BPN 1647: Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (3)

 

No e-readers for the public library

 

Google will offer reading e-books which will be streamed in the near future. Google will find the Dutch public libraries on its way, as they are going to lease books.

Dutch public libraries, organised in the Bibliotheek.nl Foundation (BNL), have been talking for a long time to set up an e-book platform. It has taken a long time to position themselves as to the technical facilities, but also to get contracts with Dutch publishers.

The Dutch public libraries will lease e-books, but these will not be downloadable and will be unfit to be read on e-readers like Kindle, Bebook, Sony Ereader and Kobo. The books will be streamed and will be readable on laptops, desktop computers and tablets.

The Dutch publishers are not too keen to support the project, afraid as they are of cannibalising their print and e-book market. So the WPG Publishers Group will offer 1000 titles by the autumn, but the titles will be at least one to ten years old. But it is a nice selection from the canon of the Dutch literature, a spokesperson for the company noted. However Bibliotheek.nl has already more agreements with other Dutch publishers for leasing e-books through the library network.

The Dutch publishers will get compensation from the public libraries for digitising printed books to e-books, enough to cover the initial costs and they will receive on top a variable sum, according to the number of e-books leased.  

Public libraries are famous for lending books at a low annual charge. However e-books will not be covered by this annual charge. Library members will have to pay a surcharge of 20 euro a year and will be allowed to lease for that amount 18 e-books.

Ahead of the large platform, Bibliotheek.nl is already offering the members of the utch public libraries a holiday app for 50 e-books, available online, smart phones and on tablets, distributed by iTunes and Google Play Store.

BPN 1645 : Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (1)

Google sells e-books in the Netherlands

 

 

Google was already present in Europe, mainly in the larger states like UK, France Germany and Italy. Now Google has launched Books on Google Play in nine more European countries: The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Greece, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania.

The Dutch now have another channel to buy e-books from. So far they had the choice of local distributors like e-Books, Bol.com, the logistics book centre CB and the channels from abroad such as Amazon and iTunes.

Foreign channels for downloading e-books are not always the favourites of the Dutch. It is a hassle with credit cards, while orders through the Dutch channels can be handled through iDEAL, a direct banking channel. Despite cooperation with CB, Google Play Store is still handling orders through credit cards from Luxembourg.

Google Play Store offers the full international portfolio but has a range of 1000 Dutch e-books through CB, which has the major Dutch publishers in its database: WPG, Lannoo, Prometheus and House of Books. Interesting is to know what percentage the Dutch publishers offer to Google Play Store and what is the difference with Amazon. Of course Google Play Store has the advantage over its competitors of it wide copyright free collection.

For Europe Google Play Store operates from Luxembourg. This has its advantages. Contrary to printed books, which are surcharged with 6 per cent Value Added Tax, e-books so far are officially surcharged with the VAT in the higher bracket. As an e-book is part of an electronic service, it is put in the higher bracket. In the Netherlands it surcharged with 23 per cent. In France and Luxembourg, the VAT is following the VAT lower bracket of respectively 5,5 per cent and 3 per cent, much to the chagrin of the European Commission. So, Google Play Store operating from Luxembourg, is benefitting from this low VAT rate, as well as the Dutch customers having compared the prices of Dutch language e-books. A book like NW by Zadie Smith was for sale at Bol.com for 11,99 euro, but is available at the Google Play Store for 8,15 euro.

The books can be read in Google apps for Android and iOS. Besides they can be downloaded and stored in e-readers, PC,  tablets and mobile telephones. Google does not offer yet leasing books and reading books through Google. Once offered, you will need support for your browser from JavaScript. Google Play Store will also lease books in the future.

First negative comments have come on the usability. The American company does not understand the differences in languages and represents them indiscriminately in search results and listings; so you will find a list of results with French, Dutch and German results ad random. Also sorting on price is impossible for the time being.

With the arrival of Google Play Store e-book distribution channel a more competitive climate will arrive among the international (read US) players: Amazon, iTunes and Google. They all have differentiated USPs, products and prices. So it will be interesting to see which store will become the European darling. Local distributors will have their local advantages, but will have hard competition when it is for foreign e-books.

