Taiwan Today has an excellent overview article about the state of ebooks in Taiwan. While Taiwan is the world’s major producer of ebook hardware, the actual books have a way to go:
However, statistics from the Industrial Development Bureau under the MOEA reveal that there are only some 20,000 electronic books and magazines available in traditional Chinese characters in Taiwan, most of which are in PDF format and are not copyrighted. This is far less than the number of texts available through Amazon, for example, which is reported to carry some 660,000 titles and more than 100 newspapers and magazines for its Kindle reader.
Against this backdrop, the IDB has been giving courses on e-book editing and production in an effort to accelerate the integration of the supply chain and assist local publishers to quickly adapt to digital publishing operations.
In addition, the IDB said, Taiwan and mainland China have begun discussing respective terms of use and have reached a consensus on making conversion between traditional and simplified Chinese character texts a high priority, paving the way for the emerging Chinese language e-book market.
Taiwan’s e-Reading Industry Promotion Alliance, a group of over 200 local companies, is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding with mainland China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology this October to establish more extensive bilateral cooperation, the IDB said.
Thanks to Michael von Glahn for the link.
