Electronic Books:
A New Publishing Revolution
Not Dead Yet
Coming Back
Donald T. Hawkins
Director, Intranet Development
And
Editor-in-Chief,
Information Science & Technology Abstracts
Information Today, Inc.
+1-(215)-654-9129
[email protected]
A Rocky Road…
An Uphill Battle…
Lots of Slipping and Sliding…
Slow Progress…
…Sometimes No Progress
Quotes—2002

“E-books Are Solving a Problem Consumers
Don’t Have.”
Chicago Tribune, August 9, 2001
“E-books may be the greatest work of
fiction yet.”
CBSNews.com, May 14, 2002
 “There is absolutely a future for e-books;
it’s just a question of how quickly that
future comes.”

Toronto Globe and Mail, September 18, 2002

“The e-book market is more of a distant
promise than a present reality.”
Information World Review, May 2002
What Happened?
Too Much Focus on the Container
What Is An E-Book?

The device?
– Standalone readers

The content?
– E-text, digitized books
– Printed books stored in digital format

Print on Demand?
No Standards
People Still Like To Read
From Paper
The biggest hurdles that ebook producers
must surmount are:
 The quality of print portrayed on screens
 The reluctance of users to switch media
and read books from a screen
Electronic Books: A Major Publishing Revolution
Donald T. Hawkins
ONLINE 24(4): 14-28 (July/August 2000)
Questionable Value Added
“The fact that technology is
able to represent documents
on the screen is clearly not
sufficient justification for
converting every piece of
paper into electronic format.”
Landoni, M., et al., The Electronic Library 18(6): 407-19 (2001)
Some Current E-Book
Market Events
Demise of Dedicated Readers
Glassbook
Everybook
SoftBook
Franklin
EBookMan
www.stockton.lib.ca.us/ebooks.htm
(Nov. 1, 2002, p. 27)
Source: Library Journal, July 15, 2002
OEB Consumer Survey Results
67% would like to read an e-book.
 62% would read an e-book from
their library.
 61% said that e-books should be
priced the same as paperbacks.
 70% said they would buy an e-book
if it could be read on any computer.

Major Significant Recent Events




Elsevier alliance with netLibrary
German and French language editions of
e-books developed for Palm reader
Cleveland Public Library to integrate ebooks and local materials
MS Office adds e-books to its eServices
site (http://office.microsoft.com/services)
Some Current E-Book
Marketplace Players
Project Gutenberg
Began in 1971
 Free access to books for everyone

– Only public-domain material
– ASCII text
Over 6,700 books
 Staffed by volunteers
 http://promo.net/pg

netLibrary—Current Status


Now a division of OCLC following
bankruptcy
Focused on the library market
– Follows the “one copy, one user” model
– Considering permitting simultaneous users


Over 42,000 books in collection
Over 7,300 customers (3,000 academic)
Appropriate Markets
The Student Market for E-Books
Many textbooks cost >$100 and
weigh 2-3 kg.
 Textbooks are a large continuing
market.
 62% of students prefer electronic
books over print. (Versaware study)

Enhanced
goReader
Designed for Students
Pocket PC features
•Windows CE operating system
•IE browser
•Modem support
•OEB, HTML, and MS Office
document capability
Full color, high resolution
10.4 inch touch screen
Weighs less than 3 pounds
Holds up to 150,000 pages of text
The Student Market
Recent New Cautions



Difficult to utilize during brief periods of
time (It’s quicker to just open a book and
highlight passages)
Reading experience still inferior to printed
books
Some tasks are harder to do with e-books,
and less information is retained.
(http://publish.bsu.edu/cics/ebook_final_result.asp)

Some students printed large portions of
e-books.
A New Business?
Source: Ariadne, Issue 29, September, 2001
Other Appropriate Niche Markets
For E-Books
Small publishers (“mid-list”)
 Travelers
 Technical books/training manuals
 Controlled environments

– Government
– Military
– Proprietary

Consumers
E-Books In Libraries
“Bringing the e-book into existence by attempting
to electrify the printed book is turning out to be
more complex than anyone had imagined… By
putting a printed book into digital form we are
unleashing an unknown quantity into the
information ecology, and it is difficult to predict
whether the consequences will ultimately be
positive or negative.”
Dennis Dillon, “E-Books: the University of Texas Experience, Part 2.” Library Hi-Tech 19(4): 350-62 (2001)
Dedicated E-Book Reader
Issues For Libraries

Titles must be purchased for a
specific device (Many libraries are using RCA’s
REB—a descendent of the Rocket E-Book)
Incompatibilities among reader
brands
 Difficult and slow downloads
 Some users unwilling to assume
responsibility for reader
 Must catalog both book and reader
 Technology problems

CDL E-Book Study
(D-Lib Magazine, July 2001, http://www.dlib.org)
All elements of a viable e-book
market are not yet in place.
 Need added functionality over
printed books (like online databases)
 E-books are not a panacea for
storage/archive problems

“The role of e-books in academic libraries is still not
clear, and there is considerable development of
standards, technologies, and pricing models needed to
make the market for e-books viable and sustainable.”
Legal Issues
E-Book Market Conclusions

A shakeout has occurred.

Many players have disappeared.

Most dedicated readers are obsolete.

Overly optimistic predictions have been
replaced by more realistic ones.

Customer concerns must be addressed.

Some players are still active and are
prospering.

Some new players are entering the market.
Major Conclusions

E-books will survive and prosper in
niche markets where they make sense.
E-books
will NOT
replace printed books!
Encouraging Signs
OCLC’s investment in netLibrary
 Major publisher investments
 Open eBook Forum industry report and
promotion of e-books
 OEB customer survey results
 Widespread downloading of Microsoft
and Adobe readers

E-BOOK SALES JUMP CONSIDERABLY
According to new data released by the Association of American Publishers (AAP),
sales of e-books have jumped significantly, to more than $3 million for the month
of January 2003, up from some $200,000 a year earlier. The numbers, however,
only include the reports of six major publishers: Farrar Straus Giroux,
HarperCollins, Wiley, Random House, Simon and Schuster, and St. Martin's. While
it's difficult to read too much into the numbers for such a nascent sector, e-book
insiders were happy with the news-- especially with the fact that the AAP was now
paying attention to e-book sales. "We've had double digit growth in e-book sales for
a long time, but these numbers reflect that AAP is really just beginning to get its act
together about e-books" said Jeff Gomez, e-book and print on-demand manager for
St. Martin's. Gomez pointed to lower pricing, wider distribution, and the
increased bundling of Microsoft Reader and the Palm Reader into computers
and PDAs as potential reasons for growth. "A year ago all I read about e-books
were these death-knell articles," he noted. "This industry is becoming real.“
Source: Library Journal Academic News Wire, March 20, 2003
Points to Ponder
Isn’t the Web a gigantic e-book?
 What about XML?
 Can DRM restrictions be eased?

– Will piracy losses be offset by increased
publicity?
Will giving away some free e-books
enhance sales?
 Will tablet PCs solve the small screen
problem?

“The report of my
death was an
exaggeration.”