Read and E-Book week 2010 will be held from March 7 to 13. This initiative started in 2004 by Rita Toews and friends is now in its sixth edition. While E-Books were still a novelty in 2004, they are rapidly becoming mainstream. When Fortune magazine makes E-reading the cover of its current issue, you know that E-Books have become a major publishing form.
Sharing-Books was conceived as an E-Book publisher from day one. We believed that readers would separate the concept of book from "paper". Books are a collection of thoughts expressed with words. Whether these words are printed on paper or displayed electronically does not change the story or ideas the writer is sharing.
As a baby boomer I remember fondly the smell of a new paper book. By contrast today's kids will remember discovering the features of their new electronic devices. When we wrote our original business plan in 2007, we envisioned delivering children E-Books to gaming devices like the Nintendo DS. A little over 2 years later the humble Nintendo becomes an E-Reader.
We are entering a new and exciting phase in the deployment of the e-reading industry. The devices are becoming much better. The industry is grouping around a few distribution models, closed store/device systems like the Kindle that mimic the very successful ITunes/Ipod combination, open e-readers that accept a variety of format and allow sourcing of books from any vendor, and in our opinion the biggest market will be multipurpose devices like the IPhone acquiring e-reading capabilities. I started reading E-Books on my first smart phone, a Palm Treo, in 2002, so I am partial to the phone/PDA/e-reader combination.
What is more interesting to us is how the E-Book publishing business will look like in years to come. There is a consolidation play by giant channels like Amazon and Google. There is price point resistance from large books publishers like MacMillan and the Murdoch empire who want more money for their content. Small publishers like us welcome their initiative as it protects the value of the E-Books we publish. So we are optimistic that we will be able to realize more value for our book creators.
E-Books offer greater value-add possibilities than paper books. It is much easier to vary the format of an E-Books than a paper book. New free software like Blio will make it easier to move E-Books across software and hardware platforms and to transform E-Books into audio-books or other forms friendly to the visually challenged. Children E-Books will become especially fun as book creators master how to insert in their books hyperlinks to sites that add to the e-reading experience. Book creators will also learn to add short videos and sound effects that will make E-Books a richer learning experience and become an interesting alternative to the video-games children have in their hand held electronic devices.
So let's celebrate E-Book Week as we can all benefit from the emergence of this new way to share stories and ideas.
