1. Abi Sutherland 01.12.10 / 11pm

   I call it a big fat maybe, myself. A couple of points:

   * Absent a rationalization of DRM mechanisms (or—I wish—their elimination), a proliferation of eBook readers is going to lead to trouble. Amazon’s deletion of (ironically) 1984 from many Kindles last year hasn’t made buyers nervous, but a few more incidents like it will put them off. So would, say, an outbreak of viruses on a given platform (not inconceivable).

   * Amazon isn’t providing eBook sales figures. It’s unclear whether this is because they’re staggeringly low or for some other reason, but it’s going to make it hard to actually calculate your second point.

   * Self-publishing isn’t the panacea it’s made out to be. There are already many dead-tree self-publishing outlets from the entirely respectable Lulu through mildly scammy outlets like DellArte (formerly Harlequin Horizons) to a host of vanity presses.

   The bottleneck in publishing isn’t getting your book to press, it’s getting it to the attention of readers, many of whom want to know that what they’re spending their money and (more importantly) time on is worthwhile. As they say, a writer’s real enemy isn’t piracy; it’s anonymity. EBooks’ easy channel to publication isn’t really much of a real-world advantage.

   (Note also that eBook price points are currently artificially low. It may not cost that much to produce the electronic files, but editing, copyediting and proofreading don’t come cheap. At the moment, they’re folded into the dead tree edition costs, but they have to go somewhere. Know one want to reed a book with half words mising or mozpeld.)

   * Mainstream media may tell me that it’s the year of the eBook, but they also told me that it was Mission Accomplished in Iraq. They don’t always know what they’re talking about.

   Not being a wet blanket, but I think we’re not going to see a tidal wave of eBooks taking over the world in 2010. I suspect there will be steady growth at the cost of dead tree editions, poor consolidation onto any single standard, an increase of the same paranoid DRM models that are killing the popular music industry, and a continual narrowing of the interests of the reading public, whether they’re buying atoms or electrons.
2. Martin Sutherland 01.13.10 / 12am

   I think that ebooks will take over from books very quickly. Just like with digital music, the convenience of having books available at the touch of the button will trump the “higher resolution” of a physical item for each title. The transition from physical to digital will be even faster than for music, because the convenience of digital music has already set expectations for immediate access to media.

   I have mixed feelings about when I personally will make the jump, and to what extent I will adopt them. I love the physical aspect of books, but I also like the idea of not having to carry around a stack of books just to have access to them. Searchability of text is a huge plus, but — barring a lottery win — I don’t want to re-purchase all of my physical books just to be able to grep them. Something like a last.fm for books would be very cool, and would definitely encourage me to read digitally.

   However, DRM is the big roadblock for me. I refuse to buy music in DRM-protected format, and the same applies to ebooks. I can live with copy-protected DVDs and Blu-rays, but music and books are more important to me than TV and films, and I won’t have them in a format that I can’t back up and move between platforms at will. I refuse to buy a “license” to read a book.

   These attitudes are both hard-core and generational, though. Most people don’t care about the format, so long as it is easy to use (hi Apple). Likewise, children born in the ebooks era won’t have the same emotional attachment to the physical nature of books, or to the idea that you can lend books to your friends, or resell them when you don’t want them any more. (Unless the current generation of consumers takes a stand. Yeah, right. See earlier comment about “hard-core”.) But this won’t be important to them, either — the very concept will probably seem foreign and unnecessary. As the volume of digital content we consume goes up, and the price of it comes (slowly) down, the emotional value we attach to it goes down, too. Content becomes more like a stream instead of something that exists in discrete chunks.

   (Aside: streaming ebooks? Spotify for text?)

   Finally, archival preservation. In risk management terms, the fall of modern civilization has a very small probability, but a very large impact. The impact is made greater by our increased use of digital media — the possibility that a post-collapse civilization will not be able to access all our pre-collapse digital knowledge is a crazy worry, but still…it bothers me.
3. Martin Sutherland 01.13.10 / 12am

   (Note: Abi and I posted those comments simultaneously, without realizing what the other was writing. Get the impression that this is something we think about a lot in this household?)
4. Anne Veling 01.13.10 / 12pm

   Ha! Good stuff Taco and well written up. Let’s try to remember to indeed look back next year January to see if this has been the year of the eBook. I’m happy to bow down to your visionary predictions if it turns out that way.

   In general, I agree that the quality and accessibility (in terms of price, and ease-of-use) of ebook readers has grown significantly over the past 3 years, and seems to have passed a threshold. Whether or not we’ll see mainstream ebook adoption already, I’m not sure. Why?

