The future of publishing may be digital, but costly Kindles and eBooks on iPhones aren’t enough to trigger a digital book revolution. It’ll take more than the promise of a portable library to convince readers they’re better off without paper.

The iPod heralded a seismic shift in content distribution. Music downloads now seem as obvious as they were inevitable, so it’s reasonable to expect written content to follow music, movies, and TV down the path towards digital distribution. But to get consumers onboard, eBooks will need to supply a superior reading experience and better value for money than they currently offer.

Increased availability satisfies a demand that doesn’t yet exist

Last week Google released Book Search for mobiles and made over 1.5 million public domain books available on iPhones and Android mobiles. As well as introducing a revamped Kindle 2.0, Amazon has announced that its more contemporary range of Kindle titles will be made available for download to devices other than the Kindle.

Both companies are addressing the issue of title availability, but that’s not the eBook bottleneck. Having more titles is an important step, but it’s not enough to trigger a fundamental shift in people’s reading habits.

It’s easy to blame the slow uptake of digital books on nostalgia for printed paper

There’s a some good reasons digital books haven’t taken off, and the least of them is the ‘I just like paper books’ problem. Don’t get me wrong, like many people, I don’t think that the look, feel, and smell of books will ever be fully replaced. But it’s possible to imagine a future where convenience, cost, and environmental concerns make digital books a mass market alternative to the paperback, in the same way that paperbacks have become a cheaper, more convenient alternative to hard covers.
The true causes of consumer reluctance are more compelling, and more easily addressed, than an enduring love of paper:

• Readability and the user experience
• Value and the total cost of ownership
• Flexibility: to sell, trade, and loan books

eReaders need the readability of a paperback printed on recycled paper, to last 12hrs, and be durable enough to throw in a backpack

Many books will soon be available on mobile phones, letting you read eBooks on hardware you already own, though at a cost to your battery-life and with poor readability. With better batteries, phones may yet become a reasonable platform for reading, but it’s hard to see such a small, eye-straining LCD screen leading to the mass desertion of paper.

Both the Kindle and Sony’s eReader use breakthrough technologies to offer improved readability and extended battery life, as such they seem the more likely catalyst for mass eBook adoption. They’re not cheap though, they cost over $350 and lack the readability, durability, and portability of a paperback. The hefty price tag doesn’t include a contrast ratio that approaches black text on white paper and the low resolution is a problem for the line drawings in text books.

Paper books combine content with the hardware needed to read it in one convenient package

Like CDs, books are a way to distribute content, but unlike music, electronic books introduce a new hardware cost for consuming written content. CDs don’t come with headphone jacks, so the removal of the physical media makes sense for content that’s always needed a separate ‘player’. Fully self-contained, books have never needed extra hardware to be read: no turntable, no CD player, no iPod. Electronic book readers need to be much better value and find ways to justify their upfront costs.

As a reader, what do I gain from electronic distribution?

People like the option of listening to a lot of different music, so an iPod that makes your entire music collection portable is a big win.

Digital books ask readers to sacrifice the advantages of paper for the same reward as iPods, but if you’re not at school or working in publishing how often do you want to carry around more than a couple of books? I’m a big reader, but I don’t often have more than two books on the go.

Until digital books can be traded as easily as their paper cousins, publishers must consider the implicit costs of digital delivery

DRM is a regular source of contention in the tech industry, and there’s plenty of debate over the use and effectiveness of rights management for books. Leaving aside the important arguments over fair use and piracy, it’s worth remembering that the exchange of books has been a powerful force in their marketing. I’ve borrowed, loaned, and traded a lot more books than I’ve bought new, but it’s the books I’ve borrowed that have fuelled my appetite for buying new fiction and trying new authors. It’s important to consider the implied costs of DRM if it means eBook readers won’t share books with friends and family.

Aside from that, by selling or exchanging their used books, readers have been able to subsidize the cost of further purchases. Digital editions, at a discount of only one or two dollars, don’t offer a payoff comparable to exchanging or selling used books.

Without the opportunity to experiment with digital music, it’s unlikely that its adoption would have been so fast or comprehensive

When music started shifting to digital, early adopters could rip CDs they already owned to MP3s. If publishers offered free digital copies along with every paper edition sold, wary consumers could experiment without paying twice. Eventually ‘digital only’ editions could be sold cheaper to encourage people to make the switch.

Until students, editors, and literary agents are reading textbooks and manuscripts on eReaders, there’s little chance that the general public will welcome them

Rather than focusing on paperbacks, publishers and book sellers should look to replace the backpack full of textbooks. Students, and people in publishing, are an obvious target for replacing a bag, or briefcase, full of heavy books with a lightweight, convenient device. At $350 it’s clear why this hasn’t already happened.

By targeting students, you can develop a market for digital fiction through an audience that’s already comfortable with electronic books and the associated hardware.

Free, durable hardware and cheaper digital content will make eBooks as inevitable as on-demand movie downloads

Where iPods offer a familiar user experience at a familiar price, with the convenience of having all your music on hand, eBooks on mobiles and $350+ readers offer poor readability at a premium price. Consumers being asked to consider taking their libraries digital aren’t being given enough reasons to take the plunge.

The future of print may be digital, but for a real industry shakeup we’ll need to see cheap, easy to read, durable hardware coupled with cheaper digital editions. If Amazon started giving away Kindles while including a free Kindle edition with every paper book sold, they could quickly become the iTunes of the written word.

