Editorial

Citation

Cassell, K.A. (2012), "Editorial", Collection Building, Vol. 31 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/cb.2012.17131aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Collection Building, Volume 31, Issue 1

I recently spent three days at the Frankfurt Book Fair. This Book Fair, the largest in the world, is an overwhelming event with more than eight halls filled with displays of books and media as well as presentations and panel discussions. Although the dominant conversation was about e-books, the large number of print titles on display showed that internationally publishers are not rushing into the e-book business. The USA has led the way in the publication and sale of e-books. E-books have been slower to develop in Europe. Although now they are moving forward, they say they are three years behind the USA. It appears that everywhere the lack of e-readers and the lack of standardisation is slowing down the expansion of e-books. This is more acute in Europe, but it is also a US problem. Although in the UK, the Kindle is the main e-reader, in Germany the retailers have decided to develop their own e-reader. At one panel discussion, it was stated that it will take five years for most people to have e-readers.

Even though there seem to be many e-books, there are only 1.5 million e-books out of 129 million books in print. The e-book market is developing unevenly, with trade publishers making most of their books available as e-books, while children’s publishers are slow to convert to e-books. The pricing of e-books seems more related to the content than to the relationship to the physical book. For example, STM e-books can be priced higher than literature. Publishers admitted that there is no real way to set prices.

Marketing continues to be an issue. One publisher said that they have a fatter tail but not a longer tail and that discoverability was a real issue. Another stated that merchandising of books in a storefront helps the consumer to browse and find books. The e-books are a challenge to market due to their lack of a physical presence.

A recent survey by Aptara indicated that 62 per cent of the publishers responding are currently producing e-books and that trade publishers are more committed to e-books. Eight-five per cent of the publishers responding are producing both print and e-books while only 10 per cent produce only e-books. Although only 18 per cent of the publishers were using Amazon as a distributor, Amazon was the greatest source of sales for 38 per cent of the publishers. The survey showed that publishers are reluctant to share their revenues with retail channel partners.

All this information is useful to librarians in trying to understand how the e-book market is developing. This explains the uneven development we see and the reluctance to work with libraries in some cases. Much development is still to come in almost every area from the changing publishing workflow, pricing, distribution and marketing.

Kay Ann Cassell