Kelly Gallagher, Bowkers’s VP for publishing services, noted that free content was also an important factor. A survey of 750 consumers indicated that 44% were reading e-books on a computer, as opposed to 36% using the Kindle. However, they expected the iPad to bring about a shift in these demographics.

Another point that was raised is one I’ve suspected to be true all along:

Simultaneous print and electronic publication was not an issue for some consumers. When asked whether they were prepared to wait three months from hardback publication for the e-book, 32% said they would wait, 25% would buy the hardback and 30% were not sure.

Almost 1/3 of readers are willing to wait, and almost the same amount undecided? It’s hardcovers vs. paperbacks all over again.

Henrion writes:

Much of the talk by the big 6 publishers has been stress over cannibalization of print sales, or the idea of replacement sales, by ebooks. For midlist publishers such as ourselves, I believe we fight against substitution. We capture the “browser” market. If our title is not available or visible, a customer will simply substitute for another one in the genre. Free gave us the visibility that we could not purchase.

Funny how publishers just keep discovering this anew, isn’t it?

Further discussion by Mike Masnick at TechDirt, and Nate the Great on his blog The Digital Reader (formerly Nate’s Ebook News).

Like a number of other music vendors before it, Australian ISP BigPond is shutting down the DRM servers for the DRM-protected WMA files it used to sell (before switching entirely to MP3 in early 2009). It is advising customers to back up their music either by burning it to audio CD, or by copying the data files and keys to a backup storage device.

On The Digital Reader, Nate the Great reports that magazine database operator EBSCO has bought the NetLibrary e-book division from OCLC. NetLibrary has been shuffled around quite a bit over the last decade; at one point it owned eReader. EBSCO plans to integrate NetLibrary e-books into its EBSCOhost database, which already provides access to the full texts of various magazines and periodicals.

It turns out that for most students, the answer is “no”: although most agree they make great personal reading devices, almost 3/4 of the 63 students participating in the project said they would not recommend the device to an incoming student for use in school work.

For reading fiction, they work well, but the lack of color and zooming options for PDFs mean that they can be problematic for reading textbooks. It is also much harder to take notes than with a pencil or computer.

However, the college’s professors say they are still working on converting their course materials to e-book formats, and feel that the iPad might correct some of the deficiencies the students noted in the Kindle DX.

However, the first half of the article talks about the rise of e-books and e-magazines, discussing the Kindle, the Kindle app for iPhone, and the Zinio e-magazine reader. White doesn’t really mention many of the other e-book options apart from these, but at least he does agree that the PDF format really isn’t best for reading e-books on portable devices.

He seems a little more optimistic about the efficacy of Adobe’s DRM than I would be, though.

Says Worldreader’s website:

Just as mobile phones have leapfrogged landlines in developing countries, e-readers can deliver books instantly and for far less: many e-books are less than one-third the price of a printed book, saving trees and reaching more minds.

Personally, I suspect that a netbook such as the OLPC might prove considerably more useful for about the same amount of money (though Amazon has donated a number of Kindles for the project’s use). At least a netbook can be used for communication, writing, and school work; a Kindle just downloads e-books.

It is hard to see the point of giving poor Africans e-book readers rather than a more useful device. It’s not as if they can afford to buy more e-books from Amazon. Still, maybe something useful will come out of it.

The author of the study also claims that "a physical book purchased by a person driving to the bookstore creates twice the emissions of a book purchased online." She also notes that e-books could save a lot of carbon dioxide when it comes to replacing textbooks, given that textbooks tend to last only a couple of years before being replaced by new editions.

Of course, there is more than one measure of environmental friendliness; e-books may use less carbon, but e-book devices may be made with toxic materials. And carbon aside, books are made from a renewable resource—lumber companies usually plant two new trees for every one they cut down.

I wonder what might happen if e-books ever do displace a significant amount of printed books. Will a ripple effect cause a lot of unemployment in the lumber industry as there is less demand for paper? Probably not something we need to worry about for a long time.

