NY Times Digital Books Commentary

From the NY Times JR

Wary Book Publishers Are Fighting the Future
By NICK BILTON
Students with ebook readersNorm Betts/Bloomberg Students with their school-issued Sony Reader devices.

Last week, a host of book publishers, led by Simon & Schuster, said they will delay publication of e-reader versions of many books because they were afraid the electronic copies were cannibalizing sales of more expensive hardcover editions.

As Carolyn Reidy, chief executive of Simon & Schuster, told The Associated Press, “We believe that a large portion of the people who have bought e-readers are from the most devoted reading population. And if they like the e-readers, they are naturally going to convert because the e-books are so significantly less expensive.”

I own both an Amazon Kindle and a Sony Reader, and I can tell you that I didn’t buy them to save money. I know a lot of other avid bookworms, and I can’t recall a single one citing “to save money on books” as their reason to purchase one of these fancy new devices.

How can e-books represent saving money when an individual spends between $250 to $300 on a device and about $10 for each book?

No, these are people who love books so much that they want to carry a collection of them around on a single device and want to interact more deeply with them (such as looking up words in a built-in dictionary, sharing content with others and taking notes about what they’re reading).

Most importantly, e-reader users want instant access to books — if you hear about a new book that sounds interesting, you can start reading it a couple of minutes later.

Publishers are understandably worried about their changing business model, as they face new pressures from authors as well as readers. But do they really believe that they will boost their bottom lines by making it harder for these devoted readers to buy books?

Let’s say you unwrap your holiday presents and see a fancy new Kindle, Sony Reader or Barnes & Noble Nook. Just what you’ve always wanted! You turn on your new device, navigate to the wireless bookstore of your choice and search for Don DeLillo’s new novel. Instead of a simple click and download right from your armchair, you’re told it’s only available in hardcover for the next four months.

Are you really going to put down your new book reader, get in your car, drive to the store, and buy the hardcover? Probably not. Instead, you’ll click the ‘back’ button and search for something else to read in the digital bookstore.

The consumer understands that digital means immediate and infinite, and the limits imposed by paper no longer exist. As Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey Bezos, noted in a recent interview with The New York Times, “For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition. It won’t be too long before we’re selling more electronic books than we are physical books.”

Yet some publishers are trying to do everything they can to look the other way and pretend the new products and delivery pathways haven’t changed old business models.

There’s one other important factor to swirl into this discussion: the next generation of book buyers won’t understand why they can’t access any information they want in a digital format. They have grown up in a world where everything, from movies to magazines, is basically just a collection of digital bytes.

And the economics of bytes aren’t the same as the economics of atoms. Infinite digital bits don’t have to deal with the supply-and-demand business models that existed in the past. You create one version and can disseminate it everywhere, instantly, at virtually no distribution cost. (Can you imagine if the digital camera you just purchased gave you this warning: “We’re sorry. You won’t be able to e-mail this photo to your friend for another four months. Instead, why don’t you print a copy and mail it through or on-demand printing service!”)

The publishers seem to be picking a fight with the wrong team: their customer. They are punishing the people who buy their content instead of making it as simple as possible for those customers to hand over their money, instantly, from any location in the world.

I can tell you one thing: When I’m looking for a new book on my Kindle and told I have to wait four months for the e-book version, I won’t be heading to the bookstore. Instead, I’ll click the back button and buy one of the 360,000 other e-books available now.