Ebooks - by Christoph Chesher
Christoph Chesher, Group Sales Director of Taylor & Francis
Group and Honorary Professor of Publishing Studies,
University of Stirling
New technology has brought threats to traditional business models, but for
those prepared to accept the challenge it also provides the prospect of exciting
new developments. There are a myriad of opportunities – both to disseminate
content to a wider audience and to create new and incremental income streams.
The new technology associated with ebooks has enabled publishers to develop new business models: from offering content on a chapter-by-chapter basis to allowing users to compile their own ebooks or rent titles for a specific period (a week, month . . .). For publishers, there remains the question whether these new business models provide useful incremental income or simply cannibalize existing full price sales. All the indicators suggest that they provide income that would otherwise not be realized. Take, for example, Taylor & Francis’s ebook rental scheme. Feedback from users suggests a typical profile of students searching for material for their projects, often at short notice and often at night. Whilst they are unlikely to contemplate purchasing two or three monographs at $100/£50 each, they seem perfectly relaxed about a paperback price point (sub £10/$20), no matter that they only receive access for a week or so and will never own the title.
A successful area for the sale of ebooks to individuals is to professionals, particularly those in medicine, law, computing or engineering, where the portability of key handbooks on handheld PDAs is of key advantage to them whilst they are on the move.
Ebooks are an important source of income to Taylor & Francis, but their sale
to individuals represents a relatively small percentage of overall online income
compared to sales through the academic library channel. Although libraries
still purchase the majority of their book titles as print (the general consensus in
the industry being that ebooks account for between 6 and 8 per cent of sales to
libraries in 2006/7), the market is definitely in transition with many publishers
quoting growth rates of 40 to 60 per cent per annum. Significant growth in the
market share taken by ebooks seems likely. Taylor & Francis ebooks are also
available through a number of intermediaries such as Amazon, eBooks.com and
Sony Connect and through ebook aggregators such as ebrary, eBL, MyiLibrary
and Dawsonera, all of which supply the academic library market.
Publishers have had to grapple with building their own online platforms,
and for many the decision to invest significant sums is far from clear cut at a
time when ebooks occupy a small share of the overall books market. However,
those that have taken the plunge are finding that the technology can help to
make a significant contribution in other areas originally unforeseen. The cost
of distributing print books as inspection copies to lecturers is a substantial but
necessary cost and the ability to provide inspection copies electronically offers
potential savings. Many publishers (including Taylor & Francis) now offer the
option of an eInspection Copy.
Ebook files are increasingly being used in advertising as well. Publishers
supply many bookseller websites with cover images and sample pages in order
to help stimulate demand. More recently Amazon’s SITB (‘search inside the
book’) programme has taken this to a new level, to the benefi t of both customer
and publisher. The customer can find the book that best fits their need, whilst the
scheme increases the overall propensity of the consumer to purchase. Google
Book Search and Microsoft Live also provide publishers with the opportunity of
extra exposure for their books within the framework of the main search engines.
Both companies assert that trials indicate that the greater percentage access
that a publisher allows to its books, the higher the usage and click through to
bookshops (see the box,‘Using Google to sell more books’). For the publisher,
however, there is the dilemma of assessing at what level free access provides
a taster and at what level it effectively provides users with a free library service.
In the same way that in the early twentieth century recording companies at first
felt threatened by the advent of commercial radio and then grew to love the
exposure it provided, publishers are likely to grow more relaxed about legitimate
online preview schemes. Indeed publishers are experimenting with innovative
preview schemes themselves. The ebook widget allows a publisher to benefit
from viral marketing in ways never previously envisaged. The ebook widget can
be emailed to anyone and can also be lifted and embedded on to any site or blog.
It consists of the book cover which, when clicked upon, reveals, through a pop
up, several pages (as many as the publisher wishes) and a ‘buy the book’ button
which will take the user to the publisher’s ecommerce site. What is certain is that
publishers will constantly need to consider new and non-traditional ways of both
generating income and delivering their material.
