Apple is tempting authors with an easy-to-publish book platform. But as an author I would be stupid to take their offer.

I have for the last couple of years worked on a book about Cambodia. As a former Asia correspondent for the largest Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten, I have had a particular interest in the Far East. Among all the Asia countries Cambodia has intrigued me the most, especially how extremely friendly people are despite the brutal and violent political history of the country.

I have almost finished a manuscript describing how the brutal political history of the South East Asia country has influenced the life of even young Khmers born after the Pol Pot year. Now I face the question of how I should publish the book after the last few pages have been written.

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As a paper book primarily?  I could. And that is also what I planned.  But the highly regulated – and very small – Norwegian book market  make my income on this option marginal. I may get some recognition, of course, but with such a niche topic as contemporary Cambodia there is no way I will make even close to my normal salary in royalties for selling the book.

Should I forget about being published in the print format – and instead focus only on the ebook market, then?  I may not get more income, but format and its possibilities are exciting and the book might end up getting a bigger audience. It sounds like a good idea, except that ebooks have not really taken off in the small Norwegian market, one reason being that the big publishing houses pretty much have cooperated in making sure ebooks have not been a big success so far.

Now Apple offers its iBooks Author App – promising that everyone can make amazing multi-touch ebooks for iPad.

It sounds exciting!  I would love to take my manuscript, mix it with some of my best photographs from Cambodia and design an amazing book, hopefully both giving a great reading and visual experience at the same time. And the iPad is a great platform to read books (except in daylight, that is).

But I will not do it.

Because there is a catch.

It is hidden in the terms of use:

 If your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or
service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

It stinks!

So Apple wants me to spend months writing a manuscript, taking photographs and putting it all into a coherent story. Then I will spend a few hours (remember it is SO EASY!), maybe days if I am really getting into it, creating a great ebook using their tool. In return they want more or less full ownership of my work!

I can accept that I will give Apple 30 % of my income selling the ebook through their iBooks app. Afterall I only get to keep about 15 % when I publish a paperbook through a Norwegian publishing house.

But give me even one reason why I should accept that Apple limits my chances of distributing my work on other platforms than the ones controlled by them?

For me it is the opposite way around: If I choose the ebook route I want my work to be published on all available platforms there is. There are three reasons for that:

• It maximizes my profit. People use different platforms and I want as wide distribution as possible.
• Many people today use several devices during the day to access the same content. That’s why I love the Kindle platform for books. Many times I have found myself starting reading the book on the Kindle ereader, then continuing on the Kindle app on iPad before I read on in a bar at night on my Android-powered smartphone. It all syncronizes perferctly across devices and platforms.
• I want to learn as much as possible about how people use my content. There is little learning in only publishing on one device

For more on the license agreement I recommend you to read Ed Bott in ZD Net:  Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement.  For a wider perspective I recommmend Thomas Baekdal: Lies, Damned Lies and Ebooks.

As I look at it Apple is basically providing me with two things:

• An easy-to-use production tool for iBook.
• A distribution platform for selling the book through iPad and iBook.

The production tool is supposedly free (provided that I have a Mac, which I do not have). But in fact they are charging me an extremely high price by trying to take full ownership of my work.  I don’t know of any other seller of a production tool using this business model.  Do you?

For the distribution platform I am asked to pay 30 % of the revenue.  This is a fairly common business model for selling goods and services.

So what do I do?

For sure: Although I would love to, I don’t dare to use the new Author App from Apple. I have spent so much time struggling over my manuscript – and I have still weeks to go. There is no way I will risk the right to do whatever I want with my own content just for the right to use a convenient – and I am sure also very elegant – production tool.

So I will look for other ways to make elegant ebooks. It may take me some more hours, and the end-result may not be as perfect. But I will be in control myself. And I will hopefully reach more readers, not only on Apple’s devices.

In the meantime I will not be surprised if Apple provides a “broader” and more author-friendly interpretation of the terms of use.

I think they have to. I am not the only author around.

