BPN 1648: Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (4)

The end of the e-reader

Overlooking the e-book landscape, there are some observations to be made and conclusions drawn. Two of the most dramatic conclusions are that the present e-reader will not have a long life and that the e-book will not remain just a pdf or digital word file with a black and white illustration.

The e-book started out on a mainframe computer as a digital file with words in capitals. E-books have grown along with technology of minicomputers and PCs as well as the (sub)notebooks. From 1985 CD-ROM was seen as a carrier for the digital book file. (The German software company Dataware used the slogan: Goodbye Gutenberg, Hello CD-ROM in 1987). In 1991 Sony started to  store books on minidisks and by 1997 the e-readers were launched amongst others by Franklin with the Rocket eBook. This concept has continued so far, till in 2010 the iPad and Samsung Galaxy tablet came around. This has led to a range of e-book delivery through internet:

- streaming through internet;
- storage of digital file on PCs as well as (sub)notebooks;
- storage of digital files on customised e-readers;
- storage of digital files on tablets.

Of these four ways of delivery the e-readers look to be losing the game in more than one sense. The e-book has on e-readers a pdf and e-pub format. The e-readers have either an e-Ink  screen or a TFT display. The stored file basically contains static information consisting of text and sometimes illustrations in black and white. In comparison with tablets which can play colour graphics, video and music, these devices are multifunctional. In comparison this means that tablets will be the winners as storage as well as streaming media for e-books (used by Dutch public libraries). So the end of e-readers is nigh.

E-readers are not only at the end of their life cycle because of their limited functionality (storage of digital file, black/white screen, special screen for reading in sunlight). But E-book will also develop from storing static information files into text files with moving graphic illustrations and movie fragments. And for this purpose tablets will be used.

In the World Summit Award competitions we have seen at least three e-book projects of the next generation to come: Hiboo, Rooftops at dawn and Oz Book.

From France comes Hiboo, books to explore. Hiboo is a collection of digital books for teenagers on the iPad. Each book is chosen according to editorial choices based on travel, adventure and fantasy. The approach is to offer tools for reading, an immersive environment, an interactive edge and community-based solutions for a new reading experience. 
 

From Hungary comes Rooftops at dawn - literative walk. The product, an application is a mixture of an book, a city walk and an exhibition experience – brought to you on location. The interactive urban walk provides a new way to experience classic literature as well as to experience the city as never before, along with being able to discover parts of local history embedded into a new digital framework.

From Lithuania comes the Oz Book.  “Oz Book”  is an interactive book for both children and the entire family, based on L. Frank Baum’s original novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Sixty interactive illustrations featuring beautiful scenes, vivacious music, and special sound effects let children feel the spirit of the adventurous journey to Emerald City, together with all the engaging characters. By lighting candles in the dark, the child finds the sneaky Wizard, helps Scarecrow to whisk angry crows away, or sees Emerald City with green glasses. Powered by a realistic physics engine allowing fast content accessibility, the award-winning Oz Book features a user-friendly interface, magnificent particle simulations, accelerometer and aquatic and/or fire effects, as well as a memory game and magic pictures that come to life as users touch or tilt the iPad. OzBook can be accessed in four different languages including English, Lithuanian, German and Russian.

These are three examples of what is to come. No longer static text dictates the file ; no longer technology dictates storage; but now the interactive storyline and interactive assets will offer a range of opportunities. They will range from a fiction story illustrated with interactive drawings to texts with movies. Non-fiction e-books will become apps containing a storyline with interactive multimedia assets based on a timeline. With this new push the traditional e-reader, based on e-Ink technology, will disappear, while interactive apps take their place.   

Update 27 July 2013
I just saw the rendition of a classic children's tale: The Winds in the Willow. Produced for the iPad, this classic tale has been released by UK-based innovator of digital books BeyondTheStory® as part of its +Book range. Narrator Stephen Fry introduces readers to each chapter and reads selected extracts of the adventures of Mr Toad, Ratty, Mole, and Badger. In addition, colourful animations connect the reader to the wonderful world of the riverbank and Toad Hall – a world loved by many for more than one hundred years. BeyondTheStory®, which built its unique app platform in the UK, has a string of enhanced e-books with the revised version of Kings and Queens by David Starkey, binging to life two thousand years of Britain’s monarchy; the award-winning Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl.

 

BPN 1646: Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (2)

The big question is of course: Will the arrival of Google Play Store have much impact on the Dutch e-book market? In order to answer this question, we will have to look at the Dutch market for e-books.



Short history of e-readers: Sony EBG (1993; above left); Franklin Rocket eBook (1997; above right); iLiad (2006; below left); Bebook Neo (2010; below right). Pictures © Collection Jak Boumans

It has taken quite a while before the Dutch publishers and readers accepted e-books. The first Dutch e-books on mini-disks were produced for the Sony EBG in 1993. In 1997 the internet distribution was started. And with the sales of the e-Ink screens such as the Iliad of iRex from 2006 onwards, a new round started. By 2010 Dutch publishers started to get serious about e-books. Sony with its e-readers has been a driver in this new wave, while Kobo is now an upcoming favourite. And the turn-over of the e-books can now be measured.

The sales curve started in 2011 with 1,3 per cent of the total book sales. In 2012 e-books were good for 2,5 per cent of the total sales of physical and e-books together. In 2013 the market share is growing to 4,1 per cent.  

