Ebooks to Seal Coffin on Print?
Ebooks are all the rage at the moment, and offer consumers portability and discounted book prices. Ebooks are so popular, in fact, that rumors abound concerning the end of the printed word. But will Ebooks put an end to print? Possibly, but this isn’t likely.
While recently working on an assignment to cover Record Store Day, I was amazed to find a notable resurgence in the number of people going back to a seemingly antiquated format: that is vinyl. I could not help but recall so many formats for listening to music that came after vinyl: cassette, compact disc and more recently, music downloads. Each format claiming to expand upon or offer something missing from its predecessor, so, what is with the resurgence? There are several key factors in the new vinyl boom, but perhaps the two most significant factors turned out to be sound quality and ownership.
It isn’t much of a secret, but any audio technician will tell you that vinyl simply records better and is capable of reproducing more of an actual recording than a digital format. In theory, vinyl is even capable of capturing frequencies that are inaudible to the human ear, while as much as 60% of the data recorded for download may be lost to compression. The issue of ownership is more sentimental. True fans simply are not satisfied without something tangible to grasp and ritualistically place upon a turntable.
In celebration of Record Store Day, 2012 over 250 special releases are to be unveiled, many of them on vinyl. New music is now offered on vinyl in quantity and older releases and those that were previously unavailable in vinyl are being reissued and re-mastered.
What our mp3 players offer us is convenience, albeit at the expense of quality. This trade off is strikingly similar to those of ebooks. If one looks back into our history, there have been many such buzzes concerning new technology and innovation. Shouldn’t motion pictures have killed off stage plays? Radio kill off public performances? Digital downloads kill off compact discs?
So, how does this apply to eBooks?
Obviously, eBooks offer us convenience; carrying around our private libraries to the beach would be cumbersome to say the least.
Ebooks also offer us affordability. True books are expensive to produce and new books are costly to purchase. An ebook purchase costs a fraction of the paper book price. I only wish they had been around in the days where a semester’s worth of textbooks cost me $500.
Traditional publishers take a gamble with their content. It takes a serious financial risk to turn a first-time author’s work into a book, which often leads publishers to produce these works in limited quantity to assess how the book will be received. Ask any book collector what they cherish most and they are bound to tell you an author’s early work, first edition, first pressing. If that initial printing goes well, subsequent printings and editions may follow. There are roughly 300,000 titles printed in America alone annually, with the average title selling fewer than 500 copies. That is a great many books that simply aren’t going to see the success of Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, and each one requires a significant financial investment on the part of the publisher.
Ebooks offer significantly lower overhead, allowing more authors an opportunity to share their work. Put simply, who is most likely to panic over new technology? Answer: those that stand to loose the most money. Remember the fuss over Napster? It wasn’t the consumer that had issue with this format; it was multimillionaire companies, artists and stockholders. However, internet media sharing and downloadable music formats has allowed many musicians to share their music to a greater audience. Rather than touring feverishly and sending demo after demo to large music corporations in hopes they get notice, musicians have a larger platform for their music to reach listeners. In fact, the new technology has allowed many small record labels to emerge and further share a wider range of music to the populace, and this is likely to happen with ebooks and epublishing as well.
The digital sharing and downloading of music, and subsequent creation of small record labels, has helped the music industry. These small labels provide a litmus test to larger record companies, and an opportunity to resign artists on smaller labels to their own.
Hopefully, traditional publishers will embrace similar methods and use eBooks to their own end. The advent of eBooks offers traditional publishers several advantages. Authors of eBooks already come with their own readership. If an author has had a successful ePublication, much of the initial risk involved in signing a new author diminishes. We’ve already seen a trend in traditional publishing where bloggers or online writers that already have a readership are jumping ahead of other candidates for book publication, and this trend should continue. Authors of eBooks with a good readership should jump to the top of the class with traditional publishers.
Another advantage eBooks offer traditional publishers comes in the form or editing. Much time and money is spent during the editing process, but this is already completed (or should be) before a publication is available in an eBook format, thereby again reducing the initial costs involved in publication.
Essentially, eBooks can take much of the guesswork out of traditional publishing while reducing the initial investment costs that have plagued publishing for years. This streamlining of the industry may even allow some publishing houses to branch out and devote resources to genres they may have otherwise been unable to back financially. This could have a significant impact on the industry as a whole.
Finally, there must be some consideration given to the consumer. Like the music lovers that covet their vinyl, there will be plenty of readers that will still covet the printed page. Ebooks may be a great way to enjoy casual reading, but true fans are going to want their favorite works in print. In addition, certain publications simply don’t hold up when transferred to the screen. I can’t image the works of someone like e.e. cummings coming off with nearly the same impact on a glowing screen as on the type-written page and I pity anyone that tries to display a coffee-table book in an eBook format, it just isn’t going to work.
Traditional publishers will have to adapt in order to stay afloat, but traditional publishers should see eBooks as a tool to be used, rather than a competitor to be feared.