What is your opinion?

I love reading books – and when it is time for vacation it becomes a major pleasure. But rarely do I now read books in my own language: Norwegian. The reason is simple: Only a few of them are available for e-readers!

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In analyzing digital media trends, I strongly believe in the following statement: If it can be digitalized, it will.

This is true for all media formats: Films, music, games, news, radio, TV, magazines, books, etc.  The analog formats are loosing, while the digital versions are taking over. In some markets there is a revolution, in other markets we are only seeing a slow evolution – step by step. But the direction is unmistakingly the same: Physical media products, like DVD, newspapers and paper books, will eventually disappear or become irrelevant.

As the smart Danish blogger Thomas Baekdal writes: People want digital, so give them digital.

One piece of recent news exemplified this development in a symbolically strong way: Amazon announced that is is now selling 143 digital books for every 100 hardcover books. No exact numbers were given, and there was no mention of paperbacks. Yet it illustrates a paradigm shift in the book industry, which is now feeling the power of the digital wave.  In the US digital book sales this year (up to May) has quadrupled compared to last year, according to the Association of American Publishers.

Let me get back to my own book reading habits. For me e-reading on a high quality screen has been a revolution. I use a Kindle myself, but imagine I can get most of the same advantages on a number of different e-readers, including iPad. Advantages are plentiful:

• The reading quality is as high, or even higher, than in a paper book. Just the small detail of adjusting the font size is worth a lot.
• My e-reader is light and easy to carry around. Going to the beach? I just throw it in the backback.
• No need anymore to bring a number of heavy books on vacation. I have them all in my e-reader. And e-ink screens work great in the sunshine as well (sorry, iPad, on this particular vacation user situation you cannot compete yet.)
• I can buy new books anywhere, even on the beach. Several times I have impulsively bought books after having read the review in a newspaper.
• E-books are cheap. USD 12 for a novel! Great!
• I can continue reading my books on other devices if I prefer, such as my Android phone, iPad or even on my PC.

On vacation on the beautiful west coast of Norway I enjoy reading a great novel - in English - on my e-reader while my son is fishing.

These days  I am enjoying my summer vacation on the beautiful west coast of Norway.   I bring my e-reader with me everywhere, loaded with great novels I would love to read.

But the books are all in English! I don’t have a single book in my own language, Norwegian, on my e-reader.

In fact I have almost stopped reading books in Norwegian. I find reading books on a device like Kindle so convenient that I rarely bother about getting paper books anymore. And since hardly any books in the Norwegian language are available in digital formats, I have just stopped reading them.

It is a pity, of course. And not what I really want. But convenience tends to win when it comes to digital media habits. I choose among the books that are available rather than put on an extra effort to search for the other alternatives.

Actually everything is ready for Norwegian book publishers to be have their offering available on e-readers. The major book publishers have cooperated in setting up a technical solution at the Norwegian Book Data Base – and it is all fully developed. But so far the publishers have decided not to push the “start” button. The reasons are mainly political, as I understand it: A number of issues need to be sorted out in a tightly regulated small book market. One of them is the question of value-added tax. In Norway paper books are exempt for this tax, while digital versions are charged the full rate of 25 per cent.  That makes it difficult for book publishers to offer e-books at a significant discount.

The result is that I can not read most of the books in my own language on e-readers. And because of that I choose English language books instead. Not really a victory for Norwegian book publishers, I guess.

I realize of course that I may not be a typical customer. So far, that is. I am used to reading in English and perceive myself as rather internationally oriented in my thinking. Also I belong to the small minority in Norway who has actually purchased an e-reader device.

Yet I think this personal example, as well as the speed e-reading now is growing in the USA,  demonstrate the risk publishers take if they avoid making digital versions of their work. As the whole business is turning digital, customers are not just going to wait for you. They will go somewhere else instead. And people like myself may turn out not to be so marginal after all. There is a growing group of highly educated people in Norway who find it almost as easy to read in English as in Norwegian. Many of us also use English regurlarly in our work. And e-readers and tablets like iPad are gaining ground very quickly.

