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German Book Publishers Cool To E-Book Market
Now that the Kindle is being actively marketed in many countries outside the US, reader
rsmiller510 sends in his piece up on DaniWeb about the skepticism in Germany about the whole e-book phenomenon. A major difference from the US book market is that in Germany, book prices are regulated in an effort to protect authors, publishers, and small booksellers. As a result, publishers don't issue electronic versions of their books until the paperback edition comes out, up to 2 years after the hardcover — and then they sell the e-book for the same price as the lowest-cost paperback. An article on e-books in Spiegel.de notes a survey taken recently for the Frankfurt Book Fair, which found that "only one in 12 Germans has a clear idea about what an e-book is, and seven out of 10 of them would prefer a printed version over a digital one." 65,000 e-books were sold in Germany in the first 6 months of 2009, vs. almost ten times that number bought per week in the US, in what is still a small niche of the overall book business.
Umm, no. RTFA. 65,000 in six months in Germany versus 600,000 per week in the USA. Even accounting for population differences, the difference is about 120:1.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
...that hits all the same notes. E-books will take over the world, why are the German publishing houses sticking their heads in the sand, etc. I've thought about it quite a bit, since I have a strong personal preference for printed books, and have debated the topic with passionate advocates of e-books. I've come to a few conclusions:
1) The advantages that printed books have over e-books in terms of convenience will go away over the next 15 years. Limited resolution (200 ppi e-ink vs. 600+ ppi for print), limited battery life, bulk, storage capacity, etc., not to mention cost (not just direct, but transportation, storage, disposal, etc.), will all favor e-books in 15 years. Resolution (my particular nit) will probably take the longest, but it will happen.
2) I doubt a personal e-book 'reader' will last long in the marketplace. It's too big and bulky to be 'just' an e-book reader. Why not make it a web-browser? 95% percent of what you need to do that is there. E-mail? Terminal access? A cell phone with a bluetooth earbud? A movie watcher? It will become a general purpose computing device just like cell phones are becoming.
3) It won't succeed until an Apple-like company makes it so stunningly easy to use and manage that its advantages are clear. A cellphone and a smart cellphone are quite similar, so the idea of an iPhone/Treo (a general purpose computer that happens to be a cell phone) was not so hard to get accepted. A tablet-like device has no commonly existing parellel right now, and the existing examples are weak, to put it mildly. It will have to be wildly simple and pleasant to use...
4) Once most books are no longer printed, it remains an open question whether it will make censorship of ideas easier or harder. I haven't been able to come up with a convincing argument either way. DRM is also still an open question, although you can make a good argument that a DRMed device will fail in the marketplace. Maybe.
There will be a great e-book reader one day, but it won't be called that. It will be part of a package that can do far more.
Here's the deal: Yes, Germany and Austria have a regulated market for books in German (only!), meaning no price-based competition as the publishers set a binding minimum retail price with only a few exceptions like going-out-of-business sales, damaged books and stuff, but the principle remains. Amazon may throw in free shipping, but apart from that must not undercut brick-and-mortar stores. Go figure...
That said: the prices are set by the publisher. There is nothing to prevent them from having different prices for different editions. Just as a hardcover costs more than a paperback, an ebook could be even cheaper. Their call.
Today I had a nice, long bath with John Grisham.
Well, not the author in person, but his book, The Street Lawyer. Paperback version.
I would have been rather more reluctant to do the same with a Kindle (or equivalent) edition, as I am pretty sure a dip in the water would render it beyond repair.
I cannot be the only one who occasionally loses a paperback to whatever unfortunate events that pass me by. (Temporary insanity and such.) I have provided Dublin Airport with one (I got my camera back, which had been impounded by security guards), an assortment of hotels, planes and trains have got their share and for some odd reason I have never found my lost PDA. (The interesting stuff was encrypted, thank you very much.)
The thing for me (and quite a few other people, I am sure) is that the loss of a paperback may be unfortunate but not a major setback, whereas the loss of an eBook reader is more than just annoying.
... only one in 12 Germans has a clear idea about what an e-book is, and seven out of 10 of them would prefer a printed version over a digital one.
Maybe a higher percentage of Americans than Germans know what an ebook is - maybe not. But my gut tells me that we probably match up similarly in terms of preferring a printed book over a digital book, since I hear that all the time (even from a fair number of techies).
I have no doubt the tech will continue to evolve until someone gets it right, and finally makes digital more convenient than paper. It's not there yet, except for the small number of people that use multiple books at the same time (e.g. students) - and even in those cases, DRM, non-availability of many titles, and other issues deleteriously affect their ebook experience.
#DeleteChrome
What about academic publishing? Textbooks are now ridiculously expensive, and I don't see any benefits to society from this particular healthy ecosystem of independent local bookstores. On the contrary, these excessive costs are making education more difficult to obtain, which is a detriment to society.