 

Big question will be: will Google Play Store have any impact on the Dutch e-book market? Stay tuned for our next posting.

BPN 1083 The effect of Kindle

On the Monday before Thanksgiving last year Amazon.com launched the Kindle. I had heard before that time that Amazon.com had not selected the iLiad manufactured by iRex Technologies and wondered why. The launch made it clear that Amazon.com was after another type of e-Reader; one with a keyboard and a Digital Rights Management system. DRM can be delivered on the iLiad but it is not standard.
So Amazon.com surprised everyone with its own model, the Kindle. It is neat, but it is curious in shape. Of course the main feature is digital paper, which dumbfounds everyone who is used to LCD screens. Yes you can read a book on digital paper on the beach in the sun. As far as this Sony nor the iLiad are real competitors, although I hear people still raving about REB 1200.

Did Kindle have any effect on the e-book market? Amazon.com just did not launch an e-book reader. In fact it launched a full business plan. The e-reader could be used for books. But it could do more in comparison to the Sony –trader. It could also wirelessly download newspapers, magazines and blogs. And the service did not get stuck at that point. The offer of books, newspapers, magazines and blogs was priced competitively; although pricing free blogs is still an absolute sin to me.

Yet the Kindle had all the hallmarks for the iPod/iTunes effect. When Apple introduced the iPod, music downlods had a bad image; most of the downloads were illegal and unpaid for. When Apple introduced the iPod and added later iTunes, it offered a complete service to its customers, breaking the mould of illegal downloading. People were willing to pay a reasonable price for a song, which they could download and use. Problem of course is the iTunes fixed format, which makes it hard to play it out on another platform. But all in all, iPod in combination with iTunes helped the music industry tremendously.

But what has been the Kindle effect on the e-book market? Did it bring about a revolution or just a small tidal gulf? As said, Amazon.com had a nice business proposition with a wireless device as the bleeding edge of technology, a good and fair proposal for books, newspapers, magazines and a less fair proposal for blogs. And the assortment of books and respectable newspapers as well as the reasonable prices made the offer attractive enough.

At the announcement Amazon.com told that Kindle had made already a deep impression. I picked up the figure of 10.000 units sold in the first days. Others report at least 2.000 Kindles. I guess it were more units than that. This also brought along the rise of e-books. And not only Amazon.com profited from it, but also Sony, which has been longer active in the market. Sony is even thought to have doubled or even tripled the sales of e-books.

But measuring the iPod/iTune effect with Kindle, Kindle has only made an impression in the US and has stimulated the sales of e-books, even to the point that Penguin starts to get on the bandwagon of e-books. But Kindle has not made any impression in Europe yet. Will Amazon link up with Penguin in the UK by September 2008?

But even so, then Kindle and Penguin would cover the US and UK market, but not the European continental market. Selling hardware is not the problem, but selling a bundle because of the language fragmentation in Europe. The US and Japanese manufacturers see this as a problem as it requires books in many languages. It requires negotiations with publishers per language base. US and Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers see this hardly a challenge. By not introducing the Kindle with an multi-lingual offer of e-books will put a brake on the distribution of e-books on the European continent. All in all, Kindle has lost its momentum for Europe for the time being and offers a commercial window for its wireless digital paper competitor iLiad and indirect digital paper competitors as Cybook and the likes.

Blog Posting Number: 1083

Tags: e-book, e-reader, iPod

Dutch papers not on digital paper yet

The news must have come as a blow for iRex Technologies: the Dutch dailies NRC Handelsblad and de Volkskrant will not publish their newspapers on digital paper yet, according to the publishers of the respective newspapers. Gert Jan Oelderik, publisher of the NRC Handelsblad and Volkskrant publisher Rob Haans both cite the price and the consequent low penetration of the iLiad as a handicap. It is clear that the quality paper NRC Handelsblad and the morning paper de Volkskrant will not be the newspaper industry champions of the iLiad in the Netherlands. The iLiad is being tested internally in both organisations and the technical infrastructure is ready. Either of the newspapers can be presented as rich PDF files or as simple RSS text feeds. But for the time being their will not be any trial.

