Further thoughts on eBooks

The whole eBook saga is set to continue apace, and to be honest, is there anyone out there who is surprised by this? No... I thought not. There's a long way to go with this, and it's going to require a lot of thought by everyone concerned before we can reach some sort of compromise. I've been involved with a few things to do with them recently - I was on the Radio 4 programme You and Yours recently, and also in a written piece to accompany a BBC Click item as well as in The Bookseller which was reporting the Radio 4 programme.

Let's look at a few facts that I've gleaned from the quick research that I've been doing in this area. Libraries - while not yet making huge use of eBooks (according the MLA there are 33 public library services that offer eBook/audio borrowing out of a total of 151 Public Library Authorities) are certainly making inroads. One local authority reported to me that they have 55,000 loans from a stock of about 19,600 titles. Visits to library websites have risen to 120.2 million which is an increase of almost 90% over the the past four years.

Users are interesting - about 7% of online adults read eBooks, but they consume 41% of their books in digital format. A 'One Poll' poll recently found out that 6% of over 55s read electronically, which is slightly higher than the 5% of the 18-24 year old bracket. Most read on the Kindle - 47%, with the iPad covering 31% and the Sony reader with 14%. So it's still a fledgling market, but it does seem to suggest that people who like to read electronically really do like it. Speaking personally I'll always try and go for a Kindle version of a book instead of the print version when possible. Of course it's worth pointing out that my suspicion is that a lot of the eBook library users are those who can't get into the library due to shift work, opening hours, physical position, frailty, impairment and so on, and for them, eBooks are going to be an excellent way to read books.

The publishing industry is having problems with eBooks of course, and since I go back to the CD-ROM days I can see the same tired and worn arguments coming up that we had with information providers who were worried that putting data onto CD was going to destroy their database industry. Some publishers refuse to have anything to do with eBooks, others will not sell to libraries (so at least points to HarperCollins for that!), while Bloomsbury reported an 18 fold increase in sales in 2010. It's certainly looking to become a wealthy niche - $1 billion in 2010 and estimated to rise to $3 billion in 2015.

What about authors? There's certainly a fair number who are positively in favour of having their work available electronically. Neil Gaiman was fascinated to see that those countries in which his work is pirated (such as Russia) his work sold better than it had done before. Consequently, he put one of his titles up on his website for free for a month. Sales increased.

 

Cory Doctorow puts all of his materials onto the web without charging for them, and he has found that people will still buy his books. I read an online comic called Freak Angels but I also buy the print version as well. People will do this; it should not come as a surprise. We are not stupid - we know that a writer needs money to carry on writing. I will often buy books from small bookstores, even when I know that I could get them cheaper from Amazon (and I bet you do too), because it keeps them in business, means that they're there if I'm passing and its the right thing to do. People do not give money to charity because they're expecting some sort of physical reward - people do it because they think they should, it helps other people, they feel good doing it and any number of other reasons.

Take a look at the recent World Book Night, where thousands of people gave away copies of 25 different titles. Did this result in sales of the books slumping? Did it mean that people didn't bother to go into bookshops any more? No - quite the opposite, as The Bookseller reports. Sales of the titles soared by over 100% at W H Smith, amid a wider trade sales boost. People will often try books or authors for free in a library or eBook setting, discover that they like the series or author and will then go out and buy more copies. Libraries do not hinder book sales, they increase book sales. Yet, ironically in the same magazine, we have Publishers Association c.e.o. Richard Mollet trying to make the case that "If all consumers could borrow for free whenever they wanted, it would send a rocket through the retail market." A bit of news for Mr Mollet - libraries have been allowing consumers to borrow for free, whenever they wanted - and I don't see any disruption to publishers, authors or bookshops as a result.

So, finally to eBooks and libraries. I have described the HarperCollins 26 loans and you're done system as being backward looking and retrograde, and I still think it is. They are trying to view a book in the same way that they view print titles, but assuming that an eBook would theoretically 'wear out' after the 26 loans, forcing libraries to buy new copies. This is nonsensical, as the Oklahoma librarians showed in their YouTube video.

 

If the publisher is really keen on that model, then fine - but lets have a discussion with libraries about how many loans are appropriate. It's going to be a lot more than 26! We also should make the point that at the end of the eBook life libraries are not free to sell the withdrawn title, and they are initially purchased at full cost rather than at discount. Admittedly the publisher is offering a cheaper repurchase cost, but that doesn't happen with the print model. You can have it one way or another, but not both. It's either like a print book or it isn't.

