With Vista Computer Services’ survey of publishers’ attitudes toward ebooks and new technology about to be unleashed, and Simba’s just-released E-ssential Knowledge: The Consumer E-Books White Paper ($495 from simbanet.com), Publishing Trends decided to ask a (very) few questions of its own. We emailed a sampling of our correspondents and subscribers a brief questionnaire, and herewith are some highlights:
• Seventy percent of our respondents do believe that the ebook market will grow into a real distribution channel, though there were endless cavils — it will only be robust in certain segments of publishing (academic and educational were most often mentioned); e-paper is the way to go; the prices (of both handhelds and ebooks) will have to go down — and even under the best circumstances, it will evolve into only 10–20 percent of the book retail market.
• Most respondents thought it would take 2–5 years before publishers felt compelled to produce a significant portion of their titles as ebooks as well as p-books.
• Somewhat surprisingly, respondents thought it would take five or more years before print-on-demand would be available in bookstores, though many thought the chains would get there a lot faster, probably in 2–3 years. As one respondent asked, “How does a store set up a kiosk or somesuch to sell PoD books that will give as much exposure as even a book-laden shelf?” Another, however, opined that “Once books regularly come in electronic form, PoD will be the ‘special order’ item available to those who still cling to ‘hard-copy’ books.” One respondent called PoD “probably inevitable . . . regrettable, but inevitable,” while another echoed that print-on-demand messiah, Jason Epstein, writing that “PoD, not ebooks, is where the action is.”
