University of California Press Blog

Amazon Kindling New Interest in eBooks?

Amazon's unveiling of their new ebook reader, the Kindle, has generated much attention in both publishing circles and in the general media.  Everybody seems to have an opinion about the Kindle.  The most recent high-profile discussion of the merits of the Amazon Kindle was a piece by Randall Stross in the January 27th edition of the New York Times.

From the beginning, Amazon has been betting that the Kindle will be to book lovers what the iPod has been to music lovers.  Whether the Kindle really catches fire (no pun intended) or lands on the ash heap of failed attempts to digitize the general book business, I do think the conversations about books that the unveiling of the Kindle have started have been profitable for both consumers, publishers, and other people involved in the book trade. 

UC Press has agreed to participate in the Kindle program, and Amazon is in the process of preparing a few dozen files for inclusion as downloadable ebooks for the Kindle reader, so we don't currently have a big stake in this.  But from the media attention that's been lavished on this homely little ebook reading device, one would think that the future of the book business hinged upon its success.  Is it all hyperbole?

From the time I first saw a prototype of the device, I had my doubts that people would want yet another gadget, let alone an expensive gadget, in order to read digital books.  This is, unfortunately, a limitation of today's digital book reading technology.  The very technology that currently makes digital books more readable on screen, E-ink technology, requires a different display than your computer monitor, cell phone, or PDA use.  Indeed, Joe Wikert of John Wiley and Sons recently blogged about this on the Teleread ebook blog, positing that the ideal gadget for reading digital books would be a laptop that is somehow e-ink enabled.

Ultimately, though, Randall Stross's piece in the New York Times, spends less time discussing the technology behind the Kindle and more time discussing how the fate of reading book length treatments of anything in this country might be joined at the hip with wider adoption of electronic reading devices.  The book industry (it has been pointed out many times before) is one of the few entertainment industries that has stubbornly resisted digitization.  This is partly attributable to intellectual property issues with digital books and with borrowed material contained within books themselves, which isn't so much an issue for, say, musical compositions, unless they contain tons of samples.  It's also partially attributable to a sense that a book is in and of itself an aesthetic object, and avid readers from the time they start reading beautifully illustrated, four-color children's books are brought up with this mentality.  And, well, frankly, things just don't move along very quickly in the book business.  But, mostly, readers just haven't take to reading books online, although they're increasingly reading tons of other stuff online.

While none of these things is likely to change overnight, I think that the heat is being turned up by a younger generation that is accustomed to reading on screen and wants instant gratification.  But whether ebooks are ultimately widely adopted turns on not the technology itself but whether or not avid readers (those 20% of the population who buy the overwhelming number of the books sold in this country) begin to turn to ebooks.  Gadget collectors and technophiles won't make or break the ebook business–avid readers will. It also hinges upon whether this country will continue to produce avid readers of books, and some anecdotal evidence from a recent Frontline piece on social networking suggested we might be having some difficulty in this area.

Nonetheless, Amazon is in an excellent position to deliver the goods to these avid readers.  People may argue about Amazon's use of a proprietary format and digital rights management to lock down Kindle ebooks, but for users who just want to get on with the business of reading and who don't care much about managing their ebook collections, these features make this system easy to work with.  This could be the real upside to what Amazon has done.

If the Kindle itself hasn't delivered the future of the ebook, the conversations generated by its introduction have at least given us a glimpse. 

Textbook Blues–Students Face Another Semester

With students returning to college campuses across the country, textbooks are on the minds of students and faculty everywhere.  Chuck Crumly, the Science Publisher at the University of California Press, takes some time to reflect on the current state of the textbook business in the United States.

The cost of undergraduate textbooks has become more and more difficult for the average student to afford.  At the same time commercial publishers have invested more and more on the average college textbook requiring a larger and larger return on investment.  This "vicious circle" has been cycling.  Thus, it is not uncommon for a college textbook to cost more than $100 and include ancillary materials, test banks, pedagogical software, color in print and on web sites and more–all to gain the edge in an arms race with competitors.  The victims of this arms race are the students.

Both professors and students are beginning to rise up.  Professors remember the days when they could afford their textbooks and they are guilty about assigning textbooks whose prices seem extraordinary.  Students no longer buy their textbooks new - tattered used copies are okay.  There are even companies that now allow student to rent their books.  Commercial publishers are aware of these trends and have responded by escalating the arms race with new editions and even more elaborate course ancillary materials.

The down side is the fate of the more specialized - and more interesting - upper division courses intended for small class sizes and not taught at all colleges and universities.  Commercial publishers are abandoning these courses - texts in these course do not generate enough revenue.  Paradoxically, these are the courses that are intended for the students who will become the professors of the next generation.  And they will be assigning textbooks.  In a real way, commercial publishers are abandoning their future customers.

What should be done?  More next time.

Redroom.com & Booktour.com Roll Out the Red Carpet for Authors

The San Francisco Chronicle reported today that Redroom.com is in full public beta.  It aims to connect readers with writers by providing an author a blog that can include a variety of content.  According to the website information page:

Through original, author-generated content, we offer a trustworthy and creative social network unlike any other. Here, you can connect with your favorite authors, access current industry news, and comment on engaging features. By fostering true community between authors and readers, Red Room showcases esteemed writers and inspires the next generation. We also give back to the community we aim to nurture with our commitment to the Causes We Support.

Booktour.com is another site that caters to authors that is also in public beta.  With Booktour.com authors create their own page (biography, books, tour dates and availability) and any group looking for speakers can find them and contact them directly to arrange for an appearance.  Booktour.com also allows readers to connect with authors by allowing them to search for authors who will be appearing in their area.  Among the site's founders is Chris Anderson, the author of The Long Tail.  According to Booktour's information page:

For authors, BookTour.com serves as a one-stop tool for book promotion, allowing authors at all levels of their careers to locate receptive live audiences. For readers and audiences, BookTour.com makes finding when a favorite author is coming to your town as easy as checking the weather.

The goal of both sites is to involve authors more in the promotion of their own works and to connect readers with writers in ways that writers, publishers, and supply-chain partners alone might not be able to.  Statistics continue to reveal that greater and greater numbers of us are spending more and more time online, and there's a definitely a niche to be filled in connecting avid readers with books and authors.

A definite advantage to such sites is that as long as they remain inclusive they have the potential to provide "one stop shopping" for readers who are looking to connect with books or authors.  They also can exploit the power of easy-to-use, self-service Web 2.0 interfaces that allow authors and publishers to disseminate information about authors as personalities that previously might have been unavailable to readers.   Such efforts to create communities of readers by publishers themselves can often be hampered by the fact that many readers don't necessarily connect a book to its publisher.

Recent statistics indicate that about 20-25% of consumers buy nearly 80% of the books in the United States, so look for more similarly ambitious efforts to connect these avid readers with the book and authors they love in the near future.