The story of e-books in SA is aptly described by an Exclusive Books employee, who says people come in all the time, asking to buy the Kindle. Clearly, there's a market for e-books, consumers are just struggling to access it.
The anecdote, told by Book SA editor Ben Williams, indicates the kind of sea change happening among buyers, he says.
When it comes to e-books, there are two levels of response, explains Williams. “One is the theoretical idea of e-books, which most people are fairly enthusiastic about. The other is actually going out and buying an e-book and reading it on a device. There are a lot of logistics involved in buying the device and downloading content so it interfaces correctly.”
Locally speaking, e-books have not seen the remarkable growth experienced on a global scale. According to Mark Seabrook, digital director at New Holland Publishing SA, the local e-book market is “very small and dominated by leading front list international titles which are being sold either by local e-book retailers or by Amazon via the Kindle”.
He adds that local publishers have only started making their titles available in the past six months or so, and that there isn't a lot of local e-book content available.
“The local e-book retailers are also going to struggle with competition on price and available content from big international e-book retailers, like Apple, Amazon, and Google,” notes Seabrook.
Then there's the question of devices, which until recently have been prohibitively expensive. Kalahari.net, which introduced its e-book platform last year, now sells the Elonex eReader 500EB for R999, and Seabrook says more device sales will definitely help to drive e-book growth locally.
According to Arthur Attwell, CEO of digital publishing company Electric Book Works, the biggest development locally in the past year has been the Kalahari.net e-book store.
E-books on Kalahari.net are available in either PDF or ePub format and can be downloaded using Adobe Digital Editions. According to the retailer, e-books may be transferred to another computer, as long as users authorise each one with Adobe Digital Editions beforehand.
Kalahari's e-books are also protected by digital rights management to prevent unauthorised copying, a somewhat contentious issue in the broader market, and one not likely to see a resolution soon.
Exclusive Books introduced its e-book store shortly after Kalahari, also making use of the Adobe software, offering consumers more choice.
“In SA, anyone who opens an e-book store is doing a good thing,” says Williams - “the rising tide lifts all ships“. But instead of racing to become the dominant player, these stores' major role is inculcating people to e-books, he adds.
Attwell says Exclusive Books' e-book store has helped create local competition, and given South African publishers a much better reason to publish and put together an e-book system.
“When these stores started out most of the content was international. But local medium-size publishers with the capacity have begun releasing quality e-books,” notes Attwell, mentioning Pan MacMillan and Jonathan Ball as examples.
“It's now become more standard to produce an e-book alongside a regular book.”
On the way
The main challenge still facing publishers, he says, is capacity, as publishers are reacting slowly to this whole new way of producing and selling books. This has resulted in some legal hassles, as publishers try to figure out what belongs to whom in the digital space.
“It takes a long time to sort out the legalities. Many of the author contracts in SA haven't addressed electronic rights and royalties, and most publishers are very careful about negotiating every contract.”
Simon Nye, MD of digital publisher Mousehand, says while the world is talking about e-books, SA is typically a few years behind, with the majority of the progress happening in the US and UK.
“There are roughly two components necessary to get e-books off the ground,” says Nye: “1) content needs to be created or converted for e-books, and 2) e-book readers need to be imported or manufactured.”
He points out that local traditional and self-publishers have been making e-books for the past few years and that the trend is still picking up, which takes care of the first component.
“However, the battle of the e-book (which corporations are going to monopolise the industry, if any) means we don't yet have an affordable device that can read any e-book.
“For example, let's look at the Kindle: here is a device that can only read e-books bought on Amazon, and it is still too expensive for the average Joe to own. Two negatives from our South African perspective.”
He adds that industry players are working with Kalahari.net and local publishers to get local content into e-book format. “So to sum up, we are not there yet, but we are well on our way; now we just need a find some cheap e-book readers.”
Creative licence
But there are opportunities in the local e-book realm too, as publishers can now help their authors reach a global audience, says Seabrook.
“With the physical logistics removed, publishers are able to consider selling e-books directly to the consumer.”
It's now become more standard to produce an e-book alongside a regular book.
Arthur Attwell, CEO, Electric Book Works
In terms of benefits, notes Nye, the most obvious one is the savings in cost of production, as paper and pulp is replaced with pixels.
“Printing can easily be the most expensive part of the publishing process. E-books sidestep this by remaining digital; which also has the benefit of not restricting you to black and white only - a full colour e-book costs the same to produce as a black and white one.”
Then there's that magic term - job creation. Nye says the advent of digital publishing has brought a whole new aspect to the practice since the days of Gutenberg's printing press.
“We need people who can encode the various e-book formats and write new code to exploit the digital medium, like a recipe e-book that lets you link to your Woolworths account and order the ingredients you need. It is very exciting to stand on this frontier and contemplate the potential of e-books.”
Apart from established authors and publishers, there's the option of doing it yourself, and going the self-publishing route. Also known as 'vanity publishing' it allows authors to write, publish and distribute books themselves in digital format.
One of the benefits of self-publishing is that it allows the author to retain control over their work and artistic vision. Nye says while demand at Mousehand has been fairly constant, there is still a stigma attached to self-published books.
He explains that self-published titles are not always taken seriously, and considered unregulated and without standards (hence the 'vanity' moniker).
Apart from the concerns around quality, self-published authors do have the luxury of freedom of expression. As Nye explains: “The traditional publishing houses have their branding and images to protect and this means they fit new manuscripts into their pre-made boxes.
“This quite often to the exasperation of the author as they watch their work of art, their passion, cut and moulded to fit the corporate identity.”
We don't yet have an affordable device that can read any e-book.
Stephen Nye, MD, Mousehand
The main thing the e-book industry needs, says Nye, is time. “Time to allow the giants like Amazon, Sony, and so on to sort out their turf war, agree on a universal e-book format (or formats) and develop the protocols so that devices can read each other's e-books.
“Basically, they need to learn to play nicely together so that the consumers can benefit.”
But despite their rising popularity and revolutionary prospects, Nye doesn't think e-books will ever replace print books. “I look forward to watching e-books take their place in our literary banks and seeing what ingenuity will arise from the pioneers on this frontier in terms of functionality.”
A moving read
While e-book readers are beyond the reach of many in SA, another text-on-screen device is in the hands of practically everyone - cellphones.
Mobile literacy projects have seen great support and growth, with initiatives like the Shuttleworth Foundation's m4Lit Project aiming to get teens reading and writing through 'm-novels'.
“I feel that cellphones are going to play an important role in getting the youth involved in reading,” says Nye, adding that mobile phones are widespread and offer a digital device that's already in one's back pocket.
“Mobile is where the future is for digital publishing, without a doubt,” says Williams. What we haven't yet seen, he explains, is that 'thing' which will spark the mobile reading revolution.
“People do read books on mobile phones, they just prefer not to. But something still out there, some innovation to do with reading and mobile which we don't yet know the form of, could change all that.”
He says the biggest opportunity for the South African market at the moment is creating a genre of mobile literature which can be linked to an m-banking service, like MPesa, to help monetise mobile reading.
“That person is going to make a lot of money.”
* Speak your mind: Will mobile phones be the gateway to e-reading in SA? Post your comments.
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