So, Nielsen have reported that post-Christmas e-books sales have gone up by 355%!!!! Not all that surprising when considering recent reports that one in forty (!!!) UK adults received a Kindle for Christmas. That's JUST the Kindle - not taking into account people who received iPads or other e-readers. It's a huge number and makes it more and more obvious how popular e-books are going to become. But I for one in no way see this as the end for printed books. Even so, the new digital landscape is of great importance and is constantly growing, so here is some information on the life of e-books so far...
Electronic publishing began in 1971 when Michael Hart at the University of Illinois typed the Declaration of Independence onto a computer and shared it with his fellow network users. This was the beginning of Hart’s ‘Project Gutenberg’ which aimed to make as many texts as possible available online for people to download and read free of charge. Early e-books were written for speciality areas with a limited audience, such as technical manuals for hardware, however the rise of the Internet in the 1990s made the transfer of files much easier.
Whilst Project Gutenberg is still going strong, e-books have moved on to become a huge business. The first ISBN to an e-book was obtained by Kim Blagg in 1998, around the time that e-book readers such as the Rocket and the Softbook were invented and launched. In 2001 there was an abundance of discussion surrounded the question of whether e-books were here to stay, what they could do and if they would render printed books obsolete. Early e-reader models such as the REB1200 could hold between 10 and 20 books.
However, it is only in the past few years that the market for e-books has exploded!
In the beginning it was generally the case that e-books were produced from pre-existing, printed books. However it is no longer out of the ordinary to produce only an electronic version of a book. In some cases e-books are enhanced in ways which mean that they would simply not be able to be a produced as a traditional printed book. Some companies have even started their own ‘digital-first’ imprints.
In 2011 the sales of printed books in the UK reached the £1 billion mark two weeks later than in 2010 (week ending 24th Sept 2011 £1.008 billion spent, 2010 – 11th Sept). This decline can be largely attributed to the transfer of sales from print to digital. Many UK Publishers have reported that their digital sales account for between 9-10% of their overall sales. The areas worst affected have been fiction and children’s.
The convenience of digital text already far surpasses that of the printed book. It is very easy to transfer the content of most printed books to a digital format and this format provides many advantages.
- Having an e-book reader allows you to buy thousands of different texts and store them all in one compact, lightweight device
- Environmentally sound as they do not use masses of paper and ink
- E-books have the added advantage that a title will never go ‘out-of-print’
- They are easy to read from, even in low light, and allow the reader to enlarge the font to make reading easier, as well as allow the reader to search for different words, definitions etc…
- E-books can be downloaded immediately to a device, giving you immediate access that is not possible when ordering a printed book online
- E-books are often cheaper to buy than printed books, due to the obvious lack of production costs
Although e-book readers ARE expensive, the Kindle at £89 is only around the price of 5 or 6 hardback books – but can store 1000’s of books. As well as this, the technology will inevitably become a lot cheaper with time. The less books that are printed however, the more expensive they will become – not only will production costs become more expensive, but they will become more and more uncommon. A good example of how this has happened in the past is of film vs. digital cameras. Digital cameras were very expensive when they were first launched. Now however, they can be bought for as little as £20 and it can cost this much to buy the film for a normal camera and have the photos printed out.
But what are the disadvantages of e-books?
- Although there are currently 1000’s of e-books available to buy, 2 out of 3 e-book publishers have yet to convert the majority of their backlists titles to e-books, therefore consumers will generally find a wider choice available of printed books.
- Whilst e-books are more environmentally friendly than paper, e-book readers require often toxic substances to produce. They are non-biodegradable and it is difficult to dispose of their batteries.
- There is no guarantee that an e-book reader will last – it is almost certain that it will not last as long as a printed book, which can exist hundreds of years. Therefore it may be necessary to buy a new e-reader every few years.
- The issue of how to choose an e-book to buy is another issue that critics raise. It is very difficult to search through 1000’s of titles online for a book unless you specifically know what it is you want. The booklists on the iPad for example appears much like a brochure – there is nothing to grab your attention. Online it is easy to miss something that may just catch your eye in a bookshop.
- The issue of how to choose an e-book to buy is another issue that critics raise. It is very difficult to search through 1000’s of titles online for a book unless you specifically know what it is you want. The booklists on the iPad for example appears much like a brochure – there is nothing to grab your attention. Online it is easy to miss something that may just catch your eye in a bookshop.
- Books with large pictures or diagrams, although easy to view on larger tablets such as the iPad, are much less easier to view on smaller e-readers such as the Kindle or Nook
- Nielsen Norman Group have produced a report that shows reading speeds decline by 6.2% on the iPad and 10.7% on the Kindle compared to print!
Many consumers prefer printed books simply as they are tangible objects that can be kept for years or passed on to friends and relatives – this is not possible with e-books. There are many issues to deal with involving digital rights management and e-books. Due to copyright, consumers can not re-sell or even loan e-books to others. There are currently several techniques in place which aim to restrict what exactly a consumer can do with an e-book. For example, some devices restrict printing, in order to control copying of the book and restriction of works. Often online services will be necessary to authenticate the purchase of e-books, and access to purchases can be lost if the reader changes their device. As a consumer of a printed book, one is allowed the freedom to acquire books anonymously, to give, lend or sell them to others or to keep them for as long as they wish. E-readers such as the Kindle prevent readers from doing any of these things by the use of software. So it seems that an e-book cannot be bought, only licensed, therefore making paying for the book more like renting – it does not become your property indefinitely.
Whilst printed books may not become obsolete, they have already had to learn how to co-exist with e-books. However, at the same time there is more text being written and read today than ever before in history. The popularity of books, whether printed or electronic, is constantly growing – people have not stopped reading, and they have not stopped paying for what they read (most of the time). Printed books may become more expensive, but they will inevitably find their own niche and their own markets. It may simply mean that the books that do get printed are of a higher quality, both the text and the production. It is important to realize that whilst e-books sales may OVERTAKE printed book sales, this does not necessarily mean the end of printed books altogether.
Further Reading:
A. Driscoll and B. Scott, “Electronic Publishing at Routledge: An Overview and Case Studies.” Computers and the Humanities Vol. 32, A No. 4, Electronic Publishing (1998), pp. 257-270
C. Lynch, "The battle to define the future of the book in the digital world." First Monday, Vol. 6 No. 6 (04/06/01)
J. Bridle, “The New Value of Text.” 05/10/11 http://booktwo.org/notebook/the-new-value-of-text/
J. Genova, “Are books as sexy without their covers?”, 20/09/11, http://indiereader.com/2011/09/are-books-as-sexy-without-their-covers/
J. Epstein, “Book Publishing: Past, Present and Future.” London : W. W. Norton 2002
“Never mind the Web: here comes the book.”, Oxford : Chandos 2008
L. Snowhill, “E-books and Their Future in Academic Libraries.”, D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 7 No. 7/8 (07/01)
M. Coker, “How e-buyers discover their ebooks.” 26/09/11, http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/how-ebook-buyers-discover-ebooks/
N. Kobie, “UK firm reveals ebook subscription library.” 14/09/11, http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/369913/uk-firm-reveals-ebook-subscription-library
P. Stone, “Books sales pass £1 billion mark.” 29/09/11, http://www.thebookseller.com/news/book-sales-pass-%C2%A31bn-mark.html
Second UNESCO World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries. “FOCUS 2011 - The Book Tomorrow: the Future of the Written Word.” 06/06/11 – 08/06/11, Italy, www.focus2011.org
S. Johnson, “How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write.” Wall Street Journal, 20/04/09, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123980920727621353.html
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