EBooks 2.0 – What do you think?

5 points by Elho 11 years ago | 9 comments

I love to read a book, but maybe I even love more my collection of books. You know, time to time you walk by your bookcase, and you see books you've read and think: "ow that's right, I read that book ages ago, I loved it!" You take the book, read the back cover and just maybe you will re-read it. The same goes for physical bookshops.

I don't have this feeling when i'm reading books on my ipad or ereader. Or when i'm browsing in an online book store.

I want to preserve that special feeling you get with books.

So here are two versions of my idea:

We keep the idea of ebooks. But instead of downloading tons of ebooks on your ipad or ereader. You still buy them in a shop. But with this difference that you don't buy a book made of paper, but you buy like a DVD styled case with an e-ink screen inside that contains only ONE book. This way you keep the old front and back cover and you can physically see what book you are buying. You can touch it, feel it, show it to others. And more important, after you have finished your book, you can place it in your home library. You don't have to take your ipad or ereader to browse through all the books you have read.

A disadvantage I can see is that there must be a MASS production of e-ink displays... But, bookshops can stay alive, people still can go shopping for books or lend out "real" books to friends...

Another idea:

We keep the whole idea of ebooks and ebook stores like amazon. People just download their books on ipads or e-readers. But their book covers will be synced on special designed displays that you can buy and place in your existing home library. So, out with the old books, in with the displays that show your ebooks. You can't take out any books of this library. But you and others can SEE what books you are reading.

So, what do you think?

cstross 11 years ago |

A disadvantage I can see is that there must be a MASS production of e-ink displays...

Cost of goods will cripple this scheme, because you seem to have implicitly assumed that the price you pay for a book in a shop is on the same order as the manufacturing cost of goods for the book block in your hand.

It's not.

Roughly 10% of the SRP of a book sold through a bricks'n'mortar store is reflected in the cost of goods -- a mass market paperback costs 50-80 cents to manufacture, and a bound hardcover costs about $2.00-2.50, of which a surprising chunk goes on stitching it into the binding, and printing the glossy wrap-around. (Ratios are a bit different in the UK where, for example, hardbacks are perfect (glue) bound rather than saddle-stitched.)

I can conceive of a low-resolution e-ink reader primed with a roughly 1Mb FLASH chip containing a single novel wholesaling for maybe $15-20, if produced by the million. I can't see the same tech wholesaling for $1-$2.

2. A secondary issue: in some genres, readers adopted ebook reader technology early precisely because the other public couldn't tell what they were reading. This was identified as an issue by Harlequin's market researchers -- Romance leads category fiction sales, accounting for about 50% of the total, and Romance readers are a little twitchy about being judged for their choice of reading by other members of the public they encounter e.g. on public transport or elsewhere where they might be reading. This runs exactly opposite to what you're suggesting.

Elho 11 years ago | |

That is indeed the exact opposite of what i'm trying to achieve with my idea. 50% is a lot!!

Pricewise, i have no idea how e-reader technology will evolve. It must indeed be very cheap to produce. On the other hand, you still have people that buy new records over mp3's in the iTunes store...

lukevdp 11 years ago |

The first step would be to validate the opinion that people prefer to see the books they read. Then you would need to find out how much people are willing to pay for it.

My guess is not much, because people can just buy the book if they want it. Also keep in mind, the cost of an ereader is around $80-90 - quite an expensive cost to add per book.

cstross 11 years ago | |

Entry level price for an e-ink device in the UK is now down to £35, i.e. US $55-60, of which 20% is VAT (tax); in the USA it's down to under $50 (in some cases $35 with a mail-in rebate). Furthermore, this is the retail price for the reader. Unless they're heavily subsidized to below cost price, the device itself is even cheaper.

Elho 11 years ago | | |

I would only use the e-ink technology. All other features wont be necessary. So really the most simple version of an e-reader will do.

anonymouz 11 years ago |

Something like Amazon Matchbook is a better solution in my opinion.

Elho 11 years ago | |

It probably is. Sure they have a good R&D department. But it's still a collection of many books on just one device. Good for ecological reasons and so on. But if you just think about it, it's still fun to have a physical overview of all the books that you have bought and read. I can see a future where paper books will have no place. Or am i wrong about that?

notahacker 11 years ago | | |

If you want the joy of owning a physical book, which looks nice, advertises its presence to you every time you walk past and shows off how educated you are, then a physical book is actually the optimum solution to the problem. Like vinyl records, they offer a different experience of media consumption that some people consider superior, as well as showing off that you're a connoisseur and filling your shelves with nice artwork. So paper books will always have a niche, even if it's a fairly small one when it comes to novels.

What you're proposing though is like inventing a particularly-complex-to-manufacture CD... after the iPod. If you want the convenience of something that not only has resizeable, searchable text but also weighs very little, then any current generation reader offers the exact experience you're looking to replicate, except you only have to buy and carry around one of them.

Even if and when we get to the point where e-ink screens can be manufactured for a dollar, I don't see much of a market for one-book readers.