The Future of Electronic Publishing

[KatG]

More data from media market research firm Simba Information:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Simba...v=1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Media and publishing market forecast firm Simba Information, publisher of the "Book Publishing Report" newsletter, has estimated about 35% of iPad owners haven't used the devices to read e-books.

Michael Norris, senior trade book analyst at Simba Information: "Research has already shown us that with multi-use devices, reading falls down on the list of things to do."

"It isn't likely the U.S. market can support scores of dedicated e-book reading devices since so many consumers only buy a small number of books in a given year and the book buying public isn't turning toward e-books as rapidly as most think," said Norris. "However, the current crop of devices available (including the iPad and the iPhone) provides different types of value and trade-offs to diverse consumers; ongoing surveys show that the idea of there ultimately being 'one device to rule them all' is false."

...the percentage of adults who read/use e-books (but don’t necessarily buy) has remained at roughly 15% so far in 2010—about the same as in 2009.

So, about what was expected. The iPad was not that interested in ebooks -- it was just an additional show pony. But 65% of iPad owners do read e-books, which is millions more than we had before, so we don't care. But this does show you that the hype about e-book domination was, well, a bit hypey. The market is growing slowly. And I may be wrong and e-readers will end up a bigger market, rather than the multi-function devices taking the lead. The electronics market just isn't very focused on books and no reason really that they should be. But e-books will continue to be part of the media package these devices offer.

 

[goldhawk]

Its the multi-purpose devices or Personal Entertainment Devices, PEDs, that look to dominate the future. They will come in two sizes: phone-size and clipboard-size. Some will even be booked, that is, fold open with two displays.

And eBooks will have to compete with all the other apps there.

 

[Window Bar]

Also, there's a race to the bottom in eBook pricing. Not only are many eBooks being offered at 99 cents or less, but I have noticed many Smashwords authors offering to give away virtually all of their own share of the sales price, just so affiliate marketers will be more likely to pick up their titles and push their wares. These may or may not be a good long term strategies. Yes, they will run up larger sales numbers, but the mini-pricing creates weight on the entire system.

 

[Laer Carroll]

Think beyond this week/this month/this year

The history of technology shows that device families differentiate as they evolve. Thus we will not see special-purpose ereaders obsolesced by general-purpose ereaders, or the opposite. We will see BOTH being made and sold. We will see more kinds of each type also.

Go into an office supply store, to (as only one instance) the writing instrument section. You will see an entire alcove devoted to this. Some pens/pencils are very cheap, some quite expensive, many in the entire continuum between. They use a dozen different kinds of leads/inks, in a rainbow of colors. Some write indelibly, others not. Some will write on slick plastic or metal. Some have replaceable ink cartridges, some don't.

Look at wheeled devices. Some are small, on skates and skateboards. Some are even smaller, on the bottoms of doors. There are bicycles and motorcycles, some in two-, three-, and four-wheeled models. At the other extreme are big rigs, armored personnel carriers, and tanks. Even larger are the transporters which take the space shuttle and other launch vehicles from the huge barn they stay in while being repaired and refueled to the launch pad. In the middle are dozens of brands of SUVs, and sports cars, and sedans, and so on.

And that's just the hardware, the visible technology. What few people understand, because it's invisible, is software, which includes both programs and data standards. To mention just two such standards, which Apple got behind with their iPad, think of HTML5 and ePub. There are dozens of others underlying any ereader or tablet.

Hardly anyone even knows that peopleware, the third leg of technology, exists. In the publishing world peopleware includes the formal and informal practices, procedures, and standards by which people operate. Examples of these include how writers, agents, editors, publishers, bookstores, and other people in the industry get paid.

So predicting what will happen in electronic publishing is difficult. To simplify, just think back to the two examples I gave, writing instruments and wheeled vehicles. And think like SF writers. Think beyond this week/this month/this year.

 

[Rhynedahll]

I think ebook devices are a generational thing.

I still primarily buy physical books, but I have bought several ebooks (read on pc) per year mainly because of the ability to read a book the instant I feel like reading it.

Most of the people I know with ereaders are under 30 and many of them are under 25. They are primarily ebook users and seldom buy physical books any longer.

The generation that is growing up now will adapt much more readily than the previous generation.

In ten years, I think ebook devices (barring the zombie apocalypse) will be ubiquitous.

 

[goldhawk]

I don't see why a person would buy an ebook device when they could but a tablet at about the same price. A tablet could run all sorts of apps and display ebooks too. If the ebook device where significantly less, say, half the price of a tablet, then yes. But since they are both the same thing, a display, a battery, wifi, and some electronics, then their prices should be similar.

 

[Laer Carroll]

If the ebook device where significantly less, say, half the price of a tablet, then yes. But since they are both the same thing, a display, a battery, wifi, and some electronics, then their prices should be similar.

Nope. Ebooks ARE about half the price of tablets. More like a third actually.

I've got BOTH a pencil and a Bic four-color pen. Same deal, each have their uses. And they are both cheap enough that I can have both.

Prices on both types of readers have been, and will continue, to plummet. Expect very cheap paper-thin ereaders in a few years. For that matter, expect roll-up displays. Samsung, among others, already have working devices in that category.