Reto Meier is a mobile software engineer and author of Professional Android Application Development. He’s based in London and blogs about Android, technology, and programming.

But, does that really put enough teeth into it? I mean if you are not verifying email addresses, John Doe could easily put in something bogus and untrackable. What if you put something really identifiable into the watermark – like the credit card number used to purchase the book?

If you are not sharing it then no harm no foul, right? But does that cross a line in terms of trust?

What do you think? How much information is too much for a social DRM watermark?

(Photo Credit Leo Reynolds)

According to Karen Croxson, digital piracy may help companies. As a new-media minded person working in a traditionally old-media world I am a little conflicted here. I am coming around to Chris Anderson’s Free mantra, and I absolutely believe my industry had better move a hell of a lot faster to adapt to the digital changes in the market. But I am having a bit of trouble coming to terms with Ms. Croxson’s justification as to why piracy is ok.

Ms Croxson points out that piracy poses a threat to sales only when those who otherwise would buy become tempted instead to copy. In any market there are some who value the product but never would buy. Their piracy cannot harm the seller.

Yes, but how do you tell them apart? Do you think that people download content illegally because they don’t value it? They download it because it’s free, and because they value it. Of course they say they would never buy it because it justifies their stealing it, and because they don’t have to buy it – it’s available on the P2P network.

Quite the opposite: because, like any consumer, a pirate will talk to others about product experiences, copying which does not displace sales can actually help business.

Copying does not displace sales? So my friend tells me he can’t wait to get the Band X CD this weekend, and I just burn him a copy of mine. No sales lost?

Consumer `buzz’ is hugely important for sales success, studies have shown, and piracy drives up buzz without the need for extra marketing.

Oh, it’s about buzz. So, if I waltz down to Best Buy and shoplift a copy of the new Rick Ross CD (because I would never buy it) but tell my friends about it, then I have justified my stealing of the CD? And if I walk out of Barnes and Noble with a copy of Oprah’s latest pick tucked under my coat, but tell my Mom about it every thing’s ok?

Not even the pirates believe this. Just take a look at the comments on this topic over at Torrent Freak. For example:

I’m not gonna lie, I mostly download album and film cuz i’m broke and can’t buy all the stuff that i want.

or

this article makes me feel bad,really bad, i only download stuff i WANT to use,movies i WANT to watch,books i WANT to read,for free

I think that free content definitely has a place in our industry. I think we need to cast off old ways of thinking, and create new products and new business models in order to remain valid in the new media economy. I even think that seeding content via P2P for promotional purposes is an acceptable strategy. We are looking at Social DRM as a replacement for current technologies. We are taking steps (slowly) in the right direction here, but in these cases it is the intent of the content owners to do these things.

But don’t try and justify stealing by telling me that it’s good for my business.

Admittedly I am biased here, but at the same time I am one of the outspoken ones in my company when it comes to adapting to the changing landscape. What do you think? Am I way off base here?

(Photo credit Nick Humphries)

David Rothman agrees with Adobe’s Bill McCoy on the use of Social DRM, but also understands the challenges of implementing such a system.

How expensive would it be to run a social DRM system on a mass scale? More or less costly than the current crop of traditional encryption-based systems? Could expenses be reduced by avoiding the use of encrypted credit card numbers and relying on verified names and physical addresses instead—perhaps in cooperation with services like PayPal and credit card companies?

Rob Preece says copyright is not dead, despite what Gerry Faulhaber thinks, and social DRM will only work if all users respect copyright.

If we can’t have social DRM, that is, if users insist on freely copying without regard to authors’ rights, then we certainly will have DRM, no matter what the inconvenience. Because one way or another, the economy depends on our ability to protect the rights of copyright and patent holders.

Finally, according to Todd Jonz the effects of piracy on content producers is a lie.

Yes, piracy exists; it always has, and it always will. But study after study has shown that the vast majority of consumers, certainly enough to sustain a healthy market, will pay a fair price for digital content if it is made available to them in the unencumbered formats they desire.

I know where I land on each of these issues, but I want to know what you think. Should publishers abandon DRM, write off piracy as the cost of doing business, and just concentrate on creating great content for which consumers are willing to pay? How would you feel about the Social DRM model, where we would imprint your name – and possibly other information on your e-content?

(Photo credit: Dori)

So, what are Wrox Blox?

• DRM-free
• PDF format
• Bite-sized (generally 20-40 pages)
• Faster to market than traditional books
• Introductory priced at only $3.99 US

The initial roll out consists of 4 titles, with many more in the works to be available shortly. Beginning today you can purchase and instantly download:

• iPhone and iPod touch Programming : Handling Touch Interactions and Events for Mobile Safari
• Silverlight 1.0 Animation
• Leveraging LINQ in ASP.NET 3.5 Projects
• Building a Photo Gallery with Adobe AIR

Hopefully we have responded to customer needs with a great new product. What do you think? Is this type of publishing the right direction? How can we improve Wrox Blox?

The sans-DRM music is higher quality (256 kbps AAC) and can be played music players other than ipod. There are no details as to if Apple will make connections to iTunes available to other MP3 players such as Zune or the Creative Zen. My bet is that they won’t, but Steve Jobs always surprises me.

Of course, the DRM free songs are priced at a 30% premium over the rusty-shackled, 99-cent versions, but how many times have we heard DRM opponents say “I would pay a premium for DRM-free music if it was available?” I say back it up with your dollars.

This should be interesting to watch. Will we see other music giants step forward to offer more DRM-free music, or will we just see higher quality files on P2P sites? Probably both.