The history of digital reading in a fascinating one and I believe exploring its development arc helps predict the trends that may lie ahead. Thinking about what worked early on – meaning what was read in digital form – use cases where search, find, and quick read were the primary means of interacting with the content, such as encyclopedias and reference works, directories and other data driven compendia.
Tags: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, App Store, Apple, Authors Guild, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Books, Cengage, Digital Publishing, Digital Reading, DRM, e-ink, ebooks, econtent, Entourage eDGe, Evan Schnittman, Extractive Reading, Filedby, Follett, Google, Higher Education, Houghton Mifflin, ibookstore, Immersive Reading, Ingram, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Liquid crystal display, McGraw-Hill, Niko Pfund, Pearson, publishing, Textbooks, XML
Watch this space in early March for my return to blogging.
I am taking suggestions here for topics you want to see me cover. I will be checking the comments section daily and take on all serious ideas.
See you all soon!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7f294007-58de-47c9-874c-bde45df918d3)
Jay Huldeen
on Feb 20th, 2010
@ 12:44 am:
Gooooogle: what happens when they ‘own’ digital copies of all non-copyrighted books? (or is it all books everywhere that they are trying to grab?) Will the world end? Or will mankind just continue to get stupider, once the original copies have been disposed of and there’s no way to tell what they’ve altered in the digital version?
For example, will 1984′s Winston Smith character one day become a kindly rescuer of lab rats liberated by animal rights activists, whose passion for maltreated rodents is assisted by a certain benevolent Internet company’s search engine features, which allows him to organize the movement much more quickly than if he’d had to rely on word of mouth or even yesterday’s electronic mass media?
Maybe more to your liking: what happens to your business and the business of other actual publishers with a history of making stuff out of paper, ink and leather once Goooooogle digitizes it all? I know there’s not much backlist market, (but then why is Gooooogle so hot to acquire this stuff?!?), but are there implications for the publishing business?
Looking forward to your soon return! Please include some morsels of your travels to exotic and faraway places, whatever you write about. It’s like adding a little garlic pepper sauce to your soup.
[Reply]
Evan
on Feb 20th, 2010
@ 5:06 am:
Jay:
Nice to see you read my blog! I also see you are as creative and paranoid as ever!
I dont fear the Goog nor do I fear Apple as a publisher as I find them to be dangerous and powerful giants focused on other goals and businesses – in the case of Google its Search and Advertising in the case of Apple its Hardware and Software. Creating content is in their core missions nor do they see themselves as core to the publishing ecosystem.
There are far greater threats to book publishers that Google/Apple can help to neutralize if we work with them wisely. This will be the theme of BPG for the foreseeable future – but a bit of travelogue might not be a bad idea! I am thinking of starting with street tacos in Mexico City…
Evan
[Reply]
Jay Huldeen
on Feb 20th, 2010
@ 9:10 am:
Evan,
I may be paranoid, but I am no Luddite (obviously). Still, it is disconcerting to see the paradigm shifting so rapidly. I — fear is not the right word — dislike is probably better — that a couple of college geeks who were essentially just bright code-monkeys have figured out, with their Boolean strings and webcrawlers, how to ride on the backs of the thousands of database administrators who built the web — database administrators who are basically people who build electronic library shelves. That’s not bad in itself, but now Gooooogle has transmogrified from this mildly annoying but harmless spinster librarian into a bald guy in an expensive but tasteless suit stroking a purring Angora cat on his lap as he plots world domination from his bunker. (Probably now they’ll publish all my personal information, once their bots find this post.) (Oh wait, they already have, and I didn’t get a dime for it.)
As for Apple, all I have to say is: http://www.cracked.com/article_18377_5-reasons-you-should-be-scared-apple.html
Looking forward to your thoughts on the real threats to publishing, and to news of the current state of Mexico City street tacos, and perhaps some descriptions of authentic curry from Bangalore, or figgy pudding from Warwickshire.
Also, and meaning no disrespect, but what is a ‘publishing ecosystem’ exactly? And where does OUP fit into that? Are you part of the canopy, perhaps?
