From: owner-glencook-fans-digest@lists.xmission.com (glencook-fans-digest) To: glencook-fans-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: glencook-fans-digest V1 #49 Reply-To: glencook-fans-digest Sender: owner-glencook-fans-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-glencook-fans-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk glencook-fans-digest Thursday, November 2 2000 Volume 01 : Number 049 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 18:00:29 -0700 From: Lee Childs Subject: (glencook-fans) e-Books The article below is the best I've seen on the subject of e-books. It is also discoveraging. Costs of converting old paper books to e-books is thought to be several thousand dollars. Publishers don't see any money in e-books. In addition, buyer resistance is thought to be high. Lee Childs Electronic Books Uncertain Prize The Economist, October 21, 2000, page 72-73. A new literary prize will be awarded at the Frankfurt book fair on October 20th: $100,000 for the best book to be published in electronic form. By the standards of book prizes this is big indeed, and is bound to win attention of scribblers everywhere. And yet, because the prize is being awarded for the literary content of the book, not for its electronic virtues, it seems odd that the criteria for entry should be the method of delivery=97until you look at who is putting up the cash for the prize. Its backers are the computer software companies, such as Microsoft and Adobe, that are trying to prod publishers into getting the e-books business off the ground. The business faces the usual chicken-and-egg problem that always confronts new devices for delivering content=97from televisions to today=92= s DVDS. Consumers are not going to buy the device unless the content is available; and it is not worth producing the content until consumers have bought lots of devices. As a result, there are probably fewer that 1,000 titles now available for downloading from electronic bookshops, and probably no more than 20,000 of the reading devices=97the Rocket eBoo= k and the Softbook reader=97on consumers=92 laps. Hence the computer firms= =92 willingness to finance a fat e-book prize. They want to give publishers an incentive to digitize more of their books, in order to boast the market for reading software and devices. Some big companies are spending serious money. The three main competitors in the software=96and-devices business are Gemstar, which produces electronic programme guides for digital television; Adobe, a software company; and Microsoft. Gemstar believes there will be a market for specific book-like electronic devices; Adobe and Microsoft think that the market is in software to make books easier to read, which will be used on multi-purpose computers. In January, Gemstar bought the two companies that make devices for reading ebooks, Nuvomedia and Softbook Press, both of which were struggling. Those companies=92 Rocket eBook and Softbook brands have now been abandoned, but the two second-generation devices, made under license by Thomson Multimedia and launched earlier this month, the black-and-white REB 1100 ($300) and the full-colour REB 1200 ($700), are descendants of those earlier models. Gemstar is offering an end-to-end solution: reading devices, software and a library of compatible e-books. Microsoft and Adobe are skeptical about the market for electronic-book devices. =93We just don=92t think customers in large numbers are going t= o be interested in spending that sort of money on dedicated hardware,=94 says Mario Juarez, Microsoft=92s marketing manager for e-books. Microsof= t and Adobe both make software that can be used on PCS and laptops; Microsoft=92s Reader software, which was launched in August, comes pre-shipped on the PocketPC, Microsoft=92s version of the Palm Pilot. Adobe is working on producing a version for hand-held computers. Retailers are becoming interested, too. Barnesandnoble.com has established an online e-bookstore, and in August Amazon, the largest online retailer, announced that it was planning to do the same, offering e-books using Microsoft software. Publishers are proving harder to excite. They worry that e-books could prove expensive and complicated to create. They put the cost of translating a previously published paper book into electronic form at up to several thousand dollars. They also see new difficulties arising, such as the need to renegotiate agreements with authors. But so far, they do not see any new revenues. Nobody is giving out figures on how much consumers are actually spending on those few books that are available for commercial download, but the sums are reckoned to be tiny. That may be because publishers have set prices so high, despite the fact the manufacturing and distribution costs of e-books, compared with paper versions, are almost negligible. Joe Klein=92s =93The Running Mate,=94 for instance, is $21.56 at barnesandnoble.com, whether you buy it on paper or digitised \SIC\. In addition, to the Frankfurt prize, the software people say, they are doing a lot to help publishers. Microsoft, for instance, has been running advertisements in the New Yorker, promoting particular e-books. Mr. Juarez expects some big announcements from =93content providers=94 th= is autumn. But, even if the devices, the software, and the content are all available, industry fold accept that consumer resistance will be hard to overcome=97much harder, for instance, than persuading people to buy music online. Young people take to new technologies easily, but book readers tend to be older people who are not enthusiastic buyers of gadgets. Further, bookish people have an emotional relationship with the titles on their shelves. They regard crisp paper between cardboard covers as more than a content-delivery device. For many dedicated readers, the idea of abandoning paper books might just feel uncomfortably close to burning them. ======================================================================= To unsubscribe, subscribe, or access the archives of this list, visit . ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 22:22:37 -0700 From: Eric Herrmann Subject: (glencook-fans) Monthly Mailing List Update The October mail archive has been posted. This mailing list is sponsored by The Glen Cook Fan Page at: . The mailing list archives and instructions of how to subscribe or unsubscribe can be found at: . The mailing list FAQ can be found at: . A mailing list exclusive Glen Cook Bibliography can be found at: . In Glen Cook news, Glen says the name of the next Garrett novel is something like "Deadly Lead Skys." (ICon 2000) - -- Eric Herrmann ======================================================================= To unsubscribe, subscribe, or access the archives of this list, visit . ------------------------------ End of glencook-fans-digest V1 #49 ********************************** ======================================================================= To unsubscribe, subscribe, or access the archives of this list, visit .