eBookGuru.org

It was just over two months ago when I published a post (The Future of eBooks) that included a chart from Forrester Research Inc. showing the growth drivers for eReaders. It predicted a $199 price point at sometime around mid 2010 to 2011.

The new Cool-er reader (Price Matters…) came out in mid July, right around the same time that Amazon lowered the price of the Kindle 2 by $60, and I stated that I really didn’t expect to see an eReader break the $200 mark before the end of the year.

Well Sony has done it. There have been lots of articles about this but best one so far is this post by Canada’s own Globe & Mail. The ‘Pocket Edition’ of the Sony eReader will be retailing for $199 at the end of August. The Pocket Edition is smaller and a little limited compared to current eReaders. At 5 inches (vs the 6 inch Sony readers , the Cooler, & the Kindle 2), it can’t play music and can ‘only’ hold 350 books but the sub-$200 price point

“breaks an important psychological barrier”

In an ironic twist, the article includes a quote from Sarah Rotman Epps, a media analyst at Forrester Research.

“This is something that is affordable for the holiday season, and I think that you’ll see sales of e-readers outpacing current forecasts”

The current forecast has sales of eReaders doubling this year to 2 million, up from 1 million in 2008.

Sony is also announcing a higher-end eReader, the Touch Edition (note: Sony seems to finally be catching on that names are a lot catchier and easier to remember than model numbers – the Pocket Edition replaces the PRS-50 and the Touch Edition replaces the PRS-700). This model will retain the same 6 inch size and touch screen abilities, losing the built-in light that seemed to cause more trouble than it was worth.

Another major milestone for the new Sony eReaders is their compatibility with both PC’s and Mac’s.

Neither of these readers has the same wireless access that sets the Kindle apart but given the recent furor over Amazon’s bungled book recall, this isn’t such a bad thing. Certainly for those of us outside the US this isn’t a limitation as Amazon’s Whispernet is limited to US states, with the exception of Montana and Alaska. Even in covered states, it has been reported that coverage is often close to non-existent outside of major urban centers.

Sony is apparently working on a wireless eReader but won’t say when it will be available. Hopefully it will be soon as a new eReader from iRex is entering the marketplace. The 8.1 inch eReader with wireless 3G capabilities and a touch screen is slated for fall 2009 and is rumored to be able to connect with a large on-line eBook store.

The eBook market is also progressing with the recent launch of Barnes & Nobles eBook eReader software and eBook store (An Embarrassment of Riches).

The eBook market will change in ways that we can’t foresee but for the moment the future for eBooks is here.

I monitor a variety of RSS feeds and I am always on the lookout for news on eBooks and eReaders. This week there seems to be an embarrassment of riches in terms of the number of articles available.

Here is just a sampling of a few of them:

PCMag.com reviews the new Barnes & Noble eReader software for PC, Mac and iPhone and overall rates it 3½ out of 5. It also takes a shot at Amazon and the Kindle, stating that B&N allows you to read titles on devices you already own. It also compares Amazon’s Kindle library (300,000 titles) to B&N’s eBook library (700,000 titles). Overall the B&N appears to be an attractive eBook store alternative to Amazon, and the addition of an eReader from Plastic Logic that promises to start shipping in early 2010 will only make the comparison even easier.

Adding insult to injury to the beleaguered Kindle is a damning article in the New Yorker. The article has some harsh criticism for the device and Amazon’s proprietary format, although to be fair some of the criticism is specific to eInk devices, notably the lack of color and back-lighting. Overall the author does seem positive about eBooks but seems to prefer the Sony eReader for eInk and the Apple iPhone / iPod Touch where color, illustrations, and back-lighting are important.

Another interesting article appeared in IT Canada regarding the EPUB format, which was developed by the Toronto based International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It states that the EPUB format

is quickly becoming an e-book industry standard as support from publishers and tech giants such as Adobe Systems Inc., Sony Corp. and Google Inc. continues to grow.

In sharp contrast to Amazons proprietary DRM restricted AZW format, EPUB is an open, non-proprietary, XML based format, in which DRM is optional.

The industry has gone into two camps: Amazon and everyone else … You have Amazon and they’ve got their proprietary, closed standard, DRM, one-source-for-everything (approach) and you’ve got the rest of the world trying to agree on an open standard for which you can have multiple book stores.

There is also the news that Samsung has launched their eBook reader, although it is only available in South Korea for the moment. The device is smaller than a Kindle and will offer some neat features like hand-writing recognition.

Finally there is the possibility of Apple competing against Amazon with the rumored introduction of a Tablet PC. The combination of a Tablet PC and the iTunes store could

blow Amazon and other e-book makers out of the water…

The success of iTunes for music and iPhone applications indicates that there is market potential for eBooks by making eBooks just as easy to download. It goes further to speculate about à-la-carte ordering books, something that already possible through the Shortcovers program from Canada’s very own Indigo Books.

The one thing that none of these articles dispute is that there is a future for eBooks. What this future looks like, how we will be reading eBooks, and what format the eBooks will be available in, are all very good questions. Personally having seen what DRM has done to the music industry, not to mention how Amazon bungled it’s recent recall of illegally published Kindle books, I’m hoping for the success of an open format like EPUB and as many readers as possible.

Amazon sparked an outcry in the blogosphere late last week when it deleted two books from people’s Kindles. Ironically the eBooks in question were George Orwell’s “1984″ and “Animal Farm”, prompting headlines like

Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others

Amazon recalled the ebooks because the publisher lacked the rights. As an author, I can appreciate the steps that Amazon took to remedy the problem even if I don’t agree with their methods. No doubt about it, Amazon made a mistake, not in what they did, but in how they went about it. Working for a public relations firm, I’ve gained new appreciation for the value of proper communications, something that Amazon would do well to heed. It also raises disturbing issues regarding ownership and censorship. If Amazon can delete the books in question, there is nothing to say that they can’t replace existing books with ‘edited’ versions. Sounds very ‘Big Brother’ to me.

