E-book Distribution Research Articles

БІЗНЕС-МОДЕЛІ ОСНОВНИХ ГРАВЦІВ НА ПОЛІ ЦИФРОВОЇ ДИСТРИБУЦІЇ ЕЛЕКТРОННИХ КНИЖОК В УКРАЇНІ. 2011–2023

<p><em>A new field of e-book distribution has emerged and developed in Ukraine due to the impact of digital technology on the publishing industry.</em></p><p><strong><em>This research aims to</em></strong><em>: Identify the key players in the field of digital distribution of e-books by Ukrainian publishers from 2011 to 2023. Analyse and describe the value propositions and business models of digital book distribution start-ups in Ukraine.</em></p><p><strong><em>Research methodology. </em></strong><em>The study analyses the value propositions and business models of various companies operating in e-book distribution in Ukraine, using the case study method and mystery shopping. The generalisation of the data obtained as a result of the case study was achieved by using historical, analytical, synthetic and comparative methods, classification methods and a systematic approach.</em></p><p><strong><em>Results. </em></strong><em>Thirteen players were found to be active in e-book distribution between 2011 and 2023 (seven entered the market in 2011</em><em>–</em><em>2018 and another six in 2019</em><em>–</em><em>2023), with three platforms closing in the last five years. Of the ten active players, six specialise in e-book sales with a «digital only» business model (Booxters, Booknet, Chytanka, Librarius, Pocketbook) and four are online bookstores with an omnichannel business model, selling both print books and e-books (Yakaboo, KnigoLand, Knygarnya «E», Nash format). The main business model for all players in e-book distribution is direct sales, although distributors are increasingly adopting combined business models (direct sales plus subscription). A positive trend is the implementation in the field of digital distribution of e-books in Ukraine of business models that are popular in foreign digital publishing, in particular, self-publishing (Booknet) and e-book lending (Librarius). Important for the development of Ukrainian digital book production and sales is the focus of distributors on ensuring closed access and strict protection of book content against piracy sharing.</em></p><p><strong><em>The novelty </em></strong><em>lies in the development of a chronological list of the main players who have worked (or are working) in the field of digital distribution of Ukrainian e-books; identifying their business models and analysing their value propositions: e-book formats, types of access to content and ways of protecting content.</em></p><p><strong><em>Practical significant</em></strong><em>. The results of this research will be used in lectures for students of the educational program «Publishing and editing» in Ukrainian universities, and will also draw the attention of the publishing community to the problems of the development of digital book publishing.</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words</em></strong><em>: bookselling, business models, digital distribution, digital book publishing, e-book, field of digital distribution, omnichannel.</em></p>

Pemberdayaan Peningkatan Sadar Wisata Pelabuhan Melalui Konsep Ekonomi Biru dan Orientasi Potensi Lokal

Indonesia's most potential is as a maritime country and is known as a maritime country. So that maritime, marine, beach and coastal development is used as superior tourism. As in Probolinggo City is an area that has a maritime area. Probolinggo City has Tanjung Copper Port and Mayangan Beach Fishing Port with superior potential for various marine and fishery products. organizing Empowerment to Increase Port Tourism Awareness in the Probolinggo City Port Complex with the Concept of Blue Economy and Oriented to Local Potential aimed at Probolinggo City students. So that as part of academics and the millennial generation, they are more sensitive to the environment, especially to the existence of local tourism and are active in recognizing the relevance of tourism development in the Probolinggo City Complex with the concept of blue economy and optimizing local potential. This activity was held in the form of empowerment with pre-test activities, lectures accompanied by discussions, post tests, and post-activity e-book distribution. It is known that initially many partners did not know and lacked information related to Port Tourism Awareness with the Concept of Blue Economy and Oriented to Local Potential changed after the activity was held. As a result, all partners understand Port Tourism Awareness with the Concept of Blue Economy and Oriented to Local Potential in the Probolinggo City Port Complex.

The relationship between university presses, e-book vendors, and academic libraries: A platform theory analysis

University presses, as one of the major content providers in the scholarly e-book market, especially in humanities and social sciences (HSS), play a critical role in the production and distribution of new knowledge and culture. We investigate the relations among university presses, academic libraries, and e-book vendors, by examining university presses’ perceptions of academic libraries and e-book vendors, and presses’ perceptions of themselves and the university press community. Findings are drawn from one-on-one interviews with 19 participants from 18 different university presses in the United States during 2020–2021. We observe a market structure for HSS e-books where most presses were satisfied with Big Four e-book vendors, including Project MUSE, EBSCO, ProQuest, and JSTOR, and lacked strong incentives to search for new e-book vendors. We find that most presses often treat libraries, including the one from the same institution, as their customers with limited interactions; findings also show university presses’ varied self-imaging, along with a shared perception about the collegiality of the university press community. We then explore the question of why the market is dominated by the Big Four through the theoretical lens developed in platform literature, and further examine the factors contributing to the low communication between university presses and academic libraries related to e-book distribution.

