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E-Books
Are Book Lovers Turning Into E-Worms?
by John Shreeve
John E. Shreeve has been a freelance writer and journalist since 1989, following a career as a guitar player in various London bands. He writes for a diverse range of publications, including The Financial Times, The X Factor, and the US careers magazine Diversity/Careers. He also works in new media, writing content for websites and scripts.
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Read our interview with John Shreeve
In March this year, best-selling horror author, Stephen King, ventured into electronic publishing. He sold over half a million copies of his 66-page electronic book, "Riding the Bullet" (published by Simon & Schuster), through Amazon and other websites for $2.50 a download.
In late July, King set about doing something even more radical. He bypassed Simon & Schuster altogether and released installments of his new novel, "The Plant", a tale about a vampire vine, direct to readers from his own website, stephenking.com, at $1 dollar per chapter.
To date, there have been 152,132 downloads of the book.
Trust
King took the unprecedented move of trusting people to pay the $1 for each episode they download. Currently 76.38% of people have paid and the payments from those who said they would pay later continue to trickle in.
All in all, King is pleased with the initial results of his e-publishing venture - and is gratified that so many people are proving honest: "The pay-through rate," he says, "has been higher than I dared hope."
What Are E-books?
For those who haven't yet become "e-worms", an e-book is essentially a computer file that can be read (using the appropriate software) on a PC; a PDA (personal digital assistant); and on handheld devices, such as Rocket eBook and SoftBook, designed specifically for reading e-books.
E-books can be downloaded from various Internet sites, including Rocket, SoftBook and MemoWare. The latter is a vast library of mostly free books, all formatted to be read on PDAs. You can even download the complete works of Shakespeare (not including the sonnets) onto your Palm Pilot.
Which might come in handy if you're stuck in a bad traffic jam…
But that's about it. E-books are just a novelty, right? They aren't likely to pose a threat to their print counterparts…
…or are they?
Present indications suggest they might.
Paperback of the 21st Century
A recent joint study by Anderson Consulting and the Association of American Publishers projects that the e-publishing market for consumer books could reach $3.5 billion by 2005. And Jack Ramanos, president of Simon & Schuster, predicts that: "The e-book will be the paperback of the 21st century."
Not surprisingly, Simon & Schuster, who publish more than 2000 print titles a year, are very much at the forefront of e-book publishing. Through a digital fulfillment agreement with Lightning Source (leading providers of on-demand-printing and e-book delivery), they aim to offer all their new front-list titles simultaneously in print and electronic format. E-book ISBNs will be included for all titles in the publisher's winter catalogue.
Other publishers are beginning to follow suit, digitizing their titles and working to streamline distribution, while looking at ways to counter the ever-present threat of piracy. (Within hours of King's "Riding the Bulllet" going online, hackers cyber-jacked it and posted it up for people to download for free).
At the same time, technical companies are endeavoring to make e-books more desirable to readers - whether they read them on computers or on e-reader devices.
New Authors
If the new medium does take off as predicted, the winners won't just be big name authors like Stephen King. New writers and specialist authors, writing for relatively small audiences, will get a look in, too. The economics of conventional publishing, which are built on narrow profit margins and mass distribution, means that new and specialist authors often find it difficult to get a deal. And if they do get one, they usually get a miserable advance, slim royalties and poor publicity.
E-books turn that scenario on its head. Specialized e-book publishers, for example, generally return 30% of sales to their writers - as opposed to the print norm of 10% on the first 5,000 copies sold. This is possible because don't have to pay high production or distribution costs.
Lip Service
Some writers have even found that the Internet leads to print deals. Melisse Shapiro, who writes as M.J. Rose, tried for years to get publishers interested in her erotic thriller called "Lip Service". Frustrated, in early 1998 she sold it as a downloadable text document over her own website for $9.95.
She then marketed it through 200 other sites. By February of 1999, the work caught the attention of a traditional book club. Then it was picked up by Pocket Books, who released the hardcover last August, bringing out an e-book version in May this year, which Rose digitally autographed.
Pocket Books will also release her next work, "In Fidelity", in both cyber and print versions in January, 2001. Also that month, St. Martin's Press, USA, will publish another work, co-written with Angela Adair-Hoy, in both forms. The title: "How to Publish and Promote Online"…
The way ahead? You better believe it…
© smarterwork 1999 - 2010. All Rights Reserved.
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