However, this points to a problem inherent in self-publishing. Where are the checks and balances? Amazon states that the eBooks

… were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books…

How does something like that happen in the first place, especially given the titles in question? Surely this should have raised some red flags for someone somewhere? If this had been a traditional publisher, there would have been more steps involved before it was published but even that is no guarantee.

When I was accepted for publication, I provided the publisher with the copyright certificate for my novel but it wasn’t a requirement. The main difference is that there is a relationship inherent in this arrangement so my certifying in the contract that I own the work free and clear is probably sufficient. This relationship doesn’t exist in the self-publishing world. Also the process of editing makes it difficult to obtain a copyright before the contract has been signed. This doesn’t hold true for self-publishing.

The rise of eBooks and blogs has made it easier than ever for people to make their voice heard. It has also made it easier than ever for other people to steal someone else’s work. Perhaps it’s time for companies in the business of self-publishing to reevaluate the requirement for copyright.

A Kindle in Every Backpack. This is the title of a proposal by the Democratic Leadership Council that argues that the government should provide students with Kindles. The proposal argues that this could improve education quality and save money.

It’s an intriguing concept but according the proposal traditional textbooks cost $109 per student, rising to $115 per student in 2016. Currently the Kindle 2 costs significantly more than that for the hardware alone, not to mention the cost of the content. The Kindle DX, which is better suited for use as a textbook replacement, costs almost $200 more than the Kindle 2. Admittedly if a Kindle was provided to every student this would result in lower costs but it’s hard to see the economic benefits.

The proposal states that the costs of eTextbook materials would be about $200 initially and then drop to $80 by 2012. Looking at the proposal here and now however, the comparison is an outlay of $499 ($299 for the Kindle, $200 for the eTextbooks) vs. an existing cost of $109 for a difference of $390. It gets even worse if you propose using the Kindle DX, rising to a difference of $580. That’s anywhere from 3½ to over 5 times more costly per student. Or to put it another way for the same cost as equipping a student with a Kindle, you could equip another 3 – 5 students with traditional textbooks.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a great idea. I just think that it’s perhaps a little ahead of its time. eBooks are still a nascent market and we really don’t know where the market is going to end up.

Reports of cracked or frozen Kindle screens don’t inspire a lot of confidence in the proposal either. Even investing in the cover for the Kindle doesn’t seem to help, as a recent class action lawsuit against Amazon (see Update below) attests. Given the high cost of ownership, most Kindle owners are very protective of the devices yet they are still having problems. Somehow I can’t see a group of school students, for whom the device would be essentially free, being more careful.

Flexible screens like the Readius could be the answer to this problem but the recent bankruptcy of Polymer Vision, the company behind the Readius, means that it will probably be a long wait before this technology becomes mainstream.

Given that plans are already underway to make the Kindle DX available to University students, it would seem prudent to wait for the results of this pilot program. The pilot program will

…evaluate the impact of the device on the learning experience, determine if faculty delivered the information in new ways, and determine if students approach their reading and assignments differently.

As much as I would love to see kids with Kindles, I think there are too many unknowns. Advances in technology and lower production costs could change the landscape for eBook readers dramatically as more people start to use them. After all, look how long cell phones have been around and how much they’ve changed today as they morph into smartphones. Perhaps the eTextbook reader of the future will be a touch Netbook. To me this makes more sense for students, who would likely use the device for more than just reading. Given that Netbooks are comparable in terms of cost to a a Kindle DX, it’s hard to argue for a single function device, as good as it is.

Still, the very fact that this was proposed is a good indication of the strength of the eBook market. Regardless of how we end up reading eBooks in the future, it seems pretty clear that eBooks and eTextbooks are the future of reading.

UPDATE: Amazon has just announced that they will replace cracked Kindle 2 readers for free.

But it isn’t everything. Often usability trumps price. Most Linux based operating systems are free but witness the paucity of Linux desktops compared to Windows and Mac Systems. As of May 2009 Windows commands 88% of the market share for operating systems.

The same applies to eBook readers. The Cool-er eBook reader from Coolreader was the brainchild of Niel Jones who created the Cool-er when he tried to buy an out-of-stock Sony eReader. He immediately saw the market potential of eBooks and decided to capitalize on it.

While I applaud the effort to bring down the price of eBook readers, it only works if you are getting value for your money. While the $249 price of the Cool-er is less than the $299 price of the Kindle, the value isn’t quite as alluring as it was less than a week ago when the Kindle was $359. When you factor in the cost of books that you can use on the Cool-er and other intangibles such as user experience, the Cool-er isn’t really that much of a bargain. In fact Wired magazine states in a product review of the Cool-er that

The up front fee for the Kindle or Sony Reader is greater yes, but they more than make up for it in robust content, extra features, and superior hardware.

One thing is for certain – we are getting closer to the sub $200 price point that I referred to in an earlier post where sales of eReaders will start to really take off. In fact I expect that this will likely occur earlier than the mid 2010 to 2011 timeframe predicted by Forrester Research. In less than a year and half, the price of the Kindle has dropped by 25% or $100 from it’s original starting price of $399. While I would be pleasantly surprised to see an eBook reader reach this price point before the end of 2009, I really don’t see it happening. If it does, then I would certainly caution potential purchasers to heed that ancient Latin saying caveat emptor or buyer beware.

I recently came across an article on CNET about the shortcomings of the Kindle and how these short comings represent opportunities for competitors to exploit.

“Competitors will attack Amazon’s market position Read the rest of this entry »