Not the end of the paper world

E-books are useful but print will live on, experts say

George Laidlaw says he once made three cents in royalties for an electronic book sale.

The company selling his book had a promotion where they took 99 per cent off of the retail price of the e-book.  Since the author earns around 10 per cent in royalties, he was left with a measly three cents.

“It was hardly worthwhile,” he says.  “If I’m lucky, I earn $100 per year for e-book sales, compared to thousands from paper book sales.”

With electronic readers becoming increasingly popular, how will e-books impact the book publishing industry?  Some experts say the industry needs to adapt to a future filled with screens.  Others disagree, saying readers shouldn’t make the switch just yet.

Raymond Coderre, president of Baico Publishing in Ottawa, says he is going to stay far away from e-books until authors like Laidlaw can make money from it.

Instead, authors should put the first few chapters online as a teaser, he suggests.  If the readers want to continue, they can buy a print copy.

Regardless, e-books won’t overtake the print world any time soon, he says.

“If you’re going anywhere on a trip or you’re going to the beach, what would you rather leave on a blanket?” he asks.

However, people might eventually bring their gadgets to the beach, says Raywat Deonandan.

They already bring their music players and cellphones, he says, so why not e-readers?

To gain popularity, e-readers must simulate the appearance and feel of a paper book, says Rita Toews, author and creator of the annual Read an E-book Week, adding that the problem with the Amazon Kindle is that it’s flat and doesn’t resemble a book.

“It doesn’t make me all warm and fuzzy,” she says.  However, with a cover on her Sony Reader, Toews says she has tried to turn a page with her finger, so immersed in the story that she had forgotten that it was an e-book.

Additionally, e-readers can help dyslexic people with the text-to-speech feature, elderly people with the enlarged font options, and severely handicapped people who may have difficulty holding open a book and turning the pages, says Mary White, director for the Howe Library in Hanover, N.H.

“It opens up worlds for people,” she says.

Although not everyone has turned to e-books, the numbers show they’re slowly catching on.

About 3.3 per cent of book sales in America are in e-book form, according to a February report by the Association of American Publishers.

It also shows that total e-book sales for 2009 reached US$169.5 million, up 176.6 per cent from 2008.

For every 100 print books sold, Amazon.com sells 48 e-books for the Kindle, a spokesperson for Amazon.com told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

For the first time ever, e-book sales surpassed print book sales last Christmas, according to an Amazon press release.

However, as with most good things, there is a downside.

When a product goes digital, pirates will be there hunting for treasure, as they did with the music and movie industries.

Online pirated books represent almost US$3 billion in potential losses, according to a recent study from Attributor, a corporation publishing companies can hire to peruse the Internet for pirated material.

The company treats each download as a potential loss, says Rich Pearson, general manager of Attributor.

When they find these copies, they ask the host site to remove the content, Pearson says, boasting a 98 per cent success rate.

This number can give publishing companies an indication of how much pirated content is available online—and being stolen by readers, he says.

Although Deonandan is a professional writer, he says he does not see much of a problem with readers taking free electronic copies.

This debate gives an opportunity for society to redefine the role of the writer, he says, and hopefully society will come to the realization that it isn’t about the monetization of the products.  He suggests authors keep their day jobs and write on the side.

This model would ensure that people who choose to write books only do so if they have a story to tell, he says, although he admits it’s a radical view.

Laidlaw, who is also president for Ottawa Independent Writers, says this is about the “dumbest thing” he has ever heard.

Although most authors write because they enjoy it, he says, they can’t afford to work for free unless they are independently wealthy.

But there’s one thing most experts do agree on: e-books will never completely replace print books.

After a period of intense discomfort and investment for the publishing industry, there will be a balance between digital books and traditional ones, says Richard Curtis, a literary agent.

One reason, he says, is that most people cannot concentrate or retain as much information when reading on a screen, as opposed to on paper.

On the other hand, the many benefits of e-books mean they may eventually become the standard for reading, says Tina Moreau, manager of Absolute Xpress, an e-book publishing company.

“I’m optimistic that the many books that don’t need to be printed will dominate the e-book market,” says Canadian author Graeme Gibson.

Toews echoed his sentiments, explaining that pulp fiction books or romance novels tend to be thrown out when the reader is finished, and therefore are a waste of paper.

Although some experts suggest e-books will make publishing companies obsolete, they will always be needed for their roles in fact checking, says Jeff Sallot, an expert in multimedia journalism at Carleton University.

Courses in the publishing certificate program in the Chang School of Continuing Education often integrate e-books into the curriculum, says Stephanie Fysh, the academic coordinator, adding that nowadays, instructors consider electronic publishing to be simply part of the industry.

However, some people believe that e-books could change the way we read.

Tee Morris is credited as being the first person to read his books in weekly episodes through free podcasting—a term that combines iPod and broadcasting.

Although the free model revived the sales of his book, he says he doesn’t think people will ever get past that tactile feeling of turning the pages.

Devices like the iPad could instead lead to a more interactive reading experience, including soundtracks and videos, he says.

But as long as actual movies exist, there’s no need for a text/movie hybrid, says Deonandan.

On the other hand, if one thing has been constant throughout the ages, he says, it’s that we are very poor at predicting what the next stage will look like.

Although Laidlaw only earned a few cents from his one sale, others have found huge success in the technology.

Paulo Coelho, author of the Alchemist, took pirated versions of his own works and made them available on his blog, Pirate Coelho.

A pirated Russian translation of one of Coelho’s books caused his sales to jump from 3,000 to 1 million in less than three years, according to Jeff Jarvis in his book, What Would Google Do?

Coelho eventually became the number one translated living author, according to Guinness World Records.

Coelho asks his readers to buy a book if they like it to prove to the publishers that sharing content isn’t damaging to the business.

This kind of success is only possible with the rise of e-books, and for some, it's a way of keeping the printed word profitable.