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Project Gutenberg goes mobile
February 6, 2009 | 1:51 pm
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By Chris Meadows
It has become clear that at least one major e-book organization has been thinking about how to get its books onto some of those four billion mobile phone handsets. The venerable Project Gutenberg public-domain e-book repository has announced that it is creating Project Gutenberg Mobile Edition software, to allow its books to be downloaded onto mobile phone handsets anywhere in the world.
And Gutenberg is not just thinking about smartphones, either:
All mobile books can be downloaded as Java-applications and can then later be installed on the cell phone by using Bluetooth, serial connection, infrared or data cable. Additionally it will be possible to install the books directly over the air by using WAP: Just browse to Gutenberg.org and click on the JAR-link. And soon the mobile book will automatically be installed on your phone.
From the press release, it appears that these books will be the equivalent of "appbooks" for the iPhone: self-contained Java apps that contain the text of the book within them. For use on ordinary cell phones, this may be the best way to go, making it simple to download a book and start reading rather than worrying about how to get it into a reader program such as Mobipocket’s.
For those who have iPhones, Project Gutenberg’s books can already be downloaded via Stanza.
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Comments:
PG have an advantage the istore dont they dont charge for the books so theres no real need to keep the app around after your finished with the book.
And they have another advantage over Google Books Mobile, come to think of it, in that they let you download the whole book.
Now see, this kind of ebook publishing makes sense to me.
PG is a non-profit. They publish exclusively online already, using out of copyright works. They are not constrained by a business model … ie, they don’t need to shell out royalties to authors, nor do they need to make profit.
Myself, as ex-magazine publisher and current small press start-up can see the benefits of ebooks for the reader, but I can’t see much financial incentive there as a business owner. In my personal circle of acquaintances I know not one single person who pays for digital content (and I’m in my mid-30s). Appz, music, movie or TV shows… all get the torrent treatment. It can even be masked.
Please can someone tell me how an author or publisher of mainstream fiction can survive the ebook revolution?
I certainly wouldn’t pay for an ebook once it is available as a torrent. And I most certainly wouldn’t pay $9.95. If Joe Public knew that I can layout and export (to whatever format) a whole book in a day, they’d be horrified about paying anything for the digital version.
I guess, I just don’t trust the reader to pay for content … simply because there aren’t too many precedents for this horror system compared to illegal downloads.
Just my frustrated 2 cents!
@chris bates: Well, substitute “music” for “mainstream fiction” and “mp3 revolution” for “e-book revolution” and you’ll have the beginnings of a clue. Going by your arguments, it stands to reason that the iTunes Music Store should have been a monumental flop—why would anyone want to pay 99 cents a track for (until only recently) 128 kilobit, DRM-locked music when they can just download it for free in better quality and unrestricted off of peer-to-peer?
And yet, the iTunes Music Store has become the single biggest retailer of music in the entire world. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
Read some Eric Flint. He’s irascible and dogmatic, but so far events have proved him more right than wrong. Flint points out that it can take a long time to find the book you want on peer-to-peer (if, indeed, you can find it at all), and when you do find it there’s no guarantee it won’t be riddled with typos or in a format you can’t use, or both.
But if a publisher makes a quality version of it available at a reasonable price, as Baen has, people have proven that they will be willing to pay for convenience and quality. It’s certainly worked for Baen. In fact, some people have been so insistent that they want to pay even for the books Baen intentionally gives away that Baen had to add a “Donate” button to the book listings in the Free Library section.
It’s the “reasonable price” bit that ends up being the problem. I’m not sure I’d pay $9.95, necessarily, but that’s the price point where it sort of depends on how badly I want the book. On the other hand, compared to the $20-$30 hardcover price some e-books cost, that sounds downright reasonable. Especially if $9.95 was the standard retail and I bought it through Fictionwise, where I can generally save at least 10% and often 20% over retail rates—that brings it down to paperback price. Or if $9.95 was what Amazon was charging for their Kindle edition when everyone else was charging $20-$30 hardcover price.
There will always be some people who snag stuff via peer-to-peer. But on the other hand, make quality stuff available at a decent price, and a lot of people will pay for it rather than take the time to search a pile of peer-to-peer chaff for an elusive diamond.
The cold hard fact is as the long tail gets larget the middle spectrum of content providers get poorer, bellow all the hype of itunes this fact is also true for music theres probably far less people making money as full time musucians now then 30 years ago.
There will be a cashflow and the blockbusters will still make loads of money, but theres going to be people loosing jobs and having to scale down. Compeeting with a free back catalog of clasics werent something you did 20 years ago today this is what you have to when publishing ebooks.
Thanks Chris for the comment:
I’ll chase the Flint link.
I’m pretty reluctant to embrace the ebook revolution as you can see from my previous post. Yes, iTunes may be popular but the sheer size of the p2p usergroup is intimidating – how many free downloads compared to paid I wonder?
Unfortunately it’s my cold hard cash taking the risk on publishing a new title that could be distributed free on every torrent in the world. That said, I’m actually loathe to call p2p ‘an illegal activity’ these days, simply because it has now become a social norm, ie we as a society – including myself – accept it as a right. It’s a ‘screw the corporations’ mentality I guess.
The day that I become an ebook convert as a business model is the day that you guys post about a million-seller (paid download) ebook. Personally, I hope it happens soon because the current business model of publishing really is archaic.
As for pricing: Let me outline a very rough costing (Australia) on a trade paperback title.
Per Unit…
Retail Price: $32.95
- minus Print Costs (ex-china, 10,000copies): $3
- minus Taxes, import etc: ~$3.50
- retail/wholesale Discount(between 50-70%): $16.50 (50%)
Publisher’s return on investment ~ $10.00
Not including design, edit, author royalty and marketing.
The bottom line doesn’t look good – it’s even worse in the USA – but it certainly seems a whole lot better when you consider that a dead tree can’t be downloaded for free one million times overnight!
That said, I’d be all for a $5 ebook, distributed from the publisher’s site direct. This is where, I believe, the ebook revolution is most powerful – losing the retailer/distributor. Which is why Amazon made the Kindle … without it they lose a barrier to the defense of their own business model. In my opinion, a large screen iPod will be all it takes to unsettle a stand-alone eReading device.
Update:
I don’t really agree with Flint.
To me, his logic vis a vis salt/toll-roads/ebooks is way off the mark.
Firstly, a popular product would show up as a download on every torrent guide.
Secondly, would he still buy salt if there was a free pile of it near his garage. And would he use the toll-road if there was a free-Freeway running adjacent to it?
His google examples have no relevance because people will be searching p2p networks for their popular downloads. The argument that people don’t generally know how to do this is fast fading … hell, older generations didn’t know how to text message several years ago. Not so now.
He’s a test: someone go rent ‘The Dark Knight’ then buy a ‘Britney Spears’ song off iTunes … and I’ll get them both for free – and grab a beer from the fridge at the same time. Let’s see which is faster… and more affordable!
And yet, Baen continues to be able to sell its e-books cheaply, take in a decent amount of money from doing so, and not have any problems with piracy. Funny, how that works.
Yeah, I agree that Baen has it’s finger on the pulse. I’m willing to side with you on this.
They have a library of titles, multiple formats, all self-distributed via the net.
So, the optimum business model could be: Indie-publish small niche titles; self-distribute via online to avoid the middleman (iTunes/Amazon); provide low price-point products to facilitate firm sales; build strong customer loyalty that identifies with your (growing) brand … the perfect publishing business.
The next few years should be interesting.