Objects of Beauty

Since returning from holiday I've been involved with probably a dozen conversations about ebooks - about the hardware, Digital Rights Management, suppliers and technology partners, e-ink, about whether the era of the ebook is finally dawning. We've been publishing a small line of ebooks since 2001, but press speculation, fueled by the blogosphere, is that Amazon will join Sony in releasing an ebook reader in the near future, with digitised texts also viewable via Google Booksearch and perhaps on the iPhone and iPod Touch also.

I've long been a big believer in onscreen reading - in the approaching age of always on broadband connectivity the idea that all the world's texts can be accessible, searchable and portable is, I believe, a very compelling scenario. While the book as an object will not become redundant technology for a while, I cannot see why the book industry should be immune from the disruptive changes transforming the music, film, newspaper and TV business, where everyday more and more people access content online.

But repeatedly perusing these images of some of the world's most beautiful libraries has given me a little pause for thought (do check out the whole set of images here - and tell us why Portugal has such a collection of amazing libraries!). The experience of reading in one of these is surely in a different league from booting up an ereading device and waiting for the page to refresh, even if the etexts are fully searchable. Is convenience enough to cause a massive shift in reading habits and perhaps encourage greater use of traditional book content? Do the extra things that ebooks could and should do (annotation, bookmarking, search, customization, integrated multimedia) make up for the fact that the aesthetic experience is different from (and less than?) that of cracking open the spine of a new book.

In his provocative article, Scan This Book, Kevin Kelly says

Yet the common vision of the library's future (even the e-book future) assumes that books will remain isolated items, independent from one another, just as they are on shelves in your public library. There, each book is pretty much unaware of the ones next to it. When an author completes a work, it is fixed and finished. Its only movement comes when a reader picks it up to animate it with his or her imagination. In this vision, the main advantage of the coming digital library is portability — the nifty translation of a book's full text into bits, which permits it to be read on a screen anywhere. But this vision misses the chief revolution birthed by scanning books: in the universal library, no book will be an island.

Kelly imagines a future where texts are 'liquid' - taggable, mashable, hyperlinked and above all searchable and findable. This 'universal library' he posits, will once again make books central to the culture (as they were when most of the libraries here were built) and provide value for readers, writers and the publishers who get it.

I think that Kelly's idea of 'Books: The Liquid Version' is beyond the imagination of most publishers at this point in time (though there are those actively exploring the possibilities). We're still working out how to make ebooks work, how much content should be available online for free and who the players are in this brave new world. So happily, despite the buzz around electronic books it seems that the printed book, the ebook and the beautiful temples to reading shown in the photographs will coexist for some time yet.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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Comments

[Blue Tyson]

Here's how you make it work, it is really rather simple.

No DRM.

Reasonable prices.

Reasonable means _less_ than the paper version, because no-one is going to believe they should cost the same or more.

[LinM]

How appropriate anyone from Penguin should publish about ebooks during the same week that numerous blogs have pointed out that Penguin charges more for their ebooks than the MM editions. And, these ebooks may only be available in mobipocket format which is not compatible with every ebook reader.

I read ebooks because of declining vision and limited shelf space. There are disadvantages to ebooks: there is no substitute for the physical, tactile enjoyment of a printed book; I can't lend my ebooks to a friend; I can't donate ebooks to my public library for circulation or resale.

25 years ago, I was probably publisher agnostic except for Penguin - the orange/black covers were a promise of great fiction with better paper and crisper fonts. Three days ago, I discovered that all of the Penguin ebooks on my wishlist are more expensive than the physical books. I had more than a dozen Penguin ebooks on my wishlists - I've deleted them all.

Looking at the Penguin ebook prices, I feel rage, betrayal and scorn. Penguin doesn't get it.

[jeremy ettinghausen]

Thanks for your comment LinM. The price of ebooks is a subject that we debate regularly and energetically here at Penguin UK and I am sure that similar discussions are going on at Penguin US and indeed at all publishing houses. Pricing, like format, DRM, territoriality and additional multimedia content is all 'stuff we're trying to work out' - we're at the start of The Great eBook Adventure and I am hopeful that these issues will be worked out in time to everyone's satisfaction.

[Dean]

"I cannot see why the book industry should be immune from ... disruptive changes"

It's not: look at AbeBooks and Amazon. You are blinkered by your forte.

But eBooks will not succeed until better delivery vehicles are cheap and sturdy. As you know, most computer screens have a refresh cycle, so they are not good at delivering long bits of text.

A newspaper article is usually in the order of 500 to 1200 words. I will not read longer, magazine features online.

But the ability to SEARCH (only) a text book, for example, is very attractive.

Thus, for me, a downloadable text file or searchable database on a publisher's website is a nice adjunct to a paper book. But I will only pay extra for this facility in case of reference books, for study etc.

Otherwise, I say pooh to eBooks.

[Drew B]

Great to meet you at R4 today Jeremy

[Kaz]

Hi Jeremy
I'm new to Ebooks with Microsoft reader but have been reading on screen for many years. I was surprised at the cost of the Ebooks as I always prefer to buy the real thing, but I guess you have worked out your costs and this is what it adds up to. Perhaps when more readers want to buy the Ebooks they will come down in price. I think ebooks are great for some things, some of the time. I'm thinking of developing something based on my craft of handweaving as this would be a great way of having searchable tips or essays, especially with some type of problem solving or thinking involved. This way the annotation/marking tools will be great.

Thanks for the link to the glorious libraries of our world.

[Levada]

As an ebook author myself I eagerly look forward to the day when everyone can have a lightweight, inexpensive and portable ebook reader.

I believe we will see a new interest in reading. Why? Because those ebooks can embed a variety of multimedia. It will not be the same old experience of black text on white paper. Reading will become a lot more INTERESTING.

If anyone is looking for original niche ebooks to resell, go here: www.ResellEbooksBuzz.com

Thanks!