How iPad Will Kill the eBook
If you have some spare time this weekend you might want to build a tiny coffin for the eBooks the iPad is about to kill.
The iPad killing off Books? That can't be right. The iPad is depending on eBooks as a big selling point for the device. Besides, wasn't the success of the Kindle a large part of the motivation to churn out the iPad?
The answer to the question is yes, but here is where things start to get a little murky. The Kindle was designed to be an eReader first and anything else second. The iPad was designed to be a bigger iPhone first* and everything else second.
That means that the iPad will do a lot of things the Kindle or other eBook reader won't. The iPad knows which way is down, the iPad knows what direction it is pointed in and the iPad knows when it is being moved. You don't need any of that for an eBook so it just doesn't matter, right? ePub for everyone!
Not so fast. It turns out publishers and authors want to sell stuff. They sell books because that is what they are good at. However, they aren't married to the notion of selling only books at all costs. If there is profit in selling something more than a book that fits in with a publishers already existing workflow then any halfway well managed publishing house would be crazy to ignore it. As an example, you'll recall ten years ago just about every tech book shipped with a CD full programmatic of goodies. The book publishers weren't interested in publishing software but the CD fit with what they were already doing and added value for customers.
Now is the time to think what publishing houses actually do. Contract an author to produce content for a book. Layout the book, produce and distribute the book. Produce versions of the book for the Kindle and App Store. Collect monies and distribute the royalties to the author.
If publishers could produce something more compelling than just a book without substantial extra effort they would quickly hop on that train. That is exactly what is happening. Watch the video:
If you didn't watch the video, and no one would blame you, what you missed was a Penguin executive demoing what amounts to (more or less) a web page. The "book" has video, takes advantage of the iPad's inherent functionality and some "books" include online gathering places for readers.
The future of eBooks is bleak indeed. Ask yourself if you'd rather flip through a virtual book on the iPad or get the same information with a lot of interactivity. The problem isn't with the eBook format, it is with what the eBook format was designed to do: replicate a book as closely as possible. That format fails to take into account the added possibilities with new hardware.
Are we looking at the all-time end of books? That notion seems doubtful. Dead trees still have a lot of allure. They're cheap, durable, you can use them on the beach or in the tub. And a million kajillion are already in print.
That said, if the iPad takes off, it is easy to anticipate a sudden dearth of new titles in either the eBook or traditional format. Everything new will live in app form and the big loser will be the ePub format and bibliophiles. Think of physical books as CDs and eBooks as Digital Audio Tape and you'll have a great picture of where the technology is headed.
*Calling the iPad a bigger iPhone, however accurate the description is, is a little disingenuous. Whereas portability is paramount with the iPhone the iPad trades the go everywhere convenience of the iPhone for the non squinting, easier to type (hopefully), turbo charged device.
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Comments
I’ll beg to disagree on this one. What you saw on the video was not a Penguin exec demoing a web page. What you saw was a Penguin exec demonstrating how he and his whole company are totally clueless about what’s been happening around him the last 10-15 years. This is stuff that Dorling-Kindersley, The Learning Company, and host of other software publishers have been doing for a long time now. He really just made a fool of himself going up there and presenting an interactive web page as if it’s cutting edge stuff.
That said, the written word is not in danger of disappearing. The same people who read now will keep on reading on and if eBooks offer a convenient solution to the bulk and portability problem, then eBooks will thrive. If it doesn’t offer such a solution then it will die, but not because it gets superseded by interactive websites.
And unless we all decide to stop teaching our children to read, then I believe there will always be a significant subset of the population who will be avid and insistent readers, and a smaller subset who will be avid and insistent writers (not web designers). ‘Enhanced books’ will cater to the population (that has always been there) who would rather see the movie, watch TV, or fool around with an interactive website, instead of reading the book.
I love it how people always assume that their point of view is shared by the majority of other people. I for my self was holding of for a while on purchasing a Kindle, because I wanted to see what Apple has in stock. The day after the iPad announcement I ordered a Kindle, because the iPad has a backlit screen! I just want to read books for hours and not some flashy media interaction. Books allow me to actually use my own imagination. And every book I read gives me access to a unique place, because it is created by my own imagination. But that is just my view as a book lover and therefore I don’t assume that everyone else prefers books and I don’t declare the iPad an utter failure. I am sure the iPad will revolutionize the mobile media experience for a lot of people. But there are also a lot of people out there who don’t care, or even don’t know about the iPad.
Just my 2 cents
I believe it is the beginning of ebook and not the end but then you are entitled to your point of view.
