Aptara has completed its second survey of ebook publishers. More than 600 trade, professional and educational publishers participated. Here are some of the findings:
· Publishers are struggling to maximize profits from this fast-growing digital sector.
Inefficient print production processes are hampering scalable, affordable digital output.
· The greatest eBook production challenge is still eReader/content compatibility issues.
Even with the near universal EPUB format standard, today’s fragmented eReader market makes quality eBook production a moving target, requiring manual manipulation to retain
· consistent formatting across device-types.
· Only 7% of publishers are implementing enhancements to their eBooks.
Suggesting that most publishers are not aware of the EPUB standard’s inherent support for content enhancement, including audio and video.
· Almost one-fourth of publishers producing eBooks are employing XML.
Indicating a positive shift to scalable, digital workflows in support of efficient eBook production across all eReaders.
· 64% of all publishers are offering titles in eBook format. Up 11% from the first survey.
· 61% of Trade/Consumer publishers support the EPUB standard. 18% more than any other publisher type.
You can find the full results here.
“Inefficient print production processes are hampering scalable, affordable digital output.”
Oops, somebody forgot to toe the official industry line that printing is free and has no impact on the production cost of books.
This isn’t surprising: “Suggesting that most publishers are not aware of the EPUB standard’s inherent support for content enhancement, including audio and video.”
Technical support isn’t consumer demand. I’d be delighted if the ebooks I read came with an interview of the author or (when appropriate) a brief historical background, but beyond that I–and I suspect most readers–have no interest in including other media. I read to read, not to watch low-budget video.
That isn’t surprising. Think for a moment how many movies you’ve seen that have more than a few seconds of reading. Moviemakers know their kraft and avoid forcing viewers to read. In the opposite direction, so do most publishers. People simply don’t want to mix media. It’s why multi-media CD-ROMs went bust.
Besides, most publishers budgets aren’t up to the enormous costs of even brief low quality video production. Also, ePub on most reading devices can’t even handle a mere graphic well. Complex maps on an iPhone? No way. Color photos on a Kindle? Not possible.
The one exception is likely to be blending an ebook with a bookmarked spoken version. But that’s because our minds don’t make a strong distinction between reading and being read to.
I’m not in the publishing industry at all, except as a consumer. But I think I can understand why the publisher’s are still sticking with a focus on print.
E-books may be “free” to distribute, but they aren’t yet very scalable. The Girl Who Played With Fire has sold over 20 million copies. Even if you get every single Kindle, nook, Sony, and even Ipad owner to buy a copy of your book (and that’s a pretty tall order), you’re still only selling about 10 million copies.
Until e-bookstores get a lot more units produced and distributed, or someone can convince people to read on their computer’s and be happy about it, large publisher’s are basically forced to think about the physical book market first and the e-book market second.
Ah, but virtually all writing today is produced and edited on a word processor. The text is there. The formatting and ‘scaling’ is automatic within each eReader device depending on the font size and line spacing chosen by the reader. There simply is no additional cost to send a text file to a database. The only exceptions would be books with tables or illustrations, which can be (and probably already are) digitized. There is no excuse for not simultaneously supporting eReaders, except for a loss of profit in selling physical materials.
Michael – I think you are broadly right in what you say about movies, through I believe there is very little involved in creating a simple face to face interview and including it as an option with an eBook purchase. What about text interviews though ? I would be very interested in a good quality text interview with the author, maybe split into two. One section on their writing lives and bio and one section on this book.
Peter L – paper books may be the majority now but any competent business faced with a powerful process of change in how it’s product is being consumed needs ton be planning well ahead and putting structures and systems in place. From this survey alone it is evident that even no, years after the change started, they are still making very little progress and failing to grasp some of the key drivers of customers frustrations that are documented at length here in TeleRead.
mldavis2 – I agree fully with your point.