I’m an avid reader of romance novels, particularly in the e-book format. In fact, I can barely stand reading hardback or paperback books anymore. With the rising popularity of e-books, I know I’m not alone.
I love e-books because of the convenience and reader experience. If I’m interested in reading a book, I just have to click a few buttons and voila—a novel is ready to read. I can search for recommendations online, and as soon as something catches my eye, I can purchase it. If I see a book on sale (I love the 99 cent sales!), I don’t have to waste time (and gas money) driving to a bookstore in order to take advantage of the reduced price. Not only is the purchase of an e-book easier than traditional books, I feel that the user experience is better. With the advent of dedicated e-readers like the Kindle and Nook, tablets like the iPad, and e-book apps for smart phones such as Aldiko, I can read a book absolutely anywhere I want. I don’t have to CARRY a book with me. Nor do I have to decide what book I want to read ahead of time. With e-books, I can have a library of books on my phone, tablet, or e-reader…all just a touch away. I also don’t need to worry about losing my place in the book since most e-book readers allow me to bookmark where I left off. No more losing plastic bookmarks or having to fold the edges of pages to mark my place!
I tend to read my e-books on my laptop. I don’t even have to HOLD the book. I can literally set the laptop on my stomach and click a button every time I want to flip a page. If I want to change positions, I can get on my side and prop the laptop on my bed. With a traditional book, I’d have to hold the book during my reading experience. Since I have a tendency to finish books in one sitting (about 4-5 hours), having to hold a book wouldn’t be comfortable. Also, though I don’t suggest this, reading in the dark is actually plausible with e-books if the device you are reading on has some kind of light. For college students that share a room but want to read late into the night, this is a huge plus!
So now that I’ve finished my spiel on why e-books are so great, what exactly do I want to do with this topic? Well, I’d like to explore the following things:
- Why do people prefer e-books over traditional books and vice versa?
- Is the growth in e-books in a particular genre (romance?) or in all genres?
- What types of consumers (age groups, genders, etc.) are jumping on the e-book bandwagon?
- With e-books, more authors are self-publishing. Is this affecting the quality of books? In other words, is the rise of the e-book leading to a fall in the quality of the work?
- How are authors, publishing houses, and traditional book retailers dealing with this change from paper/hardback to electronic?
- What kind of security concerns result from e-books? I know leaked books and piracy are definitely an issue.
- What are the parallels between the change in the publishing industry and the changes in the music industry? And what does this tell us about the future of the publishing industry?
I feel that this huge shift from traditional to electronic books has a huge impact on customer experience because the change is essentially in how customers EXPERIENCE books. Though change is tough to deal with, many think that this change may actually be good for the publishing industry.
According to an article in the Economist titled “Great Digital Expectations,” publishers don’t believe they will suffer the negative fate of the music and newspaper publishing industries. Since e-books have a high profit margin with none of the inventory management issues of traditional books, publishers may be better off with the change. However, due to the small size of e-books, piracy is a huge concern.
The article also points out that with traditional novels, prices could be set based on physical differences—paperback vs. hardback or new vs. old. However, all e-books are physically the same, leaving the only distinguishable factor to be the story itself. New, self-publishing authors are flooding the market with their super low priced e-books in order to compete with established authors that have the backing of big publishing houses. This difference in pricing when there is not a physical difference may be tough to swallow so publishing houses and authors may have to work extra hard to make readers see the VALUE in their books. The question is how?
