Juli 20, 2015 In amazon, bestseller, book markets, ebook, Europe, France, Germany, piracy, US

Not one prediction about ebooks has been correct so far. Why? A summer rant.

Let’s face the simple truth: Not one prediction about ebooks (as far as I know) has been correct so far:

No, ebooks will NOT go away any time soon. But no, again, they will not replace printed books, not even mass paperbacks, within a decade or so.

Thus far, ebooks have strongly impacted only on some markets: English language (US, UK), and genre fiction (big fiction bestsellers, fantasy, romance, young adult) – and ebooks helped propel self-publishing.

Interestingly, in the various – and very diverse – Non-English markets of Europe, ebooks have stalled early on, in a very different pattern from US or UK. But strangely, they behaved remarkably similar for those niches of genre fiction and blockbuster novels (and found plenty of people downloading those in English, and not, say, in Slovenian or Dutch translations).

Publishers, particularly in Europe, have had their hand in all this, by keeping prices high, and by believing in the gospel of iron cast copyright protection technology (DRM).

Now several of the big companies start learning lesson 01: They abandon hard DRM, and replace it by water marking – to get „rid of a road block“ (phrases buchreport, reporting on Holtzbrinck giving up hard DRM for Germany, following suit after Bonnier had decided likewise in June, and a growing number of others before that). In Italy or Scandinavia, hard DRM has had no strong showing from the beginning almost.

My personal list of ebook headaches

Every time I purchase a (non Kindle/Amazon) ebook (because I dislike those walled gardens), I firmly struggle, and hate, the lack of usability on ANY of the major ebook platforms I tend to use. Here are some real life examples:

  • Kobo has (for me) a terrible search engine, as it makes some kind of a difference for me with an Austrian account (as opposed, it seems, to what they have for a German user – argh!!!). Behind that riddle seems to sit a mix of territorial rights and bad meta data – which doesn’t help me a lot, I must say;
  • Ebook.de has a search engine and shop environment which together seem to visualize every step of development and changing partnerships that the platform has had to serve in the past several years – and even getting a title into a bookmark list, instead of the buy basket takes a little adventure in figuring out how, and why, a function changes names along the process;
  • Direct purchases at notably British publishers‘ websites often confront the mysterious red lines of territorial rights;
  • Buying a French book teaches you a thorough lesson about how France wants to be different – it works in the end, but you better bring some time, and all your wits and persistence.

I assume you do NOT want me to go on and on and on.

Perhaps I am not the only one who got frustrated. Many a reader may have had enough – and a number has moved over to more easy-to-use piracy offerings. Not necessarily because they want „to steal the book„. But because … well, I do not want to entering guessing either.

Here is my main concern: We simply do not know.

We learn about a drop in ebook sales of 2.5% in the US (AAP StatShot, quoted in Publishers Weekly). But what does this mean? Again a few exemplary thoughts:

We know how unevenly ebook sales are across genres, but also publishers. From Europe, I know that ebooks seem to privilege massively the biggest houses, plus a few more publishers who really drive digital.

In Germany, a few independent houses (Luebbe, Aufbau) report that their ebook revenue share is over 15%. Even in ebook agnostic France, a few romance and erotica specialists claim strong digital sales, and we know that a few blockbuster memoirs found their way well onto readers‘ screens, albeit through illegal downloads.

For Germany, or France, we still do not have any meaningful break out numbers, by genre, or monthly developments, but only broad overall figures for, supposedly, all of „trade“ or consumer publishing, which are basically meaningless. We do not even know, for the industry, the part that year end holiday sales play, for digital sales. And the same applies to any other EU market aside from the UK.

Which also means that we have no idea whatsoever of the real impact of piracy on (p&e) book sales. We simply don’t know. (Just as a thought experiment: Are illegal sales curbing down mostly niche titles, available on highly proficient illegal platforms, and are particularly harmful to diversity of titles published by those specialist copyright holders? Or  are the mostly a nuisance to blockbuster fiction and their ‚Big Houses‚ publishers? Or is the leakage paramount? We don’t know.)

What I could see in fact, through our research, is a pretty staggering increase in page visits at major piracy sites across European markets, and both their usability as well as the mounting emphasis from these sites (they pretend, seriously, to foster ‚reading culture‘) which are obviously well echoed by readers. Not by nerds or hackers, but by the most serious, ambitious page devouring folks!)

