Getting an ebook reader has really opened my eyes to the potential for the publishing industry to face similar problems to the music industry.

Whilst books are not the same as music (MP3 files are effectively equivalent to any other form of music - where as books have strong form), there is still a huge value gap between downloading thousands of books and reading them with an e-book device, than purchasing each book individually. And yes, I mean downloading them for free because that's the inevitable result of book digitization.

This isn't necessarily a zero-sum game, but you can see how a large portion of the book market will be impacted.

So should the book industry look to the music industry as a warning sign and change? Or are they confident enough to just keep watching from a distance.

Let's say they did want to change. How would book publishing look in a purely digital world?
 

It would have something to do with 'separating the wheat from the chaff' I think.

I think Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) might be a good case study. I remember reading about his experience with making Dilbert available for free online. I'll see if I can find any articles
 

Scott's WSJ article (need a subscription)

Giving it away for free (a summary of what he says)

Here's something: Kindle Economics

There will be no "iPod moment" for books. One device won't do it. The difference between an illustrated book and a novel requires a form factor change; the difference between classical and jazz does not. We pretty much just "listen" to music; we mark books up and refer back to them in ways we don't customarily with music. It will require more than one device to "replace" books, even to replace just straight text books.

Funny you say that... I work for Oxford University Press Australia and New Zealand (OUPANZ), my Job title is Electronic Project Coordinator. I coordinate and in some cases internally develop the electronic media for OUPANZ... Like I was saying, its funny you say that, because we at OUPANZ have been researching into methods of providing e-books in a manner that is not easy to replicate, which is different to the current PDF based e-books, and would allow us to provide both graphic and textual information, and in some cases interactivity.

So the above quote is not all entirely true, it's a bit of a race against the clock to see who comes out with the best solution first.

Some areas that we are researching into, without going into any detail is flash (and flex) technology... thats Adobe Flash, not Flash Drive hardware. The new updated AS3 in flash is now a very powerful application level programming platform, and flash is already a very integrated technology on many platforms, from the phone to PC's.

other technologies include secured PDF technology, and a custom developed idea of writing a tracker into the book, so each book (not just ISBN but each copy of) has a signature and can traced.

These are just some of the things that we are looking into... So I would say, there is a potential for an "iPod Moment" for books. It's true, it won't specifically be 1 device, but it will be the application that allows a book to be read, and who has the most amount of e-books in that format to offer. In many cases it would be more like the battle between Beta and VHS, who has the better marketing.

But all this being said, there is no plan near or future to replace books, only integrate e-books into an existing major revenue stream.

Wow. Very interesting! Do you really think any of the 'securing technologies' will work? It never has before....

well we are looking at where the music industry went wrong... but with digital technology (and coming from a programming geek) anything that can be encoded can be decoded, its just a matter of how long it takes.

one suggested method along the flash flex path is to build an app that runs on all the devices with flash tech that excepts a certain signature from an e-book. Only that reader would be able to read that book... but it would just be a matter of time until someone made a clone reader app that could spoof the signature authentication.

So being a programmer you know it's going to be cracked, so why bother? Just to make it harder in the short term? Also, what lessons do you think you're learning from the music industry, and how do you solve those issues? (lots of questions I know, but it's an interesting debate).

"So being a programmer you know it's going to be cracked, so why bother?" - because it's more than just providing books digitally, its providing a customized solution for the digital era... 'When' an e-book reader app is cracked, and cloned only a minority of people will use it, although that minority can be a loss of millions in revenue, it is still  the smaller part of the pie. Say you build an app and sign a deal with nokia and/or other device companies, your money is made in the contract per unit... and although others will hack the device and install their own reader to read e-books for free, they still have to acquire the e-books... thats where things can get tricky.

one of the big questions is: How do we provide the e-book?

and the aim is to provide the e-book in a way that is not easy to duplicate... which is where the reader and the e-book can tie in together... Some options are digitally pairing. ie, download an e-book though the e-book reader on the WAP network and the e-book is paired to that reader/device. If you try to copy and/or read the e-book on another reader you cannot, unless you install a cracked and cloned reader.

