Electronic-books: Threat or Opportunity?

I got a call recently from Graphic Communications World, the publishers of the Green Sheet, and interviewed for an article entitled, “Will Digital E-readers such as the iPad and Kindle Impact Your Print Business?” I suspect the call resulted from the recent blogs I wrote on this subject (http://bit.ly/bDKThc ) which has spurred interesting debates about which is better (Kindle vs. iPad) and why. But a more important question is, “Will e-books help or hurt the printing industry and your business?”

Typically when asking if an alternative technology is a threat or opportunity you need to consider market acceptance and potential growth. The size of the e-reader market is unknown. One reason is that Amazon does not disclose how many Kindles it has sold. Another reason is that even though Apple is talking about sales of 3 million iPads, since it offers more than just e-reading it is not clear how many are being used to download newspapers, books or magazines.

But that does not stop experts from trying. Late last year Forrester predicted that Amazon sold 600,000 (newly discounted) Kindles during the holiday season and 1.8 million by the end of 2009. Overall, Forrester predicted U.S. sales of three million e-readers in 2009 with Amazon owning 60% of the market. According to The Association of American Publishers’ (AAP) electronic books grew at a rate of more than 170 percent through 2008 and finished at more than 170 million dollars. Year-to-date through May, e-books have grown year-over-year 250 percent. However, none of those predictions included the most recent changes: sales of Kindles through Target stores, Sony's Reader broad distribution and multiple price points ($170 to $350), Apples huge success of the iPad and the latest marketing push from Barnes & Noble.

While Kindle was one of the first to market, Barnes & Noble is playing catch-up. But that may change now that Barnes & Noble announced a low-cost, Wi-Fi-only version of its Nook e-reader and cut the price of its original Nook. Barnes & Noble has cut prices for its nook e-reader from $259 to $199 and introduced a $149 Wi-Fi version. Sharp is the newest player to announce a product. They announced plans to enter the market later this year with a device that can read a new e-publishing file format of its own. They say their e-book reader will launch in Japan before the end of the year and they are also working toward a launch outside of Japan.

For some a threat – others an opportunity?

I’m not sure about you but as someone who works, lives and breathes print I feel guilty about writing, talking or even thinking about alternative technologies such as a Kindle or an iPad. On the other hand, while these alternatives may not help the printing industry they may play an important role in the future of book, magazine or newspaper publishing. E-books may be less of a threat for designers and service providers who can create books for distribution in multiple formats.

Dave Dickson wrote a post entitled "Creating Digital Magazines" on the Adobe Digital Publishing site which talked about Adobe technology that print magazines such as Wired are using to create publications the iPad can display.  InDesign CS5 is the starting point of Adobe's digital magazine workflow. That's where the page layout takes place and where you add some interactivity, such as slideshows and embedded videos. Then you move to a new utility, the Digital Content Bundler, where you add metadata like article titles and issue numbers. The Digital Content Bundler is also the app that joins an issue's vertical and horizontal layouts.

If your business focuses on just printing, this will be a threat. As John Conley, the VP of book publishing at Xerox said in this Green Sheet article, “This change in overall mix is going to have a negative impact on the number of books produced on the traditional, centralized print platforms, which have dominated the book printing business for close to 100 years. The reason for the change in mix is being driven by both the reader and the publisher. You no longer have technology in search of applications; instead, you have reading solutions that are being driven by the need for a superior end-user experience, which print alone cannot deliver. The end result will be a shift of work off the dominant offset platforms, which service the book industry today, to a combination of platforms that will still include centralized offset but will also include: e-readers like the Nook, Kindle and Sony Reader; book application platforms like the iPad; continuous feed high-speed inkjet; print on-demand digital print facilities; and, eventually, print at retail solutions. Every one of these alternative platforms will take work away from the centralized offset platform that dominates the market today.”

In an interview last week with USA Today, when Jeff Bezos from Amazon was asked when he felt that paperback sales would fall behind e-book sales and he responded, "I predict we will surpass paperback sales sometime in the next nine to 12 months. Sometime after that, we'll surpass the combination of paperback and hardcover. It stuns me. People forget that Kindle is only 33 months old."

But others believe that there is still room in the market for digital short run books. John Lacagnina, the president and CEO of ColorCentric, a leader in digital book production, says that “If you are a traditional printer that has not fully embraced digital printing, now is the time to make the move. Offset printers have to move to digital, and they have to move quickly, otherwise the future does not look good. We have not hit the tipping point yet—not for another couple of years—but in the end, other than the large Harry Potter-type titles, the bulk of the remaining print work in the book industry will have to go to some form of ultra-short run digital print engine, not offset engines.”

David Davis, from the market research company INTERQUEST believes that there is still room for growth in the book market despite the e-book phenomenon. INTERQUEST estimates that digital systems currently account for about four percent of all book printing, but that by 2015 it will grow to about 15 percent of the total. In the coming years inkjet printing will play an increasingly important role in the market as the cross-over point between conventional and digital manufacturing moves up, making available more first-run front list titles as well as longer run reprints.”

To contact Howie directly feel free to call 20.523.6328 or e-mail your comments here and to sign up for Howie’s free newsletter click here.

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Typically when asking if an alternative technology is a threat or opportunity you need to consider market acceptance and potential growth. The size of the e-reader market is unknown. One reason is that Amazon does not disclose how many Kindles it has sold. Another reason is that even though Apple is talking about sales of 3 million iPads, since it offers more than just e-reading it is not clear how many are being used to download newspapers, books or magazines.

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