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Arnaud Nourry, the CEO of Lagardère Publishing (the parent company of Hachette Book Group), gave an interview to Scroll.in in which he claims, "the eBook is a stupid product."
In the US and UK, the ebook market is about 20% of the total book market, everywhere else it is 5%-7% because in these places the prices never went down to such a level that the ebook market would get significant traction. I think the plateau, or rather slight decline, that we're seeing in the US and UK is not going to reverse. It's the limit of the ebook format. The ebook is a stupid product. It is exactly the same as print, except it's electronic. There is no creativity, no enhancement, no real digital experience. We, as publishers, have not done a great job going digital. We've tried. We've tried enhanced or enriched ebooks – didn't work. We've tried apps, websites with our content – we have one or two successes among a hundred failures. I'm talking about the entire industry. We've not done very well.
For an in-depth explanation of Arnaud Nourry's comments, we go to The Digital Reader:
Hachette's sales are low because Hachette keeps their ebook prices high. If you check the Author Earnings report, you will see that ebooks make up a significant part of the market. And it's not just a tiny group of readers who like ebooks; almost all of romance has gone digital, as well as around half of the SF market.
This guy understands so little about ebooks that it is almost frightening.
[...] They've tried enhanced ebooks, ebook apps, and even ebooks on websites, all because Nourry doesn't understand ebooks as a product. And soon they will be trying video games.
Let me say that again so it sinks in.
The CEO of a major multi-national book publishing conglomerate does not understand his company's products or his company's markets.
This point is so mind-boggling because it is really not that hard to find out why consumers like ebooks: just go ask them.
Consumers like ebooks because we can change the font size. We like ebooks because we can carry a hundred ebooks on a smartphone. We also like being able to search the text, add notes that can later be accessed from a web browser, and easily share those notes with other readers.
Here's an editorial rebuttal from The Guardian:
[...] The built-in, one-tap dictionary is a boon for Will Self fans. And as an author, I'm fascinated by the facility that shows you phrases other readers have highlighted; what is it about this sentence that resonated with dozens of humans? It's an illicit glimpse into the one place even a writer's imagination can never really go: readers' minds. And Kindle's Whispersync facility lets the reader fluidly alternate between reading a book and listening to it. What are these if not enhancements to the reading experience?
And then there's the simplest, most important enhancement of all: on any e-reader, you can enlarge the text. That in itself is a quiet revolution. Page-sniffers who dismiss ebooks out of hand are being unconsciously ableist. For decades the partially sighted were limited to the large print section of their local library, limited to only the usual, bestselling, suspects.
[...] Finally, Nourry claims there is no digital experience. Isn't that the point? If it's got graphics, noise or animation, it's no longer a book – it's a computer game or a movie. Just as I write disconnected from the internet and in silence, I don't want my books to do other stuff. The beauty of the book, in a world of digital noise, is the purity of the reading experience – and there's nothing stupid about that.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday February 23 2018, @06:04PM (3 children)
Yes. That.
DRM is the crux of the problem. I would prefer e-books over bulky, heavy physical books. I just bought the textbook Artificial Intelligence A Modern Approach (Peter Norvig and Stuart J. Russell) for $125 used good condition, because new it was $175. Now I would pay the same for an e-book -- except for DRM. The book itself is rather large, bulky and heavy.
How is it I can buy entire albums of mp3s for under $10 without DRM? They must trust me not to pirate (and I do not pirate). But I do copy those onto every device and computer I own so I can listen anywhere I happen to be. I would expect no less with an e-book. I expect to OWN that copy in the sense that I own a toaster. I don't need DRM permission for each piece of toast.
I can buy a DVD and rip it. Then, again like an mp3, put it on every device, phone, tablet if I want to watch it while travelling or waiting somewhere. Put it on my server so I can watch it on any TV in the house. I'm not getting anything I didn't get from having physical possession of the DVD other than convenience.
E-books are about convenience. In particular, the fact that I can fit WAY WAY more e-books into a pocket sized or laptop sized device than I could ever hope to carry in a book bag. Or from work, I suddenly realize that some obscure information I need is at home in a certain book, I can log in to my server at home, look at the book, or even copy it back to my office computer in order to search / read the e-book.
The utility of information appliances are AMAZING when you don't have DRM. (Nevermind the content but . . .) I have a single android app with in-app purchases. On that app I have: Five translations of the bible, Two concordances that have definitions of words from original languages, Five commentaries. And I could install more. The ability to search instantly on device is more useful than any turn-the-page book could ever be. This same utility is valuable no matter what the content happens to be. I sure wish I could have that much utility with technical e-books that are DRM free. (Yes, I know tech books probably lead the way on this, but still.)
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @08:36PM (1 child)
No. It's not trust. You can buy entire albums of mp3s for under $10 without DRM because of Apple.
To be clear, I dislike Apple, their walled gardens, their "you're holding wrong" culture, and the fake-cult that Apple devices are "easier" to use (they aren't... people just got used to iPhones first).
However, it was absolutely Apple (and maybe even Steve Jobs personally... I don't know the internal Apple politics) which broken the stranglehold of DRM-music. I still remember the step-by-step process, and how reluctant the music industry was at each one of those steps. Essentially, the industry got hoodwinked by offering large short-term payments in tradeoff of long-term loss of control.
I expect the other industries have watched and are not going to make the same decisions. Unfortunately.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 23 2018, @08:39PM
In my naive idealism I was hoping the other industries would see that DRM free mp3s has not caused the end of the world to come about, and would see the overall benefit and follow suit.
(Decades ago I loved Apple, then I was neutral, then for the last decade I have hated Apple.)
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cykros on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:02AM
DVD copying was a bad example; DVD's use encryption for a DRM scheme; it just happened to be cracked years ago to the point where people basically forget it exists anymore. Not sure about how court precedent may have gone with this, if there is any, but as far as I am aware, it is technically illegal to rip a DVD even for personal use due to it requiring a circumvention of DRM, which is itself a crime.