Rob Haans told Tonie van Ringelenstijn of the Dutch publication Emerce that the digital paper devices are still too expensive for the consumer. He considers the digital paper as a promise. The readability is okay for static material. Disadvantages are the black/white screen as well as present absence of moving images. (It is curious to see a newspaper publisher talk about the absence of moving images; three years they would not have even mentioned it). Rob Haans and Oelderik both wait for a break through. Haans does not see this happen in 2008; Oelderik expects that it will take another two or three years. He still waits for a scalable digital newspaper which looks the same on all devices, regardless the size of their screens.

In 2005 the digital paper devices were researched within PCM, the conglomerate to which both newspapers belong. Mathieu Halkes, a marketing man, concluded that another size screen is needed for reading newspapers. This conclusion concurs with the conclusion drawn by the members in the Papyrus consortium such as Bertelsmann, Vodafone and Siemens. This consortium banked on Benq, which went bankrupt.

The discussion about the Dutch dailies on digital paper was a reaction to the launch of the Kindle by Amazon. This e-reader was launched in the USA with no hard schedule for the introduction in Europe. So the European continental newspapers have not been approached to be included in the Amazon offer. In newspaper circles in the USA the Kindle is under heavy discussion. In journalistic circles like Online-News is a service of the Poynter Institute the question is posed whether the Kindle will kill books and whether it will be the saviour for newspapers. Robin Roblimo Miller estimates that the Kindle is a nice precursor of things to come, but not a market-sweeper. He is supported by a college of The Ledger, who is of the opinion that unless the Kindle evolves, the device is unlikely to be the e-reading device of choice a year or two from now. But the Kindle and the Safari browser on the iPhone are significant for popularizing the notion of taking your reading and Web surfing with you.

Steve Yelvington does not see much future in the Kindle. “As for whether Kindle will save newspapers, I don't think Kindle has anything to do with the real issues that are disrupting the newspaper business model. Newspapers are marginalized by a surplus of information and entertainment options. Retail consolidation is undermining the display advertising model. Classifieds are being displaced by unbundled, generally superior alternatives. It could be that the Kindle and/or similar iTunes-like systems could create a marketplace for the sale and distribution of certain kinds of journalism, but I'm quite sure it will not be newspapers as we have known them.

Blog Posting Number: 940

Tags: e-reader, e-book, digital paper

My museum of content related artefacts (22)

1980: Apple II

In 1980 I got acquainted with Apple. In the company we had CP/M machine like the Superbrain (see photograph from the VNU Koerier). But as we were a new media lab, we tried everything; also Apple. To me the Apple was the same as the CP/M machines, but in 1980 the Apple was fascinating to me in as far as it made music. Apple as well as CP/M computers were ready for programming in Basic, text processing in Wordstar and calculating with Visicalc.

But at Christmas 1980, I took the Apple machine home and discovered the music on it. At that time to me a computer was no more than an automated typewriter and an enlarged calculator. The Apple II had a computer version of Switch-on Bach (listen to a fragment of the analogue version), a bestseller of the MOOG synthesizer music. I had bought the vinyl version in 1968 and still have it. It still makes Christmas 1980 stand out.

The Apple IIe in my collection is not the first Apple I worked with. From an acquaintance I got an Apple IIe, a machine produced from 1983 onwards. The keyboard was fixed to the machine. On top of it there is a separate dual floppy disk drive. The monitor is still in one of my moving boxes.

Come to think of it, the first confrontation with an Apple did not convert me to the Apple section. Despite the fact that I was impressed by the interface, I never bought an Apple for the company. When I worked for the newspaper company Wegener for one year in 1995, I was issued a portable Apple as the company was into graphics. I enjoyed the use of it, but once the year was over I did not feel unhappy going back to my Windows PC.

Yet I have always been impressed by the inventiveness of the company. Besides the many computers as Apple II, Lisa and Apple Book, it created the personal digital assistant Newton with handwriting recognition software; the iPOD; iTunes, the iPhone. Apple brought and still brings sound and vision to computing.

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Blog Posting Number: 831

Tag: digital heritage