eBooks – What Are They?

This is the first of a series of related blog posts on electronic publishing. There is a lot of discussion out on the internet about this, but I want to add my own voice and opinions on the subject.

Before that, we need a working definition of eBooks so readers know what I mean. To me, an eBook is a book without physical form that requires hardware to transfer information from the eBook to the user (aka reader). That is the definition I am using in this series of blog entries.

With this definition, we can include the obvious formats like Kindle, epub, and pdf files that can be read on eBook readers like the Kindle and the Nook, as well as other, perhaps not so obvious formats such as audio fiction.

Why is it important to look at electronic publishing? Simply put, it is the future. SF writers have been predicting a conversion to electronic over printed formats for at least a decade, probably longer. At first there were numerous failed attempts that caused the doubters to say that print books would never be surpassed. Then came the Kindle.

The Kindle is where electronic publishing really gained traction. Sure, there have been pdf documents for a very long time, but it took a combination of factors to really get the transition moving.

It took a format that lended itself to a portable reader. The pdf format has many advantages, but its greatest strength is WISIWYG. (Anybody remember that old acronym?) That is also its greatest disadvantage. For a portable eBook reader, the display must accommodate all readers. That means the font size must be allowed to change. When a pdf file is zoomed, the sentence length does not change. The Kindle format allowed a larger font size without forcing the reader to scroll left and right to finish a sentence.

It took a company willing to take an up-front loss to open up market share in a market that didn’t exist. Amazon took that risk, built the hardware, and sold the hardware at a loss in the hopes of establishing itself as a major player in electronic books and taking the profits later. This comes as no surprise as Amazon was born in much the same way.

It took a company with the resources to build a platform for eBook distribution. Amazon has always been about low overhead. They have always sold over the internet and don’t use brick and morter stores in any significant quantity. The distribution system and methods of searching a library of titles were already in place. All Amazon needed was an electronic collection.

That triad of conditions were met by Amazon and the result was something that resembles exponential growth. Today, we are somewhere around the knee of the curve where eBooks are starting to explode onto the scene.

Exponential is not really the correct model for the growth of eBooks. The logistic curve (see image below) makes a lot more sense because the growth cannot increase forever. There are a finite number of readers on the planet. Today, we are probably near the first hashmark on the x-axis.

With this in mind, it truly pays to be aware of the changes happening around us. Traditional publishers are not handling it well, and even publishers that are producing electronic work–some exclusively–are not necessarily doing so in the author’s favor. That discussion is for another day.