A Good Analogy

[rupescissa]

nekokami, in a thought experiment, the sceptic's role is to press the experiment and check the thought for weak spots, not to propose alternatives. (It's good to be the sceptic!)

My argument here is 1.) that the analogy that compares the e-book market to early tv is not a good one; 2.) that advertising and book-reading don't go together; 3.) that it is wishful thinking to believe that advertisers could ever somehow force book publishers--who do not now rely on advertising revenue--to come to terms on the confused mess that is e-book publishing. To imply that my arguments are invalid because I do not make alternative proposals is not a refutation.

Authors can continue to get paid in the usual way: by having books printed and sold. Authors are in no danger just because the e-book market is virtually non-existent. E-book readers, of which I am one, are mainly enthusiasts and hobbyists, or people who travel a lot, or people who live away from their home countries and desire convenient access to familiar reading material. Outside of those niche markets there is virtually no clamor for e-books.

I think the future growth of the e-book market depends on the ability of book publishers and e-book manufacturers to better identify exactly which segments of the reading public they want to reach. The term "books" covers a lot of territory. Do publishers want to sell fiction/journalism/how-to bestsellers, text books, comics, scholarly works, art books? Each type of book has different characteristics, and works best presented in a different type of format. (For example the Sony PRS-500 is useless for reading footnoted material.) Just saying "I want" this and that and quibbling about where the page-advance buttons are located isn't going to create a market. There isn't going to be a killer app. No iPod-analog is going to save the day. This is way bigger than the file format question.

Books are one of the oldest media and have developed an enormously complex variety of types and uses and users. Just because they all have covers, pages and spines doesn't mean they're all alike. One size ain't gonna fit all.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by rupescissa

My argument here is 1.) that the analogy that compares the e-book market to early tv is not a good one; 2.) that advertising and book-reading don't go together; 3.) that it is wishful thinking to believe that advertisers could ever somehow force book publishers--who do not now rely on advertising revenue--to come to terms on the confused mess that is e-book publishing. To imply that my arguments are invalid because I do not make alternative proposals is not a refutation.

It's a thoughtful response, and deserves an equally thoughtful acknowledgment.

1) You may be right that the analogy to early TV is not a good one. I don't lean heavily on this analogy myself. I prefer to look at early print publishing (e.g. serial publications) and contemporary web publishing.

2) I disagree, because historically they have sometimes gone together, e.g. serials, and for that matter, ads in the back of existing books. There might be many readers who would find it jarring to have an advertisement placed within the text of a book, e.g. at the end of a chapter, but without some kind of study or at least a poll, I don't think either of us can say what proportion of readers would accept this, especially in free books, vs. those who would not. (Of course, if you have such a study to reference, I'd be happy to hear about it.)

3) Existing book publishers may not want to consider this kind of revenue source. However, there is no reason to believe that they will be the major publishers in the future. Technology changes often cause a shake-up in publishing markets. As portable electronic devices become common, the way in which people read-- and what they read, is likely to change. It may be that if books don't adapt to these kinds of devices, book reading will become even less common than it is already.

Again, without some kind of study on which to base a conclusion, we're all just shooting in the dark here. But anecdotally, I can tell you that my kids are much more likely to read on the screen than I am, and my 13-year-old daughter, when I loaned her my eBookwise 1150, primarily wanted to know how to download fanfiction so she could carry it around. She reads these documents on a screen now, with ads. That's most of what she reads, and she spends hours every day doing it.

You are correct that failing to provide alternative proposals is not a refutation of your points, of course, whether or not I agree with your points. However, I still believe there are problems approaching with the current publishing systems. You may not agree, and even if you agree, you may feel no obligation to propose alternative solutions to these upcoming problems. I personally feel that contributions to discussions which only criticize or find weaknesses in another's suggestions, as opposed to also making constructive suggestions, are a bit one-sided, but that's just my style, I guess.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I feel I might have done a disservice to this thread by suggesting the idea of a "banner ad at every chapter head or end." Clearly, this would represent a "worst case" advertising method, as we all agree.

However, in all fairness, this would be the least likely way to advertise in a book, because:

• Every book is different, with different chapters and/or breaks;
• It would be too much trouble to insert an ad at every chapter/break;
• A different number of ads for every book would be much harder to keep track of;
• It would be far easier to insert ads at the beginning or end of the novel (every novel has one of each, in the same place every time).

So I think we can all rest assured that we're not likely to see that ad method. Besides, any publisher that actually tried it would be attacked faster than Disney after the "limited-run DVD" fiasco.

Neko is right about something else: If existing publishers refuse to try something new, they may find new and independent publishers picking up the slack, and taking off with the e-book market. Advertisers can always pass on the old guard publishers, and go to the independents looking for a break (and therefore ready to experiment, even on the advertisers' terms). Wowio could be the model of e-books' future.

[JSWolf]

I hope not. I think Wowio needs to come up with a format that we can actually enjoy. This locked PDF type format is just really bad. I for one really dislike it. Wowio can just go away if they can't do it right.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Well, okay, if they could convert to ePub, it'd be perfect.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Well, okay, if they could convert to ePub, it'd be perfect.

Of all the book formats available they pick the one of the worst ones.

I see how they need to have DRM as they insert your name and some lame advert. If they didn't have DRM, we'd just strip out the mess.

