TITLE: The Global Impact of eBooks on ePublishing

AUTHORS(s) & AFFILIATION(s):Harold Henke, Senior e-Learning Engineer, IBM Learning Services

KEYWORD(s): ebooks, electronic books, epublishing, publishing, library

PRESENTER / CONTACT PERSON: Harold Henke

CONTACT EMAIL: hessian@us.ibm.com

ABSTRACT:

The advent of electronic books and electronic publishing is changing not only the North American publishing industry but Europe as well. In Europe, many publishers are embracing the ePublishing industry as well as companies which have emerged to develop tools and web sites to develop and sell electronic books, not only in the European Union but in North America. For example, one company which sells novels by French authors, discovered a large market in French speaking Canada as well as New York City, all of which was only possible by using the World Wide Web to sell their books along with technology to distribute books in North America.

In Asia, the electronic book industry is fueled by two industries: manufacturers who are developing hardware devices to read electronic books and content providers who are publishing specific formats. Manufacturers are developing state of the art reading devices with high resolution displays and features which often include multiple purposes such as a electronic book reader coupled with a music player. Content providers are selling electronic books via kiosks in train stations where users can download electronic books, including comic books.

In developing nations, the potential of electronic books is equivalent to the impact of wireless phone technology on communications. In developing nations, wireless technology provides a much less expensive infrastructure than traditional phone system that relies on copper cables, thus the use of wireless technology has enabled developing countries to create a state of the art communication system quickly and efficiently. Electronic books offer the same potential as the cost of acquiring books from European and North American publishers and printing books is expensive and usually cost prohibitive. For example, the cost of stocking a library with paper books is onerous but electronic books are less expensive to produce and can be used to create virtual libraries. The promise of electronic books to provide more content quickly and less expensively in developing nations may be one of the key markets for all electronic books.

Finally, electronic books are not a new idea and in fact, have failed in the past. A discussion of the future of electronic books and the industry is merited in order to determine if indeed, the community of authors represented by SIGDOC, should care about electronic books.

Last modified October 28, 2001 by Scott Tilley.