Convenience wins. If you want to be a winner in providing content, you need to be sure that you offer it in whatever way is considered most convenient by your users, be it on Kindle, iPad, iPhone or whatever other device is being preferred. Otherwise your customers, like myself, will make a quality tradeoff: Ideally I prefer Norwegian. Of course I do. But for the time being I don’t mind reading in English. And boy, am I surprised! There are so many great books available in that language! And they are so cheap! I love it!

The changes are radical also from the perspective of authors:

I am actually writing a book in Norwegian myself – about Cambodia. It will most probably be published as a paper book in Norwegian early next year. For the time being it is OK that way as e-reading is still uncommon in my country. But I am pretty sure that for the next book I might decide to write, everything will be different.

For this book I am thinking the paper version first, then whatever digital versions the publishing house might come up with next.

For the next book chances are that I will be thinking digital publishing first – with the paper book as only one of several versions. The role of my publishing house probably have changed – and my guess is that I, as the author, will be more in control. In fact I may not need a traditional publishing house at all, at least not for the whole value chain.

As a writer I look forward to that. Readers should too. There will be more choices, sophisticated and compelling reading experiences, lower prices and great convenience in where, when and how you read your “books”.

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Two completely different perspectives on the future of publishing: One is depressive, pointing out everything that is going in the wrong direction. The other perspective only sees opportunities.  Check out this inspiring video from the publishing house DorlingKindersley.

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I came across this video today and found it smart and inspiring. So I just wanted to share it as the thought embedded in it are very much in line with this blog.

Do make sure to watch the video all the way to the end!

The video was produced by publishing company DorlingKindersley. They write the following about how they came about the idea:

• At DK we have been doing a lot of thinking recently about the future and about how we are at the tipping point of how people will read and access information. It’s an exciting time and we have really enjoyed envisaging what our business may be like in 2020. From that thinking the marketing team created this short film with the help of Khaki, a video production company, that captured the way we are changing as a company and how we are really listening to the people who access our content.

Thanks to my colleague Pål Bråtelund for drawing my attention to the video.

Other bloggers about this video:

• The Viral Video The Book Publishing Industry Wants To Believe (paidcontent.org)
• The Latest Viral Video: The Future of Publishing – Clever YouTube video brings smiles to writers and publishers (becoming-a-writer-seriously.com)
• The end of the publishing industry as we know it [VIDEO] (trueslant.com)
• The Future of Publishing reversed – Dorling Kindersley’s clever video (blogs.journalism.co.uk)

These days everybody is praising iPad. I could do that too – and probably will. But let me first describe how Kindle was my perfect holiday companion this Easter.

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This Easter my family spent five days in Barcelona in Spain. It was a great vacation for everybody, with beautiful attractions, cosy restaurants, a lot of laughing and many nice experiences.

And quite a few hours of reading.

I love to read. Crime, dramas, magazines, newspapers … And when I go on vacation I have more time to read than normal. Typically I will read 2-3 novels during a week of vacation.

Before I always had to prepare my vacations carefully. I would drop by the book store in Oslo and select a few books I would like to read. And the books would certainly challenge weight limitations in my luggage.

Not anymore.

I now got my Kindle. This time I spent about 10 minutes at Amazon‘s web site a few hours before leaving – picking two books I found interesting. One-click-buy  - and they were safely distributed to my e-reader.

On my Kindle I already had my paid daily subscription to the Asia edition of International Herald Tribune. You may ask why I pay for that. Couldn’t I find the same articles on the web for free? Yes, I could. But, you see, in my daily routine I have a free half hour slot as I take the train home from work. That is the 30 minutes I have for International Herald Tribune – and Kindle is able to provide Unique Convenience by offering me that content in that particular situation.

Back to my vacation in Barcelona. How did I use my Kindle?

