Hear, See and Speak - No Used eBooks?

How do industry bodies and major players respond to new entrants who offer something different? Do they go out to squash them in order to maintain the status quo? Do they attempt to reign them in and restrict their influence and impact? Do they invest in them and work with them to create new channels, new markets and new revenues? Some believe that many stick their head in the dark and wish them to go away?

This last week we have all read the Amazon Press Release over their ongoing battles with Hachette and one of the most relevant statements came right at the beginning in their reflections of the current consumer offer.  

A key objective is lower e-book prices. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there's no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out-of-stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market -- e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can be and should be less expensive.

The somewhat throwaway line that caught our attention was that, ‘there is no secondary market ebooks cannot be resold as used books.’ With the revelations earlier this year about Amazon’s used ebook patent, we know that it has had its eye on this opportunity, but that the first sale doctrine is maybe a battle too far today. But used ebooks are almost certainly to happen and the change will be either driven by consumer demand or other start-ups who are prepared to push the envelope. It took the likes of Waterstones, Dillons and others some three years from starting to discount in 1991, to the collapse of the Net Book Agreement in 1994. It took years of patient lobbying for the B&Q and other large UK retailers to open up Sunday trading. It took years to change UK licencing laws. Things change in time and they change in favour of public demand.

Last month a judge for the District Court of Amsterdam ruled that Dutch used ebook reseller, Tom Kabinet can continue to operate while it is being sued in court by the Dutch Trade Publishers Association. Tom Kabinet enables users to resell DRM free and digital watermarked ebooks.

The Tom Kabinet site takes a 10% commission on all ebooks sold and have offered to pay a 5% royalty on all sales to authors for each ebook sold on their marketplace.

However, Tom Kabinet like the used l digital music service ReDigi are also up against EU legislators and a strong lobby. Although ReDigi is still in operation today, and have been awarded a patent earlier this year for their marketplace platform they have had to adapt their service in light of losing legal battles.

When Napster first threatened the music production business, the industry fought back through the courts and set out to shut down the new file sharers. The propaganda PR and lobby machines were wound up and the sound bites and messages broadcast. The political lobbing started as the industry  set out to shut down the new file sharers before they could establish themselves. The problem was Napster was free and consumers made it go viral.

The music industry won its battle with Napster, but then had others to deal with who had watched the Napster battle and learned new tactics. Although the music business kept winning they also kept losing and by the time they tried to get the Napster brand under their umbrella it was too late and the stable door was wide open.

The music streamers came next. First there was Spiral Frog who failed to deliver, but they were followed by Spotify and Pandora who did. The big music producers had learned some lessons and bought into the service but also tried to tame it and minimise the risk to their model. However they failed to understand that the threat wasn’t free, nor was it sharing, but it was about the whole ownership ethos that they had profited from for decades. The streaming services asked why you needed to buy when you could access on demand, from anywhere at anytime. Spotify with its 24 million users, of which 6 million are subscribers and the other services started to redefined ownership and how we paid for and listened to music.

It’s amazing how long the music industry took to include downloads into its charts and that they have only just opened the door to include streamed music. Today 228 million downloads happen across the various services every week in the UK and that is up from 142 million in 2013 and 67 million in 2012 (Official Charts Company). The maths of how many tracks on average people download a week, is not hard to calculate and is significant. Some 41.5% of singles are streamed and 12% of the current top ten are streamed. The UK alone has delivered a staggering 18.5 billion streams and in 2013 overall market revenues from streaming pasted the $1 billion mark for the first time. Interestingly, while streaming has experienced explosive growth the overall revenues of the global music market have only increased by a mere 4.3% (IFPY and Spotify).

We wonder how long it will be before they fully recognise the impact YouTube has made and that some suggest that more kids now watch their music today than listen to it. Interestingly, the success of streaming is negating the demand for used digital sales and in a market where growth is clearly in a new ownership model enabling secondary sales makes sense and will generate further income for artists.

Change will happen and denying used digital media a second life and sale will increasingly be seen as wrong and an untenable position by the people that matter the consumers. Denying a second income opportunity also impact creators at a time when their own first sale income is increasingly not meeting their expectations and the pool is being shared with even more fish.

Unlike music, ebook consumption is relatively low and prices relatively high and this will reduce some of the appeal of on demand ebook subscription services. The book market will remain a mixed economy for the foreseeable future with physical, digital, see through and subscription offers.  Perhaps it time that publishers work with new stat-ups to create and support a thought through and complimentary used ebook market and not wait for the collapse of the restrictions they have today and the chance that the result may not be favourable. 

