United States: The e-Book — Changing The Face Of Publishing

When horror maestro Stephen King's e-novella, "Riding the Bullet," was released on the Internet a few weeks ago to overwhelming demand, readers of the ghost story probably weren't the only ones shaking in their boots. The incredible response to the online release of King's book has triggered much speculation over the future of the traditional publishing, printing, and bookselling industry or so- called "Old Media."

The popularity of the "e-book" had been growing long before this month's unveiling of "Riding the Bullet." Manufacturers of portable electronic reading devices, such as the Rocket eBook, Softbook and Microsoft Reader, have been predicting the demise of good old-fashioned print books for some time. Ads for Microsoft Reader have trumpeted such mind-boggling pronouncements as the estimate that e-books will outsell printed books by 2009 and that newspapers will abandon paper by 2018.

Traditional Book Publishers

Traditional book publishers have been keeping a watchful eye on the rise of the e-book medium. Jack Romanos, CEO of Simon & Schuster, which published "Riding the Bullet," has compared the arrival of the e-book to the advent of the paperback in terms of making the printed word available to a wider reading audience Ñ a sort of democratization of the printed word for the masses. Time Magazine also calls the internet a "global talent show" ripe for any amateur writer to put out their work and get "discovered."

But it's hard to predict whether easier access to the printed word on the Net will transform online reading into a convenient, popular method of consuming literature or, as some critics fear, result in a glut of mediocre (or worse) material on the Net.

Although little-known, would-be authors have been posting their own works on the Net for some time, "Riding the Bullet" was the first time that a giant in the publishing industry like King released an original work exclusively and directly onto the internet, with all the marketing and promotional wizardry of his big-time publisher behind it. The story s overwhelming response demonstrates to readers and publishers alike that many issues remain to be addressed before the internet becomes a commonplace medium for popular books.

When the novella was released, web users were able to access King's e-book in several ways - via standard personal computers, portable electronic reading devices, or personal digital assistants, such as the Palm Pilot. The one-time fee for accessing the book was $2.50. To complicate matters, both Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com decided to offer the novella free of charge. What ensued were a frenzy of requests and a series of web site crashes. Simon & Schuster reported that requests for the King book topped 400,000 within 24 hours of its online release. Even book industry giant (and one of the most successful web retailers) Amazon .com underestimated consumer demand - the result was a disruption in its normally reliable online customer service.

Future Trends

What does this mean for traditional paper-and-ink book publishers and booksellers? Simon & Schuster, at least, is staying positive and seems to view the development of the paperless book as a huge boon and business opportunity, not the death knell of the old-fashioned book industry In fact, the "Riding the Bullet" publishers have said they are talking to other authors about doing similar online releases.

"This innovative publication strategy takes the e-book from the realm of novelty and directly into the very mainstream of today's culture," beamed Romanos in a statement for Simon & Schuster. "And," he emphasized, "it reaffirms the publisher-author relationship at a moment when it is fashionable to predict its demise."

Echoed Adam Rothberg, another Simon & Schuster spokesperson, "This looks to us like something we can do more of in the future. It gives us an opportunity to offer works by our authors that don't fit into the traditional book- length model, things pegged to timely current events, for instance." Rothberg noted that the King novella was a 65-page story Ñ and touted the c-book as "an elegant solution" for such works not readily publishable as a traditional-length book.

However, there are some bugs to work out with respect to the "elegant solution" before it can become a widely used method for disseminating popular fiction. Much as the music industry is dealing with challenges like Napster, the free software program allowing anyone with a PC to trade music (in the form of MP3 files) over the Net with other Napster users, book publishers will have to deal with the problem of pirating.

Pirating

It has been confirmed, for example, that pirated copies of King's "Riding the Bullet" quickiy became available online. Len Kawell, President of Glassbook Inc., one of the e-book publishers authorized to distribute the story, confirmed that hackers had cracked the encryption technology used to protect the story from copyright infringement and such unencrypted versions made their way onto the internet. (Most of such versions have since been removed, but it would still be possible for an enterprising reader to find directions to the book.)

Assuming that all of the above problems can be resolved, will e-books become the distribution method of the future for such brand name authors as Tom Clancy and John Grisham? The answer remains to be seen, of course, but it may be difficult to replace the familiar satisfaction of curling up with a good book, printed on real-life pages and bound into a cloth cover, with a liquid- digital device that requires batteries or booting up in order to read.

At least one devotee of the printed page puts it this way in a letter to the NewYork Times: "Grieve not for the printed book. Time has proved it the most perfect of all information technologies."