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After rumours it may happen began swirling around this week, it is now official: Random House is bringing its deep catalogue of books to the Apple iBooks platform. This represents a major coup for iBooks in its stand off with the Amazon Kindle store, as RH is the biggest English-language publisher in the world, with best-selling titles like The Da Vinci Code in its catalogue.

Why is this important?

The first thing to note about Apple getting RH onto its store is the number of ‘new’ titles will be available on the platform as the result. Random House brings with it 17,000 titles to the Apple iBooks platform, absolutely exploding the number of titles available on the platform.

It also means the content gap between what is offered on the Amazon Kindle store and iBooks has been shrunken significantly. This, in turn, could be a compelling reason for iPad owners to use their tablet PC as a reading device, though they’ve long been able to if you factor in Kindle is available for iPad.

Major win for ebooks

Publishers have been anxious about the ebooks revolution. While they were always going to overtake paperbacks, just like downloaded music was always going to supplant CDs, book publishers didn’t want to find themselves in the same situation record labels find themselves in due to iTunes.

By this, we mean that the content owners did not want to be beholden to the platform owner, due to the strength of said platform. While the Amazon Kindle store is undoubtedly the kingpin in all things ebooks related, publishers find themselves in a comfortable position where there are two big players in the space, and not just an all-conquering monopoly, like what iTunes virtually is.

Major win for readers and e-readers

The knock-on effect of that is that future releases may all be paperback and digital simultaneously, creating an even bigger market for ebooks and ebook readers. While it may seem like Random House coming to the Apple iBooks platform is beneficial only to Apple – that would be the myopic view. Everybody stands to win off of this development, where the old guard is conceding it needs to change and adapt to the times.

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Outside of impacting sales of physical books, how else do you think the e-reader market is affecting traditional book publishers? In a strange way, it is making them obsolete. Perhaps that is hyperbole, but the story of an under thirty self-published author who is selling over 100,000 books per month has to be scaring the old guard just a little.

Meet Amanda Hockling

Amanda Hockling is a 26-year-old author who has never had a major publishing deal. Self-publishing her books onto the Amazon Kindle store allows her to pocket 70 per cent of all sales she makes, while Amazon keeps 30. With her reportedly selling 100,000 copies of her published books monthly, she is raking in a reported $2 million (about £1.2 million) per annum.

How does Hockling do it?

Having never read any of her novels, I cannot speak to Hockling’s quality as an author. What is undoubted is her marketing skill, with her ability to reach that many people on the platform. She reportedly sells each of her novellas and novels in prices ranging from $0.99 to $2.99, with new content being published with great frequency so she can keep her turnover as high as possible.

Why publishers should be frightened

The reason publishers should be terrified of tales about runaway successes like this one is that they dramatically negate the age-old publisher’s sales pitch. Before digital platforms like the Amazon Kindle Store (and before the internet matured, one must add) only the traditional guys could promise sufficient exposure that you would see sales totaling tens of thousands over the course of your books lifetime, let alone hundreds of thousands of sales monthly. Digital platforms have proven this theory wrong.

E-readers are working

Incidentally, these dramatic sales numbers of Hockling’s books also indicate that the Amazon Kindle store and the e-reader that accompanies it are selling well. While it may have been cool to write about whether e-readers and ebooks were here to stay in late 2009 and early 2010, at the beginning of 2011, who still doubts them?

Photo: Samsung / Flickr

Samsung on Thursday announced that it acquired Liquavista, a Dutch display firm that specialises in e-ink technology, as the company looks to make a move into the e-reader market. Samsung LCD displays are the most used in the world at present, and the company is clearly looking to expand its portfolio with the Liquavista acquisition.

Expanding the reach

The Eindhoven-based firm, which was spun out of the Philips Research Labs was acquired for an undisclosed price, reports Reuters.

What does Liquavista do?

Liquavista makes what’s called electrowetting, a new electronic display technology being used in e-readers, media players, and mobile phones. Samsung says that a massive advantage of this tech is that it purportedly consumes only 10 per cent of the battery power present electronic displays consume.

