The unique characteristics and market share between each countries’ E-Book Market
– Edwin
Ever since the invention of E-book, the traditional book sales went down significantly. Publishers say it is difficult to determine whether electronic piracy is denting sales, since some of the most frequently uploaded books, like the Harry Porter series, are also huge best sellers.
While there is no boundary within the Internet world, the market share does vary between countries. For example in Japan and China, popular E-reader such as Kindle is not nearly as popular as the IPad. In this paper, we will be looking at different major countries and analyze their individual market. In this paper , we will be looking at different parts of the world and analyze their market characteristic and growth .
USA
United States being one of the first countries that enter the Ebook market, the developments of this industry are promising. Popular newspapers such as the New York Times and USA Today are incorporating e-book sales into their bestseller lists since Q1 2011. Spurred by the rapid adoption of such e-reader platforms as the Amazon Kindle and the Apple IPad, e-book sales have risen steeply, and will likely continue to do so. Google E-Books and Amazon.com are now two important business models. Kindle has been the most successful and has put a strain on traditional trade publishers. With such a high popularity and high sales figure, Amazon can set the prices e-books at a rate well below prices for print trade books, often 50% or less than the original price. Amazon’s ebook sales have now surpassed its print unit sales. Although the Ebook may be somewhat successful, it does have it flaws. One of the greatest concerns is pirating in digital form.
France
During the time when Apple has started to enter the French market through the iPad, surprisingly only a few French publishers have signed with them to sell books on agency terms. One is also expecting telecom operators such as Orange (French version of Rogers) to enter the market and to propose offers through subscription models. For these reasons, French publishers have been working on a bill on fixed book price on e-books in order to keep control over the prices of their books in the digital environment.
Germany
Being one of the most advanced countries in Europe, It is generally assumed that the breakthrough is currently happening, and that e-books will start taking a strong position in the market starting in 2011. Indicators for this assumption are reports of strong sales of dedicated e-book reading devices as well as tablets. On average, estimates range between 5% and 15% market share by 2015. But Publishers have to reconsider their business models to counter the danger of “cutting out the middleman” by the direct relations between authors and retailers. Also, in respect to scientific and scholarly publishing, there has been a lot of pressure given by libraries relating to “free’ access.”
JAPAN
One of their own famous research institute estimates that the market size of Ebooks in 2015 will be 240 billion yen, which will make up around 10% of the traditional book market.
The concerns are that “Printed publications are sold under a resale price maintenance system in Japan. It is part of their culture, their second hard market of book , CDs and video games are huge However, this does not cover e-books. Japanese copyright law provides publishers the right to exclusively copy paper materials. Yet this right does not extend to digital works, and Japan’s copyright laws permit users to digitize protected works for personal use.
As a result, digital bootlegs are a growing issue. The Japan Book Publishers Association are trying to implement a standard contract of e-publishing between authors and publishers which provide rights about e-publishing of the work for the publishers that initially published a paperback.
South Korea
The Korean e-book market has been dominated by a small number of e-book solution providers. Given that book distribution companies, e-book reader manufacturers and mobile telecommunication companies are beginning to join the market, it is expected to reach the market volume of 583.8 billion won (£320.2m) in 2013.
Existing publishing rights cannot protect publishers’ interests properly and efficiently. Accordingly, legal, institutional and technical measures for securing publishers’ exclusive rights to publications are necessary. The greatest concern of Korean publishers is to secure a content that is adaptable for e-books, set up a reasonable profit distribution system among authors, publishers and distributors and, lastly, to find solutions that is compatible with the problems of e-book readers and security.
Netherlands
The Dutch book sector is exploring an open digital platform for book distribution and clearance. The Central Book House offered a new print-on-demand service to publishers in order to diminish costs in stock, and to enhance e-commerce. The American Bookshop introduced the Book Espresso Machine, which is a small-scale experiment with in-shop printing on demand. However, like the rest of the world, piracy or file sharing is the major concern, while lack of standardizations in accessibility of content and in publishing and platform formats is also a problem. The forced uses of third-party platforms such as Amazon, Google are under unfavorable conditions. Self-publishing is also another area of concern. Library lending policies are still unresolved and are under pressure.
South Africa
Surprisingly Africa is also one of the countries that have a somewhat successful E-book market. Today every major trade book publisher has a digital publishing director/strategist in place. There are positive developments in the retail sector where major electronic book retailers such as Exclusive, Loot and Kalahari are increasing their e-book offerings. Kalahari’s decision to launch its own e-book reader is seen as a major development that will stimulate the local consumption of e- books. The fact that the Kindle is now available in South Africa, with the price at less than US $400 and delivery takes less than eight days, are all encouraging developments.
There are no legislative constraints to digital and e-book publishing in South Africa. However, publishers who were surveyed indicated that promoting e-books in their territory was not attractive because when readers purchase books from Amazon, which are supplied by their parent company, there is no financial benefit for them. E-books constitute less then one percent of the overall book market in South Africa. The contribution of e-books to revenue is even less because online e-books retail at less than 50% of the price of traditional print books.
