Back from the future
The world breathed a sigh of relief, in a 2015 that started very badly. It was learned that during the Christmas season la people is back to crowd le libraries like it hasn't been seen for a few years. foyles, the largest bookshop in London – which recently moved to new and more spacious premises – registered a increase of the sales of8%. James Daunt, the combative director of the bookstore chain Waterstone, launched from the “Telegraph” the revanchist cry: “The book is back, the Kindle is dead. Book sales are eclipsing their digital alternatives.” And the "Telegraph" reporter there to confirm: "yes, my son also put away his Kindle, which he now calls 'that thing over there'". Waterstone it's the only major chain that has stopped di fight Amazon deciding to display and sell Kindles in their own spaces; it also allows ebooks to be downloaded via the library's fast Wi-Fi after the customer has browsed through them by picking them up from the shop's tables.
Il return of the people in library it also occurred in the United States where the sales of books in the fourth quarter of 2014 marked a robust + 9 %. The third quarter had been a disaster with yet another depressing decline of 3,3%.
pure in Italy a large independent bookstore like the Hoepli – similarly to Waterstone offers Kindles in its spaces – saw very much people around the tables and shelves during the Christmas time. Giovanni Hoepli, President of Hoepli spa, explained it this way “With the many bookshops that have closed in Milan, the places to go have been greatly reduced”. Indeed, it is like this: the book market in Italy it has lost over a quarter of their value in 5 years. The quarter of the lost value (over 300 million euros) was not taken by the ebook (which in 2014 in Italy is worth 60 million euro), but was simply dispersed to competing businesses.
Phil Jones in an article in the “Guardian”, long live the ebook – it's a champion of the printed word, has good game in pointing out that the affair it is a little more complicated how he tells it Daunt if only for the fact that between the 2010 and the 2013 theebook è grown up so cyclopean, at perhaps unrepeatable rhythms. In BritainFor example, the ebook market has jumped from nothing in 2010 to 300 million of pounds in the 2013. This is happened also thanks to unique bestsellers as the 50 shades of gray e Bare for you that seemed to be made to be distributed in ebooks. This fortunate contingency was not repeated in 2014, with no bestsellers. In reality, as the journalist of the "Guardian" writes, the ebook crisis and the crisis of the kindle e-reader and of the ebook intended as spin off of the book. And that's exactly the point.
The ebook as a spin-off
very important in the new media scenario.
Russ Grandinetti he is according to the “Guardian” the most man powerful ofbook industry in his position as chief operating officer of Amazon's Kindle business. Grandinetti has long maintained that the book and the tech more resilient that it exists. Also because it is very sexy in its physicality that dates back 5 centuries. It's no surprise to Amazon either that the book will remain long in . genetic gods medium. This awareness is fully shared by the press and by the technologists themselves.
An unexpected and superlative spot for the book it came from Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg, as a resolution for 2015, has launched un reading club: he himself will read two books a month. In a post, the inventor of Facebook talked about books with him sincere and spontaneous enthusiasm di Larry Page, his biggest competitor as co-founder of Google. A few years ago, presenting the Google book projecti, Page he expressed his opinion to the NYTimes wonder in having discovered that in books It is contained more knowledge than the one available with Google. It must have been one shocking surprise for Page who also attended a Montessori school.
Il 2015 so it has begun good for the book who got up off the carpet. It started less well for its young spin-off, theebook, who is now in danger of ending up knocked down just for be remained a mere reply of the book much less attractive than the latter, easily lost and with a perceived value tightly lower. One wonders if there has really been a case in which a new technology has been dammed up and finally supplanted by the previous one.
In fact, the sales of ebook as “digital alternatives to the book” – to put it like James Daunt – have been stagnant for all the 2014. According to what the Daunt himself says, those gods Kindle reading devices I am completely disappeared during the Christmas season (disappeared from Waterstone stores). The nervousness di Amazon in the last semester of 2014 shows that there is some foundation in what Daunt says. The fibrillation of the Seattle giant in 2014 reached surprising peaks, also for theself harm which he released, during the dispute with Hachette and the almost contemporary bankruptcy launching of the Fire Phone. As a result of misguided actions, Amazon seemed, at one point, public enemy number one of culture, writers and consumers themselves.