• I read crime novels on the plane going back and forth
• I read for hours in Barcelona. The weather was nice – and usually I was sitting in the sun light on our roof top terrace or in a cafe.
• My Kindle was always in my backpack – and I would take it out when I had a few minutes available.
• I kept track of the major international news by reading the International Herald Tribune.

I was never online during this vacation. Why not? Well, there was no wireless network in our apartment. I could have used my mobile phone to surf on the 3G, but I was of course worried about the costs. Internet cafes? No, this was family time! No room for daddy so sneak away for a web cafe

But my Kindle delivered. I read hundreds of pages, let myself be drawn into the most compelling stories, kept track of the news.  And it was all so easy and convenient.

I hear you asking: Couldn’t I have done all this on iPad?

I don’t think so. And in any case it would not have served my purpose as well.

Here is why:

• iPad is build around connectivity to the web. This vacation I did not have connection easily available.
• The e-ink screen of Kindle is far superior to any LCD screen when it comes to reading text.  You can read for hours without experiencing any eye strain. Especially this is true when you are outdoor. I don’t know about you, but for me I tend to spend as much time as possible in the sun when I am on vacation. In that situation a reflective screen as what iPad has is bad. E-ink is great, providing a reading quality on the same level as paper.
• The battery lasts forever. This is so nice on a vacation, when you tend to forget to charge all your gadgets. At least I do
• Buying a new book was done in a couple of minutes  - from my bed. No need to be connected to the web. No need to worry about 3G connection charges – it is all a part of what you pay for the book.
• My newspaper subscription was delivered to me automatically.
• Kindle seems durable – and I had no worries about throwing it in the backpack as I went around exploring Barcelona. I have a feeling I would be more worried about an iPad.

Many will of course point out that Kindle is only in black and white and does not offer any of the rich multimedia experiences of iPad. It doesn’t even have any kind of graphic presentation of the content. And that is true indeed. But still it served my purpose excellently – and proved a valuable companion on my travel.

Am I saying Kindle is better than iPad?

No, I am not.

It all depends on your specific needs.

In fact I don’t think you can compare the two. In my opinion they are really not in the same marked, as I have blogged about before. Kindle is for reading text. For that particular purpose it offers a few very unique advantages. iPad is much more a multimedia web surfing tool designed to be used in your living room. But while iPad may be great in your home, it may not necessarily work as well on vacation. And for book lovers Kindle may still be a preferred device, in particular because of the superior screen quality.

Do not misunderstand me. I am very enthusiastic about iPad and similar tablet products that will be launched in the months to come. I think these tablets offer great opportunities both for consumers and content providers. But let us not forget that user situations and needs are very different. It is not like iPad will solve any challenge users have – and in some particular situations, like vacations, it might just be inferior.

At least for me personally Kindle was a perfect travel companion this time – despite its technical limitations. And I suspect it will stay like that.

But I will probably get an iPad as well! For my home!

Numerous technology writers have called Apple’s iPad launch a Kindle killer. That may not automatically be so.

Here are some reasons why.

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Bye, bye, Kindle! Apple fans are laughing and lining up big lists of reasons why iPad will kill Amazon’s Kindle.  In my opinion that is premature. I think Amazon has a good chance of still doing very well with its Kindle platform. For books, that is!

Kindle and iPad are completely different devices. Basically they are not in the same market at all. Comparing them as if they are trying to do the same is missing the point.  Kindle is a specific book reading device designed to display text in the best possible way. iPad on the other hand is a multimedia entertainment tool to be used for a wide range of media consumption, entertainment and personal tools. Buyers of Kindle will never expect their device to do all the stuff Steve Jobs promises. They want to read books. Period. And for doing that many of them will still appreciate the e-ink screen and long battery life. My guess is that many still will find it a strain on the eyes to read a long book on iPad.

Kindle will stay much cheaper than iPad. The small Kindle is now selling at about half the price of the cheapest iPad version. I would be surprised if Amazon does not lower the price even more soon. In addition using iPad will typically involve a monthly charge for 3G connection, a cost which is included in the book purchase on Kindle.  For book lovers the much lower price will be attractive if all they want to do is to read books.

