Scenario 2 - E-books for Niches
2007
E-book industry seems to be stagnant and the general public is not really interested in e-books. Launches of new e-book readers, e-libraries and web shops will not increase the general interest. People still stick to their way of reading a paper-book - because it is more comfortable compared to digital ones.
Wikipedia and Penguin (Novell Wikipedia) start to become known to people but there is not much attraction to them in writing a book together.
2008
Newly developed e-book readers are used only by small group of early adopters, but they are not able to convince the rest of the public to start reading e-books.
E-book reader manufactures and publishers are starting to consider whether to stay in the business or not.
Because of the stagnating market on e-books DRM is being pushed into the market to protect their sales.
On the one side, e-books and e-readers are still expensive compared to paper-books. On the other hand, lots of people - especially young people - are against DRM, which prevents them from sharing to friends or just changing a reading device. Curiously, young people are exactly those who could become the most avid and prominent users and readers of e-books.
2010
Book publishers realize that some e-books sell better than the others, and some books doesn’t sell at all. They conduct several market surveys to find out, what the readers really want and what they don’t. Publishers find out that there is no sense even to try to publish all books in electronical format, and they start to focus to publish books for smaller potential groups. More and more people have a cracked version for DRM to be able to read the books with out the limitations of the DRM.
Publishers come up with rules of what can be done with their books and how the ownership is done. The first book rule ‘A consumer may lend a book but the publisher keeps the right to change or update a book and has the right to prevent a consumer from reading the book after a specific period of time’.
More and more individuals are willing to contribute their own knowledge or text through internet combined by some specific website like Wiki and youtube, but people do not make money through their contribution.
Writers platforms like Wikipedia pop up more and more and new versions come up making it easy for people to collaborate in writing book. Although it becomes more popular it is still something that stays in the niches. People like to read these collaborated e-books but don’t write them themselves.
2012
Governments are trying to encourage libraries and educational institutions to get more e-books available, but due to the low interest and high costs, libraries finally stop renting e-books and they are not used for educational purposes at schools. The e-book readers are well developed, but they cost around $300-400 and that’s why they are not affordable to everybody. . Due to the cracking problems, DRM is abandod by publishers and the e-books are sold under a common license
On the Internet, small groups of active readers have become also active writers. Alone or together with the other literature fans, people can write and publish their own books online, and which the other readers can rate or write own versions to continue or change the story. In 2012, the first collaborative book is published.
Amazon promotes these collaborative writing project to create a new supply chain, buying various self published books or fraction and selling them in combination of consumers’ own choices.This is a double-win way that not only contributer can make money through their creation but also the readers have freedom to choose the book they truly want. Additionally, Amazon gets great profit and success through this business model.
2015
Highly graded books on the collaborative websites can be ordered from the publisher directly or printed out by the readers, on the printing machines offered by publisher in public places such as libraries, schools etc.
The value chain of the publisher will change in the way that publishers will now review and print high valued books from different online communities. These books will receive an ISBN number, which is not the case with the single published books.
2017
Only few e-book publishers and e-book readers have survived and they are doing reasonable well by concentrating on niches. The rest of the public still prefer traditional printed books, and won’t be willing to start reading e-books in the future either, due to the high price and the lowa availability of e-books. In order to be able the find new niches in the market e-publishers are copying the business model of Amazon.It is unreasonable for thousands of people to write one friction, however it is possible to people to contribute to the same academic discipline. Finally this business model find a niche in educational and technology books where knowledge created by different people and readers can buy books based on their own need and knowledge structure.
The active e-book readers has own societies and clubs, but printed books still remain as a first choice for the most of the readers. Number of unique books has become high as a result of collaborative writing.
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