Jay
[Reply]
Tags: Amazon, Apple, Authors Guild, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Books, CoreSource, Digital Publishing, ebooks, econtent, epub, Evan Schnittman, Fictionwise, Filedby, Google, Hachette, HarperCollins, Hodder, IDPF, Ingram, iPhone, iRex, Kindle, Libre Digital, Overdrive, Oxford University Press, Pearson, Penguin, Plastic Logic, publishing, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Sony Reader, Taylor & Francis, Technology, Trade Publishing, Waterstones, XML
Reading Nicholson Baker’s long piece in the August 3rd New Yorker while on the beach last week, got me thinking about the role of Amazon in the future of print book publishing. Mr. Baker, a novelist, is coming to terms with his new Kindle – its benefits and as well as its drawbacks. While I don’t get a few of his observations (especially his preference to read on the much smaller and much harder-on-the-eyes LCD screen of the iPhone), one comment made about the Kindle struck me as particularly eye opening. Read the rest of this entry »
Aaron Pressman
on Aug 3rd, 2009
@ 6:23 am:
I think you may be off-base here on your assessment of what Amazon is up to by not including results for dead tree versions of books when you search the KINDLE STORE either from a Kindle or the Kindle section of Amazon’s web site. Originally, Amazon did display print versions available on the Kindle pages for books. From the point of view of customers, there’s both a good and a bad reason explaining why Amazon changed the layout and neither is really about losing sales. Amazon is not in business to forgo any sales. They constantly change and tweak everything on their web site to maximize sales.
First, the positive. Almost always when I’m on my Kindle and I want a new book, I want a Kindle ebook to start reading. I don’t want search results showing me non-Kindle books because I’m looking for something to read on my Kindle. It’s actually annoying to click through to a search result that isn’t available on the Kindle. When I’m on Amazon’s web site and I go to the trouble of limiting my searching to “Kindle books,” I REALLY only want a Kindle book. In a minority of cases, when I’m looking for a specific book, it’s trivial to broaden the search by clicking on the “any department” line.
I think there is also a nefarious rationale for why they changed the policy. Amazon has been creeping up the prices of ebooks and frequently displaying a made-up “digital” list price. With some older books, they’ve actually priced the ebook edition above the price of available paperbacks. By “hiding” the prices of those competing, dead tree editions, Amazon is hiding information about relative pricing and doing a disservice to its customers. This is tilting a sale towards digital and away from print but only in cases where there’s a Kindle edition available. It’s not forgoing a sale completely, as you suggest.
You final point about the coming wave of competitors is right on. I think the growing and, hopefully, heated competition will improve things for us customers.
[Reply]
Evan
on Aug 3rd, 2009
@ 6:38 am:
They are books, not dead tree editions.
As to ebook pricing, I think you fail to understand the impact of low ebook pricing. Its the death of ebooks and the sooner publishers establish control over pricing and payment terms, the sooner they can rescue this fledgling industry.
Finally, I don’t think Amazon is hiding anything nor do I think they are inching up prices. They are testing pricing and seeing what works. Don’t confuse price testing with price manipulation.
[Reply]
Scott
on Aug 3rd, 2009
@ 12:20 pm:
Great post. I too have noticed the absence of other versions on the Kindle side of the Amazon store. I wonder if it is an attempt to show publishers/authors that if a book is not in Kindle edition then it won’t be seen (and therefore won’t be purchased) by a growing set of consumers. While some consumers (those who know exactly what book they want) will then search and buy on the print side of Amazon or search for the book elsewhere, others may simply find an alternative book in the Kindle format.
[Reply]
The Daily Square – From Her Fingers Edition | Booksquare
on Aug 3rd, 2009
@ 4:30 pm:
[...] Quo Vadis, Amazon?Evan Schnittman on Amazon’s apparent strategy to steer customers to the Kindle store and keep them there. Yes, indeed, why is a company so devoted to choice in other areas trying to force customers into a single choice? [...]
