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The advantages of digital publishing make its dominance inevitable. The only remaining question is what the economic model for digital publishing will be. What will it mean for readers, authors, and publishers?
The current economic model doesn't work. A Kindle costs about $350, list price. Its competitors sell for between $250 and $700. For most people, the return on investment isn't sufficient to promote the purchase.
Most of the books I buy are paperbacks. For those, I spend between $8 and $16, depending on the type of book. Let's say I can buy the books for half off if I get them digitally, which saves me an average of $6 per book. For the Kindle to pay for itself, I would need to read 60 books. Before the children came, I might work through that many in a little more than a year. Now, between kids' activities and attempting to write, I would need a lot longer to make the Kindle pay for itself. By then, it would probably be obsolete.
Most of the people I know can't justify a $360 investment for an appliance to read books. So one of the following things has to happen: the price of the appliances has to come down substantially, the price of the books has to go up substantially, or the new digital books will have enough extras to justify the cost increase.
Currently, there doesn't appear to be downward pressure on the price of the appliances. Instead, the new appliances seem to be holding their price while adding features. And while the price of books is climbing, a huge price spike doesn't seem to be on the horizon. And I don't see a lot of extras in the digital book offerings.
Here's one guess of how things will shake out: rather than the MP3 model, maybe the near-term will be closer to the cell phone model. You can get a cell phone for little to no cost with a two-year contract. Perhaps Amazon would sell its Kindle to users at $99 with a two-year subscription to purchase digital media on Amazon.
No matter what, the economics must adjust for digital books to grab hold.
The paradox of insular language
1 year ago
2 comments:
Agree, add to this the effect of upgrade rumors. With the iPhone, I did not wait out the "next" device because of the price point. For the Kindle, it's just high enough for me to read the reviews carefully and await Kindle 2.0.
However, while I was waiting, I found several iPhone applications that allow me to download and read e-books. Yes, there are differences in the experience and business model - but the math just got a lot harder for me to justify a Kindle.
Completely agree. I can see great advantage in digital publishing, but I don't think an expensive reader is the right model. You make a very valid point that you would have to read an enormous amount of books in order to make up for the price of the reader.
Personally, I think the computer still makes the most sense, though some argue that the eye strain are its downfall.
One of the reasons the iPhone is so popular is convergence. People want one device that does everything rather than a device that does on thing very well. While I think the Kindle offers some great features, the cost doesn't justify the benefits.
One of my clients, YUDU Media, is an ePublishing marketplace that allows anyone to create stunning eZine style publications from Word Documents, PDFs, PowerPoints, etc. In my opinion, that model seems much more viable since it is accessible from a computer or any device. Check it out at http://www.yudu.com
Thanks for the great insights in your post. Couldn't have said it better myself.
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