E-books – the problem with format and pricing
Jinfo Blog

24th April 2009

By Penny Crossland

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At this week’s London Book Fair (http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk), the e-book was a hot topic for discussion. A concept embraced in theory by UK publishers and book retailers – it seems that only half of UK publishers have concrete digital plans (http://digbig.com/4yqgg) - there remain several outstanding issues concerning the digitization of books. As the Guardian reported yesterday in its technology pages (http://digbig.com/4yqgj), the development of the e-book market is in danger of being held back by a conflict over formats, of which there are currently more than 25. Amazon’s Kindle device, reported on at the beginning of the year by Livewire (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e16493) and Sony’s Reader have exclusive formats. Amazon also supports Paris-based Mobipocket (http://www.mobipocket.com), which it acquired in 2005, while Sony, supports Adobe PDF. The International Digital Publishing Forum (http://www.openebook.org) has attempted to establish a cross-platform file format with its open ePub standard, which is being backed by the UK’s Publishers Association. To date, however, Amazon’s Kindle (yet to be launched in the UK) has not yet implemented the ePub format. Sony has, and combined with its partnership with Waterstone’s has stolen a march on Amazon in the e-book market. The other crucial issue concerning e-book publishing is that of pricing. At the London Book Fair representatives from the UK’s publishing companies discussed the pros and cons of subscription models versus selling chapters individually and ‘micro pricing’. In the UK, there is also the issue of VAT, which does not apply to physical books, but does currently to e-books (http://digbig.com/4yqgh). It would seem that the next chapter in the e-books saga could be a lengthy one. Whilst the big publishers and retailers were debating the digitization of books, Blackwell unveiled the Espresso Book Machine (http://digbig.com/4yqgk), hailing it as the savior of the independent bookseller. The machine, described as an ‘ATM for books’, prints and binds out of print or not in stock books in five minutes, enabling small bookshops to compete with the Amazons of this world. Blackwell’s Charing Cross branch is the first store to install the Espresso Machine in the UK. The company has plans to roll out the concept to its other 60 stores. Could we be seeing the return of the small bookseller?

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