We have documented some of this in the Global eBook report 2015, and plan for some updates, notably on pricing and on piracy, for autumn 2015.

But here are already a few anticipating thoughts:

Ebooks are NOT a marginal bug in the book publishing system, as a market share (in Europe) of overall 2, 3 or 4% of all consumer sales might indicate. Ebooks interfere with the entire system, as they impact on a number of very sensitive points, by exercising significant leverage.

Most prominently, they work most directly with all kinds of particularly dedicated consumers who specialize heavily on one niche, who read much more than average, etc.

Second, ebooks set a precedent for many more readers, by bringing the ‚book‚ (that previously ‚special‚ thing) on par with all other media content, which literally trains readers at comparing their pricing as well as the convenience of access, and – very important for the cultural classes – their ‚symbolic status‚, with other formats, other content and media, on which they spend time and money.

Third, when the new ‚user experience‚ with books compares poorly with other stuff, the next exit might be a piracy site.

I made an effort of not mentioning the Amazon factor so far in that lengthy story. But here it enters the stage, unavoidably. The ‚A-impact‚ is perhaps not primarily what Amazon is blamed for, its tax-optimizing habits, or its tough negotiations with publishers over margins. Amazon’s main threat comes probably from their offer of being „the other„ – who claims to re-invent the future of books and reading, and of all other digital media content anyway. Which is also arguably Amazon’s softest spot: Imagine from how many sides and angles new challengers can – and will! – come in. Amazon’s future is all but secured.

For the old world publishers, who today struggle with the first wave of change, this comes with little relief. But it sure carries a simple lesson:

Ebooks are complicated. They look small, even marginal in many places. But we see how a huge, old dyke at once gets many little leaks, and readers‘ attention held back for long by that dyke, is curiously exploring all the other leads around.

Publishers, if they want to survive, and fix their dyke, will better learn the tricks of ebooks quickly. Not for today’s minimal revenue share, or flattening growth curve. But to remain their readers‘ best choice tomorrow, again.

November 19, 2014 In ebook, Europe, France, Germany, US

How high ebook prices challenge ebook growth. The New York Times confronts PWC’s overoptimistic predictions with our pricing analysis

In its new „Global entertainment and media outlook 2014 – 2018„, PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC) predicts ebook growth patterns not only for the US (expeciting digital to outgrow print by 2017), but also for a number of European markets. Strangely, France, of all countries, is expected to produce a significant upward curve in ebook sales, similar to Spain, while Germany would lag behind even Italy. Some observers simply likened such predictions to the proverbial tea leaf reading.

The New York Times opted for a more in depth approach to the matter, and compared the PWC Outlook to our analysis of ebook pricing strategies across a half dozen major European ebook markets in the last update to the Global eBook report – and I felt pretty confident, looking at the juxtaposition, that our data analysis is probably a better measure for assessing the growth dynamics, or the limitations of such, in the evolution of key ebook markets. But check out the chart yourself, and make up your mind.

 

März 29, 2011 In Europe, France, Germany, literature

The Diversity Report 2010 is out: Mapping and analysing literary translations in Europe

The Diversity Report 2010 aims at portraying and mapping how a significant sample of the best renowned contemporary authors of literary fiction in Europe shape cultural diversity (and its limits) across 15 European book markets.

Translation of works of fiction makes stories, memories and idea travel across cultural boundaries. And literary authors and their work stand for the cultural richness of this continent.

However, our understanding of the flows of – and the barriers to – translation mostly lacks the empirical groundwork for a solid analysis.

Building on its two preceding reports, the Diversity Report 2010 will track ca. 200 well established fiction authors and their work across large parts of the European book markets and hence the cultural landscapes for a detailed account of

•  Who is translated into which languages, and who is not;

•  What languages are more receptive for translations, or are better received by other territories, than others;

•  What are the overarching patterns and trends with regard to translations of the core of European contemporary fiction?

Surveyed authors will include writers from English (British and South African), French, German, Austrian, Spanish, Swedish, Italian as well as, with specific emphasis, Central and Southeast Europe.

The Diversity Report 2010 will be presented and debated on March 31 st , 2011, at the World Book Summit 2011 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. ( www.wbs2011.si ) and at the London Book Fair, Centre for Literary Translation on April 12, 2011, 10 to 11 am.