Sale of e-books and audiobooks in Ukraine

The research examines the functioning of e-book and audiobook aggregators in Ukraine’s modern publishing market. The development of e-books is crucial for the industry in conditions where the publication of printed material is significantly complicated or sometimes impossible due to war. Previous studies by M. Zhenchenko have already shed light on many aspects of digital distribution in Ukraine (2013, 2015, 2018), but the number of participants has significantly increased since then, which prompts the consideration of new market players. Aggregator services are the primary suppliers of e-books from various publishers. The research covers 23 such services operating as of the beginning of 2023, identifying common trends in their operations and reviewing the platforms they utilize. The aim of the study is to find and analyze data on active participants in digital distribution in Ukraine’s publishing market and identify common trends and principles of their work. To achieve this goal, general scientific research methods were employed, including observation, synthesis, analysis, and classification. The article provides data on the state and dynamics of the digital publication market in Ukraine. Its findings can serve as a source of information for future research and contribute to enhancing the user experience in purchasing e-books. The market for digital publications in Ukraine is gradually growing. The number of aggregator services and publishers that sell e-books has increased significantly over the past few years, and their technical capabilities allow users to access content on various offline and online devices. Within the framework of the study, general trends and principles of the functioning of digital publication aggregator services were revealed. Further research on the distribution of e-books and audiobooks will be updated with the appearance of new digital publication aggregator services and digital publishing projects in Ukraine in general, with the development of methods of access to digital content and payment.

PERLINDUNGAN HAK EKONOMI PENCIPTA E-BOOK PADA SITUS BUKU GRATIS MERESPON PERKEMBANGAN HUKUM INFORMATIKA DAN TRANSAKSI ELEKTRONIK

The purpose of this research is: 1) To find out and analyze the protection of the economic rights of the creators of e-books on free book sites in response to the development of informatics law and electronic transactions. 2) To find out and analyze dispute resolution violations of the economic rights of e-book creators on free book sites in response to developments in informatics law and electronic transactions. The research method used in this study is normative juridical research that takes a qualitative approach that looks at and analyzes the legal norms in existing laws and regulations and sociological research is complementary data as primary data. The results of this study are: 1) Protection of the economic rights of e-book creators on free book sites in response to the development of informatics law and electronic transactions, related to the protection of creators' economic rights in accordance with the Copyright Law that an e-book is a copyrighted work produced by the creator, so in this case the creator has a part of the exclusive rights in the form of economic rights from the results of the e-book, the economic rights are protected by Article 8 and Article 9 of the Copyright Law on Economic Rights. While the ITE Law provides the protection of the creator's economic rights in terms of electronic transactions, because of the nature of the distribution of e-books using electronic media, where the legal electronic media is included in the realm of the ITE Law. 2) Settlement of disputes on economic violations of e-book creators on free book sites in response to developments in informatics law and electronic transactions, namely through voluntary mediation carried out by parties outside the court in settling disputes over copyright infringement e-books in the realm of civil law.

Impact of Digital Distribution in the Publishing Market: A Synthetic Control Approach

Digitization has dramatically transformed the landscape of content distribution. Yet, little is known about the disruption caused by digitization in one of the most important content products: books. In particular, there has been scant research on how ebooks influence the existing print channel, especially in non-US markets. The goal of the current study is to fill this gap and provide a comprehensive understanding of the economic impacts of the ebook channel on the print book channel. We argue that in less mature ebook markets, consumers may not have yet developed clear preferences with respect to the new digital channel vis-a-vis the existing print channel, thereby resulting in a lesser degree of segmentation. This in turn can lead to more severe cross-channel competition and cannibalization by the ebook channel, compared to mature ebook markets. Specifically, we address the following research questions: (1) Does the introduction of an ebook cannibalize the sales of its print version? and (2) If so, is the degree of cannibalization affected by ebook distribution strategies (i.e., ebook discount rates and ebook release timing) and book characteristics (i.e., the number of pages and reading time)? By employing the synthetic control approach to analyze actual sales and revenue data obtained from a large book retailer, we found that, on average, an ebook release decreases weekly print sales by 1.34%. Interestingly, the total dollar revenue, including both print books and ebooks, slightly increases after an ebook release, indicating that the additional revenue from the new ebook demand outweighs the loss of print book revenue due to cannibalization. We also found that 1) a higher discount rate for an ebook has no statistically significant impact on the degree of cannibalization, while delaying ebook releases mitigates the cannibalization effect; and 2) books with a longer reading time tend to experience more severe cannibalization, whereas the number of pages does not influence the degree of cannibalization. Our findings are robust to a series of sensitivity analyses. The contributions and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Mapping of E-books in Science & Technology: An Analytical Study of Directory of Open Access Books