Amazon has a long and close relationship with book buyers.  For Apple books is a new business, while Amazon for a long time has been running the biggest online book shop in the world. A huge number of people are used to searching for books on Amazon and appreciate their intelligent recommendation engine and service. This relationship will not disappear overnight.

Kindle is a platform, not a device. This is the most important point, but often forgotten by experts comparing the two. Yes, Kindle is also a device, but more than anything Amazon has been building a platform for digital books. As customers you can read your books on many different devices, even the iPhone. And you will be able to read them on iPad. Steve Jobs has promised that all iPhone applications can be used also on iPad – and that will include Amazon’s nice Kindle app. Be sure that Amazon now will put every effort into making the best book reading app for iPad. And to be honest: Apple’s iBook app looked nice, but did not seem to revolutionize book reading in any way compared to the Kindle app.

I am sure Amazon will introduce new devices to the market in the next year, but probably they will not try to compete with Apple’s full range of functionalities. Likewise I don’t think the iPad use will be driven primarily by book reading, but rather by gaming, video, entertainment, personal tools and media consumption.

And even if the sales of Kindle devices drop dramatically, Amazon’s Kindle platform as such might do quite well.

Amazon does have two big challenges, though. The first is their relationship to publishers, which are not happy with the terms they have been offered. The second is the proprietory format Amazon is using. While Apple smartly has chosen the open standard format epub for its books, Amazon keeps its own format.

However, both of these challenges can be taken care of very quickly by Amazon if the company so decides. In fact I would expect both publishers’ terms to improve and Kindle opening up for epub within the next months.

That’s for books. I think Amazon has the potential of being a huge player in the e-book market for a long time still – even though I am sure they worry like hell (and should) about Apple’s launch.

For newspapers and magazines it is a different ball game, which I will write more about later.  Obviously iPad offers a superior experience for news consumption. I don’t think Kindle has a chance to be a huge platform for news. For sure many newspapers will offer their content on Kindle as well (it is quite effortless for them to do so), but iPad stands a much bigger chance to define how we will consume news in the future.

Don’t outrule e-readers with e-ink or similar technology quite yet, though. New technology is being developed fast and I am pretty sure we will see numerous of exciting devices in the next couple of years.

But so far Steve Jobs scored 1-0 for the news business. And I am incredibly curious as to how this will all play out!

———-

Not sure what to think? New York Times had its bloggers argue for both sides:

• Three reasons why the iPad WILL kill Amazon’s Kindle
  
• Three reasons why the iPad WON’T kill Amazon’s Kindle

With all the speculation about the coming Apple Tablet:  What Apple really is looking for is a new revenue stream from the publishing industry. That is the claim of Ben Kunz in this interesting video.

Apple Tablet Saves the World from Ben Kunz on Vimeo.

Ben Kunz is an expert on internet advertising trends and director of strategic planning at Mediassociates.  (Twitter: @benkunz).

I came across this interesting video on the advertising blog Thought Gadgets. It is worth looking through – and he makes some valid points about possible consequences for both the publishing and advertising industry.

For publishers the most interesting aspect of the tablet will not be the technological possibilities built into the tablet, but what type of business model Apple will present for media content. Will it be subscription based or will the products be disaggregated with the single piece of article being the core unit for sale?  How much of the revenue stream will be given to the publishers?

Ben Kunz’ thinks a major interest of Apple in launching the tablet will be to tap into the revenue streams of publishers, just like Apple did in the music industry with iPod and iPhone.

But he also points out how mobile advertising never has taken off. Every year experts have lowered their predictions for mobile advertising revenues. The reason, according to Kunz, is that mobile advertising is not working, one of the reasons being the small screens. He thinks Apple’s Tablet will create a new opportunity for mobile advertising to take off.

What do you think?

Norway’s Consumer Council warns Amazon that user terms for Kindle e-readers violate basic consumer rights. The watchdog is considering launching a formal process against Amazon, just as it did against Apple’s iTunes store.

