RicDay on Publishing

There is a lot of Sturm und Drang in the media these days over Kindle versus iPad versus ... a lot more ebook readers which exist or might exist sometime real soon now. I think the issue is not an issue.

The hardware is not especially important. Sure, there are some big differences between dedicated ebook reading devices like the Kindle, and multipurpose devices like the iPad. I expect both dedicated ebook readers and multipurpose readers will “win” in the sense that neither will eliminate the other from the market.

Dedicated reading devices with their low-battery consumption, paper-like monochrome screens, and falling retail prices, are wonderful for people who just want to read. By Christmas there should be lots of them on sale at around $99. By Christmas 2011, the going price for a basic reader will likely be at or close to $50. Those low prices, combined with ebook prices at under $10, should ensure many of these readers are sold in years to come.

The multipurpose reader category is dominated by products from Apple (the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone). These are not inexpensive products, but they perform a range of functions which consumers want and are clearly willing to pay for. Apple has a significant “first mover” advantage with this product line, but in the coming 12 months will be challenged by (mostly) Android-based products from a variety of makers.

No doubt we will see plenty of reading device makers come to market, stay around a while, and then either fade away or go away noisily. Each time one goes down, the media will proclaim the category it represents (dedicated or multipurpose) to be either “dead” or “dying.” As usual, the excitable media will be wrong.

Remember when there were many dozens of brands of MP3 music players? Most of those did not survive. For the most part, the bigger names in the business departed. The segment for dedicated players is now dominated by Apple, but there are still more than a dozen other makes out there, selling low-end models and surviving. Another fork in the road was the inclusion of music-player capability in cellphones; most now have the feature.

Four or five years from now, I expect the dedicated, monochrome ebook reader will be a marginal product. Multifunction devices will dominate the digital book landscape in the same way multifunction devices have come to dominate the digital music landscape.

Until we reach that point, arguing about which device will “win” and which will not is a waste of time. There are far more relevant issues to ponder, such as DRM, distribution rights, and how the heck anyone in the book business is going to make any money!