(no subject)

I was looking at these new e-reader things for e-books, and the Amazon kindle the other day. And it strikes me that these are surely a very significant threat to the future of publishing.

I mean, as soon as e-readers are widely owned, then the number of books that will be pirated for free on the internet will explode. In much the same way as happened with mp3 files.

And it seems as if the publishing industry has totally failed to learn any of the lessons from what the music industry went through.

I mean, what is the justification for the price point of an e-book being £5.95, compared to £6.95 for the paper copy? Without manufacturing, publication and retailing costs, surely a price of a pound or two is much fairer for an ebook?

If they try and charge full paperback novel price for ebooks, then thats just an open invitation for consumers to pick the identical free option. (I bet they've put DRM in ebooks too, because that business model worked so well for itunes.)

Its a bit worrying though. Because if free downloads become the norm for books too, then... The music world could cope with reduced revenue streams because they've gone from making totally obscene profits to just moderately obscene profits. But from what I can tell 95% of authors just about manage to muddle through financially, and if their profits take a hit, then its suddenly going to become just not worth peoples time to write books?

Outside of those books that are in the supermarket top 20s anyway.