Anthony S. Policastro
on Aug 10th, 2009
@ 12:34 pm:
I would have to agree with Evan’s assessment of Amazon. Now wouldn’t it be nice when you searched for a book on your Kindle and it said not available in Kindle format you could order the print edition right from you Kindle and have it delivered anywhere you want?
Because of the small and slower access to the Kindle catalog on a Kindle, I would keep the catalog with Kindle books only. But, if the book was not in the Kindle format I would have just those books presented as print books and be able to purchase it from the Kindle.
[Reply]
Tracy
on Jan 7th, 2010
@ 9:30 pm:
I suspect that long term Amazon is training a new customer base to want digital and buy digital. Selling ebooks is a way easier business than stocking and shipping paper books all over the place. Digital sales also have the potential for a better profit margin. This is likely Amazon’s dream and goal.
[Reply]
Tags: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Apple, Audio CD, Barnes & Noble, Books, ebooks, Google, Google Book Search, iPhone, iPod, iTunes, Kindle, Music Industry, publishing, Trade Publishing
A stir was created recently when Sourcebooks announced the delay of the ebook version of a brand new title for fear of cannibalizing print sales. CEO Dominique Raccah said, “Hardcover books have an audience, and we shouldn’t cannibalize it,” adding, “It doesn’t make sense for a new book to be valued at $9.99.” Read the rest of this entry »
Dan Holloway
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 3:51 am:
I’ve come across this topic a lot in the past week. It seems that whilst the e-book is in its relative infancy we have a chance to get things sorted out properly so as to avoid falling into the endless problems that beset paper book pricing. Of course, there’s a problem, because “sort out” will instantly smack of cartels and price-fixing like the ludicrously protectionist Net Book Agreement. In fact, therefore, the only thing that can really sort the issue out is the market.
And what that means is that we have to debate lots, and try lots, and see what readers respond to. Thsi is the one thing that’s missing in this whole debate – a real focus on readers – on what they want and how they behave. I think the people who really engage with readers in the bottom-up market of e-culture are the ones who will succeed quicker.
To throw my opinion in as a writer – I give e-books of my novels away for free, and I always will. I am thoroughly committed to the 1,000 true fans model, and am also committed to my readers. I want as many people as possible to read my work. And I genuinely believe that if they read it and like it, enough will buy the paper book to help me earn a living – eventually. And if they don’t like it enough to buy the paperbook – at least I gave them the chance to find out before they spent their cash on something they really do want – which has to be good for them (and as a writer, my first thought is always for my readers), and for me, because I haven’t hacked someone of by getting them to shell out for something they then don’t enjoy. Win-win.
There is currently a lot of fear in the industry about e-books being free. I am at a loss to think of any reason other than the good old protectionism at which the industry is so good (always done in the name of the author, ironically – listen up, I don’t WANT someone fighting my battles; I’m gnarly enough to stand up for myself, thank you). If free books are no good, people won’t come back – so established authors have nothing to fear. If they are better than the works of establihed authors, then those authors don’t deserve their slice of the pie.
Thank you, Evan, for another very informative contribution to such an important debate. My blog on the matter is at: http://agnieszkasshoes.blogspot.com/2009/07/free-is-not-four-letter-word.html I will watch the discussion here with interest.
Very best
Dan
http://www.danholloway.wordpress.com
[Reply]
Aaron Pressman
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 4:58 am:
Evan, very interesting post but I’m a little confused by your conclusion. In the pre-e-book world, the bigger and hotter the best seller the more likely it was to be discounted heavily by retailers. And only the super-sellers are sold at the biggest discounters like WalMart and Costco.
I’m not saying I understand this logic or that it fits very well with basic economic theories about pricing but it was/is the reality for print books. So it seems to fly in the face of the notion that ebooks should start out at higher prices to capture peak demand. What am I missing?
[Reply]
Karen Syed @ Echelon Press
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 6:00 am:
The solution here is to understand that each business works on its own model and there will never be a solution to the problem that fits every publisher or retailer.
