Amazon, Open Your eBooks or Watch Out
Hardly a day went by this week without a major new announcement in the eBook and eReader arena. The wireless eReaders from Sony and the Irex/Barnes & Noble partnership were probably some of the most interesting announcements. In addition, Google also opened up its EPUB archive, which will give readers easy access to over 1 million free public-domain books for their eReaders. The only company that didn't have anything to announce this week was Amazon, which is now in danger of losing its early lead to Sony and Barnes & Noble.
Before this week, Amazon's Kindle still had one major advantage: wireless syncing. Now that both Sony and Barnes & Noble will offer the same functionality before the holiday season, the eBook market is once again completely open.
Everybody Now Offers Wireless Syncing
While wireless syncing and book delivery may not be that important to every potential eReader user, it did give Amazon a major leg up in marketing its Kindle and Kindle DX. In a month or two, this advantage will be gone. Amazon's competitors also offer more stylish devices, and some of the upcoming new eReaders will also offer touch screens - another feature that Amazon's Kindle doesn't currently offer.
EBook Price is Now the Same Everywhere, But Sony Supports Downloads From Local Library
In terms of pricing, Sony will soon offer an eReader for $199, which will put a lot of pressure on Amazon - though Sony's cheapest device will not offer wireless capabilities. As for books, prices everywhere are converging around a reasonable $9.99, the price Amazon pioneered as the default price for bestsellers in its Kindle store.
What's even more exciting is that eReader users will soon be able to borrow eBooks from their local libraries. Sony just announced a partnership with OverDrive, which supplies eBook technology to over 9,000 libraries. Amazon doesn't offer a similar program (yet).
Amazon's Problem: The Kindle is Closed
What's giving Amazon's competitors a major advantage right now is that their devices are far more open than the Kindle. As Slate's Farhad Manjoo points out, Sony and company could still be far more open and do away with all copyright restrictions. But at least you will be able to move your books to different devices, even though Sony still uses the standard EPUB format with a DRM wrapper, for example. Amazon's proprietary format, on the other hand, doesn't allow you to move your Kindle eBook to your new Sony Reader, for example.
For now, most publishers are still wary about releasing books without copyright DRM. We can only assume that the book publishing industry will go through a similar cycle as the music industry, however, and that DRMed eBooks will also go the way of DRMed MP3s.
The eBook market is still young. For now, Amazon's only other advantage over its competitors is that it currently has a lot of momentum among early adopters. But, as Forrester Research's Sarah Rotman Epps argued in a recent report, as eBooks move into the mainstream, late adopters may not feel the same loyalty towards Amazon that early adopters had.
Of course, Amazon could still come out with a new eReader and a more open strategy. But for now, it doesn't look like Amazon is planning to change its strategy anytime soon, and we haven't heard any news (or even rumors) of a new Kindle for quite a while. If Amazon doesn't watch out, it could soon be left behind, because other eBook vendors and hardware manufacturers offer a more open and attractive platform for publishers and users.
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There was actually an Amazon rumor this week; word is Amazon will launch the Kindle in Europe very soon.
http://stuff.tv/News/Amazon-Kindle-to-launch-in-Europe-next-week/13104/
Kindle does allow non-Amazon content, so long as it gets converted to *.azw format. I buy stuff from Fictionwise and send it to my Kindle. But support for EPub would be a definite plus for Kindle; I hope Amazon does do that.
I have not heard much detail about how Sony plans to implement the switch to EPub and whether you will in fact, be able to copy Sony books EPub (which will come with with Adobe DRM) to other devices. If true, that would be a good thing.
Another interesting thing about libraries is, librarians are forward thinkers where ebooks are concerned. Some libraries have moved ahead and in fact are loaning ebooks by loaning Kindles!
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6512445.html
"For now, most publishers are still weary about releasing books without copyright."
You are confusing copyright with DRM. Not using DRM does not mean giving up copyright. DRM is (mis)used to protect copyright.
readwriteweb.com, for example, is copyrighted but you do not deliver it with DRM.
I am a voracious reader (retired) and get most books from the library because I read many I don't want to own. And sometimes get books that I end up not wanting to read. Buying those books doesn't make sense for me. That's why I am excited about epub books. I can download many books from the library now and read them on my laptop. I expect to buy a Sony Reader so I can take them with me. Wireless access is cool, but library access is essential!
an open ebook market is in everyone's interests. Sony's advatage will soon be over before even starting as a result of msft and others law suit against google book deal with publishers. Still amazon is and will remain the world's biggets bookstore. It'll be a while before the field levels
Please don't assume that DRM will go the way of MP3's.
