Content

The content was the first necessary component. In 1971, University of Illinois student Michael Hart enjoyed access to ARPANET computers (the predecessor to the Internet). He used his access to type in and distribute the Declaration of Independence followed by Bill of Rights, American Constitution, and the Christian Bible (The Guardian, 2002). The effort continues today as Project Gutenberg currently offers more than 56,000 free ebooks (www.Gutenberg.org). Project Gutenberg and other non-profit organizations worked to digitize public domain text either through labor-intensive typing or scanning into computer formats. Later, some authors began to release work through creative commons or without copyright rather than market through the normal publication process.

These publicly available books became the backbone content to distribute ebooks, but soon more commercial products entered the field. Three main companies, Ereader, Bibliobytes, and Fictionworks began the sale of ebooks in the 1990’s (The Telegraph, 2018). Google created its book search engine in 1994 (later Google books), and by this time, the effort to convince authors to distribute content in electronic form came in full force. Also, the public domain books were enhanced with better formatting, annotation, or illustrations to produce work sold for a low, but profitable rate. Independent authors, wishing to become professional were the first to offer content. In 2007, Amazon joined the ebook market when it introduced its Kindle ereader (discussed later) and started to sell content from major authors. Amazon was followed by Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Google (among others) and the potential seemed clear enough that major publishers would offer their books to electronic sales. In 2011, Amazon announced that ebooks began to outsell traditional books (Miller & Bossman, 2011).

Software

Effective ebook distribution requires two types of software—file formats and display. Over the years, there have been multiple versions of each. Some people may not consider file formats software because the intention is to provide content rather than instructions to the hardware. However, most file formats contain markers for several aspects of the ebook experience. Display software can provide simple information like chapter markers, page turn locations , display of images, and interaction with dictionaries. File formats evolved from text storage (ASCII or American Standard Code for Information Interchange) and word processing formats (Adobe PDF). Many of the early abandoned formats (like LIT and MOBI) are still available in online ebook resources so you can still use them on your devices.

Display software evolved as ebook distributors needed to enforce licensing through Digital Rights Management (DRM), and users wanted a better reading experience. DRM enforces the book licenses, including approved reader accounts, time and geographic restrictions, and allowable devices. Other aspects of the display system may allow interactivity (discussed below) and help manage files. Thus, a reader may be allowed to share or lend a book, enforce time restrictions, or move a book from one company’s hardware to another.

As ebooks have moved from dedicated hardware ereaders to other devices, the software has become more important and complex. The software for computer, web, smartphones, and tablets had to provide the same experience as the dedicated ereader as well as the ability to manage files across devices. Screen quality, colors, and processing power allow the image quality needed for graphic novels and comic books, Adobe PDF documents, audiobooks, and interactive books for children and multimedia.

Comic book and graphic novel ebooks demand high-resolution images. Online origins came more from HTML (web) coding than text formats. Merging the DRM demanded by publishers with the high-quality graphics, and the need to display a logical progression of images rather than text, was not easy. These graphic format books were not possible in classic ereaders and demanded software for tablets, smartphones, computer, and web interfaces (Wilson, 2015).

Before the widespread use of smaller, lighter hardware such as tablets, notebook computers, and smartphones, PDF documents required too much memory and did not format well for smaller screens. Some smartphone software such as Foxit, allowed readers to take the text out of PDFs and “reflow” it for easier reading on the small screens. Breakthroughs came with larger touch-screen PDF software allowing readers to annotate the document on the fly by writing (pen or finger) or typing directly to the document as if it were on paper. It makes PDF documents truly feel like electronic paper—a major goal of ebooks and a popular feature for businesses as people can edit and sign documents with all the formatting of a finished commercial product.

In 1932, the tests of audio recorded books included a chapter from Hellen Keller’s book Mainstream and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (Audio Publishers Association, n.d.). These “Talking Books” from the Library of Congress were intended for the blind. The start was slow but got a push with the intraduction of the audio cassette tape in 1963 and books on tape increased popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. The company, Audible created a practical digital audio player in 1997 and joined Apple’s iTunes library in 2003. In 2008, digital downloads began to surpass CD audiobooks. Audiobook software is both dependent on the intelligence of computer technology and carefully crafted to provide the same experience across platforms, so the iOS version and the Android version looks and operates similarly.

Hardware

In some cases, ebooks have been simply a companion product or feature to a technology. In others, ebooks are the killer app or primary reason to buy a product. The first handheld devices for ebooks were a flurry of personal digital assistants (PDA). As a precursor to the modern smartphone, these devices were meant to be used to store appointment, contacts, and other data. But optional apps became available. Apple entered first in 1993 with it short-lived Newton followed by Palm Pilot in 1996 and the Microsoft Reader in 2000. The handheld devices allowed the user to both read material and write on something about the size of the modern smartphone.