Januar 14, 2009 In digitization, ebook, France, Germany, US

It’s the Crisis, stupid! But what does this really mean?

Tracking news about how the crisis affects publishing over the past two months produces some strange findings. Almost instantly, starting as of  November 2008, we saw predictions about how the crisis would hit the industry. Then in December – and now again, with the year’s end reporting – we are told that notably in the US, UK and France, XMas 08 was pretty dark in various segments of the book trade. In Germany, it was not so bleak, but all of the rest of 2008 was not terrific in the first place.

Between these notes, we also heard quickly reports about imminent job cuts (notably in the US, with Simon &  Schuster, Macmillan), restructuring measures and (at Houghton Mifflin) an instant freeze in the acquisition of new titles.

But frankly, these are all pretty dumb, unspecific measures and reactions. What does this mean for a publishing company to stop buying new titles? (And Houghton had build its Himalaya of debt well before the crisis was on the horizon!)

But most amazing is how little we hear about the deeper – structural – trouble in the industry.  Only in France, in Livres Hebdo and in Le Monde, I found some pieces addressing the huge rise of advances over the past years, or more detailed observations about distribution and consolidation.

I didn’t find any well informed reflections about the overproduction (the flood of titles); or the internationalization of the trade, of trends and of author brands; or the probably new dynamics (and competition) between imprints of large conglomerates and independents with regard to the crisis.

Most of all, I would expect that this crisis will trigger digital change, because if you can dramatically reduce the cost of production, storage, distribution and also marketing by doing it all in an integrated digital environment, it is not all too difficult to predict that at least some actors – from within the industry, or some new entrants – will go down that path.

Well, I will do my best in the weeks and months to track information and thoughts along those lines and discuss it on this site.

Oktober 10, 2008 In ebook, France, Germany, literature

French Nobel Le Clézio – the financial crisis – e-Books: Weird reflections on a puzzling day

These are pretty weird days, and I have some difficulty in finding some coherent thoughts about what that means in a perspective of books.

The Nobel prize was given to the French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. This was a surprise, for sure, but I thought at first: „Hein, c’est interessant“. I had read „Le désert“ many years ago, a novel in praise of the clarity of desert life and the virtues of Tuareg nomads, perhaps a bit too thick in descriptions of that sound of nothingness, but not only did I like it and, decades later, still have the flavor of the book, and a few images. It was obvious – and even none of those nasty instant critics of the past 2 days contested this point -: Le Clézio knows what he is talking about. He talks about many countries, many people, many flavors, and this is, I suppose, something important and valuable which writers can bring us, provided their language is up to the job – and this is the other quality that hardly anyone questions. And yet, in Germany at least, several of the „grands pontifs“, or the big wigs of literary criticism, instantly threw at Le Clézio: The fact that they had never read one of his books. How weird! Critics who blame their ignorance on the writer whom they did not bother to read.

Earlier today, I also read a few quotes from European publishing executives about how the global financial crisis might affect books. And I learned a cute thing: It won’t affect books a lot, someone remarked, because people will eventually re-consider buying a new TV set, or a car, but not a trade paperback for 5 Euros. However, this does not mean that publishing *companies* would not be affected. And even very much so they are already, I learned from today’s Publishers‘ Lunch newsletter where Michael Cader posted the losses of various US publishers‘ and retailers‘ losses (including some 31 percent for Amazon since September 19 – details for subscribers only).

Two thoughts slowly emerged in my mind, and I write them down at the risk of being wrong once again, in the short term: For e-Books, this crisis is a huge opportunity, because in the end, they offer publishers (and writers) possibilities to cut down on their costs, in terms of production and distribution, but even more so in communication with the readers. That can open doors, specifically in difficult (and in soul searching) times. And it can do so for very specific writers, who, like Le Clézio, at the same time, are both main stream (in their rather traditional approach to story telling and to humanity and their generic values) and marginal, or peripheral (in the choice of their topics, and their following), but who can find great significance by exactly their stubborn ways.

Since reading „Le désert“, I had, time and again, said to myself that I should read a few more books of this writer. I never did – nor did I ever meet him, despite of a certain, if unspecific desire to try.