In a statement released speaking on the acquisition, Samsung says: ‘As electrowetting can be manufactured by modifying LCD production lines, Samsung will be able to realize significant synergies through the utilization of existing manufacturing equipment and capabilities.’ Basically, the company wants to apply this tech to as many Samsung LCD displays as possible, while ramping up production volume.

Moving in for the kill

Samsung is making major moves in reinforcing its competitive advantage in the display technology stakes. The company will look to adapt this technology to its present day LCD business, where it is seeing major success with smartphones and tablet PCs.

However it’s also a massive opportunity for the company to make significant strides in the e-reader market, where Samsung has little presence. The advantage the Korean firm has, in that it makes end use products as well as components, is that the Liquavista acquisition could prove an opportunity to start making its own e-readers, or a way to get a piece of the action by making the displays for e-readers like the Amazon Kindle and Sony’s offering.

It likely won’t be too long before Samsung LCD displays with electrowetting make an appearance.

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The e-readers market continues to grow, and just like digital downloads eclipsed CD sales, it stands to reason that ebooks will eclipse the sale of physical books. Depending on your stance, this is a good thing. Or a very bad thing.

Reason 1: Ultra portability

Think about this – the average e-reader is exceptionally thin, and slips into any backpack, or briefcase. Now on this one thin slab of technology, you can store thousands of books, as opposed to lugging thousands of books. Sure, libraries look great, but functionality and portability help, too.

Reason 2: Instant access

The Amazon Kindle, with its Whispernet technology and its free access to the first chapter of most every book on its platform proved that people like convenience. Sitting at a conference, have you heard someone talk about a book that may interest you? Fire up your 3G-connected ebook reader, download the first chapter for free, and see if it’s worth getting the rest of the book. Within 30 seconds, you could have a new title in front of you, which is far more convenient than making a note to go past your book store later and purchase it.

Reason 3: Cheaper in the long run

If you’re prone to purchasing potential best-sellers the day they are released, then you’re likely to save money by purchasing their digital equivalent if it is released day-and-date. On average, new releases of ebooks cost less than new releases of their paper equivalents, which could lead to a significant cost saving in the long run.

Reason 4: Non destructive annotations and highlighting

Some people highlight and annotate in their physical books with reckless abandon. Others are mortified by the idea of merely scuffing the book. eBook readers cater to both these groups of people by allowing you to highlight important content, while also being able to remove the highlights at a later stage, in a non-destructive manner. A sharpie lover’s dream.

If you think long and hard about it, ebook readers have many advantages over physical books. This is not to say that they will completely eclipse and replace books, but it is to say to dismiss an ebook and the digital platform completely is irresponsible, and likely not in your best interest.

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The rate at which Amazon’s developers built the Kindle eco-system and got users to support the platform – device and software – is nothing short of remarkable. A product that wasn’t even available for purchase a mere three years ago has not only validated the eBooks market, but virtually redefined it. With apps already available for the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, and Mac, Microsoft has announced that Windows Phone 7 will soon have its own Amazon Kindle app, too.

725,000 titles to Phone 7 users

A demo of the Amazon Kindle for Windows Phone 7 app was shown at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDF).
The usual Kindle app features are present here, too, with cross device sharing, bookmarking and highlighting syncing, as well as direct access to the Kindle store possible from within the app. In addition, MS users will have the fortune of accessing a well-established platform with over 725,000 titles available day one, with a nifty personalised book recommendations feature that will pop up on the home screen.

eBooks and e-readers going nowhere

What the Amazon Kindle team has managed to do, by building not only appropriate hardware but a world-class software platform, too, is guarantee that, even if e-readers do not pick up, eBooks are still proliferated by smartphones and tablet computers. Thankfully for e-readers manufacturers, the eBooks reader market has absolutely exploded, with Amazon taking a vice grip on the market, but enough share left for the smaller players to fight over.

If you’re a Windows Phone 7 user, and are keen to get your hands on the Amazon Kindle app when it launches, show your interest over on Amazon’s Phone 7 page to be notified the day it drops.

For those who still doubt the pulling power of an Amazon Kindle app, or even the viability of the eBook reader market, don’t. Digital reading, and e-readers, are here to stay.

