(Page 2 of 2)
In the last year, however, devices with LCD screens have reëmerged as credible e-book readers. Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad are leading examples. The LCD screens use battery power faster, but they have the important advantage of being able to show moving images and full color, capabilities that are still at least a year or two away for electrophoretic screens.
For book publishers, color screens are interesting but probably not revolutionary. Vook titles like The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen ($4.99), a cookbook that bundles recipes with related instructional videos, provide a taste of what's possible. But with most long-form writing, the words are paramount. If their purpose is to stimulate the mind's eye, then color and animation are overkill, which is why I doubt that the iPad will wholly undercut the market for the Kindle-style devices.
For magazine, newspaper, and textbook publishers, on the other hand, the iPad and the wave of tablet devices just behind it create enormous opportunities. Magazines are distinguished from books not merely by their periodical nature and their bite-size articles but by their design. If digital-age readers still want information that's organized and ornamented in the fashion of good magazines--and there's no reason to think they don't--then devices that mimic the form and ergonomics of old-fashioned print pages will be needed to deliver it.
But to succeed on the new platforms, publishers will have to innovate, not simply imitate established media: they will have to move beyond the current crop of static digital magazines. The problem with most of the publications built on e-magazine platforms from Zinio, Zmags, and other startups is that they are simply digital replicas of their print counterparts, perhaps with a few hyperlinks thrown in as afterthoughts. Publishers should look for better ways to use tablet screens such as the iPad's, with its multitouch zooming and scrolling capabilities, and to make their content interactive.
There are many reasons, however, to suspect that the transition to the new distribution technologies will be rocky for the traditional publishing industry. For one thing, publishers may not be able to charge as much as they'd like for electronic editions. Kindle customers have frequently boycotted e-books priced above $9.99, and publishers' plans to charge up to $14.99 for e-books sold through Apple's iBooks application have raised a serious outcry.
Magazine and newspaper buyers, too, have been trained to expect lower prices for digital editions. The New Yorker costs $35.88 per year on the Kindle, compared with $39.95 for a print subscription and $234.53 on newsstands. The $0.75 price tag on the Kindle version of the Sunday New York Times, whose newsstand version costs $5 or more, gives me a larcenous thrill every weekend. (And obviously, I can read newspapers on the Web, at least for now, and pay nothing.) On top of all that, there is little information yet about how readers respond to the ads inserted into the e-reader versions of magazines and newspapers, or how much publishers will be able to charge for the advertisements. And generating elaborate interactive content for digital periodicals will almost certainly drive up production costs.
The new digital reading platforms do, of course, provide an upside for traditional publishers: the technology will give them the opportunity to package material in surprising new forms that could attract new audiences.
In the best scenario I can envision for the publishing industry in 2020, basic text-centric digital content (nonfiction books, novels, daily news) will be so accessible and cheap that it will actually turn more people into regular readers, the way dime novels did in the 1870s and paperbacks did in the 1940s. In this way, publishers could begin to make up in volume what they will inevitably sacrifice through lower prices. But at the same time, they will be creating compelling multimedia experiences and packaging them at higher prices. After all, consumers who are willing to drop $14 to see Avatar in 3-D ought to be willing to spend the same amount on an edition of Hamlet souped up with video clips of Olivier, Jacobi, or Branagh. Maybe.
Wade Roush is the chief correspondent at Xconomy and a former senior editor for Technology Review.
Tablets powered by Google's mobile operating system are set to debut.
Apple reveals its much-awaited "magical and revolutionary" new product.
Overall readership will decline, but the real readers will be more valuable customers.
I don't know about others, but if I really want to read a book, I don't fret over whether it costs $10 or $20. Such price difference is irrelevant for those who want to get a book.
The real benefit of e-readers is that they pack many books. So, you don't have to log around a stash of physical books.
My 2 cents about readership is that the overall numbers will decline.
In the old days, people had to read simply because there were no other channels of communication.
But in the age of ubiquitous video, people can stay relatively informed without reading.
On the other hand, the remaining readers will be more valuable customers. Advertising costs will go down, and revenues (per customer) will go up, because publishers will "preach to the choir".
bloggers have proclaimed that instant printing, internet publishing, etc will drastically reduce the cost of books.
The problem with that is that the printing industry has long taken advantage of outsourced printing for the lowest possible cost.
Much of the cost of many books is the work by the people involved, collaboration, groups of people to check facts, artwork, animations, etc.
This real hard work can't be easily replaced with a Poof puff of greasy orange smoke by the 'blogging cr*p fairy'.
There was a very informative article comparing the relative costs of tradational vs. electronic publishing in the NY Times a few weeks ago. It had a table of costs that I can't insert here, but you can find the orginal article at http://tinyurl.com/yyg2hfb
Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: February 28, 2010
"In the emerging world of e-books, many consumers assume it is only logical that publishers are saving vast amounts by not having to print or distribute paper books, leaving room to pass along those savings to their customers."