This is one option, but also creates issues for marketing... we want e-books to be easily propagated and as said above prorogation would not be possible of already purchased books due to device pairing
 

take a look at the iPod... there are many clones out there that now share the market, but the majority of people who are using an mp3 device are using an iPod. mp3 is not even the better audio format, its just the format that Apple decided to use for its deices.

This has a lot to do with marketing and a lot more to do with releasing onto the market a solution that at first is new and fulfills a need. Once others see the market potential they will produce their own devices...

But take a look at the OS software available for devices, there are many, but the most commonly used is Symbian, not because it's the best, but because it signed the contract first...
 

But isn't that really a case of building keys to fit your own locks. Like MP3's, people will just choose the freest option. Someone will always spend the time to crack the format (or otherwise source the material) and then it will be duplicated thousands of times.

"what lessons do you think you're learning from the music industry" - from the music industry we have a lot of don't do's but not a lot of successful do's... The music industry has provided a good ground for why certain strategies didn't work... but there is still a lot of room for testing of new strategies. See above re the iPod and device OS's.

"people will just choose the freest option" - very true... which is why we're looking into the provision of the reader on existing devices.

you provide the app on an existing device.. the End user only pays for the device, (phone, palm, e-book reader, etc) they don't pay for the reader app. You then charge an minimal download fee for the e-book itself. the user pays say $5 for a complete book on the human body which costs $75 in hard copy.

We make out money in the sale of the app per unit to the device companies... the e-book itself costs next to nothing to build as all books we produce in hard copy are already in XML from the typesetting phase, and we could produce an app that created the e-book directly from the XML. The $5 cost per book would be mostly profit with the exception of possible $1 for the time spent running the XML into the e-book and checking.

another completely different technology we are looking into is books on solid state flash memory. Completely different in that the user must Buy the device and the e-book... The reader would be the device that can accept the e-book card.

A less favored option, as it would be hard to push onto the market successfully... and would cost a lot in initial production, when our main focus is still on Hard Copy books. In 20 years, it may be a different story.
 

these are only some options... and I can't go into much more detail then that, or talk about other options... because its still business, and anyone could read this

"But isn't that really a case of building keys to fit your own locks" - also true, but its relying on an existing platform that has 92% market coverage to propagate the "lock"

Hmm... it's interesting, and please don't take offense in my devil's advocacy; just thinking about the options.

If you're considering devices, won't the typical generic solution devices on the market always be superior? Which means people who see the value of ebooks will just buy high grade ones and again just download digital content.
 

yes... Which is why its not a favored option

the favored idea, is to have a highly propagatable application that can be used on a range of devices as well as PCs and the quality is in the book itself.

What if we were to question the role of the publisher entirely. Move to entirely digital delivery models and dramatically reduce the cost of books. What would the picture really look like then? What is the value that is left, and more importantly, what is the true value of a publisher in that world? Isn't this really what the music industry failed to do, but will ultimately be forced to.

(Maybe authors can make money by doing tours!)
 

Can the form of books change? Could we see the death of the volume (aka album)? And the purchasing of smaller stories and chapters - mini-books?

good arguments... but there is a lot more to "question the role of the publisher entirely. Move to entirely digital delivery models and dramatically reduce the cost of books." then you would think... Many legal hoops need to be jumped through before you can even start to think about getting rid of the publishers.

Google has tried to digitize all books in the Google Library project, but they have met much adversity, not to mention a grueling legal case. There are many copyright issues, as well as international information authority issues.
 

"Can the form of books change? Could we see the death of the volume (aka album)? And the purchasing of smaller stories and chapters - mini-books?" - My vision of the future of books is not that dissimilar to this discussion... I see paper books as "Historical items of value", but as information sources begin to be globalised and interactive, such as wikipedia but more authorize security (information has to be proven to be an authority, not just anyone can post information) the delivery of books will be much more like syndication of information sources.

