Publishing profits from E-Book Explosion
E-books could be more lucrative than print books, according to co-founder of social publishing site Scribd.
"It's clear now that there's going to be enough demand for books distributed as digital content, that there is going to have to be a digital distribution mechanism for books," he said at the World Book Expo in New York.
Jared Friedman said he is optimistic the book publishing industry can learn from the copyright challenges the music industry overcame as it moved from using CDs to providing online audio downloads.
"We seem to be going straight to an iTunes model and skipping the many years of Napster's and Kazaa's that went in between for the music industry," he said.
However, assistant editor for technology website ZDNet, Andrew Nusca says that profits in digital publishing depend on how a company intends to make profit.
He outlines the Amazon business model of creating its “Kindle” eBook Reader.
“The Kindle costs a substantial amount of money to manufacture. They’re not really looking to the hardware to say we’re gonna make money on this. They’re selling books. That’s where they make their money.”
Nusca explains Apple, by comparison, makes most of its profits on hardware, rather than on iPhone software applications.
Social network (sub)Scribd to eBooks
Almost 5,000 books, including works by horror writer Stephen King and comedian Steve Martin have been launched in a new eBook store on the online document-sharing website, Scribd.
"With millions of visitors and an extraordinary number of posted documents, Scribd has become an important destination for readers seeking written information that is relevant to their lives", says chief digital officer of publishers Simon & Schuster, Ellie Hirschhorn.
Around 60 million people visit Scribd each month to read a variety of texts online.
The book downloads can be read on computers, mobile devices and eBook readers including those by Sony and CoolReaders.
They can also be read on the Amazon Kindle, which Amazon refuses to confirm a launch date for outside the US.
Google plans to begin selling eBooks directly to its users later this year in an open file format.
“We want to build and support a digital book ecosystem to allow our partner publishers to make their books available for purchase from any web-enabled device – whether it’s a PC, a smart phone, a netbook or a reading device”, according to spokesperson Oliver Rickman.
However, unlike Amazon, Google has no current plans to produce its own eReader.
