Paper or Pixel? The Challenges Facing Publishing

 

By Darren E Laws

Debate is raging over the quality and price of eBooks compared to their paper companions in certain parts of the publishing industry. Is all of this internalising actually missing the point and is this a ruse by publishers still unsure of how to deal with digital publications? There are some in the industry who think eBooks will 'blow over', that they are merely a 'passing phase', and there are others already writing the obituary of paper books.

We have witnessed the painful recognition of the music industry as it struggled for the best part of a decade over a similar question. In fact there are many industries that have been transformed with the introduction of the computer and the Internet to a global market. There are some industries though which are also failing to move quickly - or quick enough - to either recognise the impact and benefits or changes that will affect their performance or existence.

TV, radio, newspapers, movies, in fact all forms of information and entertainment mediums are having to rethink their approach and how to generate income from the opportunities that spring forth. So to some degree it is understandable that publishing is struggling to cope. Some publishers understand and are now developing platforms and content that is exciting with value added content given to the reader as a bonus, while others will never grasp what it means, other than a perceived notion that digital is a threat that will erode its long established foothold on the market.

The truth as always will lie somewhere between, with those who are brave enough to walk with the pioneers reaping the early benefit; but if for one moment you think paper books will disappear overnight you are as mistaken as those who refuse to accept the onslaught of digital technology in publishing. The love affair of the reader and a paper book will not be replaced by Kindle's, eReader's, mobile phones or whatever surprise Moore's law will throw at us, not just yet at least. Reading a book on a plane or a beach or just before bed can all be achieved with a digital device, but somehow paper has an intrinsic bond which for the foreseeable future will not be replaced. How long that foreseeable future lasts is dependent on how consumers embrace technology. I guess we already know the answer to that if we look at the recent history of technological advancement over the past twenty years.

The bookstore of the very near future will also be a digital repository holding millions of titles which could be transferred to digital devices or printed on demand, there and then in the store; but the physical contact and thrill of picking a book up and flipping through the pages as we decide whether to buy a book or not is an emotional decision. Scanning through a digital catalogue is a more clinical decision and one where choosing a title is a process that has already to some degree been made. But there are no guarantees, when I was growing up our high streets were littered with record shops selling vinyl records at first and then making the transition to cassette and CD, there was also a boom time with the introduction of home computers and software shops. Around the same time home video rental stores were popping up everywhere. We never dreamed that there would no longer be a demand for the content sold in these stores. All of these stores have virtually disappeared now.

Whether our emotional bond with the printed page remains is questionable, because there is a new generation of reader growing up who may just prefer digital delivered content, and as the transition takes place it may become a seamless period which is in tandem with the decline of high street sales. This is why bookstores will also need to provide digital services to consumers, because if they don't then it is clear that Internet bookstores are already well placed to fill the gap on all fronts.

So the challenge facing publishing is how to balance the onset of untested technology and delivery platforms in terms of consumer response and what to do if that response achieves its potential. This is quite a challenge and a very exciting time to be in publishing.

Why the Kindle DX is GOOD for Publishing

By Darren E Laws

The publicity the Kindle DX has achieved this week with its launch must have pleased Amazon and while one may argue about the benefits of the machine against the Kindle 2 the good news for publishers, authors and of course readers is the seeming acceptance of the eBook as a method of delivery. This acceptance is quite a leap for the media who have until now been cynical in its approach to digitally delivered content. Now maybe this is because in America where the Kindle is currently available the current economic climate has left many news and publishing houses teetering on the brink of financial collapse and I am not talking about small local companies here. Established and highly influential companies have felt the blunt and brute force of the recession and the impact this has had on sales and more importantly profits has led to a radical rethink about revenue streams. The same problem is confronting a lot of media providers in the UK, many of whom are now ready to look at new delivery platforms for their content.

The excitement of the Kindle DX in the States is mainly driven by the machine's ability to work with PDF as well as Amazon's own bespoke format. Many people argue that until there is a single format for eBooks that its progress will be hampered. I don't believe this to be the case where eBooks are concerned and I'll tell you why I think this to be so. We are now dealing with a far more sophisticated generation of digital users and I am not relating this to age but to education and choice. There are a number of different formats available for eBooks, some of these such as ePub for instance will dominate but newer kids on the block such as DNAML offer publishers, authors and readers a different experience with a more seamless blend of multi-media content, colour and audio as well as a choice of digital rights management (DRM). DRM is often seen as the scourge of the music industry and one of the reasons that piracy was so rife. The truth actually falls between (music) publishers setting unrealistic charges to deliver MP3 (or other format) content and a generation of Internet users who felt that file sharing was perfectly legal without thinking about the long term implications of mass piracy. There are still a significant proportion of people who want something for nothing and there always will be but the introduction of machines such as the Kindle will begin a process of education that introduces paying for content on a legitimate platform.

The challenge for publishers is to set the price for delivering that digital content at a level which is realistic enough to generate return on a business model that makes the process worthwhile but is viewed by readers as exceptional value for money. Once the general buying public recognise and see no difference between online digital book stores and their brick and mortar equivalent then the rise of the eBook will be an unstoppable force within the industry. People are already prepared to purchase every conceivable type of product from the Internet and many are already subscribing to receive the delivery of digital content in one form or another, be that music downloads or movies. The next logical step is books and news content and while it may be argued that this has been happening for years we are on the verge of something truly exciting with digital content being delivered to mobile phones, dedicated eBook readers and direct to computers. Does it matter which machine or which format this is happening in? I really don't think it does. We are now in a new era where choice can sit comfortably with content and how people wish to read that content. Publishers looking for a simple answer that will dominate the market do not understand how this new market is developing. There actually is room for this level of choice and different platforms. This is not a simple battle between Betamax and VHS or DVD and BlueRay or even BlueRay and HD DVD and the reason why this is the case is that the development of all of these platforms, formats and machine's has been independent of publishers and thankfully the small group of large publishers which dominate the high street bookstores. This in itself explains their reluctance to embrace the many different options available on the market today. They don't like the democratization of publishing one bit. The stuffy, inbred world of publishing is coming to its knees with a look of confusion etched on its face. Some are finally waking up to this new world of publishing, others will fall and die.

The future of publishing is exciting and we are entering a world where users will still want paper books and newspapers, how and where they actually get their content though is going to change radically. Bookstores are going to become digital repositories hosting titles from publishers all over the world, they will be able to send those digital titles to machines such as the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) to be printed in-store or direct to mobile phones and eBook readers through Bluetooth technology. Readers will purchase directly through websites downloaded to the reading machine of their choice and DRM will be sophisticated enough to allow content to be freely transferred between the different machines within a household or user. Is this future far away? I have already seen all of this technology working and as a publisher see nothing but benefit. For me it means our titles can fight for a place alongside that of much larger publishers. This just would not have happened even one year ago.

So bring on the Kindle DX and all of its successors. The machine itself may have faults but the one thing you cannot fault is that it is offering the market access to books and news content in a new and exciting form even if at the minute Amazon is only offering the product to America.