Related: Ebooks save millions of trees

Dan Agin starts by bringing up the example of the Gutenberg press putting many scribes out of work, and then compares it to the possibility of the e-book putting many print-book publishing employees out of work. (This brings to mind the story I mentioned earlier about dealing with abundance.)

Agin points out that reading Kindle books does not require an actual Kindle, and anyone with a computer (or iPhone, though Agin does not mention that) has the ability to purchase and read 400,000 Kindle titles. Kindle books can have the font size adjusted to eliminate eyestrain, do not require travel to purchase, and do not take up physical space.

Anyone who believes this new technology is going away is dreaming. Anyone who believes the print publishing industry has a chance to survive in its present form is dreaming. It’s now possible for any small publisher to have free and almost immediate access to the largest bookstore in the world — Amazon. In a few days, a small publisher can have its entire backlist in Kindle format available at Amazon to readers. Salesmen are bypassed, distributors are bypassed, bookstore buyers are bypassed. What will not change much is marketing and promotion — new books will still need to be brought to the attention of the public. But the new books will be Kindle or Kindle-like digital books.

Agin thinks that the Kindle is going to be disruptive enough to print publishing that it is going to cause a great deal of turmoil, lost jobs, and business collapse.

But meanwhile, Jason Pinter thinks that the publishing industry has never had it so good.

“Think about it,” Pinter asks. “When was the last time books and publishing were as much a part of the daily conversation as they are now?”

Pinter points out that for all the disputes over e-books versus print books, pricing, and the like, e-books are still books, and it has been a long time since books qua books have gotten this much attention in the press and popular culture.

E-books’ market share is rising, many recent hit movies are based on books, the Amazon/Macmillan dispute drew a lot of media attention, the iPad is launching (not to mention a dozen other e-book devices), and more people than ever are discussing books and e-books on-line and via social networking.

Given that until recently the biggest news about reading was the fact that more people than ever before weren’t doing it, I find I agree with Pinter that seeing so much attention focused on reading matters now is hopeful news. They say that there is no such thing as bad publicity—and from the standpoint of books and reading, this may actually be true.

I haven’t tried the new Kandle, but it looks as if it might solve the problem. The wide clip is designed to fit right over the top of the Kindle. If anyone gets one of these please let us know how it works.

PC World notes that every new smartphone that comes out gets branded a potential “iPhone killer” (though it invariably never turns out to be one in fact), and asks the question, “What things might the iPad ‘kill’?”

Among the possibilities are the Kindle—PC World notes that the iPad has already caused a spat between Amazon and Macmillan—and tablet PCs. (Flash, Java, and the desktop metaphor are mentioned as well, among others.)

Even if the Kindle’s e-ink screen might cause less eyestrain (and opinions seem to vary on that), the iPad does allow users to do much more than the current generation of Kindle.

On the other hand, eWeek thinks that the iPad may not really be “all that”, and that Apple should watch out for the HP Slate tablet coming out in a few months.

Why? A number of reasons, including that the Slate is “good-looking,” runs Windows 7 (a full-fledged PC operating system, not a smartphone OS), supports  Flash, might be more useful in a business environment—and, just like the iPad, it will read e-books (and display other multimedia).

And of course, both of these articles ignore a tablet that will be shipping in just a few weeks—the FusionGarage JooJoo, which has just been submitted to the FCC. Though it runs Android, another smartphone OS, it seems to have very good multimedia chops, including a 16:9 high-definition screen and the horsepower to play HD content back without stuttering.

And, of course, it also has e-book readers available—possibly soon to include the Kindle reader.

No matter which tablet wins, it is pretty much a win-win situation for e-book fans.

Yesterday I launched a project to provide free Kindles for U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan. I chose Kandahar because of the letter K, but also because it’s the general region where Army Sgt. Andre B. Corbin will serve when he deploys later this month. He will be toting a new 6-inch Global Wireless Kindle and accessories, all donated by M-Edge Accessories in a sponsorship for which I gained quick and enthusiastic support from Patrick Mish, CEO of M-Edge. You can listen to the interviews I did with Sgt. Corbin and Patrick Mish in Episode 84 of The Kindle Chronicles.

