Column: Greene Ink…A Look at eBooks
1.21.10 – A Look at eBooks
eBooks–while still gaining public acceptance–have many advantages over books manufactured from cellulose products; besides the obvious difference of not requiring paper, eBooks neither need printing services nor trucks to distribute them; eBooks can be sampled and purchased with the click of a button without requiring the consumer to get in the car and drive to a store.
Cost also seems to play a big part in eBook’s increasing popularity. Digital books are often marketed at one quarter the price–or lower–of buying equivalent paper books at a retail-chain. Whether due to the downturn in the economy or merely looking to latch on to the next “it” thing, book-buyers worldwide are seeking out eBooks online in droves.
According to the AAP website (American Association of Publishers), eBook sales were up in 2008–20% over the previous year in the US alone, while audio book sales fell. In 2009–citing only wholesale numbers for eBook sales in the US–the revenue rose sharply to more than $46.5 million; the AAP website even included this sentence alongside the figures: Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures, due to industry wholesale discounts.
The US is actually a little behind in this trend; as early as 2006 Japanese cell phone users were downloading novels to their phone to the tune of $58 million dollars annually, a 331% increase over the previous year’s figures, according to the Digital Content Association of Japan. Initially, a large portion of these were manga books, but writers everywhere took notice of the startling number of young people willing to read books on the tiny screens.
More and more consumers spend increasing amounts of time surfing the Web; it only makes sense that the computer/smart phone is where folks begin to do the majority of their reading. Though a number of traditional publishing houses have recently begun to offer digital books on their websites, they seem to be running to catch up with the soaring potential of this market. Over the last two years especially, self-published authors–like my husband and I–have been more than willing to fill the gap. eBook writers worldwide created websites, soaked in free feedback and editing advice, and wrote more digital content than ever, unconsciously creating a revolution in the book-publishing industry.
The main impediment to eBooks gaining mass popularity was not the content itself, but with the rather awkward methods of reading said content; the initial eBooks could be bought and downloaded to a stationary PC, or even transferred to a laptop, but reading them required using a mouse or keypad in order to turn pages or scroll down. Even to modern consumers, paper books held more appeal as they could be taken anywhere and required no batteries.
Advances in e-reader technology have addressed the majority of the initial concerns consumers had with reading digital books. No longer limited to static Desktop computer screens, eBooks can be downloaded to laptops, smart phones, and, more recently, the handheld reading device.
Amazon’s Kindle took center stage in 2008 as the first viably user-friendly hand-held reading device; it sold out before it was even available for mass distribution. Even more impressive was the Kindle Store, a vast collection of eBooks that could be downloaded to any Kindle, in which any writer–published or not–could upload their own material to the store to be presented and sold. Not to be left out, Apple began offering iPhone apps like Stanza and Iceberg for the burgeoning number of eBook consumers; these apps utilize ePUBs, an alternative format to the nearly-obsolete PDF. Iceberg, in particular, provides the reader with the more book-like experience using virtual page-turning motions and easy ?touch control, verses using a button, tool, or mouse.
Folks in the public eye are also jumping on the eBook bandwagon. Last year, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal wrote a column comparing the Kindle reader and the iPhone using Iceberg, among other readers and apps; while he liked the Kindle as a independent reading device, he admitted it was more convenient to read the eBooks on the iPhone as he already was carrying it as a cell phone and managed to knock off a chapter while waiting in line, without having to reach for a second device.
Besides being more environment-friendly than paper books–not to mention more convenient to purchase–eBooks have the advantage of being sent world-wide attached to an email, compared to a paper book, which must be weighed, paid and then delivered using fossil fuels. eBooks can also be stored by the thousands on a chip smaller than a postage stamp.
Amid the swirl of questions and controversy on how the average person can strive to be greener, it seems the consumer, once again, leads the way in turning to eBooks, especially in combining digital literature with existing business/communication tools.
–Meredith Greene
Meet Meredith and
our other columnists
Did you know that SBR is available on the Kindle?
