Suit Yourself: The Year in eBooks
By Jeff Gomez, Senior Director, Online Consumer Sales and Marketing, Penguin Group (USA)
As 2009 draws to a close, Penguin's eBook program has experienced another strong year: our ongoing innovation and historical growth have placed us at the forefront of electronic reading. However, looking at the eBook space in general, I can't help but think that the preceding year has been merely setting the stage for what's going to happen in 2010. So many developments over the past eleven months, while no doubt interesting on their own, seen collectively seem to be pointing toward an important moment in the evolution in the way that people consume text and literary content.
Sony is now offering three different models of its eBook reading device: the Daily Edition, Pocket Edition, and Touch Edition. Meanwhile, Barnes and Noble's new eBook device, the Nook, has not even formally debuted and yet is already sold out for the holidays. And, of course, the two Kindle models on the market (Kindle 2 and DX) continue to sell well and were recently featured in a jaunty new television ad that has been getting considerable airplay. In addition to these dedicated reading devices already or soon to be available, it seems that every couple of weeks another one is announced or makes its appearance: Cool-er, iRex iLiad, Samsung's Papyrus, Foxit's eSlick, not to mention a half-dozen more.
In addition to these gadgets, there are dozens of popular applications that allow readers to buy, download, and read books on their cell phones. There have also been consistent rumors this past year about a new tablet device from Apple, perhaps making its debut in 2010, which will feature a color touch-screen and be about the size of a trade paperback. And while eBooks have been available in various guises in America for over a decade, they are now being introduced in a big way in both Canada and Britain. The fact that eBooks can be purchased online and instantly — and in some cases wirelessly — downloaded shows they could have a huge impact globally; in a virtual world, many (but not all) geographical boundaries cease to exist.
All of these developments signal some sort of a turning point in electronic reading. And while numerous challenges remain for publishers, retailers, and consumers — including pricing, digital rights management, and format confusion — the progress being made is unmistakable.
None of this is to say that eBooks will ever have a singularity moment; a period wherein the adoption of electronic reading feels nearly instant. Nor will there ever be a complete takeover of physical books. Motion pictures with sound — the "talkies" of the 1920s — may have killed forever the silent movie, but eBooks will always coexist alongside the real thing.
All of which reminds of me an old British movie I saw a few nights ago called The Man in the White Suit. In the film, Alec Guinness plays a brilliant but somewhat naive inventor who, while moonlighting in various textile factories, manages to create a new kind of synthetic fiber that never wears out and never gets dirty. The resulting fabric will not show age and cannot be ripped or torn (he needs a blow torch just to cut out the pieces that make up the outfit the film is named for).
This idea, naturally, sends chills down the spine of everyone in the textile business (and not in the way that Guinness intends or expects). A consortium of factory owners fears that it will drive them all out of business (under the assumption that people will buy a bolt of the fabric and then never need any other kind of cloth for the rest of their lives). Meanwhile, the workers are similarly upset, sure that they will all be sacked once an initial amount of the fabric is produced (since, because it never wears out, it wouldn't have to be made more than once). I won't spoil the ending of the movie, but suffice to say that Guinness spends most of the last reel running for his life as both the factory workers and the factory owners do their best to silence innovation and suppress — at any cost — Guinness's invention.
As I watched the movie, I couldn't help but think that the premise was all wrong. True, an indestructible fabric could have a number of important industrial applications: sails for boats, tents for the military, numerous household uses. But it's ridiculous to think that, just because someone invents a fabric that never ages or shows wear, that everyone — everywhere — would want it. There's too much variety in both the tastes and habits of humans; people would never willingly give up their terrycloth robs, linen napkins, cotton sheets, or wool trousers. The world of textiles is simply too varied and specialized to be usurped by a lone challenger. The same goes for books; there are too many different shapes, sizes, and uses for them to be either easily or completely supplanted by a computer screen.
When it comes to clothes, the right suit is the one that, well, suits you. The same idea applies to print: the book format that you're going to choose is the one that's going to meet your particular needs. For some people this will mean a physical product; for some it will mean a digital format. Others will want the audio version, and future readers might prefer a combination of all three (not to mention an alternative we haven't even thought of yet).
Penguin is perfectly poised to take advantage of this new behavior. For those who choose to consume content digitally, we have a huge array of books available in electronic formats, including material (such as our eSpecials and Enriched eBook Classics) you can't get anywhere else. We also have a longstanding tradition of producing beautiful physical books, not to mention a robust audio book program. Meanwhile, various experiments in both the US and the UK — such as We Tell Stories, Penguin 2.0, Spinebreakers, and From the Publisher's Office — point toward new hybrids of online marketing, social networking, and interactive storytelling. But to say that any one of these formats will please everyone is just as ridiculous as saying that one outfit or one fabric will clothe the entire world.