The reality is that, at this stage of its development, theebook, as pure spin off, it's up to male book: proposes the same content in a version “poor”, immaterial; it is difficult to transfer or share, an activity deeply rooted in the habits of the readers. Now also the most important advantage of the ebook, i.e. the differential di price with the book stands disappearing and the ebook version of a title is often found to cost as much or more than the paperback edition. How did this happen perdita di competitiveness of the ebook versus the book and other media? The behavior of the three main players on the market has equally contributed: the publishers, government policies and finally the technological companies, Amazon and Apple.
The publishers
First of all there are the publishers that while maintaining theebook in one minority status in an attempt to extend the current equilibrium of the market and its induced activities based on the printed paper. THE big publishers, after seeing bandito the much sought after model agency by the courts and antitrust authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, have hired un duel to the ok Corall con Amazon for to maintain il control of the price of ebook the model alternative, practiced by Amazon, would have them subtracted completely. Thanks to media backing and Amazon's misguided tactics, they finally prevailed: the publishers will decide the selling price of the ebooks even outside the distribution agency model. And the price of ebooks will remain at the level publishers want for as long as they want. End of price and product innovations.
And so it is happening. That being the case the prices, if the reader must choose between book and ebook, purchase il book, also because theebook it offers nothing more. In fact it doesn't receives any investment additional nor by authors, nor by publishers. In these conditions, as Amazon rightly says, and as Jeff Bezos never tires of repeating, the price is the bazooka for enlarge il market even for non-regular readers. If the ebook first-rate cost 9,99 dollars the market would leave like a rocket launched into the sky. And the whole industry would benefit from it. But we will still have to wait a long time. It's up to the publishers to move and they will be there very few news both in price lists that in content that in formats. The ebook will still continue to be a mere spin-off of the book.
Government policies
I governments consider the industry of book as a kind of national heritage and tend to protect her how to protect the Parthenon to prevent it from happening like the marbles with Lord Elgin. It happens especially inEurozone where the crisis of this industry accumulates its effects with the crisis of consumption and work. It then happens that, in almost total assenza di a European technology industry in the field of media, i governments tend to counteract theinvasion of the model culture and media American, which is not viewed with kind eyes by the business world and workers' organizations in Europe.
Apart from a few exceptions, such as the Italian government of the "technological" prime minister, there are from expect little help to the diffusion di services operated by transatlantic technology groups such as Amazon o Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), that are revolutionizing thecultural industry. The watchword in the Eurozone is protectionism e tax leverage to regulate the market. These are measures that are welcome to the large European publishers who have never been inflamed by digital publishing.
Let's take the latest European provision onIVA ine-commerce. Who has absorbed the increase in VAT on ebooks downloaded from Amazon and Apple which, operating from Luxembourg, applied a rate of 3%? They have it absorbed i European consumers, naturally. With the exception of Italy and France (where the VAT on ebooks is now 4% and 7%) the prices of ebooks have increased significantly everywhere. There are no statistics available yet, but when they come out they will photograph a increase average of at least 10%. This is exactly what the market needed!
The technological ones
Amazon ed Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), distribute almost the80% of ebook through their two stores serving over a billion customers (800 million iTunes and 280 Amazon). A lot depends on actions of these two cyclopean global operators who have made innovation their flag. All the innovations which affected the book market over the past 10 years, including ebooks, have come from technological and so it will be in the future; very little will come from established industry.
There are however many shadows in actions Of these innovators serial. It's about shadows that risk to become one ballast for the development of a market really ebooks mass. Let's start with Amazon.
Amazon
First of all, Amazon must change its policy towards the publishing ecosystem. There tactics very physics used so far (ball forward, everyone on the attack and crippling the opponent) is, to say the least, rather primitive, no offense to cavemen. If it served to start an important renewal process, today it shows its fragility: now there is need di alliances not punches in the stomach. In the words of the authors of a highly successful book, Nudge at, There is need of a gentle push. Furthermore, the lobby of publishers and authors is not that of diaper manufacturers. Publishing houses are part of media conglomerates capable of influencing the policy of a government and a nation. The Hachette affair taught that this physical method è harmful. Let's hope Amazon has learned about it. It's time to take off your spurs and put on your moccasins.
Then there is the speech of e-reader devices (Kindle e-readers) which it almost lands on half of ebook downloaded in the world. Well i Kindle and other e-readers hinder enormously la birth di next generation ebooks, do not go beyond the mere and slavish reply of a book on one screen. It is evident that with theequation e-reader=book la Partita si plays only on price of the content. Checked that, it's done. The Kindle was conceived as a camouflage device of the reading experience on a printed page. It was designed as a device electronic exclusive, more than inclusive of the features. Connecting to the Internet is an Indiana Jones experience, e-mail needless to say. Even audio e video lesson not are allowed. Each visual component is reproduced in black and white. The language for developing ebooks resembles HTML from when there was Mosaic for surfing the Internet.
