2011 - A Year of Change in Ebooks?

Things are started to buzz now; you can read it, see it, and even hear about it! The exciting part of the year has begun as we eagerly await 2011’s surprises.

First of all comes the launch of Google E-Books into the US, with intended further roll out this year. We’ve done the sign-ups via our US Agent and the books are now uploading. If it lives up to its hype, then we will follow the UK launch closely!

However new innovations like Google E-Books, don’t come without their quirks.  Unfortunately there are still many questions about pricing. Issues in Google E-Books come from things such as the Indie Booksellers, who are still charging twice or three times as much as Google and Amazon.  At the moment it seems a bookseller can sell at their own price but with such pressure to lower prices, will the publishers be able to resist and retain control over their own content?

Although Google is putting in place various technologies to limit access to their E-books, is it perhaps a flawed ideal as it is alleged in some blogs that Google is leaning towards sharing content between devices. This means they would like less DRM to be imposed on each title. This kind of DRM may not always be at odds with popular publisher opinion but certainly is at the moment, with Publishers needing to control the sharing of their content. Thus protecting their revenue income. DRM is definitely something that needs watching…

Another interesting possibility this year is the announcement of a new version of Epub – Epub 3. This version will still be back-compatible with Epub 2 but will actually have better formatting options. This is particularly worthwhile for those in the academic area of publishing because that area tends to contain more tables, pictures and artwork and the re-flowable text will ruin the formatting and therefore ruin the publications quality and lower the value.

Re-Flowable text however is a necessity to e-reader devices, as each device needs to re-flow the text to fit their screen, which is what Epub does. This leaves Academic publishers in a catch 22 situation, with no way of supplying good quality eBook versions of their work.

This is why epub3 is so potentially impressive. It will mean that academic publishers will be able to easily create E-Books for their complicated works meaning a huge influx of new materials could enter the market. For more technical information about this potential new version of ePub, take a look at the new Epub 3 specification Overview Draft.

Lastly London Book Fair is fast approaching. We would be delighted to see you on our stand. (N409)

Please pay us a visit!

Emily - NUP