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glencook-fans-digest    Thursday, November 2 2000    Volume 01 : Number 049




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Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 18:00:29 -0700
From: Lee Childs <[e-mail]>
Subject: (glencook-fans) e-Books

The article below is the best I've seen on the subject of e-books.  It
is also discoveraging.  Costs of converting old paper books to e-books
is thought to be several thousand dollars.  Publishers don't see any
money in e-books.  In addition, buyer resistance is thought to be high.

Lee Childs

Electronic Books
Uncertain Prize
The Economist, October 21, 2000, page 72-73.

A new literary prize will be awarded at the Frankfurt book fair on
October 20th: $100,000 for the best book to be published in electronic
form.  By the standards of book prizes this is big indeed, and is bound
to win attention of scribblers everywhere.  And yet, because the prize
is being awarded for the literary content of the book, not for its
electronic virtues, it seems odd that the criteria for entry should be
the method of delivery=97until you look at who is putting up the cash for
the prize.  Its backers are the computer software companies, such as
Microsoft and Adobe, that are trying to prod publishers into getting the
e-books business off the ground.

The business faces the usual chicken-and-egg problem that always
confronts new devices for delivering content=97from televisions to today=92=
s
DVDS.  Consumers are not going to buy the device unless the content is
available; and it is not worth producing the content until consumers
have bought lots of devices.  As a result, there are probably fewer that
1,000 titles now available for downloading from electronic bookshops,
and probably no more than 20,000 of the reading devices=97the Rocket eBoo=
k
and the Softbook reader=97on consumers=92 laps.  Hence the computer firms=
=92
willingness to finance a fat e-book prize.  They want to give publishers
an incentive to digitize more of their books, in order to boast the
market for reading software and devices.

Some big companies are spending serious money.  The three main
competitors in the software=96and-devices business are Gemstar, which
produces electronic programme guides for digital television; Adobe, a
software company; and Microsoft.  Gemstar believes there will be a
market for specific book-like electronic devices; Adobe and Microsoft
think that the market is in software to make books easier to read, which
will be used on multi-purpose computers.

In January, Gemstar bought the two companies that make devices for
reading ebooks, Nuvomedia and Softbook Press, both of which were
struggling.  Those companies=92 Rocket eBook and Softbook brands have now
been abandoned, but the two second-generation devices, made under
license by Thomson Multimedia and launched earlier this month, the
black-and-white REB 1100 ($300) and the full-colour REB 1200 ($700), are
descendants of those earlier models.  Gemstar is offering an end-to-end
solution: reading devices, software and a library of compatible e-books.

Microsoft and Adobe are skeptical about the market for electronic-book
devices.  =93We just don=92t think customers in large numbers are going t=
o
be interested in spending that sort of money on dedicated hardware,=94
says Mario Juarez, Microsoft=92s marketing manager for e-books.  Microsof=
t
and Adobe both make software that can be used on PCS and laptops;
Microsoft=92s Reader software, which was launched in August, comes
pre-shipped on the PocketPC, Microsoft=92s version of the Palm Pilot.
Adobe is working on producing a version for hand-held computers.

Retailers are becoming interested, too.  Barnesandnoble.com has
established an online e-bookstore, and in August Amazon, the largest
online retailer, announced that it was planning to do the same, offering
e-books using Microsoft software.

Publishers are proving harder to excite.  They worry that e-books could
prove expensive and complicated to create.  They put the cost of
translating a previously published paper book into electronic form at up
to several thousand dollars.  They also see new difficulties arising,
such as the need to renegotiate agreements with authors.  But so far,
they do not see any new revenues.

Nobody is giving out figures on how much consumers are actually spending
on those few books that are available for commercial download, but the
sums are reckoned to be tiny.  That may be because publishers have set
prices so high, despite the fact the manufacturing and distribution
costs of e-books, compared with paper versions, are almost negligible.
Joe Klein=92s =93The Running Mate,=94 for instance, is $21.56 at
barnesandnoble.com, whether you buy it on paper or digitised \SIC\.

In addition, to the Frankfurt prize, the software people say, they are
doing a lot to help publishers.  Microsoft, for instance, has been
running advertisements in the New Yorker, promoting particular e-books.
Mr. Juarez expects some big announcements from =93content providers=94 th=
is
autumn.

But, even if the devices, the software, and the content are all
available, industry fold accept that consumer resistance will be hard to
overcome=97much harder, for instance, than persuading people to buy music
online.  Young people take to new technologies easily, but book readers
tend to be older people who are not enthusiastic buyers of gadgets.
Further, bookish people have an emotional relationship with the titles
on their shelves.  They regard crisp paper between cardboard covers as
more than a content-delivery device.  For many dedicated readers, the
idea of abandoning paper books might just feel uncomfortably close to
burning them.




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Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 22:22:37 -0700
From: Eric Herrmann <[e-mail]>
Subject: (glencook-fans) Monthly Mailing List Update

The October mail archive has been posted.

This mailing list is sponsored by The Glen Cook Fan Page at:
<http://www.xmission.com/~shpshftr/GC/>.

The mailing list archives and instructions of how to subscribe or
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A mailing list exclusive Glen Cook Bibliography can be found at:
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In Glen Cook news, Glen says the name of the next Garrett novel is something
like "Deadly Lead Skys." (ICon 2000)

- --
Eric Herrmann
<[e-mail]>
<[e-mail]>





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