Sales of eBook readers have finally taken off here but how digital books are priced still needs attention, writes
FIONA REDDAN
IT DIDN’T take long for the advent of MP3s and digital downloading to revolutionise the music industry, but despite the arrival of e-books in 1998, change in the book industry has been much more of a slow burn. Now however, e-books are finally taking off.
Amazon.co.uk received orders for more than twice as many Kindles in the run up to Christmas this year compared to the same period in 2010 and it is likely to continue its growth this year. But if you found an e-reader in your Christmas stocking last week, can you expect your new digital tablet to save you money when it comes to reading books?
In the US, where e-book sales have been growing by over 1,000 per cent a year over the past three years – albeit from a low base – they have now started to overtake paperbacks in terms of sales and by next year it is predicted that e-books will account for about 20 per cent of all book sales.
While e-book growth has not been as dramatic in Ireland, it is on the rise. Irish residents have been able to purchase Amazon’s Kindle e-reader from its US site since 2009, but this year it has also become available in outlets of PC World, Currys and Tesco.
In Easons, interest in e-readers is growing which convinced the retailer to set up e-stores in more than 30 of its outlets around the country, including Dublin’s O’Connell Street and Dundrum Town Centre.
David Field, head of marketing and retail development with Easons, expects the digital book market in Ireland to account for about 8-10 per cent of the market next year, with e-book sales jumping in the days after Christmas.
While e-readers in Ireland are still more expensive than in the US – where you can pick up the most basic version of the Kindle for just $79 (€59) – there is now a fair degree of competition in the marketplace.
If you want to buy Amazon’s Kindle model online, you will have to buy it from the US version of the online store. The 3G model works out at about €193, including delivery. Alternatively you can pick it up for around the same price in the aforementioned shops, with a cheaper Wi-Fi model available for about €110. With a 3G model, you don’t have to connect to the internet to download books and there is no charge for 3G connection.
But, while the Kindle might dominate the market, there are other options. At Easons, for example, the cost of an e-reader starts at €99 for an Elonex 621eb Ereader, which can hold 1,000 books, while other options include a Sony Wi-Fi reader, which comes in a range of colours and has a touch-screen, for €149. It can store up to 1,200 books. You could also consider an Apple iPad, which from €479 comes with a lot more applications than just reading books.
For the avid reader, the appeal of an e-reader may be that it should be a cheaper way of buying books – after all if the publisher doesn’t have to incur the costs of printing a book the book should be cheaper. However, this isn’t necessarily the case, as publishers appear reluctant to undercut the traditional book.
Before Christmas the paperback version of Cecelia Ahern’s new book The Time of My Life was selling for €9.99 at Easons while the digital version cost €18.58 to download.
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's NAMA Mia! was €9.49 to download with Easons – but €12.99 in paperback, while on amazon.com Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Endingcost $14.37 in hardback, or $9.42 to download.
According to Field, the discrepancy in pricing tends to even out if you’re a frequent book purchaser. “Sometimes they can be cheaper, and sometimes not. If you buy a hundred books over a year the cost will work out probably similar.”
But the biggest advantage digital books might have over their paper alternative is the selection of books you can download for free. Given that copyright typically lasts for only 70 years following an author’s death, there is a huge selection of books available that can be downloaded for free – legally – onto your e-reader. If you typically pay €2 for a copy of a Charles Dickens book in a book shop, it is likely that you can get it for free on an e-reader.
On amazon.com you can download classics, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudiceand Bram Stoker's Draculafor free. Not only that but a number of authors have started publishing their novels digitally, and many give these away for free in order to attract new readers. If you're willing to take a risk, you might find yourself a new favourite author this way.
If you have children who are intrigued with an e-reader, you could buy some books aimed at their age group to keep them quiet on that trip to the grandparents' house. Stephenie Meyer's Twilightis available to download from about £4.99 on waterstones.com for example.
Or for the more bookish among them, there is a variety of free classics to download, including Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyreand Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.
Another option for low cost reading is to borrow an e-book. Many libraries around the country allow you to download e-books from their website, such as Kildare Public Library, while according to Dublin City Council, Dublin City Public Libraries is working to overcome technical difficulties in order to provide e-books for loan shortly.
But before you buy an e-reader, there are restrictions to bear in mind. Where you buy books will depend on what kind of e-reader you purchase. If you go for a Kindle, you will be confined to buying on amazon.com, which has over 880,000 English language books for sale, as well as newspapers and magazines. But if you opt for a Sony model, you can access some 200,000 e-books on easons.com, as well as other outlets like ebooks.com, where its top seller, Kathryn Stockett’s The Help is for sale at €3.99, or waterstones.com where you can buy e-books from just £0.49.
But not all books are available to be downloaded, with many Irish publishers slow to engage with the technology. And you might find it difficult to purchase certain books due to territorial copyright restrictions.
Nonetheless, the market is growing rapidly. So what does this mean for the future of the traditional book? For book lovers, there is a fear that, just like digital technology has led almost to the death of the independent record store, so too could e-books put the nail in the coffin for book shops. There is no doubting their convenience – rather than lugging books around in your suitcase, or cluttering up your house, you can hold thousands of books on your device, or transfer them to your home computer.
And if you come across a good review of a book in this newspaper, with your e-reader you could have downloaded the book and be reading it within minutes.
If you don’t want to give away your proclivity for certain types of books, then an e-reader might be the best option to pass the time on your daily public transport commute. Indeed romance afficionados have taken to e-books more than most – Mills Boon now publishes 100 titles a month digitally.
For Field, however, he sees the relationship between digital and traditional books as being “complimentary” and thinks people will continue to embrace both forms of the book. After all, there are some things you just can’t do with an e-reader. You can’t steal away from life for a few hours to browse rack after rack of books, happening upon new discoveries and taking a chance on a book you may have never considered due to a recommendation from the shop owner. While you can order a sample of an e-book before purchasing – on amazon.com, for example, you can typically download a chapter of a book for free – it really isn’t the same as thumbing through an actual book yourself. And, when you download a book it is held on your tablet – so you can’t freely swap books between friends and family.
In future, however, it is likely that e-readers will become ever more attractive. Amazon, for example, has just launched a new colour device – the Kindle Fire which aims to rival Apple’s iPad and is for sale at $199.