In this e-book market Bol.com, part of the large food and non-food retailer Albert Heijn, sells 10 per cent in digital copies of all Dutch book sold. The web shop has also sold tens of thousands of Sony e-readers since May. Also the largest bookshop chain Polare (a new combination of Selexyz and the rams distributor De Slegte) registers 4,5 per cent of its online turn-over. 

However the Dutch e-book market is a dwarf in comparison with English language countries like the US, Canada and UK. France is doing slightly better than The Netherlands, while Germany is on the same level as the Dutch market. As said before France has a competitive advantage as  its VAT is in the lower bracket, much to the chagrin of the European Commission.

It should also be noted that the acceptance of e-books in a country is not a question of acceptance by the readers only. Of course there are many ink addicts and they will only get smaller in numbers over the years. But also the publishers are still hesitant. They know the trade of printed books which have a fixed price in The Netherlands as well as many European countries.  Besides they see e-books still as cannibalisation of a cultural product. And of course, they are afraid of the pirating.

So operating from Luxembourg, having the advantage of a favourable VAT bracket, and serving the rest of fragmented Europe will be interesting for international companies like Amazon, iTunes and Google Play Shop.  Local retailers can play a part in this, but they will mainly get their turn-over out of print books.

But looking at the market of e-books, there are still three questions to be answered:
- E-books from the library;

- How long will the e-book still exist;
- How is the acceptance growing or translated how many e-books are pirated.

Stay tuned for the next posting. Or, if you can't wait, send in your messages about the end of the e-book and pirating.

Update 1 August 2013
Recent GfK market research shows that of all Dutch language titles only 12 per cent is available as e-book. This is most likely a reason why the e-book market in the Netherlands is slow.

In the first half of 2013 e-books had a turn-over of 3,5 per cent of the total book sales. Last month another source claimed 4,1 per cent. Last year the per centage was 2,4.

In the first half of 2013 almost 800.000 e-books were sold in the Netherlands, good for 7,6 million euro; on average 9,50 euro per e-book. More than 80 per cent came out of fiction, while only a little bit more than a quarter of all Dutch language fiction titles are available as e-book.

 

My museum of content related artefacts (5)

1997: RocketBook

Another treasured item in my collection is the Rocket eBook. It is an EB-500, a factory reconditioned copy. It was designed by NuovoMedia Inc, manufactured in Taiwan, and distributed by Franklin worldwide. I knew Franklin from the handheld translators. Appareantly they saw some future in electronic books in the second wave of electronic books.

The first had past with the mini-disc based Sony Electronic Books, which will be treated later on. The second wave arrived late 1996. Internet was spreading fast in the US and Europe. And the network was seen as a perfect distribution and payment network for electronic books; in fact it was used already for this purpose by Peanut Press which distributed e-Books for Palm PDAs. But the problem with Palm was its own closed operating system. So in competition e-readers were developed, which worked with Microsoft software. The Rocket eBook was one of the early ones. You could see it as an extension to the PC just like you had floppy disc players and external harddiscs. So you could download an e-Book on your harddisc and transfer it to your e-Book.

The e-reader had a cradle in which you could put the e-reader when not in use and charge the internal battery. The e-reader had a stylus for the touchscreen and the screen was backlit. You could load up a number of books. This was not a major breakthrough as books do not take too much storage, as long as they are text-oriented; for example the text of a 25 volume general encyclopedia is less than 70Mb.

Was it a pleasure to read an electronic book on the Rocket eBook? No, not really. The e-reader was heavy due to the internal battery; I guess 450 grams. The screen was backlit. Besides you could not really read it outside in sunlight. And battery life was short; too short to read a full novel of 300 pages. Besides the books were mostly in a proprietary format so that it had to be loaded on a particular reader and an exchange of books was impossible.

This second wave fought a battle on two fronts: multi-functionality and proprietary software. Electronic book readers have been in trouble from the beginning: was it only a reader for books or a multi-functional electronic gadget like a PDA, on which you held your address list and calendar as well as books. Peanut Press followed this strategy from the beginning. But the equipment manufacturers of the second wave e-reader made a choice for single functionality. The system integrators developed proprietary software to format the e-Books. This presented a problem to the publishers, who preferred open software so that they could distribute it to any machine. It was in 1998 that the Open e-Book association was founded, in which amongst others Microsoft participated. The idea was to present a format for all. It looked like the same problem as CD-ROM had when it started out, but which was solved with the High Sierra standard, followed by the ISO 9660 standard.

Was the second wave of e-books a success? It was more of a success than the first wave, which was not a success at all, except for Japan. Publishers started to believe in it as well as distributors in the beginning. But the movement was not convincing enough, as publishers discontinued their freshly formed departments and distributors discontinued their assortment. E-Books became a specialist’s item with e-book integrators having special knowledge of the Open e-Book standard and other formats like Mobipocket format. The second wave did yield many electronic books. Mobipocket for example has 49.000 books available in their format. Worldwide some half a million books should be available this summer, copyrighted and most of them non-copyrighted; but the share of copyrighted e-books is growing.

The Rocket e-Book is still working. But I only use it for demonstrations, as I can only load proprietarily formatted books and documents. The bookshelf contains the Random House Dictionary, a user guide and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

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Blog Posting Number 817

Tags: digital heritage, e-book