eBooks and mp3s are different
It dawned on me, just now, that there is one huge difference between the Music Industry and the Publishing Industry that, so far, has meant that eBooks haven’t taken off in the same way that music did.
In the beginning, people began to rip their cd’s and put the digital files onto their computers, because it was convenient to have them catalogued and available on their hard drives. Originally, an mp3 player was piece of software that made it easy to find the music on your computer and make it play. Soon people were providing “skins” for the software to make it look more cool on the screen.
Once all this data had been digitised, it was easy to start file sharing it and music took off as a downloadable product.
The Music Industry hid under the covers and hoped it would go away, but it didn’t. Eventually they began to do something about it.
Books are very different. It’s a huge bore to digitise a book, so no one does it (except for total nerds!). So, the material isn’t there to be shared. If everyone had piles of book data on their hard drives, clever software people would come together to make the data readable in beautiful ways, that would encourage more and more to adopt eBooks in favour of paper books.
That is what is different and why eBooks are slow to get going. in the digital world, piracy is a necessary evil to get the show on the road!
Want to read an eBook now? Click the picture above to read My First Picture Joke Book at www.magicblox.com. Enjoy!
Filed in: eBooks and the Internet
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I agree … partly. The thing about music is that it is basically the same product whatever the format. For most of us at least, there’s no difference between listening to an mp3 or a CD. That doesn’t go for books. The experience is very different, especially for books with pictures. The way I see it is that the ebook readers available now are still some way off from being what the consumer really wants, hence the slow take-up. In five years I guess it will all be very different. But I don’t fear for the good old codex – I think the two will exist together quite happily. In fact there could be a renewed interest in nicely produced illustrated books…
Do you know the candle story? Once candles were cheap and ubiquitous, used for the purpose of lighting. Then came oil and then electricity and the candle was not needed anymore. BUT! you can still get candles. They cost more and they have turned into art products, earning much more that the basic ingredients.
So, yes. I think to that illustrated books will continue, but they might cost a bit more and will become more art objects, with limited edition print runs.