[NotAJerry]

http://janefriedman.com/2012/07/03/extr ... n-5-years/

Jane Friedman with an excellent overview of Hugh McGuire's TEDx Montreal presentation on the differences between ebooks, specifically the lack of depth of the current delivery platforms, and the rest of our internet consumption. Will the ebook, at least as it is now, really be gone in 5 years?

McGuire points to one app/site I use regularly as an example of what could be the norm in the YouVersion bible app. Even if it's not your thing, I would suggest downloading it just to tinker and see how much interactivity has been developed for something that is a reading app at heart.

[Sly Fox]

Terry Storch and the guys at Life Church have done some creative things with the platform that really haven't taken off. I haven't heard as much buzz coming from the Digerati team in OKC the past 12 months.

As for ebooks, it never caught fire the way we all anticipated it would. I agree that the concept needs to be reworked in a way that gives the consumer more reason to want to buy in. Revenue streams for publishers are at a trickle right now.

[Purple Haize]

As a big eBook reader or at least on the iPad apps I only have one issue with them. They should cost a whole lot less then a paperback but they don't. There isn't the overhead of paper and hard back novels yet they are usually only about $1 less. Granted there are a bunch of .99 books etc but the good ones still cost too much in e-form IMO

[NotAJerry]

Terry Storch and the guys at Life Church have done some creative things with the platform that really haven't taken off. I haven't heard as much buzz coming from the Digerati team in OKC the past 12 months.

As for ebooks, it never caught fire the way we all anticipated it would. I agree that the concept needs to be reworked in a way that gives the consumer more reason to want to buy in. Revenue streams for publishers are at a trickle right now.

Ebooks have caught on, just not for publishers. 22 of the top 100 ebooks on Amazon at the moment are self-published. I'm actually spending some of my spare time working on two Kindle Singles.

Ebooks will be the primary source for college textbooks in the very near future. Ebooks are outselling physical books now. The problem publishers are having is that they've milked the profit margin on materials and shipping for so long and those things don't exist in the ebook world. The textbook industry is frightened that they're going to lose their $7b cash cow. I made more than the price of my Kindle back in savings in my first semester using ebooks for textbooks.

I recently saw the Kindle price for a book listed higher than the paperback version. That was from a Christian publisher. One email, that just happened to point out how inherently greedy and delusional the ebook price point was, did the job and got the Kindle price dropped by 50%. Publishers are feeling the pinch, authors are gaining greater freedom and opportunity.

Ebooks are going to do to the publishing industry what iTunes, and now things like Noisetrade, did to the music industry and probably more. Decentralizing everything is allowing for greater opportunity. You can pull in as much as 70% royalties on a Kindle Single listed between $2.99 and $9.99 and you can get full publishing rights through someone like Smashwords for free. The industry is changing and publishers will either figure it out or become marginalized at best.

[LUconn]

or they'll blame it on book pirating.

[phoenix]

The real potential for ebooks, especially as it relates to education and textbooks, is in multimedia and interactivity, which is something you can't get from an e-ink reader. Ebook publishers need to shift their focus from simply digitizing existing books and work on a full experience for readers.

E-textbooks have a huge potential in education, but again publishers have to change their perspectives on what an e-textbook is and how it is produced and consumed. History texts should have animated maps embedded in the text itself; science texts should have embedded animations illustrating chemical reactions. Biology texts can even have an embedded frog that students can virtually dissect. There is plenty of potential there using existing technology or even technology that is a few years old).

Ebooks should not cost as much as they do; there is minimal overhead, no inventory to control or manage, no warehousing or transportation costs. Everyone recognizes this, but the publishing industry wants to prop up their old model however they can, so they don't really make it worthwhile for anyone to by ebooks.

I read ebooks, and I read "old school" dead tree books. MOST of my ebooks are review copies (I can't believe publishers waited this long to do that!); ironically, the publisher I get the most eARCs from also sends me a physical copy of the book after it's published, which is kinda nice since the eARC only lasts 60 days or so.

People didn't abandon the horse and buggy overnight; they won't change their book-buying habits overnight, either.

[NotAJerry]

The real potential for ebooks, especially as it relates to education and textbooks, is in multimedia and interactivity, which is something you can't get from an e-ink reader. Ebook publishers need to shift their focus from simply digitizing existing books and work on a full experience for readers.

E-textbooks have a huge potential in education, but again publishers have to change their perspectives on what an e-textbook is and how it is produced and consumed. History texts should have animated maps embedded in the text itself; science texts should have embedded animations illustrating chemical reactions. Biology texts can even have an embedded frog that students can virtually dissect. There is plenty of potential there using existing technology or even technology that is a few years old).

Ebooks should not cost as much as they do; there is minimal overhead, no inventory to control or manage, no warehousing or transportation costs. Everyone recognizes this, but the publishing industry wants to prop up their old model however they can, so they don't really make it worthwhile for anyone to by ebooks.

I read ebooks, and I read "old school" dead tree books. MOST of my ebooks are review copies (I can't believe publishers waited this long to do that!); ironically, the publisher I get the most eARCs from also sends me a physical copy of the book after it's published, which is kinda nice since the eARC only lasts 60 days or so.

People didn't abandon the horse and buggy overnight; they won't change their book-buying habits overnight, either.

There are already ebooks, with the multimedia aspect, being tested. I reviewed one study from Taiwan where and English course at the university level allowed students to use GPS tracking/hotspots to record their thoughts in English anywhere on the campus and then study that in the classroom later. Another one dealt with a marine biology course where fish types were being identified on a snorkeling trip. The students could hop out of the water, look up what they saw, and get both a text description and audio/video file describing the species before doing some more exploring.

Mobile devices + HTML5 + GPS is going to open up a whole new approach to information delivery for educational institutions at all levels. The ebook is likely going to become exactly what you mentioned. Add in the advances in augmented reality and there are experimental courses being taught in forensics where the mobile device can overlay a regular room with a "crime scene" that students can explore where everything is clickable and has definitions/descriptions.

Agreed completely on much of the publishing industry not understanding the ridiculousness of pricing an ebook at $10-15 and up.

The reading habits have already changed and they'll keep going the direction they are. Amazon has sold more ebooks than print copies for over a year now. The reason why Borders in out of business and Barnes & Noble isn't, is the Nook. I don't think the print book will completely disappear, but it wouldn't be surprising if it did.

[lynchburgwildcats]

Major thing holding back ebooks is the price point for the new and popular books. THere is one book I want, On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance by Kareem Abdul Jabbar, that costs 18 freaking dollars on the B&N nook ebook store. $18 for an ebook is beyond absurd. I can get a hardcover version of the book from Amazon for $14.17, interestingly it's not available as a kindle book.

[JK37]

Ebooks should not cost as much as they do; there is minimal overhead...[The publishing industry doesn't] really make it worthwhile for anyone to buy ebooks.

But if they make them more interactive, as you and other have discussed, won't that give them greater justification for higher pricing?

I don't see the price dropping, but hopefully the product improves and the price remains about the same.