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The folly of territorial restrictions on e-books: Two-thirds of O’Reilly iPhone app buyers are outside the States
August 14, 2009 | 4:31 am
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By David Rothman
“We’ve recently begun selling many of our books directly on the iPhone through the ‘App Store.’ And nearly 2/3 of the people buying those apps are from outside the US. Nearly half of the digital sales from our website are to customers outside the US. For many of our books in Google Book Search, the traffic from India is several times higher than from the US. Though we’re primarily an English-language publisher, digital distribution has given us the ability to expand the market for that English-language content worldwide.” – Andrew Savikas (photo), vice president, O’Reilly Media—writing in Publishing Perspectives.
The TeleRead take: Of course technical books from O’Reilly aren’t the same as novels from Knopf—cultural differences count less—but you can see the point here. While localization is fine for e-books or any others, publishers should work with authors and agents to rethink existing agreements. Really. It’s a win-win-win… game. Image is from O’Reilly’s app-packaged iPhone manual.
Technorati Tags: Andrew Savikas
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Comments:
“While localization is fine for e-books or any others, publishers should work with authors and agents to rethink existing agreements.” Not sure I understand the “localization is fine for e-books”? Do you mean it’s fine to create local versions of the texts but that all texts should be sold in all regions?
Exactly, Dominique—and that includes translations, among other editions. Thanks. David
It isn’t that simple. There are strong lobbying interests in various countries that insist on territorial restrictions no matter what the publishers or authors want, i.e., booksellers.
But heck, Paul, enlightened writers and publishers can at least try. Thanks. David
Territorial restrictions and Internet don’t mix together. It’s like 19th century mentality transfered to 21th century.
Living outside USA I can’t buy many ebooks, although they are available at a local English bookshop. I’d rather save some trees and find an ebook somewhere else.