Posts tagged CyBook

It is funny to see that books are going through their biggest change in nearly 400 years. They are starting to migrated to electronic reading devices. So called  “ebooks”, such as Amazon’s Kindle, the Sony eBook, Booken Cybook and the iLiad, enable you to read on a device lighter than a paperback with electronic ink. The ebook can be read comfortably in almost any light conditions, including on beaches. It has no need for a backlit screen that fades away at inopportune moments. In other words an almost perfect device better than traditional books: They save paper and can be reproduced at low cost; users can increase the type size and read while eating, using a finger as a page-turner and already today thousands of books can legally be downloaded from the web.

This has made the Norwegian book industry go offensive. The Norwegian Bokhandlerforeningen has learned from the music industry, who for years have been on the defence in relation to consumers with new MP3 players. Bookstores have already equipped their employees with digital eBook readers, so that they can get to know the technology before the regular readers start buying e-books. The committee working on introducing eBooks in Norway has no authority to determine prices, but suggests fixed price also on e-books. This price will probably 30 – 50 % lower than in today’s paper based books, but still a bit higher then the current paperback books. When the bookstores start selling eBooks, readers will get a six pages reading demo of each. The online shop Amazon has had such an offer in place for years.

Internationally we have seen with so many innovations, that manufacturers try to build their devices with their “own” locked format (for example iTMS), in the hope that they will become the standard for the world or to simply milk the market! Sony’s eBook only offers the books Sony wants to sell (without Internet access) and the same goes with Amazon and their Kindle. The unique about this Norwegian variation of book samples is that it has been able, through cooperation between publishers, to create one solution, in stead of each bookstore chain making their own! This will turn out to be a brilliant tactical move. We have a dusin Norwegian online music shop, all of them running their own solution. I guess that is one of the main reasons for iTunes Music Store great success.

I can’t wait getting my hands on some eBooks in Norwegian. I love my Cybook, and have read 6 books on it already. Sadly the time estimate for the “tipping point” for digital book distribution is still 2 – 5 years away. They are probably not far from the truth, as the consumers need more reading devices on the market. The bookstores will then also have installed so-called print on demand. Using a 1-2 square feet “Espresso Book Machine”, the stores will be able to print out a book in the time it takes to drink an espresso (about 3 minutes). The eBooks will of course be equipped with a DRM-solution, and that is understandable. Authors can not as easily as musicians go on tours and play their music.

O’Reilly is probably the first big computer book house going digital. They this month announced that they will offer a select number of books as a bundle of three ebook formats (EPUB, PDF, and Kindle-compatible Mobipocket) for a single price at or below the book’s cover price, and they are starting early next month. These are the first books out: iPhone: The Missing Manual, Windows Vista: The Missing Manual, Facebook: The Missing Manual, Making Things Happen, Open Sources 2.0, The Art of Agile Development and Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 3ed. This is a nice pilot project and all the books will be released without any DRM, but with some custom watermarking options. The great thing is that with these three formats, customers should be able to read the books with most current ebook software and devices. I am a bit sceptical to reading computer books in ebook formats (.epub and mobipocket), cause of all the screenshots. But I will buy the missing manual for Vista, just to have a try.