As technology grows the information industries such as publishing will adapt to grow with the technology (this is part of my job), the web at the moment for major publishing houses still has so much untapped potential.

Look at display technologies, in particular LEP (Light Emitting Polymer)... LEP while still an infant technology is being developed to be able to 'paint' on any surface... thinking about technologies like that, now imagine:

Tech-Evolution 1.

You reach for a small cylinder not much larger then a pen, running down one side is a few buttons, similar to a media player of today. On the other side is a thin strip of plastic, you pull the thin strip and it unravels from inside the "pen" so that you are holding a screen approximately the size of A4 landscape. With your thumb you press a little power button on the "pen", and immediately the A4 plastic fills with colour and loses its transparency. You select some options on the screen using the navigation buttons on the "pen" which gives you access to the aggregated information you were looking for from a few different syndicated sources.

Tech-Evolution 2.

You awake to a beeping sound in your ear, from a com device affixed just to the outside of your inner ear, awaking, you look over to your bed side table for the little contact-lens container. You remove the contact-lens from the solution and put it into your eye. In your vision is now some translucent text, not too trancparent that you cant see it and not to solid that you can still see what is in front of you, prompting you to what the beeping is bout... Its the latets article added to the syndication you've been watching through your com-device agregator. You grab a collection of fassionable looking rings from the bedside table, and put them on your finders... You now have an active navigation interface appear infront of you, using your hands you select the prompting text and open up the full article to read the lattest chapter added to your favourit "book".

These evolutions of technology with information syndication is the vission of where I see publishing is moving... however both these steps are a very far way into the future, and I would even suggest that evolution 1 while possible in the close future, will not replace the printed book in my life time.

But like I said there is still a lot of untapped potential in the web for publishing houses yet. For example, we will be releasing as of next year first quarter our new website (old one was built before my time)... For us, we will not just be a simple e-commerce site to sell books, but the site will be a major source of information, apart from and supplementing books, in some cases, the books will be ancillary information to the web info.

A portal to promote learning, and linking people together to further propagate the learning environment
 

For our new site, I see a lot of potential for the addition of resources like Tangler, which really tie users together in a "learning environment" in such a media rich world.

Do the two have to be mutually exclusive?

The recording industry is dieing because it refuses to understand or acknowledge the emergence of a long tail economy. It fights to retain an outmoded model that no longer works and is no longer defensible.

If publisers don't evolve, then sure, they're looking down the barrel of the same gun, but there is massive opportunity still to be had in both industries for anyone forward thinking enough to take hold of it.

Even if it costs nothing to produce a book, nothing to promote a book, and nothing to distribute a book, there is still value to be found in expertise at any one of those stages.

Just because I write a book for example, it does not necessarily follow that I have any interest in being in any way involved in the promotion of that book. Perhaps I feel that there is more value to be had by me offloading that workload and writing yet another book.

Currently either the author or the publisher takes a risk when a book is produced. Basically someone has to foot the bill for the production of the physical book that is placed on shelves, or in warehouses.

Once distribution is totally electronic in the way that music has become and there is no physical product, then there is no longer any risk associated with production, meaning that the publisher can no longer charge a premium for assuming that risk.

There are still any number of services that a good publisher could provide to a prospective author, and since neither the author nor the publisher have to assume the risk associated with the cost of production of any physical goods, more authors have the option of entering the game, effectively meaning more potential clients for the publishers.

So perhaps publishing will simply become a service industry, maybe break into niche services and change name a couple of times, but publishing as an industry will exist in some form or another I am sure of it.

btw. This is an awesome discussion. Pseudyx, I'm loving the insight you're providing here. I do however question the necessary tie between a cost per unit requirement and the necessity of security. Surely this is where the recording industry is going wrong, and why the emergence of security free music is working....

