Comments on: Frankfurt Book Fair – survey on digitization

By: ficbot

ficbot — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:01:05 +0000

I disagree. I think more people than ever will be reading on cell phones or multifunction devices.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:01:55 +0000

Great information!

I think the whole standard format thing is a red herring in the long-term. In 10 years (and even now) only a niche audience will be using small devices that require content in a reflow format. By 2018 larger displays that are portable and color make PDF a perfectly acceptable format for reading ebooks without any loss of typographic aesthetics found in well-designed printed books. Many readers will continue to care about reading aesthetics despite the chorus of technophiles who don’t. PDF is already a byproduct of almost every book published today.

Regardless of that issue, the most exciting aspect of e-content is in opening distribution channels, which creates tremendous opportunities for new publishers. We’ll see the emergence of publishing empires that don’t even exist yet, publishers who produce only e-content and digital print runs.

By: ficbot

ficbot — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:54:04 +0000

Some of their top four concerns worry me—DRM, for instance, is never a good idea. And ‘retail price maintenance’ to me says they want to try and keep prices the same as for print books and somehow hoodwink people into paying it, which to me is ridiculous because they are not the same thing. I think they need to learn their lesson from the tanking of the music business due in part to idiot rights holders not providing until too late a forum for customers with money to come and spend it. It is not about what they want, it’s about what the customers want, and the ‘winner’ of the new publishing sweepstakes will be the one who provides the easiest way for customers to legitimately buy good content at a fair price.

By: Tracy Falbe

Tracy Falbe — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:40:40 +0000

Wow! That was a lot of interesting information. Thanks for posting it.

I also have a sense that bookstores are not long for this world. Yes, many people love them and many are busy, but as the technology for delivering written content shifts, I don’t see how business models can support large retail spaces for bookselling. A bookstore, no matter how big, will always have a limited selection compared to online sellers.

It seems that bookstores will have to go the way of music stores. People still be actual music CDs, but they no longer need stores in which to browse for them.

After reading this press release, I realized why publishers are having difficulty with the shifting business to ebooks. With books, they were in control of the technology. Design and typeset a book and have it printed. Now they have to create content for presentation on any number of gizmos that are developed by other tech companies.