Book Publishing Predictions For 2010

idealog.com:

It is customary for those of us who do crystal-ball gazing to make some calls about the year ahead at around the time the celebrants head for Times Square. I am not a man to flout custom. Here are some of the things I expect we'll see in 2010.

1. At least one major book will have several different enhanced ebook editions. This will result from a combination of circumstances: the different capabilities of ebook hardware and reader platforms, the desire of publishers and authors to justify print-like prices for ebooks, the sheer ability of authors and their fans to do new things electronically, and the dawning awareness that there are at least two distinctly different ebook markets: one just wants to read the print book on an electronic screen and the other wants links and videos and other enhancements that really change the print book experience. (Corrolary prediction: the idea of an enhanced ebook that is only sold "temporarily" in the first window when the book comes out, which has been floated by at least one publisher, will be short-lived. Whatever is made for sale in electronic form will remain available approximately forever. Or, put another way, if you have a product that requires no inventory investment that has a market, you'll keep satisfying it.)

Read the whole story: idealog.com

Comments

[Sarijj]

03:02 PM on 12/30/2009

How about this? Publishers will have to face up to the fact that consumers are not willing to pay $30.00 or more for a hardback and $15.00 for a paperback. If publishers and authors want to the printed book to stay the will have to lower the the price. Now that e-book sales are on the rise there is no good reason the price of printed books can't come down. The low cost of mass producing e-books can off set the rising cost of material it takes to print books.
I have many friends who are no longer buying books, not because they all rushed out and bought e-readers but because they can no long afford the price of a new book. Libraries and web book swapping sites are being utilized more and more because of the high cost of books. Don't put all the blame on e-readers, publishers are cutting their own throats due to the rise of book prices.

[rougebaisers]

03:15 PM on 12/30/2009

I agree. Ebooks are really on the rise. I just added an ebook reader to my iphone. love ebooks.

[BlackJAC]

07:32 PM on 12/30/2009

But they're somehow going to pay $300 for an E-book reader just so they can save $6-$15 per book? You can buy 20-60 hardcopy books for the price of an E-book reader.

[ssfahrer]

01:11 AM on 12/31/2009

If you want to buy them, wait until they hit the USED BOOK MARKET. They'll be much cheaper then!

[thrdr]

02:03 AM on 12/31/2009

Indeed. And you can drop real flesh-and-blood books in the swimming pool and, assuming you don't leave them there too long, still have some reasonable hope of being able to actually read them. Are Kindles water-resistant?

Like I've said elsewhere, ebook devices are pricey toys for the self-indulgent, obliviously well-off consumer, and there are sadly a lot of self-indulgent consumers out there who believe that they aren't well-off when they can casually drop a couple hundred bucks or more for a mostly inferior piece of technology. Maybe the new digital SPOON is the Next Big Thing.

Oh well. Segways were all the rage awhile back.