The Bookseller.com

10th October 2008

Philip Jones is the managing editor of theBookseller.com. He will blog with links and comment about the book business.

A question of format

23.04.08

PA chief executive Simon Juden's speech at the Publishers Association a.g.m. was timely. Juden called on the industry to resolve the problem of differing e-book formats: namely the Kindle and the Sony e-Reader.

In the past few weeks trade publishers have been falling over themselves to get in on the e-book act. Penguin, Random House Macmillan, HarperCollins and even Harlequin have all made announcements: yet the elephant not in the room in many of these pronouncements is, of course, the format.

Penguin is using the .epub format, a format already adopted by Hachette Group USA. HarperCollins is expected to go the same route. I am not yet clear what format either Macmillan or Random House are using, but with the weight behind .epub massing, my guess is that this will now become the universally adopted format for most publishers.

Yet it is not immediately apparent who can read the .epub format, the latest version of the Sony Reader (505) seems like a safe bet, yet the word on the web isn't clear. When I asked Penguin about this they didn't know how many actual real life readers would be able to download their e-books on actual e-book readers. Maybe this doesn't matter. Maybe the market is so nascent it's impossible to measure in advance. But I figure that if I was making the kind of investment these publishers are planning on making, I'd like to know the audience size.

Of course some of this may be bluff. Everyone seems to know that Sony is coming to the UK market this year (and even who the booksellers are who will be stocking it), while everyone is speculating that Kindle is coming too.

One thing that is clear, is that Kindle does not support the .epub format and isn't likely to any time soon.

My guess is the UK publishers are banking on the Sony e-book reader arriving first in the UK and building up a head of steam in advance of a Kindle launch.

There may be a collective strategy about this: no-one—least of all Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan or Random House—wants to see Amazon in possession of the dominant e-book device, and by consequence become the only e-book retailer.

Widespread adoption of the Sony device would allow industry players from Waterstone's to Penguin a slice of the e-book pie. Yet they'd better get their acts together fast. Amazon lists more than 40,000 Kindle Edition fiction titles on its site; Sony's ebook cupboard, by contrast looks meagre.

As past and recent history shows the clash between competing formats does not always run smooth--or as expected. "It's my personal view that this is not beneficial to the customer, the content provider or the publisher," said Juden. But it is likely that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the one who really needs convincing.

Incidentally, and I'm not making this up, the current 'hot' discussion about .epub concerns whether it should be .epub, ePub or, ePUB. Maybe they should ask: what would Bezos do?

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There's a fantastic follow-up blog on this from David Rothman at TeleRead (already linked to above). Rothman helps to clarify one thing: "I'd welcome an up-to-the-minute statement from Sony assuring us that, no ifs or buts, it's still planinng ePub for the DE upgrade set for the Sony Reader. That would help Sony by pre-empting the Amazon Kindle . . ."
I share David's view that with publishers in the UK opting for the ePub route (and I'm assuming they are doing this because they know something I can only suspect), both Sony and the International Digital Publishing Forum have a huge opportunity to push the ePub format centre stage.

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