It was during those interviews that the idea of Kindles for Kandahar arrived, and I’ll be working with Andre and Patrick to develop the project. Andre this morning left the following message on my Reading Edge Facebook page:

“As the Kindles become available, I will provide to you a name and address of one of the Kandahar soldiers who will find great pleasure in receiving a Kindle. I will donate the money required to cover the postage.”I appreciate that donation, Andre! I realized yesterday, when the first contribution arrived, that PayPal is charging a small transaction fee, so I will donate that money back to K4K, so that we can assure donors that every dollar contributed will go toward a Kindle for the troops. I haven’t had a chance to talk with Patrick Mish yet about M-Edge’s involvement in this next phase, but I’m hoping he will consider contributing a protective cover and an E-luminator 2 light for each of the Kindles we ship to Kandahar.

Andre has another idea we’ll pursue, which is to figure out a way to donate Amazon gift certificates for purchasing content on the K4K units. I loved his signoff on the Facebook entry today:

“Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.”

I hope you’ll consider becoming one of the first contributors to Kindles for Kandahar. To do so, simply click here or on the logo above or the PayPal button. If you have your own PayPal account, you will be able to use it for the contribution. If not, there will be credit card buttons available. I don’t have nonprofit status set up for this yet, so for the moment your contribution will not be tax-deductible.

This project is a terrific use case for eReader technology. I realized that when Andre described how small the bag is that he will carry for his personal effects when he deploys. Instead of taking one or two print books, he will be able to bring more than a thousand titles on his 10-ounce Kindle. His reading list for the year he will be stationed at a remote base in Tarin Kowt includes recreational fare, as well as elucidating tomes such as In Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British, Russian and American Occupation (Kindle, hardcover) by David Loyn and Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (Kindle, paperback) by Steve Coll.

Another book I’d recommend is Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? (Kindle, hardcover) by Seth Godin. It’s about making yourself indispensable by overcoming lizard-brain resistance to your true mission. I happened to have read it in preparation for an interview with Seth just before talking with Andre, and it helped me overcome reasons to procrastinate the launch of Kindles for Kandahar. Andre and his fellow soldiers are taking the art of being indispensable to the 11th power.

Tech review maven Walter Mossberg

In observation of Read An E-Book Week, DriveThruRPG and White Wolf are offering a free watermarked-PDF download of the 224-page World of Darkness rulebook (list price $24.99) for as long as the week lasts. Enjoy!

A recent survey shows that 90% of academic publishers have seen a growth in e-book sales over the last two years. E-book sales now make up almost 10% of total e-book sales in those markets—twice the level of e-book sales in general. Academic publishers have apparently been much quicker to adapt to the e-book market than trade presses.

The survey found that academic publishers were also relatively unconcerned about the various challenges presented by the shift towards digital books. Although piracy was one of the biggest concerns, [report co-author Laura] Cox said very few publishers thought of it as a serious problem.

It appears the next smartphone platform to receive a Kindle reader will be Android. jkOnTheRun reports on an Engadget posting of leaked documents from Dell stating that the Dell Streak (aka Mini 5), an Android device, will include a Kindle reader application (as well as several other Amazon services).

Sony is bringing more newspaper and magazine content to its e-book store. Probably in a bid to strengthen its position before the iPad arrives, ReadWriteWeb reports, it is adding 20 new papers and magazines, including the New York Times and Boston Globe. (Sony press release here.)

Google is slowly conquering Europe. Or at least Europe’s great libraries. Even as its Google Books program has proven as controversial east of the Atlantic as west of it, it continues to make deals with European libraries to digitize their collections. The Guardian reports that Google is going to be working together with Italian libraries and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage to digitize “up to a million out-of-copyright works”. There is no word on whether this includes any still-in-copyright works as well.

Oddly enough, it happened only a couple of weeks after Google executives received suspended sentences over a controversial YouTube video. Hmm.

TeleRead founder David Rothman sets down his opinions on the decline of newspapers in favor of the web on his Solomon Scandals blog. He feels that “the real newspaper-killer” is online papers’ lack of interactivity and community.

