In this, the final part of our e-book series, we look at the future for the e-book and the e-reader. With the launch of Amazon’s new colour e-book reader and announcements that WH Smith and Waterstones are to sell e-readers alongside books in stores, what is the future for the humble book?
E-Reader Explosion
Amazon may have kicked it all off with their Kindle back in 2007, but just recently it seems that every man and his dog are bringing out their own e-readers. Sony have recently launched their latest Sony Reader; Amazon have brought out a new, cheaper, Kindle, as well as the tablet Kindle Fire; WH Smith are selling the Kobo Reader; and Waterstone’s are planning to release their own e-reader some time this year.
Waterstones have been struggling in recent years, especially in the face of competition from online retailers, such as Amazon; this has more recently been compounded by the fact that Amazon now not only sells books but also e-books, and via its Kindle in the US it has seen ‘sales’ of e-books top those of paperbacks. This figure is slightly misleading, free books aren’t included, but with some books costing as little as 49p, far more people are going to take a punt on an unknown book or author than they would for say £7.99 paperback.
Waterstones also sells e-books, but those who have purchased Amazon’s Kindle can only purchase their books from Amazon; and so Waterstones have found themselves struggling with e-books too, whilst Amazon is going from strength to strength.
US book seller Barnes and Noble were once in a similar situation. Two years after Amazon launched their Kindle, Barnes and Noble brought out their own e-reader – The Nook. They announced earlier this year that for the first quarter of 2011, the Nook, in e-book and hardware sales, had made them £174m – up 140% from the previous quarter.
The Nook is only available in the US and Waterstones are hoping that a similar venture by them here, will likewise reverse their declining fortunes.
“We in Waterstone’s need to offer you a digital reader which is at least as good, and preferably substantially better, than that of our internet rival, and you will have a much better buying experience purchasing your books through us.”
You can understand the ailing retailers reasoning and optimism, but 4+ years after Amazon launched the Kindle and two years after the Nook, is it too little too late?
Waterstones are not the only book seller with this vision, WHSmith, although not launching their own e-reader, have teamed up with Canadian company Kobo and is now selling Kobo eReaders. Kobo are probably one of the biggest rivals to Amazon outside of the US and have recently been purchased by Japan’s largest online retailer.
Sony, as well as selling the e-reader devices themselves, is now opening an e-book store in hope of garnering more revenue, the Reader Store UK, due for launch in October, has only recently been launched.
The logic is clear, sell an e-reader cheap and then lock (if not physically like Amazon, then through ease of access to their own store) the consumer into your format. It has certainly worked for Amazon; and after all it doesn’t really matter where the consumer purchases his e-books as thanks to price fixing by the publisher, it will be the same price everywhere.
Tablets the future for e-books?
Along with the single function e-readers, there are also those capable of multitasking. The tablets, which are in reality, computers that contain applications for reading, but are quite popular for reading on. These devices don’t have the e-ink screens and basically just use a standard monitor, but as they are computers the likes of the iPad and the forthcoming Amazon Fire offer things standard e-readers cannot – interactivity.
Take the iPad ‘book’ Alice for the iPad which offers an interactive aspect to the classic tale. The idea being that e-books of the future on such devices could have creepy sound effects, flickering shadows and so forth to create atmosphere.
However when you start adding sound, video and other interactive elements to a book, when does it stop being a book and become a computer game? Moreover, in this era of instant gratification, are we in fact in danger of moving away from books and using the readers imagination altogether and heading towards a ready made experience – no effort required?
Will it eventually be programmers, and not authors, that are writing the e-books of the future?