E-Book readers really took off in 2009. Amazon released both the Kindle 2.0 and the Kindle DX, which generated a real buzz around e-book readers in general and the Kindle reader in particular. Companies like Sony and Barnes and Noble fought back with readers of their own – the Daily Edition and The Nook – whilst others, such as Apple and Microsoft developed their own hardware for release in the near future.
E-book readers are essentially high tech electronic devices, so it’s quite natural to focus on the technical merits and demerits of the hardware involved. The Amazon Kindle has wireless functionality, the Nook has a color screen, Sony’s Daily Edition lets you lend books to your friends – etc.
However, it may be worth considering that e-book readers may very possibly be the biggest thing to happen to reading – and publishing – since Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440. This development allowed books to be mass produced on paper instead of vellum or parchment. It reduced the cost of books and, quite literally, put them in the hands of the common man.
There have been very few fundamental changes to the way we read books since then. Of course, there have been some advances in printing technology – word processors and computers have made the existing process more efficient and cost effective. Nevertheless, the end result has been consistently the same. We sit and read books which consist of text printed on paper.
And the consequence of the unchanging end product also restricts publishers. A physical product is produced – at some expense – which requires to be shipped, either to the point of sale or by direct mail to the customer’s home.
E-book readers do not just represent a way of performing the existing process more efficiently. They completely change the rules, both for publishers and readers. For a start, there is no physical product. This means that there is less consumption of materials. No paper, ink, chemicals, bindings etc. And with no physical product, there are no delivery costs.
The end result is that e-books are not only cheaper to publish and deliver, and that they are – even after taking into account the materials required for the manufacture of the e-book reader devices themselves – more environmentally friendly.
Publishers also have additional available options to enable them to market both books and authors. For example, if a publisher wants to highlight a particular author, then they can offer a selection of their titles at very low prices – or even free – for a short period of time. Another technique which is growing in popularity is to offer the first title in a series free in the hope that the reader will purchase the rest of the series or possibly other books by the same author. Whilst not completely impossible, this would be a much riskier and more costly undertaking using a traditional print run.
Amazon’s website has a (pleasantly) surprising number of free Kindle books on offer. Other Kindle books on the site generally offer the first chapter as a free download. Prospective readers can try before they buy. This could well encourage readers to experiment a little and perhaps to try authors that they wouldn’t normally choose.
Concentrating on the new, sexy, hardware is completely understandable. However, in the longer term it will be the opening up of new marketing methods for publishers and the ease of access afforded to readers that will make the difference in the way books are both published and read in the near future.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!