Over time, I had been friends with two other writers who, as unexpectedly as Le Clézio, had ended up winning the Nobel: Gao Xingjian, the first Chinese, yet naturalized French, and Elfriede Jelinek, my Austrian compatriot. Each has a very strong sense of telling an unwanted story which, even later on, as the topic itself at some point becomes wildly welcome and prized, remains, in their specific telling, too violent, or too personal, or too awkward, or all of this, to make the writers really popular. Gao turned the catastrophic Cultural Revolution in China into a personal tale of such subtlety that, despite of all the cruelties mirrored, remained so private, that most of the critics turned it down. Jelinek does the reverse thing as she turns violence against normal, middle class girls and women and, probably more importantly, men’s fantasies into such public nightmares that they remain utterly indigestible, or unconsumeable, even against all of today’s movie and game fantasies.

Le Clézio, in my memories, has much milder things to say; perhaps he could be blamed for being the backpacker’s ultimate poet and soul mate. But this does not only explain why he is hated by capital literary honoraries – who always dislike those stray dogs who just drop their borrowed and torn paperbacks for the next traveling peer, instead of accumulating their private little library fortress in a middle class home. In fact, this stray dog’s writing can, perhaps, be very much what we may want to read now, after all those capital fund dogs got rid of much of our savings, plus our future tax payments, and that of our kids as well.

März 18, 2008 In digitization, ebook, France, Germany, US

Ever more eBook projects in the US, France and Germany

News come in regularly about just another project aiming at exploring possibilities and perspectives of books on digital platforms.

At the Paris Salon du Livre, the French Minister for Culture and Communication, Christine Albanel, said that „we must stop only endure the digital revolution“, but instead look out courageously for the potential. „The book“, she continued, „is one oft the very last domains where we still can anticipate (what is going to happen) and give it meaning and exact rules“.

Well, even if this reflects a genuinely French belief in rules and control, the statement points to one strong fact: The current wave of experiments and initiatives is probably driven by exactly the fact that many companies – and even public institutions – have grasped that closing the eyes with a strong belief that ever stricter policing of enhanced copyright legislation will not make those digital ghost disappear.

Anyhow, at the Paris Salon, amidst a huge controversy around an Arab call for boycot due to Israels presence as the guest of honour, digital readers and related stories were the „stars of the show„.

Right after the Salon, the „Gallica 2“ book digitisation project is supposed to go live, with 60.000 digitised works at the National Library, and 2.000 more new titles from some 50 French publishers – who received some subsidies for their move, according to The Bookseller. (Link – with subscription required)

Also, the French encyclopedia Larousse promised to have its largest edition put online soon (here is a demo), and a new epaper reader called Bookeen was unveiled.

At the Germany Leipziger Buchmesse, Ronald Schild, the head of the German digitization project Libreka, announced e-commerce tools for booksellers and publishers,  allowing them to integrate an eBook shop on their websites, granting readers for instance access to a book for a limited period of time.

 A forum debate with various members of the book and publishing community had it that  „the book will remain, even without paper.“

But when Torsten Casimir, editor in chief of Boersenblatt, the German Publishers‘ and Booksellers‘ Association magazine, asked writer Michael Kumpfmueller about „user generated content“, the writer was sure that „writing fan fiction on things like Harry Potter will be over soon“. Well, well. A colleague of a nerdy Berlin group of online journalists and writers, Sascha Lobo of Zentrale Intelligenz Agentur, dryly replied: „This is what I call fatal arrogance.“

I admit I felt more enlightened by a piece in Shelf Awareness on „Digital Change: A College Survey Course„, with Mark Nelson explaining at CAMEX in San Antonio, Texas, that „digital change could come as quickly as the iPod became a staple of college students: in four years, iPod adoption by college freshman went from 0% to 85%.“

Nelson also reminded professional book people how readers, especially at learning institutions, „want lower prices. They don’t want to buy a whole book if the professor doesn’t want them to read it all. And they want shareable content that they can interact with.“ He cautioned, „If we don’t find a solution to these questions, someone else will.“ Nelson also pointed to several University projects that are worth exploring:

CourseSmart, an experiment launched by 6 major text publishers, Amazon is begining to sell textbooks over the Kindle and starts partnering with publishers, Ingram offers a growing inventory of content, CafeScribe is an affiliate program, and these are not the last examples of all that is going on out there – we will keep you posted.

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