Spain
There are no specific model except for databases of legislation and jurisprudence, but models of license are developing for public libraries. The e-book market is a new field of business that will complement paper and therefore, if there are the juridical necessary guarantees, it will be a necessary field of investment.
Italy
In Italy, most of the big publishers started their e-book distribution program last October. Mondadori and Giunti on their own, Gems, Feltrinelli and RCS built a joint venture for e-book distribution that is now leading the Italian market. While such market is growing fast but the day e-books will outsell print is not imminent. Italian book publishers, unlike the publisher to the rest of the world, are determined to be in this new market and grow in it paying attention to the spirit of book publishing, meaning that people buy content (not advertising, contacts, or hardware) and authors are rewarded in proportion to that.
UK
The UK E-book market is slightly behind the US (approximately two years), but this gap is shrinking as global e-book sales grow exponentially. It is aided by the fact that most digital reading platforms and digital devices have global offers enabling easy global distribution of content controlled through publishers’ metadata. Digital reading requires the purchase of a dedicated e-book reader: the proliferation of smart phones and tablets is helping the e-book market grow.
Just as the ease of global distribution mentioned above provides an opportunity to maximize sales, it also does offer challenges in terms of territorial marketing. Indeed, the whole issue of book rights being divided in ways, which suited physical book distribution, may become less relevant in a digital distribution world. Publishers can publish digital editions globally more effectively by combining global marketing and distribution efforts. Multiple editions of the same title can cause confusion in open markets as well as encouraging political interventions in exclusive.
India and Philippines
Commonwealth territories like India and Philippines. It is a nascent market, and therefore unsuitable to over-regulation because there are clearly many business model issues to be addressed.
In conclusion, thanks to the help from devices such as Ipod or any tablet that are currently on the market ebook may seem to be profitable industries, however, during my research I realized that no matter how successful or no successful their e book market is , they all suffer from the same problem—Piracy, unless this issue is finally being address, otherwise the only winner in this market are the one manufactures that sells the E-reader and tablet, after all the reader still require a device for them to read their books that they did not pay for.
References
Motoko Rich. (2011) With E-Readers Comes Wider Piracy of Books – .com. Retrieved October 02, 2011, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/technology/internet/12digital.html
Robin Sullivan. (2011) Write to Publish: Why ebook market share is important. Retrieved October 03, 2011, from http://write2publish.blogspot.com/2011/04/whyebook- market-share-is-important.html
The difference between the US and EU digital markets – the need for a new approach. (2011) Retrieved October 02, 2011, from http://www.futurebook.net/content/difference-between-us-and-eu-digital-markets-–-neednew- approach
Jones Russ. (2011) ebooks gaining market share Retrieved October 02, 2011, from http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=1374962
Shawn M. Capistrano. (2011) The Battle for E-Book Marketshare « Status Not Quo. Retrieved October 05, 2011, from http://blog.statusnotquo.com/2011/08/08/the-battlefor- e-book-marketshare/
Sarah Rotman Epps And James Mcquivey Forrester Research. (2011) Ten Predictions For The E-Reader/E-Book Market In 2010. Retrieved October 05, 2011, from http://paidcontent.org/article/419-ten-predictions-for-the-e-book-market-in-2010/
Forrester Research. (2011) Ten Predictions For The E-Reader/E-Book Market In 2010. Retrieved October 05, 2011, from http://paidcontent.org/article/419-ten-predictions-for-the-e-book-market-in-2010/
After reading your paper, it was very interesting to learn about the different book markets in countries around the world. However, there are a few issues that I think you need to explore more in order to have a better understanding of the issue of e-books in the book publishing market around the world.
I think that one of the main issues that was I left wondering abut after reading your paper, was how the geographically “borderless” aspect of the internet might benefit e-books over regular books. For instance, are South Korean, Spanish or Japanese e-books available to be purchased and downloaded in the United Sates, a much larger book market? And how does this affect the sales of the book? For instance, a Canadian book that wouldn’t normally have it’s rights to be printed in the United States, would reach a much large audience by being available to the American market online, and would then also have a much large profit margin.
The internet is of course not completely “borderless” and many times the copyright laws differ in different countries, resulting in the unavailability of certain pieces of work in some countries. We can see this happen in the music industry, where some titles by Australian bands, for instance, are not offered in Canadian online music stores. It would be interesting to see how common these restrictions occur in comparison to the digital music industry.
It would also be interesting to see how digital piracy is approached in each country. For instance, how prominent it is as a practice in each country and also the steps that each countries government is taking to prevent piracy online.
I think that when looking at different countries it is important to examine how these countries’ markets interact with each other online in the e-book market, rather than just viewing them as separate entities. The idea of the internet is usually seen as a “global community” and so when looking at e-books we should try and look at how people are interacting with them around the world, and how all these interactions connect with each other. We have to understand that e-book markets, like many other digital markets, transcend borders.
i read though ur feedback THX you for bringing the idea of “borderless” of the internet , it is indeed the most important aspect of the web and i can not believe that i have failed to see this. but THx again for doing this