"Even if it costs nothing to produce a book, nothing to promote a book, and nothing to distribute a book, there is still value to be found in expertise at any one of those stages." - very true, and currently it does cost for each of those stages. As publishers approach the evolution into the e-indusrty, some of these stages will cost less, however there will always be cost both time and monetary in the production of content for a book.

"Currently either the author or the publisher takes a risk when a book is produced. Basically someone has to foot the bill for the production of the physical book that is placed on shelves, or in warehouses." - True, however, the risk is minimal due to research into the industry before 'concept' of book is created. The publisher then commissions authors based on the required outcome from the research.

"Once distribution is totally electronic in the way that music has become and there is no physical product, then there is no longer any risk associated with production, meaning that the publisher can no longer charge a premium for assuming that risk." I would disagree with this... There is still cost involved in the creation of the content for the product, no matter what the mode of communication. Therefor there is still risk in the market not accepting/purchasing the content.

Agreed the publishing industry will always exits, many newspaper companies (these are part of the publishing industry) have gone online, and some have even stopped producing printed copy.

I see book publishing approaching this point. Cost in printing will be highly reduced because of the change in mode of communication, however the production costs such as image creation/acquisition/illustration, rights and permissions, Authored content etc will continue to exist. However some of these areas will evolve also, such as the use of video instead of still image, there is cost involved in the creation of the video no matter the size, programming interactivity depending on the mode of communication, etc.

So as a definite answer to the Topic title. No eBooks will not replace publishing. eBooks is simple an evolved mode of communication than the printed book, but the "content"  still needs to be created for any medium.

There's also the aspect of that risk quashing content. The higher the investment, the lower the risk taken, and therefore the simpler and more mainstream the content. You can see this happen with the movie industry and more recently with video gaming -- the projects are now so big that very few risks are taken -- just churn out another hit. This isn't all bad; average quality goes up. But it does leave opportunities for when the potential to remove a significant portion of that risk are taken out. Blogging is a good example of this: the cost to produce is now basically nothing, so millions of blogs were created, and the good ones rose to the top. In many cases they now equivalent news sources (TechCrunch versus CNet).

Now don't take any of this too far. My goal is to provoke some discussion about the potential of what happens when the risk/cost of publishing reduces to zero (for some types of content). What happens then? And what new styles of books will emerge?

 

However the publishing industry is well suited to the electronic environment and more risks can be taken as pursuing different syndicated sources (multi authors)... and because nothing is set in stone (on paper) aggregation can be dynamically modified.

There will always be cost in the publishing of books (content)... but I do see that the printing houses will no longer be required, so there will be a major loss in jobs for printing, but the research, collation of ideas, commissioning authors or sources will still cost.

I think you will begin to see more media rich publications, with a higher level of interactivity and linking to other related sources... possibly close to the level of forum interactivity that Tangler provides. Creating small communities around fictional and non-fictional publications.

Possibly even further on, you will begin to see content published into virtual environments, like Second Life, or CyberTown. The level of interactivity will increase again to that of being able to create 3D visualisations with interactivity on a continuous level between multiple users.

At this point I believe the publishing industry will be full of smaller or individual publishers, much like bloggers, flooding the market with a wide range of topics, and  'community' created books will begin to gain popularity, with members of groups contributing to the overall publication with textual, audio, video and interactive content. This situation could hurt many of the larger non-fiction and trade publication houses, however there will always be a stronger market for Educational Publishing with the Larger publishing houses, due to Authority on content.

What I mean by Authority is... take for example wikipedia and Oxford University Encyclopedia. The content that comes from wikipedia can be scrutinized for its factual authority and its sources, due to the fact that anyone can post to wikipedia, although it is checked by 'higher authority' members, there are some subjects that they will not know.

However the content that comes from Oxford University Encyclopedia, is accepted by the individual as fact, and can be trusted. Rightly so, as the encyclopedia uses experts in each field of topic, and content is research and checked before accepted for publication.