Got to think like science fiction writers, friends. Not like all the other people in this world who don't look beyond the noses on their faces!

 

[goldhawk]

EBooks readers are cheaper because they are using e-paper for their displays. Currently, e-paper is only available in black & white. When it becomes colour, there's no reason a tablet couldn't use it.

Although most devices do indeed diverge, in this case I think we're going to see convergence. It happens sometimes.

 

[Ramirez]

Nope. Ebooks ARE about half the price of tablets. More like a third actually.

I've got BOTH a pencil and a Bic four-color pen. Same deal, each have their uses. And they are both cheap enough that I can have both.

Prices on both types of readers have been, and will continue, to plummet. Expect very cheap paper-thin ereaders in a few years. For that matter, expect roll-up displays. Samsung, among others, already have working devices in that category.

Got to think like science fiction writers, friends. Not like all the other people in this world who don't look beyond the noses on their faces!

Holocron reader.

 

[Steven L Jordan]

epub is low tech​

First, let's dispose of the idea that electronic publishing is high tech. It is not. PRINT publishing is high tech. I went into detail about "ppub" in a July thread: What is real high tech?

Bottom line: The more high tech a system is, the less visible it is.

You have an interesting viewpoint on what constitutes "high tech."

I read the July thread (and commented on it there). Suffice to say here that high tech is not denoted by its invisibility to the consumer. Any tech can be applied in one place, and its products used in another place.

Print publishing is not high-tech. It is old tech. It is an incredibly resource-hungry, wasteful, environmentally-damaging process of using resource-hungry machines to create volumes out of pulped trees, marked with unchangeable (usually oil-based) inks, and transported (inefficiently) to their place of sale. A book is a fixed product when finished... it cannot be edited, only produced anew. Every book is exactly the same as the next. When you are done with it, it ends up in a landfill or burned into the atmosphere. Its essential details have not changed in a century.

Whereas digital publishing is accomplished with computers (more high-tech than printers, right off), using no more moving parts than electrons, creating a book in mere seconds to 2-3 minutes, able to be altered and edited after completion, sent by wire or wireless to the far corners of the globe in seconds, and read on any number of electronic devices that can customize the reading experience to the user at will. Anyone can create or read a digital book, once they are shown how. And when you're done, you press a button and the book is reduced to free electrons again.

So... which is the higher technology?

As someone who grew up with radios, televisions and movies around them at all times, I challenge the notion that "today's and tomorrow's youth" will not read thanks to all the distractions around them. As long as we can read, we will read. And as long as there are devices that display or project text in front of our eyes, we'll use them to read words.

Listening to text has its place... but it is also much more linear than reading words, and must be done in a mental state that blocks out other sounds, not always an easy thing in the cacophony we call life. And a picture may equal a thousand words... but sometimes, a dozen words can do a better job than any picture.

So any future tech will have one thing in common: It will allow us to read words.

I think ebook devices are a generational thing.

Ebook devices are a means to an end, a way to bring the majority of consumers at all ages over to reading ebooks. Generational might imply that dedicated devices are mainly for young people... when it's really for all people at this time in ebooks' development (IOW, ebooks' generation... not ours).

But most people will come to realize they don't need dedicated devices to read ebooks, and most of them will eventually give them up for multi-use devices that they already have and use.

 

[Laer Carroll]

The Ecology of Technology

While having breakfast today I Googled "iPad competitors" and limited the search to this month. Then I skimmed the dozen or so articles which seemed to offer the best overviews of the subject. I noticed several trends.

• More competitors for the tablet computer market.
• More variety of form factors, predominantly 7-inch and 10-inch displays.
• Several base operating-systems.
• Several pay plans, including straight purchases and two-year contract subsidized plans.
• Increasing involvement of global players, such as China.
• Several levels of quality, from shoddy to high.

In other words, the same picture as with every new product introduction for the last two or three centuries. This is the sort of thing which sci-fi writers need to pay attention to: the big picture, not the day-to-day fixation on this week/this month/this year.

A science writer many years ago made an analogy which today still seems apt: technology is like an ecology. New varieties of life forms come into existence, flourish, compete, and die out, leaving behind a richer, sturdier ecology.

 

[Sparrow]

While having breakfast today I Googled "iPad competitors" and limited the search to this month. Then I skimmed the dozen or so articles which seemed to offer the best overviews of the subject. I noticed several trends.

• More competitors for the tablet computer market.
• More variety of form factors, predominantly 7-inch and 10-inch displays.
• Several base operating-systems.
• Several pay plans, including straight purchases and two-year contract subsidized plans.
• Increasing involvement of global players, such as China.
• Several levels of quality, from shoddy to high.

In other words, the same picture as with every new product introduction for the last two or three centuries. This is the sort of thing which sci-fi writers need to pay attention to: the big picture, not the day-to-day fixation on this week/this month/this year.

A science writer many years ago made an analogy which today still seems apt: technology is like an ecology. New varieties of life forms come into existence, flourish, compete, and die out, leaving behind a richer, sturdier ecology.

I would say not as sturdy as we think.

