The Effect Of E-Books On The Publishing Business
The rapid surge in e-book popularity is likely to have major implications for the future of publishing. As a result of the growing popularity of e-book readers – like the Amazon Kindle for example – e-books have very quickly become accepted by the public. It would be very easy to think of them as just another way to deliver written content. However, they may well be the biggest change to reading since the printing press was invented.
Whilst that may sound a little melodramatic – the fact that e-books modify the traditional printing cycle is inescapable. As a rule, publishers tend to release hardback books followed, usually a few months to a year later, by the paperback edition. Clearly there is no sensible reason why the e-book edition wouldn’t be made available at the same time as the hardback.
Obviously, because e-books don’t use any paper, chemicals or bindings, and because they don’t need to be shipped, they cost a lot less than a printed book. That means that the e-book edition could be made available at a pretty low price at the same time as the hardback version. That could make a big dent in the profits of the major publishing firms – especially when you take the fact that e-book reader owners are likely to be fairly heavy readers into consideration.
Some fairly heated discussions have already taken place between Amazon – who planned to price all e-books at $ 9.99 or less – and the major publishing houses. At one point, books by publishing giant McMillan became unavailable on the Amazon website. Things have quietened down a little at the moment – but it seems probable that e-book prices will fall in future.
However, there are clearly some very positive aspects for the major publishing houses. Publishers will have lower costs when marketing e-books, so they should still be able to turn a profit. They will also have alternative options for the marketing of books.
Amazon’s library of Kindle books is the largest available on the web at this time. They have in excess of 700,000 titles available – and there are an additional 1.8 million books which are now out of copyright and con be downloaded for free direct from Amazon’s Kindle store. Many of these were published before 1923, but you will find examples of very modern books which can be downloaded at no cost.
Publishers offering modern, sometimes recently published, books for free are becoming more common. Sometimes this is done for a short period. It gives them the opportunity to showcase a new author or title and the increased number of downloads will help the book to rise up the best sellers list. After it has risen in the rankings, publishers can begin charging for it and benefit from the added publicity. You might also see the first in a series being offered for free. The idea is clearly that readers enjoy the opening title and then go on to buy further titles in the series.
No doubt both of these promotional methods could have been employed with conventional books. However, it would cost a lot more money, and therefore be a much riskier undertaking. There can be little doubt that e-books are here to stay. No doubt there will be some publishing firms who will attempt to safeguard their profits using somewhat restrictive techniques. It will be the ones that adapt to the new digital publishing landscape by offering value to both readers and authors who survive.
