The E-book Revolution
For the last few years there has been a lot of speculation about the e-book revolution; the time when this format would replace the traditional paperback book. Some people have claimed that this day is a long way off, because the technology still isn't able to offer the advantages of paper. It seems though that those who were predicting an imminent ebook revolution may be right.
The latest figures from Amazon's Kindle show that Kindle books are now selling more units than hardcover books. What's more is that Amazon says the rate of their e-book sales are accelerating quite dramatically each month. Apple's iPad may be competition to Kindle, but it has also increased the interest in e-books and has made e-book reading more mainstream thanks to the millions of Apple product users. Because e-readers are easy to buy and maintain many readers are turning to these devices for their personal libraries.
Below is more information that demonstrates how e-books will change the future of publishing:
From Computerworld's Mike Elgan
1. The economy. The economy is in the tank, and people are looking to cut costs any way they can. An Amazon Kindle pays for itself after the purchase of 20 or 30 books, then starts paying dividends. You save big on books, magazines and newspapers. These savings will grow even more attractive as the recession deepens.
2. The environment. Interest in protecting the environment just keeps growing and growing. The idea of getting a daily newspaper or a weekly or monthly magazine on paper seems incredibly wasteful to the point of decadence. Environmental consciousness will drive e-book acceptance.
3. A publishing revolution. The traditional book publishing industry is one of the most backward, musty, obsolete businesses in our economy. While every other kind of information moves at the speed of light, the process of publishing a book is like something from the Middle Ages.
For authors, it can take months to even find a literary agent willing to represent their work. Then the agent takes months to find a publisher. Then it takes ages for the publishing company to get the book out there.
People are already circumventing all this by self-publishing. The self-publishing industry is the only area of paper-book publishing that's thriving right now. Soon enough, a huge number of authors are finally going to get fed up with the publishing industry and just self-publish electronically. They'll hire their own freelance editors, and do the marketing themselves. The publication of a finished manuscript will take minutes, rather than months.
Old-school thinkers in the publishing industry will lament the slap-dash nature of self-published e-books, and sniff that books are no longer published with the quality and care that they used to. (Never mind that book publishers abandoned high standards years ago in previous cost-cutting initiatives.) The world will pass them by as the book industry undergoes the same transition that happened with the media and blogs.
First, the media didn't understand blogs. Then they invalidated them. Then they accepted them. And now blogs are where the credibility is. Every columnist and reporter has a blog, and now major TV news programs are built around the opinions of bloggers. A similar transformation will take place about the credibility of self-published and electronic books.
4. The rise in aggressive e-book marketing. Like the move from silent pictures to "talkies," the transition to electronic publishing will prove fatal to laggards. Those aggressively pursuing and developing e-books will rise to take control of the publishing industry. Part of this revolution will happen in e-book marketing.
The new generation of e-book publishers will leverage social media, contextual advertising and other innovations. For anyone who spends time online, specific e-book titles will increasingly be advertised and marketed and integrated into other content. E-books, now mostly invisible, will soon be everywhere.
5. A rise in books written for electronic reading. The shift from print to electronic will change the nature of the book itself. Many books will be shorter. They'll be more timely and culturally relevant. They'll be more colorfully and engagingly written. And they'll go after young readers like nothing before.
As in Japan, this will spark a new cultural phenomenon of young people not just reading, but also writing novels and other book types on their mobile devices.
The idea that "people don't read anymore," especially young people, will be revealed as false. Young people today read more, and write a lot more, than any generation in history. To date, they've been unexcited about books, magazines and newspapers because they grew up with social networking and social media. Once books are electronic, relevant and social, too, they'll start reading and writing books like crazy.
6. The decline of the newspaper industry. And, finally, the newspaper industry is dying. The old method of physically delivering blog entries on dead tree pulp is obsolete. It's very simple. Newspapers that embrace e-books will survive. Those that don't, won't.
If you'd like to get a stark view of the relative economics of electronic vs. paper newspapers, check out a blog post on the Silicon Valley Insider. The blog did the math and determined that the New York Times could buy every single subscriber an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, and it would still cost them half as much as it will cost them to send paper newspapers for just one year.
After decades of false starts, the e-book revolution is finally upon us. Soon, e-books will be totally mainstream.
Mike Elgan writes about technology and global tech culture. He blogs about the technology needs, desires and successes of mobile warriors in his Computerworld blog, The World Is My Office. Contact Mike at mike.elgan@elgan.com, follow him on Twitter or his blog, The Raw Feed.
