Digital spectre worries book publishers in Frankfurt (News Feature)

By Jean-Baptiste Piggin Oct 14, 2008, 12:12 GMT

Frankfurt - As carpenters put the finishing touches Tuesday to displays at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the spectre of the digital future worried many executives attending the world's biggest annual book-publishing gathering.

Whether it is school textbooks or philosophical tracts, moves are afoot everywhere to convert books from bulky paper into ever-so-tiny computer memory. Only gift books, lofty literature and children's picture books seem immune to the trend.

When the fair opens for business on Wednesday, many publishers may stop for a moment to marvel, or to shudder, at the stands displaying the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.

These are devices weighing about 250 grams which exploit so-called e-paper to display books with minimal battery use. After US launches, both products are being introduced in Europe now.

A survey released this week by the organizers of the October 15-19 fair found 60 per cent of publishers who answered a questionnaire neither use e-readers themselves nor download the e-books which can be read on the devices or on computers.

The survey was not a scientific one, since it was mailed to 35,000 people and only 1,000 voluntarily replied.

But the views expressed generally reflect what publishing-industry magazines and online forums have been reporting: that e-book sales are growing steadily and bookshops will have a tough time surviving when most books are only a download away.

The poll asked which book industry players would still exist half a century from now, and 25 per cent forecast that bookstores would largely disappear, with online distribution of paper books by firms such as Amazon taking over.

Of those polled, 21 per cent predicted literary agents would disappear as publishers learn to find authors online.

But only 14 per cent thought publishers themselves would vanish. After all, somebody will always be needed to package up book content and sell it, whether by download or on paper.

The survey was notable for a wide disparity in views, with 12 per cent of publishers convinced the new e-readers will prove a short-lived flash in the pan, just like earlier e-readers that never caught on because their batteries ran flat so quickly.

In fact, 30 per cent of those surveyed were convinced that sales of digital content would never exceed those of paper books, whereas 40 per cent predicted this would happen within the next 10 years.

More than half took comfort in the forecast that internet users may surrender a little of their culture of wanting to obtain everything free, with online users more willing five years from now to pay for quality digital content.

The survey was carried out among subscribers to the Frankfurt Book Fair's online mailing list.

Juergen Boos, director of the Book Fair, which will have 7,373 exhibitors, said, 'This annual questionnaire gives us a way to get a picture of the trends and changes in the sector.

'Some of the results are remarkable, such as the prediction that China will lead the world in the digital future.'

Currently, the United States is the market that is most advanced in digitalization, believed 51 per cent of respondents, while 15 per cent viewed Japan as the current leader.

But only 29 per cent thought the United States would still be in the lead five years from now, whereas 28 per cent thought China would soar ahead as the world's heavyweight in e-book publishing.

While few expected Europe's staid publishing industry to race into the lead of technological change, 70 per cent of the respondents said they were themselves ready for the digital challenge.

Technical topics to be discussed at industry meetings this week during the Book Fair have a strong bearing on the issue of making money out of digital books.

Among them are enforcing copyrights and putting a kind of software lock, known as digital rights management (DRM), on downloadable books to prevent customers selling the files onwards to other people.

Surprises may also be in store for book-lovers who imagine that they will be buying most of their books, digital or paper, in future at Amazon and its smaller online-bookselling rivals.

Survey respondents said that book publishers trying to get their content out to customers should form partnerships with some other industries that have not been particularly intellectual in the past.

Fully 22 per cent said the wireless phone industry - both manufacturers and the phone operators - would be a key partner in transmitting magazine and book content to the new e-readers.

However 20 per cent picked movie distributors and 18 per cent picked the music industry as the most promising ally. Both of those industries are much farther ahead in mass-selling digital content.