Are we living better, richer lives than we did thirty years ago because of these gadgets(technology)... I don't think we are.
Are we more connected today, sure we are, but in a surreal kind of way that usually feels hollow and without meaning. Emails replaced the handwritten letter... what has technology really done for us?

 

[goldhawk]

what has technology really done for us?

Given us the ability to read about both sides of an issue, that is, if we take the time to look. Before the WWW, we would only heard one side of most of them but now we can find the other (if we're not too lazy to look).

 

[Steven L Jordan]

... what has technology really done for us?

Technology has allowed us to travel the world, or to find out the goings-on at the far side of the world without leaving our desks.

Technology has allowed us to live healthy lives at an age where our parents were decrepit, or dead.

Technology has allowed us to access alternatives to the boring, unhealthy lifestyles of our forebears.

Technology allows us to carry a library of books, music and information in our pockets.

Technology allows us to communicate in realtime with friends and relatives almost anywhere in the world.

I'd say technology has done plenty for us... we just have to see the positive aspects of it, and stop obsessing over the lost trappings of yesteryear (like handwritten letters that took days to travel a few hundred miles, if they made it at all, and made lousy substitutes for face-to-face communications).

 

[goldhawk]

A science writer many years ago made an analogy which today still seems apt: technology is like an ecology. New varieties of life forms come into existence, flourish, compete, and die out, leaving behind a richer, sturdier ecology.

And on rare occasions, evolution converges. I still think tablets and e-readers will converge. Here's one step: disposable, colour e-paper. Easy to build a cheap e-reader. Put a touch screen on top of it and you get a tablet.

 

[Steven L Jordan]

Here's one step: disposable, colour e-paper.

Agh! You said the "D" word! Agh!...

Tablets can already read ebooks, just as smartphones/PDAs, Blackberries, computers and laptops. Dedicated devices actually diverged from multi-use devices, and they seem to me to be headed on their own path, parallel to multi-use devices. I don't see convergence in their future... rather, I see dedicated devices largely fading away, leaving just a few devices on an independent course, while multi-use devices mimic their functions along with everything else they do, and become the more commonly used devices to read ebooks.

 

[Sparrow]

Given us the ability to read about both sides of an issue, that is, if we take the time to look. Before the WWW, we would only heard one side of most of them but now we can find the other (if we're not too lazy to look).

I agree to a point.
But most people are too lazy, and when they're not they often don't have the foundational knowledge necessary to have good jugdement.

Not so long ago we invaded a country that had no weapons of mass destruction... we did it with eyes wide shut.

 

[Sparrow]

Technology has allowed us to travel the world, or to find out the goings-on at the far side of the world without leaving our desks.

And this has allowed us to do what?.. continue to buy running shoes produced by laborers making slave wages with no healthcare and often by what we deem as "underaged" and "exploited" workers. To invade countries for the wrong reason and under false pretense. Technology has made us smarter, but certainly not wiser.

Technology has allowed us to live healthy lives at an age where our parents were decrepit, or dead.

In fact we're living too long.
Too few younger workers to support social programs and over taxing natural resources... the double-edged sword of technology.

Technology has allowed us to access alternatives to the boring, unhealthy lifestyles of our forebears.

We're replacing boredom with escapist, shallow entertainment.
Technology can open up incredible vistas... pornography is now in easy reach of everyone.

Technology allows us to carry a library of books, music and information in our pockets.

We should be carrying it in our minds and hearts.

Technology allows us to communicate in realtime with friends and relatives almost anywhere in the world.

It destroys the mystery of life, of longing to be close.
It is an advancement such that life's relationships become less intimate.

I'd say technology has done plenty for us... we just have to see the positive aspects of it, and stop obsessing over the lost trappings of yesteryear (like handwritten letters that took days to travel a few hundred miles, if they made it at all, and made lousy substitutes for face-to-face communications).

We don't appreciate distance anymore.

 

[Steven L Jordan]

We can go back and forth on the pros and cons of technology til the cows come home.

The fact is, it is not the job of technology to make us better people... it is our job to make ourselves better people, as technology gives us more options and advantages to do so.

So, any shortcomings we demonstrate should be blamed on ourselves, not on our technology. If we haven't improved, it's our fault.

 

[Ramirez]

And this has allowed us to do what?.. continue to buy running shoes produced by laborers making slave wages with no healthcare and often by what we deem as "underaged" and "exploited" workers. To invade countries for the wrong reason and under false pretense. Technology has made us smarter, but certainly not wiser.



In fact we're living too long.
Too few younger workers to support social programs and over taxing natural resources... the double-edged sword of technology.



We're replacing boredom with escapist, shallow entertainment.
Technology can open up incredible vistas... pornography is now in easy reach of everyone.



We should be carrying it in our minds and hearts.



It destroys the mystery of life, of longing to be close.
It is an advancement such that life's relationships become less intimate.




We don't appreciate distance anymore.

Bah! Go read Walden again you hippie! Just kidding. I agree with all of the above, but there isn't much one can do. Imagine what it's like for my friends and I? We play musical instruments and make traditional art. With technology, all you need is a computer to make electro beats and photoshop to make works of art. I'm always trying to find some sort of compromise.