Speaking of which, here is an excellent argument in favor of saving newspapers, found via Adam Tinworth’s blog:

Publishing Perspectives

Publishers tend to favor the single ISBN approach, while booksellers and wholesalers want one for each format. Perhaps not surprisingly—publishers are the ones who would have to pay for the ISBNs, after all, whereas retailers would get the most benefit from having separate unique identifiers for sales tracking. There is even a suggestion to issue separate ISBNs by region to make tracking regional sales easier.

The article says that “the International ISBN Agency and standards body EDItEUR hope to develop a web service whereby supply chain partners can easily request and receive format-level ISBNs from publishers”. In September, Bowkers announced it would be cutting the prices of ISBNs considerably.

One unrelated interesting thing I found in the article was this:

HarperCollins UK gives one ISBN to its e-books in epub format, which is the only format it sells. Says Graham Bell, head of publishing systems at HCUK: “We sell an epub to Amazon, and they sell it on to the consumer in a lightly modified version. Because Amazon sells the Kindle version exclusively, there’s no need for a different ISBN. We know that an Amazon sale is a Kindle sale.” The same will be true of iBooks sold by Apple.

A “lightly modified EPUB”? Really? Given that the Kindle is not compatible with EPUB, that must be some “modification”.

In a separate editorial/comment thread starter, Edward Nawotka asks whether separate ISBNs are really needed. It will be interesting to see the answers.

Gizmodo

The article starts with a Steve Jobs quote about Apple using the EPUB format because of its “openness,” and proceeds to fill in what he is not saying: “open” or not, DRM-locked iBooks books will not be readable on other DRM’d EPUB capable readers, nor vice versa.

And don’t expect that DRM to be going away any time soon:

You may be thinking that it’s just a matter of time before ebook stores all go DRM free. That would be wishful thinking at best. While ebooks might seem a lot like digital music circa 2005, you can’t rip a book, so the only way to get a bestseller on your reader is to buy it legally, or to steal it. It’s pretty much that simple. There will be free books, there will be unencrypted books, and the torrents will rage with bestsellers (as they already do). Still, DRM’s gonna be a hard fact of life with every major bookstore, since they’re going to at leasttry to keep you from stealing it. You don’t see Hollywood giving up DRM, do you?

It also explains why every device except the Kindle reads EPUB, and the way the Kindle’s Mobipocket-based formats and Barnes & Noble’s eReader-based format hark back to PDA legacy formats.

I found it particularly interesting that the article complained about the chance of getting an eReader-format book when you want an EPUB-format one, given that we carried a story about someone in exactly the opposite situation.

The article concludes with the suggestion that creating custom apps to contain books might be the way to go. (I’m not entirely sure whether it’s talking about appbooks, or just individual apps from specific publishers.)

One amusing note: at the end, the article suggests that scanned-comic piracy will “explode” when the iPad comes out, now that a good screen will exist for reading those colored pages.

I suspect that Buchanan probably has not checked out the Internet comic piracy scene lately, given that it is possible to find just about any comic you want on BitTorrent already. But just wait—as soon as the iPad comes out, I’ll bet you that even though the amount of it does not change much, everybody will be Macaulay Culkin-faceslapping in horror how much of a Problem it suddenly is.

I don’t agree with everything the article has to say, but it makes a good primer on the “Tower of E-Babel” problem. Worth a look.

An innovative Web browser will not stop what is going to happen to Kindle. The device will not be able to compete with next-generation, color-screen tablets that feature e-reader functionality and do more.

Though the supposition may or may not be correct (Amazon could be planning a new browser for a new device, and not the existing Kindle), I find myself in agreement with the rest of the article. It essentially states the black-and-white Kindle’s days are numbered, and that Amazon will most likely abandon the hardware altogether at some point, the Kindle having accomplished its primary goal of kick-starting the e-book industry:

Ten years from now, we will fondly remember the Kindle as the device that helped take book publishing out of the forestry business and onto the small screen. It will have been a huge success in changing the world, but, alas, its days are presently numbered.