Amazon can work on a loss with their eBooks because it makes up it’s lost revenue in big ticket items like computers, cameras, other electronics, etc. They don’t bottom line those items, because they are tangible.
There is no middle ground when you have different publishing houses with different needs and requirements.
The eBooks I sell at http://echelonpress.com average $6.00 and they are every bit as good as the best sellers, in some case, I think better. That price works for us and we make money. But we don’t have the overhead that a much larger publisher might have.
It is difficult for anyone who does run a business to understand a businesses needs.
As for the demand. People also need to realize that there is a 90% chance that if a reader buys an eBook they never intended to buy the hardback so there is actually an increase in revenue, not a loss.
Karen Syed
http://klsyed.com
[Reply]
trav
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 6:29 am:
Good post. You make a good case for demand pricing. I’m intrigued by the way you connect marketing/publicity in helping push eBooks and for eBook readers to be considered when plans are being made and specials being offered. It seems that eBooks are often just an after thought in a publishers strategy.
I’m hoping, maybe in a soon-to-be-penned post 
you can follow up on your idea of
““ebook co-op” program that effectively swaps in-store marketing for added discount.”
This, to me, seems to be a key concept that would help many consumers and even some slow-to-rise pubs fully accept, demand pricing and eBooks as a whole.
[Reply]
Phil
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 8:48 am:
You’re reading your Amazon/Kindle publisher contract incorrectly, Evan. They are paying publishers on net, not list. The contract I’ve seen is 35% of net, or $3.50/sale. Even though the publisher is not incurring PPB, inventory and warehousing costs, none can survive on $3.50/Kindle copy sold.
[Reply]
Evan
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 9:11 am:
Just to be clear – I am not reading anyone’s contract – I am stating what is the most common trading terms between a publisher and a retailer such as Amazon. Every publisher deal will be slightly different, but I can assure you that the majority of major publishers will have terms similar if not identical to what I described.
[Reply]
Aaron Pressman
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 10:21 am:
Phil – that’s the self-publishing term sheet. Major publishers are not selling to Amazon on those terms. They are collecting a fixed percentage of the retail list price they themselves set, and it’s been reported that it varies but is usually around 50% of the retail list price. That means on many $9.99 Kindle ebooks, Amazon is paying out more to publishers than it collects from the customer.
[Reply]
jc
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 12:19 pm:
Great post. I’m curious though: If the book industry should be careful not to disenfranchise ebook readers by releasing titles in hardcover first, why doesn’t this apply to the movie industry where they release to theaters long before DVD/Netflix/iTunes? Or could you argue that we’re we getting to a point where that applies to them as well?
Much of the concern we’re seeing now surrounds consumer conditioning. If ebook buyers get used to purchasing books for $9.99, then that’s what they’ll expect forever more. If they become used to having the ebook available at the time of the hardcover, then they’ll expect that, too. In many ways, we’re already too late to do anything about ebook pricing or release schedule. Amazon made up our minds for us.
[Reply]
Jussi K
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 12:20 pm:
This is a bit of a waste of time, isn’t it? Everyone with an eye to the future understands that all e-books will be pirated and distributed for zero dollars. Even if you set the price to 99 cents or whatever you are WISHING for.
Meanwhile, all the 5-to-10 dollar pricing strategies are just a marketing opportunity for the not-big and not-published writers and/or publishers to have their share of the limelight.
[Reply]
Barnes & Noble eBook Store Great News For Consumers | Gravitational Pull
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 6:50 pm:
[...] questions in the comments of posts by publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin’s ruminations and Evan Schnittman, who works for Oxford University Press. I wonder what impact Barnes & Noble’s $9.99 [...]
The Sourcebooks experiment with Bran Hambric: publishers in the early “establishment” stage of ebook adoption - The Shatzkin Files
on Jul 20th, 2009
@ 7:57 pm:
[...] Evan Schnittman makes the point that holding back the ebook has consequences. It dilutes the impact of the publisher’s marketing efforts. It could encourage piracy. Evan’s solution is an introductory promotional price that is raised when initial demand has ebbed and he has a notion (which I don’t quite understand) of how publishers can get retailers to collaborate on that. I don’t think that’s the answer. First of all: it strikes me as backwards. The ebook price should be a dollar more than the print book for the 3 weeks or so before the print book comes out when an ebook could be available. Then it should be the same as the print book for the first couple of months so that it doesn’t disturb the bestseller list possibilities. Then it should drop sharply to reflect the lower cost (to publisher and retailer) of providing ebooks. [...]
