Today I had an adventure in the Apple store. I couldn’t help but play with an iPad on one of the massive displays at the center of the store. It’s true, the thing is impressive-looking and well-designed. They look cool, I admit it. But I can’t look at one without thinking about what it means for books. But I’m not just talking about the iPad here, I’m talking about the Kindle, the Nook, all of them.
With devices like these, companies are not only selling eBooks, but dipping their toes into the publishing world as well. But what does this mean for publishers? And what does it mean to us as consumers?
To be honest, it is hard to tell what it all means, at least in terms the future of publishing. Amazon is reporting this month that it is now selling more Kindle books than hardcover books. However, as Dianna Dilworth points out in an article published on eBookNewser (found here), a digital publishing blog, “Amazon continues to dance around hard numbers, such as how many eBooks the company has sold or how many Kindles they have sold. Instead they share more elusive facts like for every 100 hardcovers sold, they sell 180 Kindle books.” Dilworth also remarks, “this is a slightly confusing metric, as it doesn’t say if the titles are available as paperbacks, eBooks, and hardcovers, or one of these various formats.” Basically, this comparison doesn’t really give a good idea of how many Kindle books vs. actual books are being sold. However, as Ken Auletta points out in an article in the New Yorker, “Publishers’ real concern is that the low price of digital books will destroy bookstores, which are their primary customers. Burdened with rent and electricity and other costs, bricks-and-mortar stores are unlikely to offer prices that can compete with those of online venders.” The danger presented to publishing companies seems to come from lower prices and the possibility that eBook vendors like Amazon will give authors the opportunity to make more money by removing the publisher from the equation by giving the e-publishing rights directly to Kindle Books. However, according to Auletta, “Publishers maintain that digital companies don’t understand the creative process of books… Neither Amazon, Apple, nor Google has experience in recruiting, nurturing, editing, and marketing writers…The system is inefficient, but it supports a class of professional writers, which might not otherwise exist.” Publishers will need to make sure that authors continue to see them as a valuable part of the process as the size and power of ventures such as Kindle Books grow and are able to offer larger royalties by selling books at prices other publishers can’t afford.
The long and short of this part of the issue, says Auletta, is that “no matter where consumers buy books, their belief that electronic media should cost less—that something you can’t hold simply isn’t worth as much money—will exert a powerful force.” It seems to me that the best way for both internet-based companies and traditional publishing houses to succeed is to form partnerships that benefit both.
While all of this is very important to those who work in publishing, it doesn’t really seem to impact the consumer, does it? However, the eBook is actually making a difference in the way we experience books. For example, Penguin as just released what they call an “amplified” edition of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth in conjunction with Starz. Available on the iPad, this edition includes bonus features like an interactive character map, clips from the film adaptation, author commentary, and background information about the novel. Publishing companies themselves are beginning to offer enriched versions of books. I asked a friend of mine who works for one such company in New York what that really means, and she said that these versions are “not simply reformatted for convenience, but allow the reader the opportunity to streamline and immerse themselves in the world of the book in a way that is very compact. Instead of reading a book and then going online and googling it, you have what is essentially the equivalent of a laptop and the book open at the same time, right there in a convenient and (hopefully) stylish package.” She said that, at least some publishing companies, “aren’t selling eBooks as an alternative to a bound book—and there really is no substitute for the experience of holding a book in your hands—we’re selling them almost as DVD extras. They’re for fans who love the novel and want those bonus features.” That makes me feel more positive about the future of publishing in relation to the eBook. As long as publishing companies continue being able to offer the support needed by their authors and products we’re interested in at prices that allow them to stay in business, the eBook could actually beneficial to the publishing community as well as the reader.
But for me nothing can replace the experience of holding a book in your hand, dog-earing the pages, and writing notes in the margins. Having a hardcopy of a book you love is like having an old friend. Each time you read it you discover something new; the book ages with you, the pages yellow, the corners bend, and things get spilled on it. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read that belonged to family members of mine first and survived in their backpacks through their high school days as well as mine. Reading them wasn’t just reading a book, it was sharing an experience across time. The history and individuality gained by a physical book cannot be replicated by an eBook, and neither can the sound of turning pages or the smell that book lovers can’t resist.
However, the benefits of an eBook cannot be denied. Comparing the two things is really comparing apples and oranges, because they are completely different experiences. Though I’m not going to rush out and buy an iPad or Kindle, I can understand why people like them. And though the growing nature of the eBook market might cause publishing as we know it to change, from what I gather, it doesn’t seem like it’s quite time to work ourselves into a panic and start hiding our books in bomb shelters.