I read that NYTimes article when it first ran and just now re-read it on your recommendation. I sincerely mean no offense, but I think the article was taken from stuff written 10 or 15 years ago by recording industry executives -- and the math in the article is what I call "funny." For example, it may take "the publisher . . . about 50 cents to convert the text [of a book] to a digital file, typeset it in digital form and copy-edit it." What the article does not say about this is that process happens only once, for the first book in an edition, not for every single book. And I also mistrust that number because any particular book was already in digital format when the publisher got it! I just can't trust the funny math guys. The Times should have had David Pogue review that piece.
Regardless, I think the Amazon $9.99 price, if maintained, just might suppress wide scale piracy of e-books for a time -- and I think publishers would make money on volume at that price -- if they change their business model rather than attempt to maintain the status quo as the recording industry did.
Doesn't anybody in publishing "get" what happened to the recording industry? Digital books are the same as CDs! This sounds like some trite "B" movie, but change is coming and "resistance is futile."
Ha Ha! 'books are like the music industry'. Maybe the authors can make up for lost revenue they don't get by 'going on tour' like concerts. (I've never seen a books signing where they charge $50 a ticket for admission)
The main difference is that any serious book (not fiction) that you can't just get a few people together and 'jam' for a few hours and have a book.
Collaboration and research can take months, years of many people working together. So if e-books are going to be stolen, then publishers will resist putting them in digital format. Since the printing cost of the book is not the main cost on this type of book, they DON'T have alot of loose flab to cut. They don't get the excess money per hour that let rock stars blow their profits up their nose.
Probably the only way they will allow this is under controlled conditions like netlibrary, which lets me read advanced technical texts on many topics via the web. (and the ebooks CAN be downloaded and checked out). or books24x7.com for computer and finance books which allows download to an ereader.
Digital Ink tools should be embraced by ISO 14000 as a means to reduce CO2 by taking into account that forests are planted for pulp materials, processed (and recycled) just so we can read our daily papers and books. The tree's - if allowed to grow, will suck up more carbon dioxide.
Digital readers can use content delivered by the web, read PDF's delvered by for schools and college) and the fact you don't need a driver to deliver it to you saves fuel too.
the film "2001" depicted a remarkable predecessor to the iPad except the astronauts used it to watch BBC broadcasts. The culture depicted was consonant with McClune's "cool" media of television,which mirrored Kubrick's view of a banal and cool future. Reading a book on the iPad is reinventing a cool medium, which would make more sense as a seminetwork television cultural medium than as an excitable techgeek web-iPod user one. In the end TV and Ipad will merge and become the medium of slow talkers and relaxed minds, leaving twitter and iPod to the hyperactive.
Learning from the music business
If the music business is worthwhile as a guide for books, then I foresee a proliferation of authors and genres, with each one gaining a smaller market share. That's what has happened in music over the last 30 years. Musicians (and producers, and recording companies) are still making lots of money. But they are all making it in smaller chunks, and often increasing their profit by taking on multiple roles (made possible by new technologies). For example, many musicians nowadays are their own producers. Some of them also market themselves, and sell their own stuff, over the web. I'm already seeing some authors do this. As the stigma of self-publishing disappears, we will see just how talented our population truly is. However, one big difference from music is that songs can be enjoyed or hated in only 5 minutes. Most people won't want to take many hours to read a novel that doesn't have the imprimatur of some authority, giving them some assurance of quality. I predict publishing houses will remain strong institutions, but will transform into "trusted distributors," sort of like scientific journals. The pre-screening will all be done by semi-volunteer reviewers, and the editors will only work with books that get good initial reviews. The reviewers will be compensated in three ways: 1) reading books for free before anyone else, 2) acknowledgement in books they recommend for publication, and 3) "reward points" good for ebook purchases. Actually, come to think of it, I've already done that myself, with a technical book publisher, so the business model is already being implemented in "geeksville" for normal hard-copy books. Ebooks will drive this business model into the mainstream of publishing. For a glimpse of the future, see the volunteer reviews at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and also notice how they tell you about new titles that are "similar" to what you've bought before.
Although short, this is one of the more insightful articles on this subject I have read.
In reading the comments, and particularly the references to the NYT article, I believe the attached graphic says it all.
For this re-hash I am rounding to nearest quarter.
Hardcover – publisher profit before overhead = $4
E-book price $13 – publisher profit before overhead = $4.50 to $5.50
E-book price $10 – publisher profit before overhead = $3.50 to $4.25
So, compared to the hardcover model, the publishers are making more with the $13 price, and very close to or more than the hardcover model with the $10 price.
And this is only considering the hardcover model. Now, what is the price going to be when the book would have hit trade paperback? Are we going to see a reduction to $5? I suspect that this aspect of the publishing will be conveniently left behind
We should remember the publisher is not our enemy, quite the contrary they have people that know the field that books are going into, can provide guidance, sources, professional graphics.