In the 2007 kindle e-reader it could really be a transformative idea (lightweight, simple to use, cheap, integrated with the e-shop), today it's a element absolutely conservative. Those who wanted to read with a Kindle or an e-reader are already doing it and many are even fed up with that digital reading mode. There is no development with Kindle e-readers. Is there still a person who doesn't feel the need to lift his eyes from the page to see the latest news, or check his mail or reply to a notification, or go to the Internet to verify information or a stimulus he has received while reading? I think it no longer exists.
Kindles don't win new readers. He's with the smartphone di Large format and with tablets that can be conquered new areas market forebook. Kindle Fire it's a great tablet, but it's still designed as a hortus conclusus. It would be necessary to tear down the walls and open fully to android world. But this step will not be there.
Then there is the problem of "mobi", The format of ebooks proprietario of the devices Kindle and related apps. The first step that Amazon must take is abandon the "mobi"And to adopt theePub3, not only because it is the standard followed by the rest of the world, but because theePub3 is the language which will allow the eBook di develop its own canon, something that is no longer the mere replica of the physical book. The "mobi" has done his time, the time has come to retire him.
Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC),
Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), it truly has everything for the ebook market to fully unfold. It has the prestige, you have right devices, has the more evolved to read the next generation ebooks, ha 800 million of customers accustomed to buying and spending on content. It would be an ideal environment.
And yet, until a few months ago, one wondered what for? la Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), had entered the market of ebooks. More than a business action, it looked like a atto of pure presence which is cost un high price to the Cupertino company in money and in image. There defeat heavy in court by the Justice Department, which proved that Apple has formed a cartel with the five largest publishers for raise up il price of ebook, it was a dealer bad and embarrassing bounce from blog to blog, from newspaper to newspaper around the world. all thecompany she came out very bad, included his legendary boss, Steve Jobs. The trial and conviction was followed by the disbursement of 450 million dollars to formalize the class action by consumer associations. A disaster! Things had already started badly. Eddy Cue – he tells it in a recent issue of “Fortune" - I had struggled not a little for to convince Steve Jobs to get into the business of digital books. Jobs cared little about books and so did the business of ebook is not May party in house Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), whose market share has never lived up to potential.
Until something happened that needed to happen right away. L'iBooks application was preinstalled su iOS 8 and today it arrives on board every iPhone and iPad when the device is turned on. Here you learn that iBookstore (Apple's ebook store) stands crescendo at the rate of one million new customers a month. It took four years for one truism to be recognized: that the iBooks app must reside by default on all Apple devices, including Mac.
Then there is the ebook shop of Apple that needs a good one tuning. iBookstore has so far been, by choice of Apple, the bestseller showcase and of the titles of the great publishers which occupy almost entirely the more visible slots of the store. In the current store there is ben little space for the independent publishers and self-published which are the most interesting and innovative realities of the new publishing industry. So far Apple has "given" these promising and very interesting realities to Amazon. There now seems to be a afterthought very important. In January 2015 in New York, during Digital Book World, Keith Moerer, director of the iBookstore, ha declared is Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), will open to independent publishers and will undertake to find him one adequate visibility. Declaration to mark.
The app iBooks supports fully advanced format ePub3 and is very ready to welcome next generation ebooks, more multimedia, more interactive, more visual they can encounter i tastes of the potentials readers addicted to new media.
Finally there is a phenomenon di great prominence: number of ebook downloaded by iPhone exceeds that of iPad. The large format smartphones they are becoming i favorite reading devices and will take the place of e-readers and tablets (down 12% in 2014) for reading texts, newspapers, magazines and books. Who better than Apple to take advantage of this trend? Nobody.
The hybrid player
Book versus ebook is a badly posed theme. It's a mental simplification. Need to examine the question from consumer point of view. In fact, the content consumer he enjoys them everywhere and swap supports of reading depending on the situations and circumstances. Isn't that the owning an e-reader or a tablet excluded a priori reading a book, or that the reader of the book keeps an ebook at a distance if he has any device at home on which to read it. The behavior is, shall we say, utilitarian. On the beach you read a book, on the train an ebook and when you walk you can listen to an audiobook. In the office you can pick up the ebook to finish the chapter on the computer, subtracting time from work. Often it is the same identical content whose reading develops in relay in relation to the physical context in which the action of reading takes place. We are witnessing the birth of what we could call the hybrid player. This is an important and positive evolution.