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“Forbrukerrådet” – the Consumer Council in Norway – gained international attention when it threatened to take iTunes store before a Norwegian government agency, the Market Council, for failing to make its online store compatible with other music players than iPod. The council also criticized that iTunes without any ado could change the rights to the music you already had bought. The complaints were dropped after Apple promised that its songs would be compatible with all other MP3 players.

Now the same Consumer Council is warning Amazon that its user terms for the Kindle e-reader violate basic consumer rights. In an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten today Consumer Council representative Hans Marius Graasvold strongly criticized the user terms buyers of Kindle have to sign. He said these fundamentally violated consumer rights which in Norwegian law are considered obvious.

Here is what he considers unreasonable to consumers:

• Most important is that e-books from Amazon only can be read on their own device, Kindle. In the opinion of the Consumer Council this can be compared to how Apple locked iTunes to its own iPod devices.
• Amazon reserves itself the right to unilaterally change the user terms.
• Amazon will withdraw your books if you as a consumer violates the terms, even if you have bought and paid for the books. A similar action would be impossible to consider in the analog world.

I sat in a panel discussing e-books with Graasvold today (see a Norwegian summary of the discussion here). In his introduction he elaborated on his criticism and confirmed that the Consumer Council is considering very closely whether it should launch a formal process against Amazon, just as it did against Amazon. He also expected that the user terms would cause reactions from the European Union.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out. My own analysis is that Amazon uses the lock-in temporarily to build a strong market position. Eventually I think Amazon will be forced to open up its platform. Just imagine the reactions when hundred thousands of users loose all their purchased books just because they decide to switch to a different e-reader device.

Amazon promises “free 3G wireless” when downloading books and newspaper on the new international Kindle. But free it is not – as prices for book and newspapers are significantly higher outside USA.

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An article in PaidContent caught my attention to the issue.  As I maintain both a US and a Norwegian account at Amazon, I went to check the prices on a selection of items.

I started with a subscription to the Washington Post.

Using Kindle in the USA you are asked to pay USD 9.99 per month:

However, if you want to subscribe to Washington Post at the international version of Kindle, Amazon suddenly asks for more than twice as much = USD 23.99.

Other newspapers were the same:

• The Financial Times costs $ 9.99 per month in the US and $ 27.99 internationally
• The French newspaper Les Echos costs $14.99 in the US and $19.99 internationally
• The Times costs $9.99 in the US and $22.99 internationally
• Frankfurter Allgemeine costs $14.99 in the US and $27.99 internationally

And so it goes on. The reason for the price difference is obvious. Amazon’s mobile partner AT & T is using its international roaming agreements to deliver the newspapers and those costs are higher than using their own network in USA.

What about books?

One of Amazon’s bestselling books at the moment is Glenn Beck: Arguing with idiots.

In the USA you pay $9.99, while the price on the international edition is $11.99.

The 2 dollar price difference seems to repeat itself as the standard extra fee for distributing book on the “free 3G wireless” you get included when you buy the international editon of Kindle.

Actually the price difference should not be surprising and probably is the result of Amazon having to depend on expensive international roaming agreements. For newspapers in particular, which are distributed daily, the price difference is so big that it may actually open up a window of opportunity for local players with better agreements with mobile operators.

Amazon goes global with Kindle and launches an international version in 100 countries. This will dramatically change the e-reader market in Europe and push publishers to act. Here are some predictions.

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For some publishers it was a surprise. Others had seen it coming. But all of a sudden, well in time for the Christmas sale, Amazon presented an international version with free 3g connection for USD 279. Included is the possibility to buy from a selection of 350.000 books as well as numerous newspapers, magazines and blogs.

Although there are some local players, like Bookeen in France and Irex in the Netherlands, the e-reader market in Europe generally has been lagging compared to the USA.

The introduction of Kindle to Europe will, after the tremendous success Amazon has had with the device in the USA, change this.

