On Tuesday, October 20th is Swedish Publishers' Association organized a seminar for its members under the heading "E-book - easy to do, hard to sell." The panel consists of journalist Sus Andersson, Magnus Nytell as boss of e-books within Bonnier and myself who are eboksansvarig on Piratförlaget . Moderator: Pelle Thörnberg .
The seminar will last three hours, so there is plenty of time for discussion. In the audience are among the representatives of eboksföretaget Elib and I hope that the result is that the present publishing people will go home with a daily fresh updated look at how the Swedish eboksmarknaden looks right now. The fact that everything can be changed already in a week is a different matter. It's just such a market, and such a situation.
I will certainly talk about many things during the seminar, but here are at least a first draft of my opening statement. For those who have read my previous progress report on eboksmarknaden feel mostly back, but some conclusions are new.
Opening address by Mattias Boström, eboksseminarium October 20, 2009
The future Swedish eboksmarknaden rests on four pillars. All of these are required in order for us at all is to have any eboksmarknad to talk about. If we do not fix them all so will the building to be very unstable.
The first pillar is the supply. In the current situation, there are about 2000 Swedish titles available through Elib, spread across a variety of genres. Should we create a market of satisfied customers who return and always find something they want to read, so we have to maintain the spread of genres and cross the border 8000-10000 Swedish titles. In a year we'll probably be up in the 4000-5000 titles, so we are on track. But in creating incentives for Swedish publishers to digitize their titles, both news and backlist. We must show that this is good business - and this is a challenge for us right publishers who are most at eboksmarknaden. We are simply dependent on many other publishers to help make the offer attractive to the consumer.
The second pillar is the price. During the next two years will eboksmarknaden involve a continuous experimentation. It is now we can take the opportunity to experiment with pricing to see what level that suits us and our customers best. It is in their early stages that clients are forgiving if we try to cut a few bucks and then increases again. We are still a few years after the development in the U.S. and where the price has now cemented and is difficult to shift. But here we still have the opportunity. My own belief is that a low ebokspris create impulse buying, especially when we begin to have a wider sales through as the iPhone or e-readers with built-in download via mobile networks. I would like to see a retail price of around one hundred patches for news and 40-50 kr for backlist. But the near future to decide what we end up at.
The third pillar is the hardware. Not only e-book readers, but equally such as the iPhone. Here we see an improvement, compared to just a few months ago. Several läsplattemärken are about to enter the Swedish market, even the Kindle will be able to be used in Sweden . The price of the plates are still too high and with merchants appear to interest still pretty tepid . It is not enough to e-readers are available for purchase online - most customers are not satisfied until they actually are in an e-reader and realize that the text on the screen is extremely readable and that the unit is at all appealing and easy to use. I would like to have the physical bookstores as a reseller, if only to naturally reach high readers. But then we must create opportunities for physical bookstores to convey the actual e-books, too - why else would they sell a device that results in repeat sales away from their ranks?
The fourth and final pillar is the ease of access. It should never be complicated to buy an ebook. If we are to have real spin of the eboksmarknaden we must address ourselves to the great readers, not the technology saved. Therefore, all aspects of techniques and formats banned substances. For those who want to read an ebook on an iPhone, this will not be any problems, but there will be a nut to crack in terms of e-readers, and we have to work hard to simplify the purchase and download. Therefore, we also need better eboksbutiker today - a challenge for both nätbokhandlarna that the physical bookstores. And not least for other operators that might turn up and down on the resale of ebooks.
These are the four pillars of that at all, get a eboksmarknad: supply, price, hardware, and accessibility. Parallel to this, there are numerous other pieces must fall into place, but without the four pillars, we will not get anywhere.
Why should we invest in e-books? Well, of course, because we believe it will be a good deal harder than it's not. At least it will be a better deal than not go for it and let other players completely control the development. One can as publishers embark on eboksmarknaden with a positive attitude or because they just had no choice. For some publishers, it may not be necessary for a while yet. But that e-books will start picking shares of the total book market in the coming years is inevitable.
kommentarer… läs dem nedan eller lägg till en } {2 comments ... read them below or add one }
Since I'm so wonderful channel independently, I respond to your tweet here and say, yes, it certainly was not full speed here. More now!
/ K.
Catherine: Haha! Nah, it will probably be the next project to start up this blog again. But it has been very much about Sherlock Holmes for a while ...
trackbacks } {4 trackbacks}