Five Digital Changes To Respond To

Battle lines are being drawn in the digital book arena and these are changing both in terms of goals and measures of success. The changes taking place may appear relatively small and tactical today, but their impact could be significant over time. How long they will take to deliver change is questionable, but that they will, is inevitable.

Although there is much noise in the market and many are merely shouting about what they are doing and it’s often hard to determine noise from substance and authority. It is also has to be recognised that different sectors have different issues and drivers and nowhere are there any silver bullets.

We would suggest that are five shifts taking place with the Trade environment. These are all at different stages of evolution and moving at different speeds, but will spawn more change.

Interestingly, as the overall digital market will be shaped by all of them, it may not be wise to simply cherry pick the ones you think apply to you and ignore the others.

Subscription

We are now starting to see the emergence of serious players and offers. Interesting, they have all pitched the consumer reading demand at the high end and made ‘one price fits all’ offer. 

Subscription offers need to be geared to individual needs and yet encourage members to read more. Just having the biggest library to choose from and expecting readers to consume 3 books a month is not the answer and niche genre offers are essential as well as recognising variable reading demand patterns which will keep members hooked. Today the churn rate is unknown and we suspect it will be quite high in the initial period and therefore these services need to develop secondary community draws to compliment and add subscription value and not merely appear as one trick pony’s. We would expect them to follow other media subscription services and align themselves to larger and complimentary subscription lists and this is essential as long term as subscription offers continue to consolidate their customer facing propositions.  

Ownership

The old and somewhat irrelevant buy to own model that prevailed in the physical market is fast becoming exposed. Although we have yet to see the ebook used market happen, with only the Dutch service Tom Kabinet is challenging the courts, it is inevitable in a highly restricted market.

However as used books, DRM, watermarking and on demand streaming services all overlap, maybe the emergence of on demand means that we no longer have to test the first sale doctrine and the used ebook market never happens. But unless on demand occurs, the used sale market potential for ebook is bound to be tested and found wanting and it is inevitable that the courts will eventually fall on the side of the consumer.

One of the challenges is about proving ownership, which with DRM should be easy, but with the current DRM walled gardens is almost impossible. Again with watermarking it should be also possible, but without a registry and standards conformity, is again almost impossible. With no DRM, no watermarking and no registry some would suggest that this is like closing the stable doors after the horse has bolted.

Self Publishing

We are firm believers in the democratisation of writing which is currently exploding in the digital market and will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

Self publishing is no longer about the slushpile of aspiring writers all wanting to be the next EL James, but about the ability of anyone to bypass the intermediaries and express themselves and publish their works. It facilitates small publishing ventures as well as new and established writers. They may select to use outsourced services to polish and refine their work, or simply publish themselves.  

It challenges the ability of the intermediary to control what is being bought and read and can level the marketing playing field. The bestseller will still be a bestseller, but increasingly the backlist and midlist authors will now have to do more themselves to promote their works and in doing so find themselves head to head with others who have self published and earn a greater percentage of the revenue they have generated.

Can traditional publishers use the self publishing services to feed their lists, or have they now lost that opportunity? Maybe it’s down to the value they will offer the writers and that may have to be more than just a ‘safe home’ and a brand.

Author Care

As author earnings continue to be squeezed by net receipts, reduced advances and more competition, the publisher profits from digital have been seen to grow. Maybe the widening gap is down to bad PR and communication, but the writers are increasingly aware and continue to be the ones who create the initial value.

One area that is very visible to authors under the KDP and other self publishing services is their sales reporting and revenue payments. As the authors will demand greater transparency on earnings, speedier payments and an increased revenue share, there becomes less hiding place for publishers.

Publishers do add significant value, but now have to increasingly demonstrate this and one potential knock on effect will be a revision of digital rights to term based and separation of these from print. 

Content, Context and Community

In the main, the market continues, to merely pour the physical content into a digital container. 

Some would suggest that this is short slighted and ignores that it is just a transient step and some would even argue is the equivalent to performing self-harm. We don’t say that all ebooks must go down the multi media experience route, far from it, but that we should be thinking about the user experience and making the digital rendition complimentary and not just substitutional.

Digital also offers significant opportunities to grow author, genre, reading and writing communities. These may be devolved to others better suited or motivated to organise and curate. Digital also expands the ways in which works can be discovered, validated and valued which applies to both digital and physical renditions. It is no longer about describing books to place them on dry one dimensional shelves, but about enabling them to be found in many ways within a virtual environment. Standard bodies think library and bookshop shelving, but today’s buyers don’t.

Too many what we have said, is not relevant to their business today. They may wish to sit on the fence and wait for it to happen and expect that they can respond quickly. To others they see these changes happening, new opportunities and the ability to position themselves for tomorrow and not run the risk of being too late to the party.