Here are some of my predictions:

• There will be a rush of new devices to the market. Many manufacturers probably have planned to enter the US market first. We should expect that some of them now will put more focus on the European market trying to stop Amazon from getting as strong as it is in the US.
• Publishing and media houses will also probably proceed faster with their e-reader plans in order to position themselves in the emerging market. Many will work together trying to build a more publisher-friendly business model around e-readers.
• Expext that also mobile operators will try to get their piece of the cake, being inspired by the opportunities in offering 3G connection as part of en e-reader. Some mobile operators may offer bundles together with device manufacturers.
• Trying to build alternative business models we will see a number of different alliances between e-reader manufacturers, content providers and mobile operators. All alliances will be driven by the need to both have a huge selection of content as well as 3G connection.
• In some small-language markets Amazon may be at an disadvantage because of lack of local content. In such markets it is easier for publishers to agree not to be present on Kindle and instead choose more publisher-friendly partners. Kindle might still have a market in these countries due to the enormous supply of English-language content.
• Amazon will eventually be forced to open up its platform. Using their own proprietory technology has been a good business model for Amazon building a new market.  But readers are bound to reject it at some stage, protesting that they cannot move their Kindle books to other devices if they choose. Also readers will expect to be able to buy books from other vendors at some stage, especially if Amazon is not able to provide enough content in the local language.

For publishers and media houses the big discussion will be about business models. It is well known that Amazon only offers newspapers around 30 per cent of the subscription income. Many publishers hesitate about entering into such business arrangements, also because Amazon is said to give the publishers little control over essential parts of their product, such as design and presentation.

Of course it remains to be seen how big success Kindle will become internationally. Some argue that it will loose to the rumored Apple tablet which might be launched in a few months. Others speculate that e-readers like Kindle work well for books, but will not be preferred for newspapers and magazines.

However it might be, I am sure that today’s international launch of Kindle has introduced a whole new dynamic into this market in Europe. That will be exciting and interesting to follow for everyone involved in publishing content.

Lauren Picard, cofounder of Bookeen, is one of the veterans in the fast growing e-reader industry.
Here are some of his predictions of the major developments for e-readers in 2010.

Newspaper managers have been gathered in Paris for the second European E-reading conference. The conference was organized by the news industry organization WAN-IFRA, and focused on the opportunities for newspapers on the e-paper platform.

One interesting presentation was given by one of the founders of the French e-reader company Bookeen, Lauren Picard, who has been in the business for more than 10 years.

As many others Picard pointed out that e-paper technology now is moving fast. He expected that many major developments will take place during next year as e-reader devices are becoming a mass product.

Here is Picard’s useful list of the major expected changes that will happen in 2010:

The market will expand

• Many book stores have been selling e-reader devices. So far they have mainly been mixed with other type of goods – now we will see e-readers as a separate category of goods in the stores, making them easier to find for customres
• There will be a consolidation of content, both with regard to e-books and newspapers
• Traditional manufacturers (like Samsung or Asus) of electronic devices for other purposes will try to launch their own e-reader devices as well.
• More and more e-reader clones and white label branded devices will appear from Asia

Wireless is becoming the standard in new devices

• Most new devices will be provided with 3G connection, wi-fi or bluetooth
• Users will be able to buy and download content directly from the reader, rather than having to use an USB cable
• There will be synergies with existing hardware, for instance by applications for iPhone.
• Mobile operators will launch their own e-reader offers with their own 3G connection and subsidized hardware. Some of these operators will also launch their own content portals
• Many new devices will offer touch screen

E-paper technologies improve

• E-ink technology and the Taiwanese manufacturer Prime View International will see new competitors. So far there has been more or less a technological monopoly with the same factory producing almost all displays on the market. But by early next year we will see other plants presenting competitive technologies. This new competition will contribute to bringing down the prices of e-reader devices.
• Devices will become flexible and unbreakable.  New devices will have displays built either on plastic or by removing the glass part of the device, like Plastic Logic will be doing.
• Devices with color screen probably will not be in production until 2011.