A statement on Digital Bookstores, in 5 tweets.
In response to a conversation on twitter, where some customers lament that they can’t buy their books from a single digital vendor:
[1of5] I think folks are blinded by the existence of [physical] Book Superstores out by the mall: Yes, BigBoxBooks stocks everything.
[2of5] but they can only do so with the help of dozens of middlemen – book distributors and occasionally the publishers themselves
[3of5] – along with a business model that is neutral to all suppliers and retailers: A physical book once sold can change hands many times
[4of5] Digital not only cuts out the distributors/middlemen, some insist that a ‘book’ is a license: sold once, direct to the consumer
[5of5] So you will never have a *single* digital ‘bookstore’ – the very things you like about the format make such a store impossible.
Since you so kindly put this on a platform that allows verbose responses, you’re getting a very verbose response. :)
I’m not thinking of BigBoxBooks. I’m thinking of iTunes. One format, one platform, one site, one login, one credit card, done. If all the music publishers can figure out how to coordinate to make that system work, why can’t print publishers? (Or more specifically, manga/comics publishers, since they seem to be having the hardest time with this.)
There’s no structural reason why every single digital publisher needs their own in-browser reader, their own app, or their own proprietary software download to let you read their books. It’s just the publishers being ornery.
I realize that part of the problem is that there is, as of yet, no single standout format for digital manga the way M3 is for digital music, and part of the problem is that the Japanese licensors are squeamish about digital and want maximal control over how readers can access the content, but neither of those means squat to me as a consumer; I just want to read the books, dammit, and in a way that doesn’t make me tear my hair out.
Every time a publisher decides to put their works in a separate site/app/environment, they increase the time and energy I have to spend to purchase content and to get at the content I’ve already purchased. The more effort they make me go through to buy and read their books, the less likely I am to put my reading dollar towards their product.
If I want to order Bakuman or Fairy Tale in print from Amazon or B&N or Rightstuf, all I need to know is the title and volume. If I want to read Bakuman or Fairy Tale digitally, I have to remember that Bakuma is a Viz book and I can only buy it or read it through the Viz app, and Fairy Tale is a Kodansha book and I can only buy it or read it through the Kodansha app.
Even beyond the issues of purchasing and reading mechanisms, having each publisher or small consortium be its own playpen makes it much harder to keep up with what’s available. For digital manga there is at the moment no central clearinghouse that lets you browse everything that’s available at once. I stay pretty much on top of books I’m interested in, to the extent that I actually have an Excel spreadsheet of interesting books that have been announced or solicited. I know that many other people aren’t that tuned-in to the licensing news, and pretty much won’t be aware of something until they trip across it. I f you have to buy Kodansha books from the Kodansha app, what about those people who don’t know Kodansha from Adam?
Comment by JRB — 20 October 2011, 13:48 #
But an itunes-like-single source implies a single gatekeeper, and central control:
how many artists are on CDBaby or Magnatune but not available on itunes? How many on itunes-Japan, but not available to US customers? Even Apple (in all their beneficent goodness) can’t be all things to all people in all places — both for consumers and producers of content.
The Book Store is no paradise either, despite my previous argument — & comparing books to music is like looking at the digital music ‘industry’ pre-Napster.
We can make arguments for “good enough” – but will we ever really be satisfied?
Comment by Matt Blind — 20 October 2011, 14:40 #
If publishers were shipping their books to a single BigBookstore, the temptation to open up their own DedicatedBigBookstore across the street would be very strong.
What eliminates the temptation is the number of bookstore required to get national coverage.
If the temptation to open the DedicatedEBookstore is the fact that its only the one, that suggests a market niche for a physical “kiosk” digital bookstore at a place that can accept cash payment, where the kiosk collates accounts with a range of DedicatedEBookstores and has a unified front end that masks the differences. Person plugs in their device, ebrowses for the book or searches for it, picks what they want, it prints out a slip, they take it to the cash register, pay, go to the loader side and load the book.
IOW, bookstore in a coffee shop rather than coffee shop in a bookstore. Though if the coffee shop is the ground floor with the print on demand machine in the back room, with the theater in the second floor next to the bookpub … they could also browse for POD books, get a cup of coffee and a muffin, and collect their freshly printed book on the way out.
Comment by BruceMcF — 23 October 2011, 21:46 #