You can calculate that right now at least 2 billion people have handy a device to read a ebook. Almost all of the people who read books today also have a tablet, an e-reader or a smartphone or all of them. This huge audience is can be activated with a'correct offer. Here's the thing, the offer. There is a need for this to evolve on content plan and on commercial plan. We have already talked about the first: it is necessary to put in the more suitable conditions the market because creatives, i story tellers, authors, essayists can think, to design e to build content for reading over a connected video, without that this choice become a Act of testimony or ascouting without economic effects. If this new type of content can only be viewed on the iPad, which is 14% of the market, authors do not have the necessary intellectual or economic stimulus to try new paths. Only the known ones remain: writing a traditional book. Here we need theePub3 universally supported.
On a commercial level, publishers and distributors have to find solutions all inclusive formulas which, with a small price increase on the cost of the book, allows the consumer to take all versions of the content, the book, the ebook and the audiobook, in onesingle transaction. How many times do we want the consumer to pay for the same content? A'"bundle" offer at a reasonable cost would activate many clients and would it overcome the “book/ebook option?” of regular customers, dissolving it into a win-win "book plus ebook" choice.
Amazon already has a program named after it Kindle MatchBook that does download theebooks for free – or for a small supplement – atbuyer of a book of a publisher participating in the programme. There is a similar program from Amazon, MatchMaker, thought together with audible, for ebooks + audiobooks. It is programs very valid that need to collect il consent of publishers and authors. The major publishing house will not adhere to these programs nor will they launch new or competing ones. It will hardly happen. They will still be the independent publishers and self-published a move the waters and undertake initiatives of innovation.
Book and ebook against all
Those working in the book industry are still lucky enough to read that the time of people dedicated to reading of literature and non-fiction long form did not decrease with the advent of digital media. The book form defends its positions well. Bad organisers' activities is contend al book il time and consumer attention are grown up a out of proportion andoffering of fun and access to knowledge and information it really is exterminated.
It is above all the distribution of the time out of work there central issue in the new digital scenario. A recent study, Pressed for Time. The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism by Judy Wajcman, professor of sociology at the London School of Economics, addresses this issue and offers many food for thought for those seeking time and attention to develop their business in a hyper-competitive environment. There reading a book è an activity that consumes a lot of timesometimes more than 10 hours.
It's hard not to agree with Jeff Bezos when he declares that in this scenario a book $30 book not only competes with another $30 book, but it's up to also with i streaming services, With Games, applications, i video lesson of YouTube and Vine, with i blog, With social media and the services of instant messages and who knows with how many other proposals for reading, viewing and listening. With dollars 30 they are bought 3 months di subscription a Spotify (unlimited access to 30 million songs) or a Netflix (unlimited access to a library of 100 movies and TV shows). In 2014, subscribers spent one billion hours per month on Netflix content, spending an average of 93 minutes per day on the service. All these proposals for entertainment and information and knowledge share lo same space di vision need reading, a screen, and are placed in the same visual sphere as the book. The consumer just has to touch an icon to switch from one activity to another; from reading, to watching, to listening, to writing.
The argument that the book andebook they undergo the competition brutal of other media and that therefore the price must be calculated taking this into account state of affairs, was one of topics most pumped by Amazon during the dispute with Hatchet. It is a well-founded topic and, for those who think that the Seattle giant uses it instrumentally pro domo its, can listen to the opinion of one of the most authoritative observers of the media world and also one of the most detached and objective. David Carr, the NYTimes media columnist, wrote that i traditional media not only do they suffer competition from new media but they have to face also there challenge of the medium for which there is not yet a definition such as i Selfie taken with extendable sticks and posted on Instagram e Snapchat to shape a new genre for which perhaps there is already a name,"Narcissistick”. Here is what Carr writes in his article Selfie on a Stick, and Social-Content Challenge for the Media:
There's no need for a traditional publisher to create a shared experience. Many young consumers have become mini-publishers themselves, posting to Vine, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat. It's hard to get their attention with mass media content when they're busy creating and sharing their own.
The practice of selfies has become so widespread that New York State has passed a law banning taking them with tigers and lions.
That's why it's not book against ebook, but book and ebook against everyone, especially selfies.