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What’s the one thing parents hate seeing their children do? Waste away in front of the idiot box – the television. What would you rather your children did when they were indoors? Most parents would respond read more. Well, if that’s the case, a recent study suggests you should consider purchasing an e-reader for your child, since it will have them read more.

A little suspect

While the story was run by Reuters, and the research methodology is sound, we’re not sure if we completely agree with the outcome.

Basically the whole study, conducted by educational company Scholastic and marketing & research firm Harrison Group, polled parents and children on their thoughts towards technology. While 40 per cent of parents thought time using mobile phones and other pieces of technology was time that would otherwise be spent reading, 57 per cent of children said they would be keen to read an e-book. So, what do we have here? Parents have identified technology discourages children from reading, while researches think reading by using technology solves both problems. Fair.

The concern, however, with this eBooks reader and reading volume study is its disregard for children’s propensity to say what they would do and what they actually do differing.

In line with other research

This research is, incidentally, in line with other research, where studies found that people who had e-readers read more material but at a slower rate, which is beneficial to improved information retention.

Insofar as this research is accurate, it may well be a wise investment to purchase e-readers for children. Incidentally, it also opens up a new market for an eBooks reader manufacturer to develop more rugged, child-proof reading devices so that your naturally clumsy children don’t break the expensive devices. eBook readers are clearly here to stay, and you should strongly consider purchasing an e-reader if you haven’t already.

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As tablets grow in ubiquity, and the Amazon Kindle takes large chunks out of the eBooks market, other eBook Readers are struggling to survive. They have the double-sided pressure of having a whole new form of computing encroaching in their space, as well as being squeezed out by a powerful company with a huge library. How do these fringe players survive? By partnering.

Mine enemy is thine enemy

It’s absurd to us that eBook readers manufacturers and publishers haven’t had a sit down to fully talk about how to maximise their properties. Especially considering that publishers and smaller e-readers have common enemies – Apple and Amazon.

See, publishers feel that the two incumbents in the digital reading space have too much power – much like Apple does over the music industry through iTunes – and they’re looking for ways to not be so reliant on them. The way forward would be to figure out how to get other e-readers in a competitive space without building their own (destined to fail) digital readers. So you do what any prudent corporation does – partner!

A subsidised model

Publishers have a number of classic works, that were once popular but are now either out of print, or sell in the couple of hundreds or one or two thousands annually – hardly big money. If, say, Random House were to partner with Sony so that Sony had 20 classic Random House business books pre-loaded onto their readers without an additional price (RH would get a tiny subsidy) there could be a spike in the sales of the admittedly fine fairing Sony e-readers. If this agreement extended beyond just the initial sale, and baked in an average discount of 20 per cent for all Random House books bought on the Sony digital reader, the two companies may start to fragment the market in a way that could be beneficial to them.

Why has this not happened yet?

The big question is why is this not happening yet? E-readers world over, boutique and large, need to stave off competition from the incoming tablets influx and Amazon’s growing dominance, and they can only do this if they use all the help they can access. The digital reader business may then prove to be a viable line for some of the companies invested in the space.

What do you make of this reasoning?

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Ebooks and e-readers have certainly crossed a notable threshold. Not only are they in the spotlight for giving Amazon a notable boost, and for their role in the decline of Barnes & Noble, it seems we (and other sites) are writing much more about them. That’s a good indicator of a trend. Now Dorchester Publishing, mass sellers of romance and crime novels, has decided to completely abandon mass printing in favour of going digital (and print-on-demand) only.

Plummeting sales to blame

Dorchester saw a 25 per cent year-on-year decline on sales of books this past June, whereas the company expects to see its eBooks sales double come 2011. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on this seemingly extreme decision, Dochester CEO John Prebich said: ‘It wasn’t a long, drawn out decision, because we’ve been putting in the effort but not getting results’.

What of the distribution partners?

The problem with this eBooks strategy from Dorchester Publishing is what it means for its relationship with its distributors and resellers. Naturally, if they’re not selling titles in bulk, the value proposition for distributors may begin declining.

‘It’s been a good run, but if they aren’t publishing mass-market paperbacks, we’ll have to decide what to do,’ explained Charles Ardai, owner of Hard Case Crimes, a company that distributes some of Dorchester Publishing’s books, reports Ars Technica.

