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What If the Kindle Succeeds?

By hugh

The news recently has been full of reports that Amazon's e-book reader, the Kindle, is doing better than expected. Analyst Mark Mahaney from Citibank says Amazon is on track to sell about 380,000 Kindles this year, and says the Kindle "is becoming the iPod of the book world," with sales expected to hit $1 billion by 2010.

For it's part, Amazon remains coy about releasing the actual numbers, so it might be best to take these predictions with a grain of salt — and sales of the Kindle haven't come close to the numbers for the iPod. But Amazon has reported that, of titles carried in both paper and electronic form, the e-books comprise 10% of sales, a percentage that is likely to grow.

Steve Jobs said recently that the whole idea of e-book readers was flawed since "people don't read anymore". But for those of us who do read, the e-book elicits skepticism for different reasons. For us, the look and feel, even the smell, of a physical book is part of the joy of reading. Will anyone actually want to curl up with an electronic device for an evening of literary comfort?

But the success of the Kindle suggests that some people will. And digital books bring some advantages that suggest the trend won't disappear any time soon:

• Ease of access: We have become accustomed to the fact that we can access millions of songs and albums instantaneously online, with a single click. The same is now increasingly possible with books.
• Ease of sharing: Everyone loves to share a good book with friends. Digital books can be shared as easily as sending an email — and you don't need to give up your copy in order to do so! (Publishers may try to restrict copying with DRM copy protection, but as we saw with MP3 files, this strategy will fail.)
• Ease of carrying: A single Kindle device can carry at least 200 books. As the technology improves, you will soon be able to carry a copy of your entire library in your bag (and have a back-up at home), just as you now carry your music collection in your pocket.
• Price: As more people use digital books and as competition increases, the price of digital books will come down, reflecting the real costs of production — no expensive printing, no shipping across country or storing in warehouses.

Skeptics should remember that it wasn't long ago that many predicted that CDs would never replace vinyl, and later that MP3s would never replace CDs. You can still find great record stores that specialize in vinyl, but the trend towards digital music has been steady and unstoppable. And the music industry has paid a huge price for their failure to embrace the new technology. After first ignoring new technologies, they then proceeded to try to sue innovators, restrict users with DRM copy protection and then punish fans with indiscriminate lawsuits, none of which did a thing to stop online sharing of music. Sales are down, illegal filesharing is up, and no one has found a way to unite the industry around monetizing the sharing of digital music (though EFF has suggested a Better Way Forward).

Will the same thing happen to the publishing industry as books become digital? If the trend continues, with better devices promising longer battery life and better screen resolution, digital books will become a force to be reckoned with. Are we doomed to watch the publishing industry run through the same gamut of bad decisions that have plagued the recording industry for the last few years?

Here are some questions the book industry should be asking itself.

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Full post as published by Electronic Freedom Foundation - Deep Links on August 18, 2008 (boomark / email).