A detailed study of e-books in Science and Technology indexed in Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) till May 15, 2016 is presented. Open access publishers, licenses and language-wise distribution of e-books indexed in DOAB is examined. The data collected only on the subjects listed in DDC-23 under Science and Technology domain. The results depicts that there are 1052 e-books indexed in Science and Technology in DOAB. The collection includes e-books that are both made-digital and born digital. Maximum books are on health sciences and published in English only. Mostly e-books have creative commons license. Moreover, Frontier Media SA is the most active open access e-book publisher. The study shall be helpful to library and information professionals as well as open access publishers.

A Study on the Current Status and Improvement Plans of ICT Education for Elementary and Secondary Schools in Korea

The purpose of this paper is to present the current status and development plans of ICT education in Korea. So far Korean government has emphasized ICT education since 2000. In this paper, first of all, the basic concepts and areas of ICT education are introduced. Then, current status of ICT education is discussed in terms of ICT literacy and application education. Also, the current status of ICT education for 5 IT advanced countries are introduced. After the current status analysis, various development plans are presented. Those plans include provision of mandatory independent ICT courses, reformation of laws and regulations, development of index on ICT use in education, enforcement of coding education, development of ICT literacy and application index, development of smart education index, development and distribution of e-books, etc.

The case of the e-book in "small language" culture: media technology and the digital society

The article describes a research project conducted in Sweden and its initial base-line results that were produced by investigating statistical data from general statistical sources, representative surveys of the Swedish population, and from public and academic libraries. The project looks into the change introduced into the book sector by e-books. Sweden was chosen as a special case – a country with a high literacy level and high penetration of information technology into everyday life of people. At the same time, the spread of e-books is at the very start and it seems that the diffusion of e-books, their production, distribution and use are affected by the problems characteristic of a typical small publishing markets. The authors present the goals of the project and the theoretical framework. The data were collected in 2012 and demonstrate the relatively low scale of e-book publishing and use. Libraries emerge as the main channel of access to e-books for readers. The usual problems of e-book production and distribution that are visible in other countries are observed in Sweden as well: e-books legally are not books, but services of licensed software and thus excluded from the privileges enjoyed by paper books; readers demand more e-books but are not ready to pay for them the same price as for traditional books and prefer to acquire them through free channels. Publishers seek to maintain the monopoly of e-book distribution and fear piracy. Libraries lose independence of acquisition and collection management. The choice of e-books by readers is determined by access to technology, age and education as well as reading habits. KEYWORDS: digital books, Sweden, publishing industry, reading, book distribution, libraries

Library Publishing is Special: Selection and Eligibility in Library Publishing

Traditional publishing is based on ownership, commerce, paid exchanges, and scholarship as a commodity, while library activities are based on a service model of sharing resources and free exchange. I believe library publishing should be based on those values and should not duplicate or emulate traditional publishing. University presses have mixed views of library publishing, and libraries should not adopt those attitudes. Library publishers are not gatekeepers; their mission is dissemination. Libraries need to publish because traditional publishing suffers from high rejection rates, required surrender of intellectual property, long production schedules, high cost of products, and limited dissemination. Nebraska’s Zea Books is a response to these needs. Miscellaneous advice for library publishers is offered and selection and eligibility criteria are outlined. A suggestion is made for a cooperative ebook distribution network.

A RESPONSE TO FORCEHIMES' ‘DOWNLOAD THIS ESSAY: A DEFENCE OF STEALING EBOOKS’

Forcehimes argues that any argument concerning copyright law which favours the existence of public libraries will necessarily also justify the downloading of ebooks without the copyright owners’ authorisation. As the justification for copyright protection is an economic one, it is submitted that, economically, there is a material difference between permitting public libraries making physical books available and allowing such online distribution of ebooks. Prohibiting the online distribution of ebooks without the copyright holders' consent, while permitting access to physical books via public libraries, is a policy which, at present, is consistent with the rationale for copyright protection.