The iPad will do the kind of things which no dead tree can do and open a whole new dimension to book publishing.
Just my 2 cents.
Thanks for the comment Tundraboy.
“I’ll beg to disagree on this one. What you saw on the video was not a Penguin exec demoing a web page. What you saw was a Penguin exec demonstrating how he and his whole company are totally clueless about what’s been happening around him the last 10-15 years. This is stuff that Dorling-Kindersley, The Learning Company, and host of other software publishers have been doing for a long time now. He really just made a fool of himself going up there and presenting an interactive web page as if it’s cutting edge stuff.”
I agree it did look a lot like learning software, I’m not sure if he made a fool of himself or not. They are looking at getting on “the next big thing” The crappy part about learning software is that the programs are generally pretty terrible and you need a full blown computer to run them. Could it be better with an iPad? I kind of doubt it, those leap pad games are uniformly awful in my experience but we’ll see.
“That said, the written word is not in danger of disappearing. The same people who read now will keep on reading on and if eBooks offer a convenient solution to the bulk and portability problem, then eBooks will thrive. If it doesn’t offer such a solution then it will die, but not because it gets superseded by interactive websites.”
I won’t disagree but bibliophiles are one thing and casual folks are another. How many people read a book every year? How many people read a website?
“And unless we all decide to stop teaching our children to read, then I believe there will always be a significant subset of the population who will be avid and insistent readers, and a smaller subset who will be avid and insistent writers (not web designers). ‘Enhanced books’ will cater to the population (that has always been there) who would rather see the movie, watch TV, or fool around with an interactive website, instead of reading the book.”
I think there are probably more readers now than ever before and that is due to the net. But there is a difference between investing the time in reading an entire book and surfing the web. More people see movies and so forth than read books and, since publishers want to make money, you can guess where books are going.
I like books more than most folks, I even wrote a few. I don’t like ebooks, I like the dead tree variety. But there are those who really prefer records to CDs.
I’m not sure you’re not right, I hope you are but I wouldn’t lay any money down on the outcome until I saw how the iPad was received.
Thanks for the comment pol0001
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I love it how people always assume that their point of view is shared by the majority of other people. I for my self was holding of for a while on purchasing a Kindle, because I wanted to see what Apple has in stock. The day after the iPad announcement I ordered a Kindle, because the iPad has a backlit screen! I just want to read books for hours and not some flashy media interaction. Books allow me to actually use my own imagination. And every book I read gives me access to a unique place, because it is created by my own imagination. But that is just my view as a book lover and therefore I don’t assume that everyone else prefers books and I don’t declare the iPad an utter failure. I am sure the iPad will revolutionize the mobile media experience for a lot of people. But there are also a lot of people out there who don’t care, or even don’t know about the iPad.”
I concur with everything you say about books. I love them as well. I love the fact that when I read a book it is an experience unique to me. I don’t like the kindle, I like book cases, I like dead trees, I like words printed on paper. My personal preferences aside it seems to me that that the book is on the way out. I;m sure in the olden times there were folks who preferred scrolls to bound tomes but books won out (scrolls are still around, we call them blueprints)
So while I would personally prefer that books as we know them remain dominant I fear that this isn’t going to be the case. Though there is a nice argument to be made that the interactivity promised by CDs never really took root, people just wanted to hear music. So the CD (and mp3) have remained ways to distribute mostly music. I can put up with eBooks but everything as an interactive media event? Not my cup of tea.
Thanks for the note Adamc.
“I believe it is the beginning of ebook and not the end but then you are entitled to your point of view.
The iPad will do the kind of things which no dead tree can do and open a whole new dimension to book publishing.”
I agree and that is precisely the problem.
Exactly.
The iPad is the beginning of the eBook era, not the end. The iPad allows eBooks to grow and develop all the potential they could never have with paper.
It is the start of the new eBook era.
A bigger iPhone? Will I be able to telephone you on my iPad? Huh?
I think it’s already killed the ebook. Ipad really take over the world, now we can see people using it on cafee or everywhere else.
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Possibility, the iPad will indeed have a considerable ability to, in your language, killing the eBook. For, indeed iPad makes everything easier. aisle marking tapes
I think it’s already killed the ebook. Ipad really take over the world, now we can see people using it on cafee or everywhere else. | discount handbag
But that is just my view as a book lover and therefore I don’t assume that everyone else prefers books and I don’t declare the iPad an utter failure. | designer handbags
If it does not provide such an approach then it will die, but not because he obtains replaced by interactive Web sites.
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The iPad makes a dead tree is not what you can do, and opens up a whole new dimension to book publishing.
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