TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Six candidates for one IDPF board seat—and four big issues for them to ponder

By David Rothman

Six candidates are vying for an IDPF board seat—Samir Kakar (Techbooks), Craig Miller (LibreDigital), Jon Noring (DigitalPulp Publishing), Matt Shatz (Random House), Malle Valle (Harlequin Enterprises) and Eli Willner (Green Point Technology Services).

Voting will end on March 13. The seat was opened up after the resignation of Kelley Allen of Random House from the board of the leading digital publishing trade organization.

So what are the four biggest issues that the candidates, whose biographies and platforms you can read by clicking on their links, should be addressing?

Related challenges for e-bookdom

First, e-books need to be made easier to find, buy, read and truly own. The great DRM and format controversies are subsets of the usability issue since both copy protection and the Tower of eBabel can wreak havoc on people’s enjoyment of e-books. Granted, the IDPF doesn’t and shouldn’t get involved in matters such as e-book displays, but it can help in such areas as durable and comprehensive standards to promote ease of use—either on its own or, as I’d prefer, within an OASIS technical committee.

Second, the e-book industry needs to be better at growing revenue and earnings—both for e-book-only publishers and those putting out both p- and e-books. I’m mentioning this issue second only because no one will make money if e-books aren’t easy enough to to use.

Third, the industry should work toward reducing the cost of e-books to consumers—a “must” for their growth—while still achieving adequate profits. Margins needn’t be huge for decent profits if the volume is sufficient. Profits, or at least the potential to make them, are key for sustainability. I believe in the coexistence of all kinds of business models, and I’d hate to see institutionally subsidized books or self-published freebies or almost-freebies as the only choices out there.

Fourth, the IDPF and the AAP should release accurate, well-reconciled statistics on e-books, regularly and often.

Ease of use: A must for true volume and profitability

All four issues are important and are interrelated in one direction or another. For example, the industry won’t be profitable without greater ease of use of e-books and the volume this could lead to—one reason why, as a writer, I’ve been so keen on meaningful e-book standards, which would also drive down production costs somewhat. Even the big houses dislike the expense of supporting so many formats.

To help achieve the third goal of unit growth with adequate profits made possible through volume, the IDPF should consider stepping up international marketing efforts as well as advocating e-book-related literacy and library programs to grow the number of e-book users. Well-stocked national digital library systems—created in ways that didn’t kill off the private side, needed to avoid government control of our reading—could help both society and the e-book industry. If nothing else, libraries could help accustom people to e-books and provide structured feedback—something that ties in with usability and profitability issues.

As for the fourth issue, statistics, how can one measure the progress of the industry on the above fronts if the numbers from various sources don’t jibe? I recognize that the IDPF needs to limit some services to members to justify dues, but basic statistics and the methodology by which they were calculated should be out there for the entire world to see—everyone from literary agents to librarians, not just major publishers and e-book vendors and other members of the e-book elite. Openness, honesty and clarity will especially matter if the e-book business is to experiment with the ad-supported model in the case of some titles. What’s more, how can librarians plan intelligently for e-books without knowing how big a factor they are on the reading scene?

I know. I’m leaving out a fifth issue, a number more expected in this context than “four.” That’s deliberate, and I invite readers—including candidates—to fill in the blank. And yet more issues? Yes, feel free to bring them up here—anything at the cosmic level.

Image credit: From Explode. CC-licensed.