   Well, partly because I believe the disadvantages of ebook readers compared to books are bigger than their advantages. Let me try to summarize. I’ll put the (dis)advantages here, and immediately try to disarm all the arguments myself

   Why are ebooks better than books?
   * you can have multiple books on them, you have to carry less
   -> but only relevant if you go on a long trip, usually one book is ok
   * if you want you can download/buy a new book on the fly, without having to find a bookstore
   -> but not that important to me, still a lot of bookstores available, i always have a pile of books to read ready
   * ebooks are cheaper than books
   -> but the reader costs money, and books provide value for money for me anyway, I never do not buy a book because it’s too expensive

   Why are books better than ebooks?
   * higher resolution, ease of reading for the eye; screens emit light instead of reflect light, which is harder on the long run I guess, especially under bright conditions
   -> is this really true or just a feeling? new screens are very nice
   * no power needed, not yet another gadget to bring with you
   -> maybe if they get integrated in your tablet or phone or video player its not something extra
   * books can deal wit getting wet or sandy on the beach better
   -> maybe new readers are ok there
   * it’s nice to touch the books and physically turn pages
   -> maybe that’s just me being old fashioned, just like: but ooh i like turning vinyl

   To me, the reading experience of screens is really different from books, think that’s my main argument against ebooks. I’m waiting until the ePaper is good enough to actually make high resolution light-reflecting displays on bendable paper possible. My guess is that until we have paper that allows us to make Harry Potter like moving newspapers cheaply, the ebooks will never really get off. But then again, maybe I’m wrong.

   I have seen so many times people claiming ooh: this will be the year of XXX. Like 1998 will the year of Push. Or 2005 will be the year of eBooks (really; they’ve been predicting ebook wins for years now). Just the fact that people so desperately want to proclaim this seems to indicate to me they (yes you) want so desperately for this new tech to become mainstream they can no longer see why john doe does not get it… and usually the things that really take off in a year for the large consumer markets are not things like that, where tech-savvy early adopters have been pushing for years, but mostly things not taken seriously by the nerds that all of a sudden have become very successful. Like the wii, or the original ipod, or the computer mouse… Just to say that I think kids are better predictors than nerds like us.

   Well, let’s see what happens. If you’re right my wife should own one by next Christmas. Kudos for putting your predictions where your mouth is Taco. As said, I’m happy to go public and wear the Cone of Shame next year
5. Vonne 01.21.10 / 11pm

   Haj Neef!!

   wat toevallig nou, ik heb juist een college gehad over het feit dat het e-book er nog laaaaang niet klaar voor is om de ‘wereld over te nemen’. Er zijn namelijk wat probleempjes:

   - de verschillende beveiligingssystemen
   - het feit dat de e readers die nu verkocht worden eigenlijk nog maar prototypes zijn waar we over een jaar om zullen lachen
   - er zijn nog maar 300 nederlandse titels als ebook verkrijgbaar!!

   anyway, ik ga er niet aan die ebook hype mee doen (nog niet in ieder geval). want ik kan er juist altijd van genieten een mooi boek te kopen en als ik het dan uit heb krijgt het een plekje in mijn grote boekenkast. dat is toch veel leuker dan zo’n digitaal dingetje??

   ik heb je trouwens een sms gestuurd maar geen reactie van je gehad! dus ik dacht dat je waarschijnlijk weer ergens in verweggiestan zat. nou komt nog wel een keer!

   have fun met oom freddie in NY deze week. ik ben nog steeds ergg jaloers

   xx Vonne, doe New York de groeten van me
6. Abi Sutherland 02.01.10 / 8pm

   Well, it may not or may not be the year of the eBook, but it’s certainly the year of the eBook drama.

   I don’t know if you were following the trade gossip on the weekend of 30-31 January, but Amazon and Macmillan have fallen out spectacularly on the issue of eBook pricing.

   The short version is that Macmillan (one of the Big Six publishers) has been negotiating with Amazon to change its sales model from wholesale->retail to an agency model. In other words, Macmillan wants to dictate the price at which Amazon sells its eBooks, rather than taking the $9.99 price Amazon uses as a loss-leader to move Kindles out the door.

   Negotiations broke down, and on Friday 29 January, Amazon de-listed all Macmillan and subsidiary publisher titles, eBook and paper. That’s somewhere between an eighth and a sixth of Amazon’s inventory, and it included some of the loudest authors on the internet (Cory Doctorow: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/29/amazon-and-macmillan.html and John Scalzi: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/01/all-the-many-ways-amazon-so-very-failed-the-weekend/ among others).

   On the one hand, Amazon’s Kindle team has posted what looks like a capitulation; on the other hand, Macmillan books are still not available on Amazon. I don’t think this is over yet.

   The precipitating event to all of this is probably the launch of the iPad, and Steve Jobs’ ambiguous statement about eBook prices on it.

   I am not yet convinced that 2010 is the year of the eBook, but events this weekend make it more possible. Assuming two of the biggest players in making the change don’t blow each other up.
7. Sabroso » Blog Archive » On that eBook thing 10.09.11 / 7pm

   [...] It’s a bit longer than a year ago when I was challenged on getting specific about why the ebook would see its breakthrough that year. [...]

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