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As I mentioned in my previous post, at the Frankfurt Book Fair two weeks ago Ebooks were certainly the buzzword. Interestingly enough, whilst everyone is talking about Ebooks, there are as of yet few (if any) sustainable (let alone profit-making) publishing models for Ebooks. However, experiments are increasingly being conducted. This has led to the rise of so-called ‘publishing platforms’, which serve as facilitators for these kinds of Ebook publishing experiments. There are a few eager entrepreneurs that have surfaced lately and sensed the value they could add to the publishing value chain (whilst of course also hoping for some profit for themselves along the way).
One of these publishing platforms is Tizra, which calls itself an epublishing service provider. Tizra offers a publishing platform, web-based, which can be used for the presenting, organizing, selling, distributing and marketing of Ebooks and similar content online. One of their biggest customers is MIT press. Where Tizra offers its platform, publishers keep complete control of the websites hosted by the platform. Last September The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) announced a cooperative venture with Tizra, through which AAUP members would be eligible for a discounted access to the platform. In this respect the platform offers the technical resources, or better said, the software, whilst the publishers add the content, offering the ability to small presses to move into Ebook publishing. As the AAUP states:
“Tizra’s service is affordable for small presses, and scales to handle large content collections and extensive customization, meeting the range of needs of our AAUP membership.”
With its service Tizra hopes to stimulate experiments with bringing Ebook content online. This is exactly what Impelsys, which offers ‘electronic content delivery solutions’ also states to do with their iPublishCentral platform. I visited the presentation on their platform during the Frankfurt Book Fair on Thursday. As with Tizra, publishers of all sizes can use the basic features of the iPublishCentral platform for free to promote their Ebook content online. Impelsys also offers marketing widgets to publishers to promote their content on for instance social networking sites. As Impelsys states:
“Publishers can now digitize and monetize their printed books without the burden of a lengthy development cycle or the hefty costs of traditional online publishing and infrastructure.”
Impelsys clearly states that there are not enough experiments being done with Ebooks at the moment. Therefore the iPublishCentral platform should stimulate experiments with different business models. 
For what I could find on their websites and on the web, revenue to maintain the platforms is created by both service providers in different ways. Businesses using the Tizra service pay usage fees, as well as a share of online revenue. With Impelsys the publishers pay for added services and advanced functionalities.
The rise of these kind of businesses or service platforms is very interesting, not only because of the services they offer but also because they seem to be a sign of the growing trust in the sustainability and even profit making capabilities of Ebook content. Next to that they could also serve as facilitators for new Open Access initiatives of small publishers or even of libraries or academic groups and organizations. Let’s see what kind of experiments these kind of platforms will host in the future. I for one will keep a close eye on their development. Any tips on other likewise initiatives or platforms, let me know!
As I visited the Frankfurt Book Fair last week, Ebooks and Ebook services seemed to be omnipresent. From E-readers to E-publishing experiments and from POD and software services to E-braries, the publishing value chain finally seems to have lost its fear when it comes to the embracing of the Ebook. This has lead to the rise of new digital service and platform providers, which I will reflect upon in a later post.
The opening speeches of the book fair can now be found online here. Two of them, one by Prof. Dr. Gottfried Honnefelder, the Director of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association and one by the famous Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, specifically talked about Ebooks. Interestingly enough, both of them see it as inevitable that in the future digital book content will be available for free. As Professor Honnefelder states:
“The existing business model doesn’t apply any longer. The publishers, who have worked with digital content for some time now, know this of course. The others have to learn how to handle it and accept that “Open Access” prevails time and again, and that Internet users don’t have any patience when the “free flow of information” runs into walls. A development towards this new openness is the future job of publishers and bookstores. In doing so, one must be ready to adopt new financial and publishing models and not always insist on copy being paid for. We are talking about new book-minded financial models which reward the publishers’ work in new, perhaps indirect ways. “
Paulo Coelho envisions a similar future:
“There’s an important element to this which most people are not fully aware of: people are sharing what they deem pertinent in a free way and they expect the same thing to occur in all systems of mass communication. (…) Yet, given that books as media are still widely used, why not share the whole digital content of books for free? Contrary to what common sense tells us – and common sense is not always a good guide, otherwise publishers, booksellers and writers would probably be doing something more profitable – the more you give, the more you gain.”
However, although Honnefelder thinks free will eventually prevail, he does seem to be afraid of the exploitment of online digital content, fearing piracy and copyright infringements:
“Education, knowledge, content – these are the resources of a modern society. But how do we keep it this way? These resources must be protected! Anyone who steals a book out of a bookstore can expect consequences. Why should there be different laws on the Internet? Simply because this book is not printed on paper and bound?”
On the other hand, Paulo Coelho (or his alter ego “The Pirate Coelho”), sees more creative (and economic) possibilities in the sharing of content and information on the net:
“Yet, there are still two problems to tackle: copyrights and the sustainability of the publishing industry. I don’t have a solution, but we are facing a new era, so either we adapt or we die. However, I did not come here to share solutions, but my own experience as an author. Of course, I make a living out of my copyrights, but at this very moment I am not concentrating on this. I have to adapt myself. Not only by connecting more directly with my readers – something unthinkable a few years ago – but also by developing a new language, Internet-based, that will be the language of the future: direct, simple, without being superficial. Time will tell me how to recover the money I myself am investing alone in my social communities. But I am investing in something for which every single writer in the world would be grateful: to have his texts read by a maximum of people (…) The Internet has taught me this: don’t be afraid of sharing your ideas. Don’t be afraid of engaging others to voice their ideas. And more importantly, don’t presume who is and who is not a creator – because we all are.
This discussion clearly reflects how important it is to think about new ways to create revenue from free and in this respect the book business has a chance to create a progressive system, learning from the experience of the other digitized media (music, film). Before giving pirates the overhand, we should try to create a system that creates value of and that benefits from free, at least we should strive to do so. At least to me this seems better than fighting a movement that claims to follow the main mechanism of the Internet, based on the free sharing of information, and in this respect has already won beforehand.
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