Cathy Macleod
on Jul 21st, 2009
@ 1:40 am:
When I feel a hardback price is too high I wait a few months for the paperback edition, and I’m prepared to do the same for the ebook version. The market will eventually sort itself out. Meanwhile, interesting challengers on the pricing front are the Secondhand Booksellers. I was ready to pay $16 for an ebook novel, then bought it paperback instead at Abebooks for $1 plus $8 postage, condition as-new.
[Reply]
Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary » Blog Archive » Link Round Up Tuesday
on Jul 21st, 2009
@ 7:57 am:
[...] Schnittman of Oxford University Press disagrees with the delayed [...]
Dave Creek
on Jul 22nd, 2009
@ 5:10 am:
Seems to me that since you’re not publishing a physical book, that e-books should be less than the hardcover or the paperback price, and even less than $10.00. If I’m paying, say, $8.00 for the paperback and receiving a physical object that had to be manufactured and shipped somewhere, why do I have to pay more for just the words?
The price for an e-book should be a dollar or two less than the (eventual) paperback, and the money should be split 50-50 between the publisher and the writer. Talking about the hardcover bringing in more money makes no sense if the expense of making the hardcover eats up much or most of that money.
Dave Creek
[Reply]
Evan
on Jul 22nd, 2009
@ 7:29 am:
The basic problem with your suggestion is that you assume manufacturing costs are the majority of the cost of creating a book. The “words” as you say, are generally the greatest expense – if you are talking about general trade books. So if the value of the “words” are needed to recoup the costs, then it stands to reason that all versions should be priced to extract the maximum return on investment. Furthermore, ebooks are sold on consignment, where as print titles are bought in advance in bulk. The cash that generates is by definition more valuable to a business than the trickle of income that ebooks bring in. See the first posting on this blog, Why Ebooks Must Fail to get an understanding of trade book economics.
[Reply]
The Daily Square – Ako Edition | Booksquare
on Jul 22nd, 2009
@ 4:30 pm:
[...] Demand Pricing for EbooksEvan Schnittman makes an argument for demand pricing for ebooks — and smarter pricing strategies by publishers. [...]
Creating experiences out of content | Digital Business
on Jan 5th, 2010
@ 3:11 pm:
[...] being generated in the publishing sector continues to build when it comes to the pricing of ebooks (Evan Schnittman’s post in July) and digital rights management (DRM) where the publishing sector is seeking to [...]
Tags: Amazon, Apple, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Books, Business, Costco, Digital Publishing, Dominique Raccah, E-book, ebooks, Fictionwise, Google, iPhone, iPod, iTunes, Kindle, Music Industry, publishing, Sony Reader, Trade Publishing, Wal-Mart, Waterstones
One of the truly inspiring thing about ebooks is that they offer endless opportunity to iterate and morph selling and access models. Technology drives change and innovation, which in turn allows for all kinds of new and interesting features. All kinds of selling and access models are floating around out there, some that allow extension of purchase rights beyond a single user. There are models that offer no specific items to download and hold on any device, models that offer real-time content updates, models that offer print plus ebooks, ebooks plus TTS audio, subscriptions to ebooks, and on and on and on.
Mike Shatzkin
on Jun 21st, 2009
@ 9:52 am:
I like the thinking here, but I will pick a couple of nits.
1. Going to a licensing model does not necessarily require that an advance be paid on “royalties.” In fact, more and more publishers are trying to do “no advance” deals with authors so I think we’ll also see more “no advance” deals with rights. So whatever the problems with the rights paradigm in the retailer space, the requirement for an advance doesn’t have to be the thing which knocks it out.