The most visible ebook hardware is the ereader with E-Ink. E-Ink is a form of electronic paper (Primozic, 2015) that was featured with the Kindle in 2007 (Wagner, 2011). The black and white screens on Kindles mimic paper’s reflective property. Since they reflect light rather than produce it (the way a television or computer screen does), the ereader can operate with much longer battery life. E-Ink uses pixels (picture elements) made up of the clear solution with negatively charged dark particles and positively charged white particles. When a positive charge is placed on the top of the pixel, the negatively charged dark particles are attracted to it, and the pixel goes dark. The opposite is true with the white particles. Later, grey pixels were possible by manipulating the charge (see Figure 20.1).

Consumers’ desire for color images and capabilities beyond ereaders were answered by a group of tablet devices often built on Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS. Today, the smartphone and the tablet are quickly becoming the most popular hardware readers for ebooks (Haines, 2018).

Source: S. Dick

Organizational Infrastructure

The assumed disruptive influence of ebooks on the traditional distribution model of the industry caused publishers and distributors to change their marketing plans. The problems went beyond DRM. The first choice was to license the books rather than sell them—an important change from print. Print books are sold, and the physical book then belongs to the buyer—other than the copyright. In the U.S., the buyer can do whatever they want with that one copy under what is called the “First Sale Doctrine” (Department of Justice, n.d.). That includes selling, lending, or giving away the book. The publisher only makes money on the first sale. Licensing changes that relationship. Instead of buying the book, you are buying the right to read that book. Many current licenses allow you to “lend” or “give” it to another person but they also only get a license to read it. Licensing a book rather than selling it allows publishers to profit from more sales.

Source: Statista

The relationship between the new ebooks and traditional publishing was essential to the new marketing plans. By culling data from US Census Bureau and publishing industry reports, Statista (2017) provides enough information to understand the relationship between bookstore sales and ebook sales (see Figure 20.2) Amazon’s Kindle was introduced in 2007 and bookstore sales (including items other than books) began to drop. Between 2010 and 2013, ebook sales exploded from 29 to 242 million books while bookstore sales dropped by nearly $4 billion. There had to be discussion as to how to distribute ebooks without killing bookstores.

The ereader, specifically the Amazon Kindle, was designed for impulse purchases. While the first ereaders were connected to a computer by wire, later devices quickly adopted wireless technology—at first cell and later Wi-Fi (Pierce, 2017). The goal was to create a device that would allow a user to hear about a new title and buy it immediately. The combination of a single lightweight device that would hold many books, no need to go to the store, and the excitement of the latest technology was undeniable. The expectation was that the disruptive influence of electronic distribution was going to come to publishing, and eventually most books would be replaced by ebooks.

However, more was happening than a simple technological change. Not only were ebooks replacing traditional books but also physical bookstores were being replaced by online bookstores. Pricing was also affected as Amazon pushed for a simple standard of $9.99 for most major books. Apple was already using flat rate pricing for music sales. It seemed natural to settle on the single price. The goal was to create a system where the customer would not put much thought into the order (Pierce, 2017). Major publishers, unhappy with the payment structure forced reconsideration of the flat rate price.

Libraries face a special challenge when distributing ebooks (Meadows, 2017). Publishers, fearing revenue loss to ebooks, have been far more restrictive to libraries. Realistically, the experience is very different. To borrow a paper book from the library takes two trips to the physical location, and the book may be in poor condition (The Authors Guild, 2018). Ebooks can be borrowed online and are always in original condition. The software for online libraries can automatically “return” books, so the online library and online bookstore are nearly identical experiences other than the time of ownership (access). Publishers also worry about the security of the soft-ware—possibly allowing borrowers to obtain ebooks free of digital rights management (Meadows, 2017).

Specific online interfaces manage the borrowing processes for libraries such as OverDrive that serve many libraries and provides a dedicated ereader software for local libraries. National libraries have developed such as Project Gutenberg (https://www.gu-tenberg.org/), and The Internet Archive’s Openlibrary (https://openlibrary.org/). The OpenLibrary buys paper copies of books and acquires or creates digital copies of books. The library then loans electronic copies to match paper books it holds. This interpretation of the Fair Use Doctrine exception to Copyright Law is currently a source of dispute between the OpenLibrary, publishers, and the Authors Guild (Meadows, 2017). The outcome of this dispute will determine the rights for online libraries in the future. Google Books (not Google’s Play Store) is a hybrid model allowing users to search the contents of books. If the user finds a book she wants to read, she will be linked to locations where she can buy (Play Store) or borrow books—depending on availability.