Will Paper Books Be A Thing Of The Past?
Fifteen years ago, Nicholas Negroponte published being digital. As a dyslexic, he didn’t enjoy reading and even apologised for writing a book to disseminate his ideas about “bits” versus “atoms” in the Information Age.
He noted that the publishing industry had to decide whether it was in the information delivery business (bits) or the manufacturing business (atoms). He concluded that it was hard to compete with the qualities of the printed book, but cautioned that this would change and that the change would happen quickly. Rupert Murdoch penned an enthusiastic endorsement of the book on the back jacket, saying it “brings the endless possibilities of the future into a sharper focus”.
In 2010, Murdoch’s vision is blurry as to how the publishing industry can adapt and profit from the information delivery business.
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Nick Bilton, a technology writer with The New York Times, has updated some parts of Negroponte’s story. Bilton enjoys reading but famously cancelled his subscription to the Times’s paper edition because he was getting his “news” elsewhere.
Bilton ties it all into storytelling, an activity that will continue in printed or electronic form. When in electronic form, storytelling may benefit in ways that no one can yet articulate. This is one reason why the Book Industry Strategy Group, established last year by Kim Carr, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, is seeking public submissions about the future of the industry. It is seeking ideas from writers, educators, librarians, publishers, retailers and - most importantly - readers about how to enhance the Australian publishing industry as an important sector of our economy, society and culture.
Not only is this a digital age, where anyone can self-publish, but more and more people can use technology to state a position, tell a story or stimulate a community of like-minded souls. Clay Shirky writes about “cognitive surplus”, the time available to contribute to online, community activities, at the expense of less time, say, watching television.
Books in electronic form, or ebooks, are becoming popular at the expense of printed books, or pbooks. Why? It’s not just about price. Anyone who spends several hundred dollars on an electronic book reader, an eReader, is not doing it to save money in the first instance. It’s true that ebook titles costing about $10 are more attractive to the price conscious than the same pbook at about $30. But there’s more to the story.
Where Amazon and Apple have got it right is the immediacy of purchasing an ebook. Both the Kindle and the iPad come with wireless connectivity to the Amazon and Apple stores, respectively. If you have an Amazon account, the Kindle comes preconfigured with your details so you can buy a book at 3am if you so desire. Bilton calls this ”Me Economics”, which is really just instant gratification in book buying. But it beats late-night television.
Amazon went further from the start and there was a Kindle application for the iPhone and, later, for the iPad. With these you can purchase your ebook using your iPhone, start reading a few pages then settle down later to finish it on your Kindle or iPad. Amazon remembers where you got up to on one device and opens it at that page on the other device.
It’s this sort of experience that sells the idea of ebooks, not just the price of an ebook. And it’s this level of experience that other sellers of ebooks have to offer. Then we start to look at the relative prices of ebooks from different sellers.
In what could turn out to be the biggest news in the ebook area this year, last week Google announced the availability of what was formerly known as Google Editions, initially in the US. The significance of this announcement is that Google is not producing an eReader like the Kindle or iPad but applications that will run on a range of eReaders produced by different manufacturers that support the ePub and PDF standards.
And, of course, eBooks can be read on the web - what else would you expect from Google? - and the page you are up to will follow you as you move from device to device. Not to be outdone, Amazon has announced that Kindle for the web will be available soon. What can one say but watch this space.
But are all books suitable in ebook form? No. Books with lavish colour photography do not shine on a monochrome eReader.
Public libraries are starting to offer access to ebooks via downloads or by access to subscriptions taken out by the library. We want to hear about these initiatives and your experiences with them.
Schoolchildren will agree that carrying an eReader with all their textbooks on it beats carrying a heavy school bag. And textbooks form a large part of the book industry in Australia.