Note to e-Book Reader Makers — It’s the Content, Not the Device Itself
The e-book space is heating up, with the Amazon Kindle leading the way. Amazon has sold a lot of Kindles (they won’t share exactly how many), and that has driven a lot of e-book sales. Sales are big enough that others in the book retail world are jumping into e-books as fast as they can. Barnes & Noble bought e-book retailer Fictionwise recently, and has brought e-book readers to the iPhone and BlackBerry. A number of companies have announced their own Kindle competitors coming to market, all hoping to cash in on the e-book “craze”. I have a bit of advice for those electronic book reader makers — it’s the content you make available, not the reader itself.
Don’t get me wrong, cool gadgets go a long way to excite consumers. The Kindle capitalized on that by pairing e-Ink display technology with wireless capability. Folks got excited about the Kindle as it attempted to recreate the experience of reading traditional dead-tree books. Whether it succeeded with that effort or not depends on who you ask, but it did a good enough job to get people to buy them. Adding the wireless capability was a stroke of brilliance by Amazon, as they recognized the online e-book buying experience had to be even easier than the traditional bookstore trip. They succeeded on that score, although they tried to shoot themselves down stupidly, but that easy buying experience was only part of the reason for that success. They made sure they had lots and lots of e-book content for sale at launch.
I’m not just talking about public domain books, such as the hundreds of thousands scanned by Google. While Sony makes a big deal about having hundreds of thousands of these books available for the Sony Reader line, consumers want bestsellers. Let’s face it, new bestsellers have been driving traditional book sales for as long as there have been books, and those are the books that e-book customers want. Amazon understood this with the Kindle, and Barnes & Noble understands that just as much. That’s why it bought Fictionwise; it got an instant inventory of popular titles to sell.
Several different e-book readers have been announced, many of them touting wireless capability to compete with the Kindle. Plastic Logic has an interesting reader coming soon, and it has partnered with Barnes & Noble to provide the content at launch. That’s a smart move; content is king in the e-book world. Surprisingly, other readers are still being announced without wireless capability. This is sure to limit their success in the market. Consumers don’t just want a vehicle for reading books, they want the whole system to get them too.
It’s not just the e-book reading device that determines success in this space. It is the content that consumers can tap into with them. That content must be available from day one or disappointment will set in immediately after the purchase of the reader. It’s like buying a big screen TV only to discover that no channels are available in your home. Looks pretty, but…
NOTE: Those who want an in-depth overview of the e-book scene should check out this research briefing on Gigaom Pro (subscription required.) It is an outstanding look at the players in the e-book industry and how they all compare.
If they could give you the reader or a very nominal price/free, then you buy the books to put on it–permanently–of your choice, in colour.
Perhaps an e-ink book that would contain the info of one book, but be choose the size of your book (ei. sheet of paper), but the price of a paper book. You take it back and reload another book onto it. If you want multiple books, you could buy multiple sheets. Waterproof, shock proof, no batteries etc…
Amazon could create a positive from the Nineteen Eighty Four fiasco by opening a Gently Used Kindle Editions store. Owners could list their no longer wanted Kindle Editions and buyers could purchase them. Amazon would facilitate the transfer of ownership of the titles for a fee.
In this case the removal of the title from the previous owner’s Kindle wouldn’t create an out cry.
I’m wondering when we’ll see bundles for those addicted to dead tree copies. E-book readers are perfect traveling devices but at home dead tree rules the roost. I know I will soon become obsolete like vinyl collectors but e-book/dead tree bundles would help me no end!!!
I agree content is king, but price is queen.
I’ve been an avid e-book reader for many years, first starting on black and white Handspring visor Deluxe. I’ve encountered many MANY problems with trying to consume legal ebooks. Some being: -Reader software bloat (Adobe on a 33Mhz CPU is pain) -DRM version incompatibility (sorry, new DRM doesn’t work on your device -Differing price for different formats (Mobi is $3.25, MS Lit is $4.50, Adobe is 5.25) -Unavailabilty of certain titles (JK Rowling doesn’t belive in ebooks, so no legal digital Harry Potter) -DRM servers going down (I purchased a book from a DRM store and tried to load it onto a different device a year later. No dice, they were out of business and their activation server was down for good) -No legal right of first sale (I can’t give you my ebook when I’m done with it. I can’t sell it legally).
Ebooks are being killed by the companies that just want more money than they get for print.
When I was younger I used to go the library once or twice a week and loan 4 books to read. If I could do that on an ebook reader from anywhere in the world I’d consider paying the ridiculous prices they want for the reader and even a small fee for the loan of the books. Until that time I’ll continue getting and reading books the way I do it now.
You’ve got a common misconception there: readers do NOT want bestsellers.
The folks who make bestsellers by buying them typically buy 2-6 titles a year for holiday reading; that’s why they’re bestsellers, they reach a mass market that most midlist titles don’t even scratch. But the casual bestseller reader won’t spend hundreds of dollars on an ebook reader they’ll only read a couple of books on. Why should they? They can buy the bestsellers discounted to 40% off list in Walmart and give them away afterwards.
The ebook reader buyers are in contrast enthusiasts who read 50-100 books a year and have a use for a gadget that lets them squish half a bookcase into their pocket so they can carry it around with them. These folks may read some bestselling titles — but the majority of their intake is drawn precisely from the stuff that doesn’t make the bestseller lists.
Content is indeed king, but my theory (as a full-time bill-paying novelist) is that the ebook reader manufacturers have fundamentally got the wrong target by going after fiction consumers. Professionals and technical personnel (including students) who require large reference documentation sets that are updated frequently are a much more lucrative market; add annotations and these groups will happily pay $1000-10,000 a year for an ebook reader loaded and updated with their reference bookcase. Doctors, engineers, lawyers, students — that’s the target they should be aiming for. But instead Sony and Amazon are aiming at the poolside set. It’s like trying to market mainframes to motorbike enthusiasts in 1960 — so wrong-headed it doesn’t even compute.
100 books a year! Whoa I must waste too much time playing video games or interacting with other humans.
I don’t think you have to consume that many books to value ebooks – tho I would agree that most ebook readers are at least in the book a month club. I do think I read more/faster since I made switch bc my books are always with me (iphone) while the paper back always seems to be on the other side of the house.
I have a different take on “best sellers”. I think you need them because they are expected. I think you switch to an ereader format if you can find all/most of your current “to read” pile… but I think you would be shocked/reconsider a platform if you went to grab that book everyone’s talking about and found it missing.
J & K
I think you guys should put together your own ebook overview. It’s still a bit much for a newbie to take in all the formats, drms, ereaders, and mobile ereader choices…
I think your summary could be quite helpful and -you know- not cost $80.
Personally, I was ikindle sold until the whole fiasco hit. (I’m more concerned by the you can only download our books so many times policy than the one off title deletion) Now I’m back to looking between stanza, ereader, and ikindle.