So now we come to the librarian's attitude. There's a website that calls on libraries to boycott the publisher. I've looked at the 'site' and to be honest, it's childish and infantile. It's the sort of response that I'd expect from a pre-schooler. Now, I get that it's a tactic - clearly no library is really going to do this in any large scale manner. Not only because the publisher will hardly notice, but because it's doing damage to the library users/patrons/members, and that's not what we want. If libraries want to get involved, the way to do it is to offer to talk to publishers, the eBook providers (Overdrive), authors and anyone else interested. We need to get our heads around the idea that print books are not the same as eBooks, and they should be treated differently. We all need to work together to come up with a far more interesting and appropriate pricing model. HarperCollins is stupid to try and enforce a model, and libraries calling for a boycott are just as stupid.

I'm interested to see models such as LoveFilm working, where a subscription is paid for access to a library of films, which can be borrowed at an appropriate number per month. I like the Spotify approach where I pay £10 a month for unlimited access to their music collection. Both of these models recognise that we're in a different world, a world that doesn't rely on an artifact analogy.

However, I'm - as you might expect - going to come down on the side of libraries. We've been around a lot longer than publishers. Publishers have shown very limited understanding of the need to change their models - libraries on the other hand are flexible; we've had to be. Publishers are the ones who have most to lose here. If leading authors decide to self publish, set their own prices and cut out the publisher I'm not going to care. Authors will make more, libraries can deal direct and end users will still get their books. Publishers say that they provide quality control and checking. This is of course nonsense - there are plenty of remaineder bookshops to show that they get it wrong often enough. With an increase role to play in social media people can increasingly go to their friends, discover good authors, get the word out and sell more work. Libraries can help in this - in fact I think it's going to be an important future role for the profession. We can focus on writers, involve our communities, cross fertilise with other libraries, and we can assist new authors in getting their books into the market. This works in the music industry, and I see no reason why it shouldn't work with books.

So the tactic that I would like to see libraries use is not to boycott, because that's an old idea that doesn't really work. I'd like to see libraries point out to the publishers AND the users that by attempting to impose an outdated paradigm the publisher is hurting the end user and the author. Libraries need to offer to help publishers get to grips with new technology, and they should also start to point out that the people who will fail in trying to stick to out of date thinking are not the libraries, it's the publishers.

At the same time - librarians need to discover, research and start sharing with their colleagues and their users how to self publish, how to get books seen on the net. They need to get involved with writing classes and authors - but it's not like that isn't already happening, is it? We just need to do more of it. Our tactic, if we need a tactic is to embrace new technology, to understand the desire to create and publish information, prose, non-fiction and to assist the community in identifying new and good writers. Libraries can become publishers. Publishers cannot become libraries. Remember that.

Comments

[Mikhail]

There is a very interesting coincidence in the whole situation with books, sharing and laws... in Russia we had very similar feeling about books in the times of the USSR.

Most censored books in my country those days were spread by reprinting and rewriting them by hand. That was called 'samizdat' = self publishing. Such books were not sold, they were shared among friends and trusted people. These books were forbidden by the government but in spite of that they became truly popular and wide spread. Today most of these books can be bought in any bookstore but people do not buy them :) neither millions of other books. Our book market shrank very much.

The problem is that in two-three decades self-publishing and sharing became a part of 'breaking the system' ideology that brought the Soviet Union to collapse. 'Sharing information=freedom' was the main idea. In 1990s, as we moved to the 'capitalism', people could not accept the idea of sharing information became 'piracy'. Today Russia is one of the most severe copyright violators in the world.

It looks like you have practically the same problem as USSR in 1980s... there are a lot of people who start writing books, songs, making software for free (or for non-direct profit).

These days in Russia we have a new wave of 'samizdat' - writers, artists, musicians start giving their art out. For free. And they have more and more followers. Publishers are 'shrinking' (only on-demand publishing becomes popular). For those people who give their work for free there is a new idea: money can be found easier than freedom.

[Karl Drinkwater]

An epic post there Phil! I agree with what you say completely, and this makes a good companion piece to my post at
http://karldrinkwater.blogspot.com/2011/03/drm-will-kill-us-all.html