Ebooks not a giant leap for most
The other day I came across an interesting post on the Print is Dead blog, and the author made a very good point about ebooks and our willingness to read digital content:
…while eBook sales are still relatively small, people are indeed spending huge amounts of time online, consuming text in the form of websites and blogs (not to mention e-mail). So to say that eBooks are a failure in the face of this changing behavior is like lampooning the idea of air travel because flying cars haven’t caught on (meanwhile, millions of people are flying around in planes).
I really never thought about ebooks this way before, at least not until reading this blog. One of the biggest reasons I hear that ebooks will never (at least not anytime soon) catch on is because people don’t want to read large quantities of texts on their computer. But they already are!
When I think about how much digital content I read without even giving it a second thought – it’s pretty mind blowing. Between email, blogs, and news websites, I’m getting more off the internet than I get from the newspaper (heck, I don’t even subscribe to the daily paper anymore, just the Sunday edition).
So why haven’t ebooks gone mainstream yet? I don’t know. I think a big issue is that we still don’t have a ebook reading device that is truly portable, easy on the eyes, flexible (open source code?), long battery life and sturdy. Every device introduced onto the market so far is a step in the right direction, but usually fails with the "proprietary software" that these companies install, making the device clumsy with any format other than their own.
Some have proposed that Apple should sell ebooks via iTunes (they already sell audiobooks), there’s just one problem with that: have you ever tried to read more than a few lines of text on your iPod? It’s a real strain on the eyes! Also, the backlight on the iPod screen eats up a lot of battery power, and the battery never seems to last long enough as it is. While iPods have revolutionized the digital music industry, I don’t think we’re going to see the device do the same for ebooks.
In the end, I think we need a tech-savvy bestselling author to start delivering digital content to the masses. Yes, Stephen King tried this several years ago and it failed, but his "business model" of relying on the honor system – letting people pay as they read, and the more people that pay, the more of the book will be released, was very flawed (to say the least). So we need a combination of good technology, the right business model (iTunes appears to get it right), and link it all up with the right author to show people a digital book can be just as enjoyable as a print book. Then we might see ebooks really take off!
Read the entire post from the Print is Dead blog here:
ebooks finally ready for their close-up
