DRM, ebook, IP, IPod, Kindle
In The Fiction Front on August 14, 2008 at 1:44 am
Or rather not. Today over at the Guardian, Jack Schofield asks if the Kindle ebook reader is becoming Amazon’s IPod. Schofield argues that it may be newspapers, not books, that lauch the e-reader revolution and draw the Kindle up to IPod status. But as Schofield himself points out, its more likely that e-books will proceed down the path they have already established, on general purpose portable media devices – PDA’s, smartphones, and even IPods themselves – rather than dedicated readers like the Kindle.
After some consideration, I’m no longer expecting an ebook or ereader revolution. Ebooks will slowly grow in popularity as a format, and while there may be a few minor or even major casualties in the print sector, publishers will reach the common sense realisation that it is to their benefit to provide their content in as many formats as they possibly can. The idea that a brand like the Guardian exists purely in print, or even on the web, is already becoming more and more difficult to sustain. Brands, be they national newspapers or bestselling authors, are going to make their work available in every format. I’ll be very surprised if major novels aren’t simultaneously released as print, ebook, audio, blog-serialsation and the rest within the next few years. And in coming years the number of possible formats will multiply massively, until the central function of a publisher will be making contet available through them all.
Of course, the ugly head or Digital Rights Management and Intellectual Property is the boggie man in the corner of my utopian vision. I wonder how long it can be maintained, or will it even manage to cripple the media entirely as it currently threatening?
Death of Publishing, Kindle
In The Fiction Front on November 19, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Amazon released its new Kindle e-book reader today. Techie types have been predicting the rise of the e-book for decades. Is it finally about to happen?
Either way, its the publishers who should be scared of e-books. And writers who stand to benefit. If a healthy online market place for e-books emerges, it really calls into question what role publishers will play. Publishers, like the major music labels and and film companies, exist only because they have a monopoly on distribution. Internet distribution undermines that monopoly. Over time it will completely destroy it. If I am a happy digital book reader, why would I bother paying the salary of umpteen pointless publishing executives when I can go directly to an authors website and get the same book for a quarter of the price, whilst knowing the author is receiving four times as much as the measly publishers royalty?
One consequence of e-books will be to make almost extinct the the mega-authors of our era. Yes, you’ll still get the occasional Stephen King but the digital marketplace will be much more geared towards serving a multiplicity of niche markets, and will produce a larger number of authors making a living rather than growing rich. Knowing your niche and building a relationship with your readership will be more important than ever. In some ways we are returning to the pre-mass media model of cultural consumption where every village had its own storytellers, musicians and theatre. Of course our villages are not geographically limited, but related instead by shared values and interest. But once again those communities will need artists to articulate their identity. That seems like an exciting prospect to me.
