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By David Rothman

Poynter InstituteAt the Passover table last night, I waged the good fight on behalf of e-books and e-media in general. Cousin Lois protested that both she and her librarian daughter still liked the feel and rustle of paper.

The pro-E noises I made, about economy and access—and I could also have mentioned large “print” for the sight impaired—didn’t register even when I acknowledged the joys of both P and E. I just regret I didn’t talk about Elijah. I think of him as a virtual creature who, absent from the Passover celebration, would appreciate the joys of E for the dispersed. His chair might be empty, but he could still read from a vast selection of e-Haggadahs. Now, here’s something for both him and Cousin Lois to ponder.

Poynter’s manna for E boosters

What if the respected Poynter Institute found that “when readers chose to read an online story, they usually read an average of 77% of the story, compared to 62% in broadsheets and 57% in tabloids”?

That in fact is what happened, according to Editor & Publisher, when “600 newspaper readers from six different newspapers were studied,” utilizing “electronic eyetracking equipment that readers wore while they read broadsheet, tabloid and online editions of newspapers.” Here’s material directly from Poynter, complete with a, ugh, video. Kidding aside, how many p-books can come with multimedia, which, if used well, will actually whet interest in text—TeleBlog items included.

Even DRM implications

Granted, books are many times the lengths of newspaper articles. Still, the long-term outlook for e-books is good and only going to get better as the technology improves and more children grow up reading off screens rather than paper. Oh, and there are even implications for the DRM battles, in the wake of the Poynter findings. Let me explain.

Publishers need to consider profits in a holistic way, encompassing both P and E, and, yes, I know they’re worried about $6 e-books stealing from the sales of p-books priced much more steeply. Still, if they fret endlessly about cannibalization and aren’t as quick as they should be to kill off or lessen use of DRM, their profits could suffer. Smaller rivals will make it as easy as possible for people to enjoy e-books—which could mean less reliance on Draconian copy-protection and more eagerness to raze the Tower of eBabel. I doubt that the big p-houses will be as bruised as Detroit has been in its battle with Japan—have you ever heard of a backlist of Chevys or Fords?—but I hope that the Poynter findings will be considered in making decisions on DRM and in other areas.

The biz model factor

Needless to say, “other areas” could include business models. What about the writers who want to use free-e/paid-p model? The more attractive the E becomes, the more that f-e/p-p model will need to be modified. More positively, if people are paying more attention to E than suspected, what about the potential for advertising in appropriate e-books, not just e-newspapers?

Ok. Now if only I can turn around Lois. She’s progressed from Lud to dial-up user to broadband subscriber, so maybe there’s hope.

Related: Commentaries in Print Is Dead, If:Book, and info NeoGnostic. Of interest in the latter: “To date, virtually no research has been undertaken to see if e-books are preferred to paper books; whether they are read in the same way; whether they are read at all (as opposed to quick searches for an answer or a quotation); whether readers take away or gain a similar amount of knowledge in a similar amount of time to that spent on the paper-based text; and so on.” Actually Professor Richard Bellaver at Ball State University has been venturing into some of this territory.

 
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