But if you get a book from them that's just text, you can use PDF2LRF to make an LRF copy as long as you don't mind the header/footer info in there. Or you can use pdftohtml and then edit out that stuff and make it a good book.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by rupescissa

Authors can continue to get paid in the usual way: by having books printed and sold. Authors are in no danger just because the e-book market is virtually non-existent. E-book readers, of which I am one, are mainly enthusiasts and hobbyists, or people who travel a lot, or people who live away from their home countries and desire convenient access to familiar reading material. Outside of those niche markets there is virtually no clamor for e-books.

One of the reasons that there is not much of an ebook market is because the market has not been developed. One excellent ebook market would be the one for textbooks. I was always surprised that Rocket/GEM never tried ith this. Using ebooks instead of paper books could save everyone a tremendous amount of money, making new releases easier to distribute, etc. And the market for textbooks exists from 1st grade to postgrad studies. China is taking the concept very seriously- but we're not.

Portable technical documentation is another area where ebook readers excel. Much easier to carry a small reader around than a sackful of books or a knapsack full of notebooks.

No market for ebooks? I read all sorts of material on my PalmPilot while in waiting rooms, on shopping trips, even at boring meetings. Ereader.com seems to have developed a good market for ebooks for the PalmPilot.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

The producers of educational textbooks are apparently even less willing to alter their lucrative system than commercial publishers. Selling a bunch of honking-big books to students every single year, to the tune of hundreds to thousands a year each, is too profitable to mess with.

Yes, we have any number of dedicated readers (and laptops) that can be used as readers, and I'm sure companies have made efforts to try it. The fault is with the publishers on this, too.

This alone would represent a massive market. Ask any kid lugging around a backpack full of books... or their parents, looking forward to chiropractic bills in the future... and they'll tell you, they'd love e-textbooks. Problem is, no marketing has been done, so few of them even know such a thing is possible.

[NatCh]

There have been rumors of textbook companies being very interested in e-books mentioned here a few times over the past year, but I'm sure I'd never be able to find them.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Yeah, problem is they rarely get beyond rumor stages. Even if the rumors are coming from the textbook makers themselves, I'm sure the accountants in the back are telling them, "Are you crazy? Our books will all be pirated... we won't make a dime... we'll all be out of jobs! Shut up about that e-book stuff!"

Like commercial publishers, those guys'll be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

[nekokami]

There was supposedly a trial in the Netherlands. Did anyone hear how that turned out?

I'd rather NOT have advertising in kids' textbooks. Commercial cable channels in the classrooms and "Pepsi Appreciation Days" in the US schools are bad enough.

[rupescissa]

As regards textbooks and tech manuals in e- format: no current readers are adequate for textbook reading. Either displays are too small, or there is no method for getting to a certain page, or there is no easy method for going to footnotes, back-of-the-book reference sections, sidebars and the like, and then getting back to where you were. Most textbooks are in large page formats, printed in color and designed for ease of navigation. No e-reader can accommodate that. No e-reader allows for easy page-marking or underlining. An e-reader for textbooks and manuals has to be a specialized device. The Sony, the Rocket and its descendents and PDAs are not up to the job, and a laptop isn't an e-book reader.

As regards there being little or no market for e-books: it's the truth. We are the exception. We put up with tiny screens, file conversions and the like. Our wants and habits do not project into the wants and habits--and degree of toleration of shortcomings--in the general reading public.

I agree with nikokami that publishing, and the market, will evolve to accommodate e-reading, but current hardware, current formats, current commercial models and current DRM practices are not even remotely adequate. I know this sounds really negative, but these are the facts. Very few people (="nobody") are interested. It's not because they don't know how much great stuff is already out there. It's because the market is a confused mess.

Earlier models don't apply. Books are uniquely varied in ways neither we, nor the publishers, nor the hardware designers have yet noticed or acknowledged.

[nekokami]

I agree about the limits of current ebook readers for textbooks. I'm still waiting to see what the OLPC looks like-- it may be a good device for this purpose.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by rupescissa

As regards there being little or no market for e-books: it's the truth. We are the exception. We put up with tiny screens, file conversions and the like. Our wants and habits do not project into the wants and habits--and degree of toleration of shortcomings--in the general reading public...

Earlier models don't apply. Books are uniquely varied in ways neither we, nor the publishers, nor the hardware designers have yet noticed or acknowledged.

You might need to tell the Japanese that...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by rupescissa

As regards textbooks and tech manuals in e- format: no current readers are adequate for textbook reading. Either displays are too small, or there is no method for getting to a certain page, or there is no easy method for going to footnotes, back-of-the-book reference sections, sidebars and the like, and then getting back to where you were. Most textbooks are in large page formats, printed in color and designed for ease of navigation. No e-reader can accommodate that. No e-reader allows for easy page-marking or underlining. An e-reader for textbooks and manuals has to be a specialized device. The Sony, the Rocket and its descendents and PDAs are not up to the job, and a laptop isn't an e-book reader.

Actually, laptops could do the job for textbooks just fine, because they can handle PDFs: Scalable, full-color, capable of being bookmarked, highlighted, searched, and linked. PDFs may not be good for small-footprint text-only e-readers, but for color textbooks, they're already optimised for it.

Add Cleartype to the laptop, to make text reading easier on the eyes, and you're set.