The plethora of small academic book stores (such as the local College or University bookstore) with no resulting bargaining power against the largest (or any other) academic publishers is a contributing factor to this problem.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
I pray that you are wrong. I triy to imagine future anthropologists and historians trying to figure out what life was like during our time, and if your idea comes true, they will have nothing to base their studies on. Paper is valuable because, unlike a computer(which your hypothetical all-in-one e-book reader appears to be), it doesn't require electricity to read, file formats are a nonissue(as long as you can understand the language, you can read it), and as long as it is kept in good environmental conditions, it will last much longer in a usable form. If books ever completely go away, historical studies of our time are doomed before they begin.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
That's not really the same thing at all.
The Frankfurt Book Fair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Book_Fair) is an ancient and massive trade fair. Today it's largely a place where publishers get together to work out trade deals. For instance if a German author+publisher wants his book translated and sold in the states. Tons of business generated here.
Secondly, from the sound of the D.S. article, the survey was commissioned BY the Fair, not taken of random browsers AT the fair. Could still be biased, but I don't see what they would gain? The fair is about business.
Hi,
since i am german and an ebook user for several years (iRexx Iliad), i would like to comment on that:
Like the music industry the publishers are currently comitting sucide due to the fear of death. By trying to preserve the status quo, they are scaring away a big part of their future customers. Ebooks are only a symptom here.
I have purchased and read about 1.000+ books during the last 25 years. Due to a still progressing carreer, my budget is rising. But i am less and less inclined to spend it on the local market.
Sincerely yours, Martin
The funny thing is publishers complained for years about the physical cost of books, and used it as a base for low writer royalties. Once that was taken out the equation by ebooks, then suddenly it's all about the cost of editing and layout and so on. Someone along the line wasn't telling the truth, and I'm not inclined to start believing the publishers now.
Thanks... I completely missed the 6 month vs. 1 week distinction.
Hey ... close enough for government work.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The funny thing is publishers complained for years about the physical cost of books, and used it as a base for low writer royalties.
Hollywood accounting. If you believe the studio execs, no movie actually makes any money.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I agree that all of these are valid issues, and I do think the 15 year estimate someone above posited is optimistic, however none of these are insurmountable. I think we probably will see wide-spread acceptance of ebooks/readers but it's gonna take a generation or two of people for whom online services like facebook, etc. have been with them practically since birth.
My daughter can't believe my parents bought me an encyclopedia set when I was in high school... in her world, if it's not online, then it's gotta be somewhere "special" -- to her encyclopedias belong in a library.
As technology gets better and more pervasive, as publishers realize they can cut costs, perhaps after existing contracts for suppliers, etc. are up for renewal, they will migrate, though I doubt the printed word will disappear completely.
As to the issues with sharing a book, if an ebook cost me $1, I can easily see me buying it multiple times throughout my life if it's one I like or use a lot. And since I'm assuming that most of these services have a site where I can track and re-download stuff I've purchased, it's not that hard of a step to allow me to temporarily assign my rights to a given product to another user... after all, it's just data.
As to data recovery, I will admit we haven't done to well with that, what with tapes and floppies that can't even be read anymore, but we (the geeks) also know this is a concern... it CAN be dealt with, if planned for. I mean, how many DVD drives can't read CD-Roms? (I know, very similar tech in terms of physical characteristics, etc, but the point is newer methods don't HAVE to break older technologies unless it truly is a fundamental change in mechanism/methodology.
We'll get there, but when the next couple of generations expect it and think we're crazy for "reading asynchronous BBS postings at 300 baud" (Daddy, what's a "baud"?), not when you and I think it's ready.
--
I drank what?
Same kind of stupidity here, esp. the part about the intellectual elite. Fucking douchebags hate the internet, and the internet hates them in turn.
I would point out that the US situation is not significantly different wrt ebooks. When you factor out the difference in book prices, US ebooks (and audiobooks) are still way overpriced, close to the hardcover price.
Well in fact it's the electronic delivery that's fucked up. I love audiobooks, so that I can "read" while on bicycle, and I wanted to buy Bob Woodward's "the War Within." It's $24 in hardcover, and $20 through Audible.com. But I can't buy through audible, because the sons of bitches insist on fucktarded DRM, and don't support Linux anyway. So instead I bought it in CD format from a third party, for $10 shipping included. It's a complete waste, since I'm just going to waste time ripping it.
Ebooks should be much cheaper than physical ones. Until they stop treating their customers like shit, they deserve all the piracy they get. Fucking fucktards.
as a neighbour from France, which is culturally kinda close I guess, I don't grok the idea of buying content, but not really owning it, being at risk of losing it at any time, either short-term (Amazon pulling it, my reader getting stolen...) or medium/long term (Amazon going out of that business, their readers starting to suck...)
I'd like a Digital Ownership Law, clearly asserting
- resale rights
- loan rights
- transfer rights (to another reader)
- backup rights
- standardized DRM with a backup infrastructure in case the initial provider can no longer authenticate content/users.
Right now, Amazon's plan looks like MS's and Apple's: get user lock-in DRM / format / training / force of habit / DRM.
I think the next generation of readers, wich will probably be more geared towards replacing magazines, and hopefully integrating the magazines with an on-line community, will have more appeal over here.
PS: I am reading books an a Palm right now, so I'm not allergic to the concept. Buyers' rights just seem inexistant right now.
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