THE CASE OF THE E-BOOK IN “SMALL LANGUAGE” CULTURE: MEDIA TECHNOLOGY AND THE DIGITAL SOCIETY

The article describes a research project conducted in Sweden and its initial base-line results that were produced by investigating statistical data from general statistical sources, representative surveys of the Swedish population, and from public and academic libraries. The project looks into the change introduced into the book sector by e-books. Sweden was chosen as a special case – a country with a high literacy level and high penetration of information technology into everyday life of people. At the same time, the spread of e-books is at the very start and it seems that the diffusion of e-books, their production, distribution and use are affected by the problems characteristic of a typical small publishing markets.The authors present the goals of the project and the theoretical framework. The data were collected in 2012 and demonstrate the relatively low scale of e-book publishing and use. Libraries emerge as the main channel of access to e-books for readers. The usual problems of e-book production and distribution that are visible in other countries are observed in Sweden as well: e-books legally are not books, but services of licensed software and thus excluded from the privileges enjoyed by paper books; readers demand more e-books but are not ready to pay for them the same price as for traditional books and prefer to acquire them through free channels. Publishers seek to maintain the monopoly of e-book distribution and fear piracy. Libraries lose independence of acquisition and collection management. The choice of e-books by readers is determined by access to technology, age and education as well as reading habits.KEYWORDS: digital books, Sweden, publishing industry, reading, book distribution, libraries

Looking Back at 2010: The Book Industry in Germany Still Trying to Find Its Way into Digitization

In her report about the German publishing industry in 2010, Veronika Licher shows some of the trends and different stages of digital development. She mentions how different players like the German Publishers and Booksellers Association or book wholesalers changed direction or added new services to adapt to the changing market and how e-book distribution is working its way through traditional and new channels. A short review of the bestselling titles in 2010 and the development in children’s publishing follows as well as an introduction how German publishers are trying to make use of the new reading pens.

The Impact of Ebook Distribution on Print Sales: Analysis of a Natural Experiment

Digital distribution channels introduce many new strategic questions for the creative industries, notably how the use of new digital distribution channels will impact sales in established channels. We analyze this question in the context of ebook and hardcover sales by exploiting a natural experiment that exogenously delayed the release of a publisher’s new Kindle ebooks in April and May 2010. Using new books released in March and June 2010 as the control group, we find that delaying ebook availability results in a 43.4% decrease in ebook sales and no increase in print sales on Amazon.com or other retailers. We also find that the decrease in ebook sales is more severe for books with less pre-release buzz. Together our results suggest that consumers are strongly tied to their chosen consumption format and channel, meaning that delaying digital releases is unlikely to be effective at sustaining sales in established physical channels.

Electronic Books (E-books): Current Trends and Future Directions

As a greater number of electronic resources becomes available, retrieving relevant and authoritative information has become progressively more challenging and time consuming. Locating relevant information in a timely manner is critical for both the researcher and the information professional. Electronic books (eBooks) are one way to enhance the digital library with global 24-hours-a-day and 7-days-a-week access to authoritative information, and they enable users to quickly retrieve and access specific research material easily, quickly, and effectively. It is crucial to not only provide these electronic resources, but to integrate them into library systems to streamline library operations, as well as promote user adoption. As an eBook provider, netLibrary, a division of OCLC, Online Computer Library Center, has been involved in the selection, cataloguing, and distribution of eBooks. Library users are able to remotely search, locate, and checkout eBooks from the library’s online public access catalogs (OPACs). As with any new opportunity, new challenges emerge and utilising the internet to deliver book content is no exception. Integrating eBooks into the digital library has created challenges and opportunities for librarians, publishers, and eBooks providers. http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dbit.23.1.3585

ENGLISH

As a greater number of electronic resources becomes available, retrieving relevant and authoritative information has become progressively more challenging and time consuming. Locating relevant information in a timely manner is critical for both the researcher and the information professional. Electronic books (eBooks) are one way to enhance the digital library with global 24-hours-a-day and 7-days-a-week access to authoritative information, and they enable users to quickly retrieve and access specific research material easily, quickly, and effectively. It is crucial to not only provide these electronic resources, but to integrate them into library systems to streamline library operations, as well as promote user adoption. As an eBook provider, netLibrary, a division of OCLC, Online Computer Library Center, has been involved in the selection, cataloguing, and distribution of eBooks. Library users are able to remotely search, locate, and checkout eBooks from the library’s online public access catalogs (OPACs). As with any new opportunity, new challenges emerge and utilising the internet to deliver book content is no exception. Integrating eBooks into the digital library has created challenges and opportunities for librarians, publishers, and eBooks providers.

The Host with the Most: eBook Distribution to Libraries

The Host with the Most: eBook Distribution to Libraries