2. The problem with your “net pricing” idea, I think, is that it doesn’t account for the fact that, in the digital download world, eventually most publishers WILL sell direct to end users even if they didn’t in the past. And they will sell at some price, which will be, de facto, the publisher’s retail price. This is already happening, of course, and Amazon has apparently raised the point with some publishers that their “discount” is meant to be off the publisher’s price, and if the publisher is selling for less on their web site, their discount should be based on the lower price.
That’s why I have advocated cutting the DISCOUNTS to intermediaries and have the publisher continue to sell at “full retail” (except for special promotional offers, bundles, etc) Seems like that would give us a cleaner playing field, if not a more level one.
This is all still in the stage of getting more complicated, not simpler.
[Reply]
bowerbird
on Jul 6th, 2009
@ 11:06 am:
still tryin’ to find a way to make your slice of the pie bigger, are you?
good luck with that…
because, yeah, amazon is gonna let you lower their discount, i’m quite sure of it, because they need you more than you need them, right? yeah, sure they do…
-bowerbird
[Reply]
Evan
on Jul 6th, 2009
@ 12:18 pm:
Welcome back. Miss me?
[Reply]
Tags: Amazon, App Store, Apple, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Books, CoreSource, ebooks, Fictionwise, Google, Google Editions, iPhone, Kindle, Libre Digital, Overdrive, publishing, Publishing and Printing, Retailing, Robinson-Patman Act, Sony Reader, Trade Publishing, Waterstones
© 2009 Black Plastic Glasses. All Rights Reserved.
This blog is powered by Wordpress and a guitar player's Blues Licks website.
Array
Mike Shatzkin
on Mar 23rd, 2010
@ 6:08 am:
Very thoughtful and original post. You make a critical point that textbooks matched the ecosystem of learning: one class moving at a constant speed from a common starting point to a common ending point. And clearly, digital change enables our learning materials, at least, to be much more nuanced than that.
[Reply]
Chris Cosner
on Mar 24th, 2010
@ 12:38 pm:
Thank you for this post.
Re: “The basic assumption of each text is that students all come in at or near the same level and leave at or near the same level.”
Having taught a foreign language from various textbooks, I can say that there is no class in which everyone is assumed to be at exactly the same level, though it is perhaps always a quixotic hope. The teacher inevitably makes adjustments for as many students as possible. FL textbooks are designed to be used in precisely this way. Many include sets of questions in the introduction to help the student determine what to work on, as well as tests at the end of chapters. Students naturally learn to work with the textbook at their own pace. A good teacher expects more from advanced students and recognizes real progress in the less advanced students.
I’m not sure there is anything earth-shattering a digital book can bring to *this aspect* of the textbook. It is up to the author to create a pedagogically sound design, and up to the teacher to coach the students on how to use the textbook.
One way a digital approach might address the problem of different levels of ability is a kind of rental or buy-in to a whole set of textbooks, so the student is free to move forwards and backwards through the material preceding and subsequent to the class.
But even this may be resisted by educators. After all, the student is always free to go to the library for more material, or to work with a tutor if they are behind. The whole point of a class is to be working together on a subject, to be on the same page. That motivates less advanced students to catch up, and it helps the ‘advanced’ students to solidify material of which they may not yet have a perfect grasp.
[Reply]
The iPad: Gateway Drug to Digital Learning? « Black Plastic Glasses
on May 5th, 2010
@ 3:46 am:
[...] my last post, What’s Next in Digital Reading I explored my notion that there are three kinds of reading; extractive: immersive, and pedagogic. [...]
How do you read? :: Work+Place Discussing Workplace Trends
on May 14th, 2010
@ 1:57 pm:
[...] an ardent reader I was interested in the three kinds of reading described in What’s Next in Digital Reading? (found via Interstitial [...]
Collection Development Blog » Interstitial reading
on Sep 12th, 2010
@ 6:14 pm:
[...] Schnittman of OUP has an interesting post in which he discusses three types of digital reading: extractive, immersive and pedagogic. It is [...]