Massive boon for e-readers

Just like the great Newscorp pay wall experiment, many publishers, big and small, will have a keen eye on Dorchester’s success after adopting this digital-only and print-on-demand model. Simply put, the marginal waste of books that never sell is becoming too expensive to be sustainable. This problem doesn’t exist with digital books, and if the business models can be tailored to work, it stands to reason many will follow suit.

And if more publishers go eBooks exclusive, the sale of e-readers across the board – not just the Kindle – will explode.

Photo: Barnes & Noble

If, for whatever reason, you still didn’t think eBooks and e-readers were here to stay, here’s a shock to your system: Barnes & Noble Inc., the US’s biggest books retail chain, has just put itself up for sale. The real kicker is the growing sales of digital books are partly to blame.

For sale sign erected

After continued pressure from shareholder activists Barnes & Noble Inc. has put itself up for sale, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The company announced that a continuously falling stock priced forced the group to think through all alternatives, ‘Including a potential sale’.

The primary reason for the somewhat unexpected yet not-altogether-surprising sale is the meteoric rise of digital books and their respective e-readers as a viable platform, as well as more and more book lovers ordering their titles online. This meant that foot traffic to the stores declined steadily, putting revenue pressure on the group in step. Effectively, as has been evident for years but has only really come to fore recently, Amazon has wrecked their business.

Potential buyers

With Barnes & Noble Inc. having 720 stores across the United States, 637 stores on college campuses and a grand brand name, the company is attractive to various suitors. Leonard Riggio, the group’s founder and chairman, may be forming a group of investors to purchase the company, and a multitude of private equity firms are expected to be in the running, too.

What’s the benefit?

What do potential suitors stand to gain? A fair amount, actually. The aforementioned brand pull and reach of the group is a great motivator, as is the promising Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader platform. Sure, Amazon has trail blazed ahead and has put some distance between itself and competitors, but the Barnes & Noble Nook (and the iPad) have confirmed that Amazon is not the de facto e-reader yet.
What matters in this story is that eBooks and e-readers are big, big business. Big enough, in fact, to force the hand of America’s biggest books chain.

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A recent Nielsen Norman Group study has found that using e-readers results in reduced reading speed, while the absolute volume of content you read increases.

Micro-study

The micro-study, which had a small sample group of 24 self-professed avid readers read a bunch of books spanning multiple reading platforms. The study found that those who read e-readers can read as much as 11 per cent more slowly than when they read from the good old ink-on-paper format.

More specifically, using paper books as the reference point, it was found that those reading on an iPad read 6.25 per cent slower and those reading from the Amazon Kindle e-readers read, on average, 11 per cent slower. This could be down to time lost waiting for the page to refresh once you’ve turned them, or, less complicated, the nuances of reading on a digital platform versus a static paper one.

Bitesized consumption

What the study does not account for is how e-readers have changed how people read and how much they read. With a breast pocket-sized device that can store your entire library, it’s far more likely you’ll do reading in between commutes or during special ‘breaks’, and so on. This results in significantly more reading done in the long run. And there is no measure of the difference textbooks in eBook readers will do for the back health of a span of college students no longer carrying heavy satchels in the decades to come. If you’ve been there, you know what we mean.

The benefit of this finding

Photo: Amazon

Though this is obviously a bad thing for the speed readers among us, this could have great bearing for academic reading. That is, assuming reading the same material slower – on one device than a regular book – results in you taking in and retaining information better than by even a smidgen. If that is the case, eBook readers may be a worthwhile investment.

Being marketed to go

Dedicated eBooks readers are also becoming increasingly more affordable. Whether it is iPad response time, or just market pressure, we’ve seen Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Sony Daily Edition drop in price over the last few weeks. It’s the slow crawl towards what some have called the ‘paperback ebook readers’, devices that have zero added features but are priced to go, so as to get as many people as possible using them.

Not that we think you would bother to do statistical research, but have you found you read slower on your e-reader than you do a regular old book? And do you read more now that you do have an eBooks reader? Let us know in the comments below.