DRM free music allows musicians to have their music promoted, they then make millions of dollars though other activities such as touring. Authors just don't have these revenue opportunies so maintaining value is more important.
The key which this article touches on is that DRM can go with the reader and not the retailer or publisher. If a person moves from supplier to supplier and device to device the DRM should seemlessly move with them.
The key for the publishing industry is to make sure that DRM is not an obstruction to the reader so it is not forced to go the same way as the music industry and continue to afford to fund the diverse quality written content that exists today.
http://blog.kotsialos.com
@jonno - thanks - just a mistake on my part that I wrote' copyright' there - should obviously have been 'DRM' (I'm quite aware of the difference :)
Frederick,
Re "wireless syncing. Now that both Sony and Barnes & Noble will offer the same functionality"
They're not the same though. Sony's is wireless direct ONLY to Sony store (and via the store the Overdrive portion of a library). No direct access to the Net or Web. It's more like what you'd expect from a "store" like Amazon, except that it's Sony that will confine that access to a store.
Amazon's is 24/7 Free Sprint EVDO wireless with direct access to the entire Net. That means with a Kindle we can log onto feedbooks.com, mnybks.net and download directly to the Kindle (not possible with Sony). We also can have Project Gutenberg with its 30,000 well-formatted public domain books directly downloadable to the Kindle over the wireless.
It also means being able to use the built in ('experimental') web browser to browse the web, with mobile-optimized sites the best ones to access.
The Kindle offers searches with targets being Google and Wikipedia as vehicles for the search and we are then on the Net searching with web results. This won't be at all possible with the Sonys.
Many of us use yelp.com and twitter (even facebook and sometimes gmail though the latter is awkward) when on the streets, and there's no monthly charge for this access.
- Andrys
Frederic, one other item.
The advantage of Google's 1 million public domain books being downloadable for the Sony is a good one except that all these pre-1923 books are available, not automatically scanned as these are, but carefully worked on with volunteer proof-readers and with care to formatting and available free on many, many sites and already downloadable to the Kindle, which reads MOBI/prc files ... and the Kindle DX reads PDFs as well.
What's unusual is that Google just released the 1 million+ books in ePub format as well, with text-reflow in place.
Amazon doesn't read ePub (yet -- but Amazon now owns Stanza, which specializes in ePub)m but the free Calibre tool allows us to convert ePub files to MOBI format in about 3 minutes, for our Kindles.
So we now have all those books for our Kindle easily too. Best, Calibre allows us to add a hyperlinked Table of Contents when the original books didn't have them or they weren't linked. That's done with one key click.
Give Calibre a try. It's a fantastic tool. It does level the playing field with regard to file formats
Sony is smart with the library connection. The one problem is that Overdrive has a fairly scant offering, people have found. What's great is that Sony already has the ability to read the temporary ePubs that most libraries offer. The Kindle will really have to do something like this, so in this area Sony leads. And it's an important one.
I'm a little confused, though. I've been using OverDrive based ebooks (both epub and pdf) on my Sony Reader (the 505) for the last year, but the article makes it sound like it's a new feature. I use Adobe Digital editions to download the books from my library's website, then transfer to the Sony Reader.
That's why I am excited about epub books. I can download many books from the library now and read them on my laptop. I expect to buy a Sony Reader so I can take them with me.
To believe authors need DRM to protect them is unfounded because DRM has not stopped one book from being epirated. JK Rowling's last Harry Potter book was not released with an ebook, however within 8hrs of the book going on sale there was a pirated copy online. All you need to pirate any book is buy, borrow or steal a book, scan it into a computer and upload completely bypassing DRM. Also further proof take a look at Baen Books, they offer all their ebooks DRM free and they have been doing that since there was an ebook market. Another thing for those that like the library concept Baen also offers free ebooks in their Free Library and you can read sample chapters for almost everything they publish online again for free. The biggest obstacle to midlist authors, and they are the majority of authors, is obscurity and all DRM does for them is hurt them. For those that really want to see hard numbers on how not having DRM helps your bottom line go read Eric Flint's articles at the Baen Free library. There you will learn how authors and publishers really make their money form some one that is in the know as both an author, editor and publisher.
Yes copyright is a problem