The article Redefining e-books highlights various thoughts on business from eBooks by people involved with eBooks in different ways.
Publishers now appreciate the new exciting market in eBooks and are printing in both print and digital. Martin Richardson, managing director of UK academic and journals divisions of Oxford University Press, says “it’s no exaggeration to say that the ability to access and search books online is transforming scholarly research”. Digitization of books has made information “discoverable and searchable”. More people are now taking advantage of this technology; therefore there is a need to provide the service. As a resulting, Oxford University Press took up the challenge and was able to become a leader in this area.
The article goes further to say that libraries are also starting to spend on eBooks, making eBooks part of their purchasing budgets, especially colleges and universities.
Clive Parry, sales and marketing director for new online product development for SAGE, highlights the fact that experiments have shown that “students are still quite keen on the traditional text book format, which is expected to change in coming years. However, Asian Markets are still hooked on print because of their traditional distribution networks."
With the availability of online books, eBook readers were developed and books have gone mobile. EBooks are now being accessed using tools such as Blackberries, E-readers and tablets.
This is yet another business opportunity. The development of a variety of tools to access e-books is very competitive and profitable. EBooks are available in different formats and customers are the ones dictating the formatting and how the content will be used.
Hence the business minds find an opportunity in every technological breakthrough and are making all efforts to increase profits.
Reference:
Sian Harris (April/May 2009). Research Information. Retrieved from http://www.researchinformation.info/features/feature.php?feature_id=213
Hi Ingrid,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that business people can find an opportunity in any technological evolution and eBook market has not escaped this either. And I read a very interesting article called Three misperceptions about the ebook business " talks about how three major misconceptions we consumers have about e-book business.
First they talk about pricing of eBooks by publishers other than Amazon. It says those books are priced higher just to save traditional books a little. By doing this they can save the revenue loss that will happen when e-books eventually take over the literature.
Secondly, eBooks are killing traditional publishing, this is true but publishing still has a future by going digital. Same as you have discussed it above Ingrid.
Thirdly, the customer connection developed at bookstores is stronger is not right notion. Its not always good experience browsing books at store. It can be developed while buying books online too. Plus you have better access to all the books you can read in the world online as compared to bookstore.
So yea I agree e-books have great economic potential.
Dear Ingrid,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your article that the market for eBooks is very broad and has so much potential. Clive Parry is correct when he forecasted that students whom at the moment are keener to using textbooks will in the future years shift to eBooks. As a student who in the last 3 years have suffered from back pain because of the weight of my required textbooks will not mind the idea of having eBooks to use for school. However, I have some conditions to be met before I myself would jump the bandwagon and start using eBooks.
My prerequisites:
- I must be able to highlight on my eBook.
- It must be accessible without having the need to connect in the Internet
- I must be able to add scribbles on my eBook.
Check out this link (http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2012/05/18/should-college-students-be-forced-to-buy-e-books/) as it clearly gives an objective opinion as to why eBooks will play an integral role in future higher education
Kat