would be able to make money from their work. Piracy is just too easy to do with text files. And unlike loaning a book out to a friend, once one copy escapes into the mainstream, suddenly everyone would have a copy via BitTorrent or Limewire. I think e-readers are the future. I’m just not sure that Amazon’s version is going to be the one that makes it big. Wait until Google develops one.
Scott is a freelance technology journalist and a damn fine photographer to boot
Internet researcher
Alex Burmaster
Nielsen//NetRatings
No it doesn’t! While the launch of new devices such as these are inevitably accompanied by “the death of”-like sensationalist headlines, the reality is far less revolutionary. New technologies, in most cases, are successful in the way they augment, not replace, traditional forms of consumption. People have read books in the same way for hundreds of years, and this isn’t about to change all that. The convenience, habit and familiarity of having a paper book is too deeply ingrained. While ebooks do have certain advantages, it’s unlikely they’ll be the dominant form of reading in trains, buses, by the pool or on the beach for a long, long time!
Alex is European internet analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in internet media and market research
Communications guru
Rachel Hawkes
Elemental Communications
I read that the introduction of Kindle will do for ebooks what the iPod did for music downloads. Kindle will certainly increase the sale of ebooks, but I don’t believe for a minute that it heralds the beginning of the end for the paperback. Undoubtedly, it will increase sales, but book sales will remain strong. Looking at it closely, we would find that the fact that CD sales have dropped approximately 20 per cent at the start of this year is more because people are finding places where they can download music for free, rather than they prefer to download an album from iTunes for the same price as buying a CD from HMV.
Users can take the song that they downloaded and play it on CD players, transfer it to MP3 players, play it on their mobile phones or in their cars – the song and the experience is the same. As a bookworm, I love that I can pick up my book and go up and find a bit of sun outside and escape. I don’t have to remember to charge my book before I leave the house, or take a charger with me if I travel overseas. I don’t have to worry about making sure I have enough power adaptors to use for my laptop, my mobile, my hairdryer, my iPod, my camera and my latest Jilly Cooper.
The technology already exists for people to read ebooks: PCs, laptops, Blackberrys, iPhones and other ebook readers. If the experience was that great, then ebooks would have already taken off in a big way. You could argue that the upcoming generation who were born with all of these “gadgets”, and are more conditioned to living a digital world, will be the trigger in the death-of-the-paperback gun, backed by arguably one of the largest access points to books online, but I disagree. Our government can’t even provide a computer for every child – I don’t see them providing an ebook reader for every child to take home from the library every week and practice their reading.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve already asked Santa for a Kindle, but I won’t be pulling down my bookshelf anytime soon. I mean, can you imagine reading Harry Potter on an LCD screen? I think not.
Rachel Hawkes is an account director at Elemental Communications, a media communications consultancy that caters for traditional and digital media
Activist
Oxblood Ruffin
Hacktivismo
I think print is related to writing, and what you produce is what you consume. I don’t write that much. The most I pen these days is my signature or a phone number on a business card. I suppose someone will come along with some sort of reading tablet that acts like an iPod and looks like a polymer book. And I’ll probably buy one. But I’m a book person at the end of the day. I like the paper, I like the feel of them, and I like having something real in my hands. Good luck to the future.
Oxblood Ruffin is the founder of Hacktivismo, and is an active campaigner against web censorship
Applications guru
Roger Greene
Ipswitch
I haven’t held one yet, but I can already tell from reading the reviews that the Kindle is an immature product. People like books for many reasons, including the tactile sensation of holding them and turning pages. I think ebook readers will replace paperbacks and hardcovers when e-paper looks and feels like paper and can display anything that paper can. That’s still some years away. Until then, ebook readers will have a loyal niche audience of people who need to carry around many books and want the convenience of a lightweight reader. Most people read one book at a time, though, and it’s just as convenient to carry that book with them as it is to carry a reader. For everybody to switch to an e-reader, the technology will have to be advanced enough and stable enough so that people won’t feel like they’ll have to upgrade every year or two as something better comes along. An ebook reader isn’t like an iPod. Before the iPod, there was no convenient way to carry music around. Now there is, and as they add enhancements like phone calls and video, it becomes compelling to a broader audience. But books are already portable and cheap, and many people are feeling overwhelmed with electronic gadgets that have to be recharged (even if only occasionally) and managed. Ebook readers will one day be pervasive, but that day is still well in the future.
Roger Greene is founder and CEO of Ipswitch, developers of innovative IT software
Web standards expert
Christian Heilmann
Yahoo
Not really the end, as there’s something cool about reading offline and without a battery, and I’m too much of a book geek to miss the smell and feel of paper. If anything, I’d love it to become a gentle but swift kick up the backside of book publishers, though. It’s high time they realise that the market has evolved and people do read while travelling, which makes hardcover editions a pain to carry around. I hope the effect to be that hardbacks and paperbacks get released simultaneously, or there’d even be a free ebook offer with each book you buy.
Christian works for Yahoo as a web developer, and he’s a self-proclaimed "web standards nut"
B3ta guy
Rob Manuel
B3ta
I’ve used a Sony Reader, a similar device for about six months. Ebooks certainly have some conveniences, the main being that, unlike a fat paperback, it will actually fit in my pocket, so I can read a few pages wherever I am. Ultimately, I’ve given up on it, as most books are not currently available in the Sony format, nor is paying full price for every book particularly appealing when I can get a second-hand books for about a quid in my local charity shop.
For a device like this to take off, it’s going to have to embrace piracy, because who wants to spend about £10 for every book they read? Once in a while, fine, but every book?
Rob is co-founder of B3ta, a website that "celebrates the best stuff on the internet"
Comments
DJ / 21/02/2008 / 03:59 / http://www.darelljohnson.com
I think it will be software that drives the popularity of e-books and readers like the Kindle. Using the MP3 example, I use an I-pod because its a solid product and, more importantly, because it interfaces seemlessly with I-Tunes. Even better, I-Tunes updates podcasts for me, recommends other music and podcasts I might like, allows me to burn CDs and manage music in a thoroughly reliable form. I think the "Kindle" that wins will be the "Kindle" that starts with solid software like I-tunes and matches it to equally solid hardware (or makes it stupidly easy to download books into an existing PDA, etc.). The winner will also probably provide other digital media as well as its books.
Regardless of what happens, I don't see paperback books being replaced. Maybe hard-backs and technical material but not the paperback. There are too many benefits in a paperback for a reader to overcome.
Harold Stenzy / 07/04/2008 / 04:42 / http://www.promo-code.com
Interestingly, eBay recently decided to stop showing e-books and other digitally transmitted items in its auction and buy it now listings. The $0 shipping and penny range prices of most of these items led to feedback manipulation.