While we dont like paying for anything these days i feel people would do better to reduce the tax they pay everyday because (e.g) the transport industry has to spend its budget or get a lower one the following year.
How many people have woken up to find another round-about or lights , or a round-about with lights on a road just for the hell of it. If people cant drive on the road, or merge into other traffic it is them that needs to be removed. Driving is a dangerous business and people have a choice to not drive...to try and baby proof every road is frankly an insane idea thought of by ministers.
So we pay higher taxes every year.... Processes like this is where people should be putting there brain-power. Firstly you can write to them and say your a bunch of Americanized idiots.
Secondly you can refuse to pay taxes like some people do, frankly id say you are helping them..You have to be cruel to be kind.
Publishers as a species are extint
There is no place for publishers in the future for print and other media. I envision markets like the Google Market where anybody can post their book or articles. Then the market based on a system of stars and reviews provide information about the work and that in turns grows or reduces the authors success.
And just like the Google market, the content will be divided into public domain, free content and paid content.
Now the people that will make the money, as we have learned from eBay and PayPal in the past, is the people that create and maintain that market. So, Amazon, Google, and Apple presumably will be the future publishers. I don't see a roll for the current publishers in the future, they will wind down as the new generation of content creators move directly into a market instead of looking for the third person in the middle
From personal experience, I think these eReaders are very useful to working scientists, scholars, lawyers and many other people who have to work with multiple articles.
By that I mean, I am reading several papers at the moment and need to refer to different ones among this set from time to time. Currently, I have printed these physics articles and carry them around with me in a manila folder.
It would be nice to be able to have these papers (and many others and many more) within a light-weight eReader so that I could carry them around more conveniently.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
This document is part of the “How-To Guide for Most Common Measurements” centralized resource portal. This tutorial provides a detailed guide for measurement and device considerations to take temperature measurements using thermocouples. Get an introduction to thermocouples, which are inexpensive sensing devices widely used with PC-based data acquisition systems. Also review some specific thermocouple examples and learn how thermocouples work and ways to integrate them into a data acquisition measurement system.
View full PDF >
Listen to story > 
Our list of the 50 most innovative companies, including the following:
On Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Feed
mwilson1962
35 Comments
You would think the publishing industry would have realized something like the Kindle would come along. Industry after industry has been caught flat-footed by digital evolution.
I agree that newspapers and magazines could have a new life in digital and make money by offering beautiful design and professional writing and editing.
I think books may be different. It is much easier to self-publish today than ever before, and that ability will only improve. But, book publishers still offer professional editing, art departments, and marketing, and I'm not sure how a self-published author would obtain those services and make money on a book. Some interesting opportunities...
Do you think publishers will really lose money at $9.99? I don't know what percentage of a book's price is due to materials, printing and shipping, but I assume it is significant. If those factors are reduced or eliminated through digital publishing, how do the publishers lose money?
Reply
rttedrow
63 Comments
Re: Going Out of Print
I think you're absolutely right, mwilson1962, but only IF publishers evolve their business model, gradually deemphasizing hard copies, reducing costs and moving toward e-publishing at lower costs, i.e., the Amazon $9.99 goal. Then, as you and I do, more books will be purchased and volumes as well as profits will rise.
Now, however, publishers, led by the large house MacMillan, are forcing Amazon to depart from it's $9.99 Kindle book pricing goal and charge substantially higher e-book prices -- prices that are only lightly less than the discounted hard bound copy prices of major retailers. In other words [in my view, anyway] these publishers are rushing blindly [don't they read??] down the same path as did the recording industry, battling to maintain an outmoded business model. The result -- piracy -- will be devastating to agents, publishers and, worse, authors.
To test this theory I used a couple of lesser-known search engines to scan for the names of a few prominent writers of popular fiction. The result? I found hundreds of digital texts from each of these authors in various formats, including Amazon's proprietary Kindle format. In this digital internet age some of this is to be expected. But, as with CD's, stubbornly attempting to maintain an outmoded, high-priced product/business model for a digital product will turn what is now a rivulet of e-books into a vast torrent.
As for whether there is room to fairly compensate authors in, for example, Amazon's $9.99 Kindle pricing goal, I believe that answer is yes. I have read that John Grisham receives something on the order of $4.50 for every new hardbound book sold. Without loading up a digital book price with hardbound production and distribution costs, there's plenty of room for $4.50 in the Amazon $9.99 Kindle price.
I know, I know, Mr. Publisher, I just don't understand......but whether or not I do does not matter.
A final thought: When Amazon brought the Kindle to market and I finally was able to get one, the experience led me to think that Amazon was, in fact, going to be entering the publishing business. I didn't realize at the time that they would have so much help from publishers.
Reply