E-book Market Research Articles

Books on Screens: Players in the Swedish E-book Market

BERGSTRÖM, ANNIKA; HÖGLUND, LARS; MACEVICIUTE, ELENA; NILSSON,SKANS KERSTI; WALLIN, BIRGITTA; WILSON, THOMAS D. BOOKS ON SCREENS:PLAYERS IN THE SWEDISH E-BOOK MARKET. GÖTEBORG: NORDICOM, 2017.238 P. ISBN 978-91-87957-69-7.

Doubly-Bound Relationship Between Publisher and Retailer: The Curious Mix of Wholesale and Agency Models

Since the time the industry for e-books transitioned from the wholesale to the agency model, several interesting observations have been made. For instance, despite its revenue-sharing approach that is supposed to be effective in addressing channel coordination issues present in wholesaling, the agency model has curiously led to higher prices and less demand in the e-book market. The main purpose of the current study is to provide insights into this curious market phenomenon by focusing on: (i) the substitutability between the printed- and e-book versions, and (ii) the interaction between the wholesale model (for printed books) and the agency model (for e-books). In this exploration, using a game-theoretic model, we discover that an increase in the agency fee that the retailer collects in the e-book market can depress the vitality of the market, which not only ends up hurting the publisher, but also the retailer. This is a telltale sign that retailers should perhaps be moderate in their effort to get a bigger cut in the agency arrangement. In addition, the complex interplay between the two parties across two retail channels is explained along with how it may lead to a counterintuitive equilibrium outcome. Some of the interesting observations from practice may, in fact, stem from a large agency fee in the e-book market. Reducing this fee can lead to a win-win outcome for both the publisher and the retailer.

Book Review: Annika Bergström, Lars Höglund, Elena Macevicuite et al. (eds)., Books on Screens: Players in the Swedish E-Book Market

Book Review: Annika Bergström, Lars Höglund, Elena Macevicuite et al. (eds)., <i>Books on Screens: Players in the Swedish E-Book Market</i>

Book Review: Books on Screens: Players in the Swedish e-book market

Books on Screens: Players in the Swedish e-Book markets, by Annika Bergström, Lars Höglund, Elena Maceviciute, Skans Kersi Nilsson, Birgitta Wallin, &amp; Thomas D. Wilson (eds.), Nordicom (2017), 238 pages.

Cannibalisation effects in the early market stage of e-books – an analysis of the German book market

ABSTRACTThe increasing demand for e-books has led to substantial changes in the book market structure and in the demand for printed books (p-books). In the early market stage, demand side cannibalisation from e-books is potentially underestimated due to two effects: (1) early adopter profiles and (2) different usage context situations for digital and physical products. In two empirical studies, we investigate cannibalisation effects as well as drivers of the cannibalisation potential between e-books and p-books related to consumer needs in different usage situations. We focus on the (early-stage) German e-book market and analyse cannibalisation effects and sources of cannibalisation potential between e-books and p-books in two studies. We do not find empirical support for a cannibalisation of p-book demand in the early market stage of e-books in Germany, even after controlling for potential biases related to early adopter profiles. However, our results indicate a significant cannibalisation potential between e-books and p-books that relates to different consumer needs in different usage situations. Our findings imply that research on cannibalisation effects could substantially benefit from analysing substitution patterns between digital media products and their physical counterparts in early market stages. By this, cannibalisation drivers can be revealed early enough, so that managers can react accordingly. We discuss implications for the early positioning of e-books to reduce potential cannibalisation of p-books.

„Homo legens” – gatunek zagrożony?

Is reading facing a crisis nowadays and is the reader an endangered species? Does the development of modern information technologies cause a decline of reading? The objective of the paper is to present the relationship between the book and the reader, the issues concerning contemporary reading, and consequently, reading culture, and the place of the reader and the book in the information society. The process of becoming a reader begins already in childhood, with one’s reading interests and habits changing in the process of psychophysical and psychosocial maturing. They normalize only in adult life. The paper also utilizes the National Library’s reports on the state of readership and on the development of the e-book market in Poland. The dynamic development of digital technologies, the electronic form of publication, and the appearance of newer and newer interfaces of e-book platforms have increased the mobility of literature in the world. In the 21st century, reading is experiencing its ups and downs; nevertheless, it has not been deprived of its significance in culture. The development of new technologies cannot negatively impact reading: conversely, this development has become a carrier of reading culture and the medium that promotes this readership.

Digital revolution in medicine: new tools in biochemistry, molecular biology, medical science, education and research

When you just think about it! The digital world has changed our lives in every way. Education, the days when teachers used chalk, dusters, and blackboards are almost at an end. Black has turned to white, in the form of interactive whiteboards. The white chalk is now digital ink Printed books. Over 92% of children in the United States carry backpacks that are typically loaded with heavy books that may set them up for spine strain rather than success. Now, those books are turning into e-books and audio books which thousands of them can be stored in a USB flash drive or cloud storage. They are versatile, searchable, portable and efficient, not to mention they are much easier on your back. Digital content has revolutionized the way people distribute and access information on virtually every platform. How medical Students Benefit from Learning with interactive e-books? What is the future for paper books and ebooks? The e-books market is growing!. The development of high-throughput, data-intensive biomedical research assays and technologies, such as DNA sequencing, imaging protocols, and wireless health monitoring devices, has created a need for researchers to develop strategies for analyzing, integrating and interpreting the massive amounts of data they generate.

Without a True North: Tactical Approaches to Self-Published Fiction

In 2007, American online retailer Amazon.com launched both the Kindle ereader device and its associated independent publishing platform Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). In the years subsequent, the integration of KDP within the Amazon retail environment dramatically altered the digital self-publishing landscape, effectively paving the way for today's vibrant - and, at times, crassly entrepreneurial - self-published fiction communities. These communities operate in a chaotic zone of production located beyond the 'knowns' of traditional publishing. In this paper, I aim to map out some of the dominant beliefs and values extolled by successful self-published fiction authors. Over time, the fiction community around these writers have enacted various tactical approaches that specifically strive to tame their chaotic marketplace, and they have occasionally succeeded. Taken as a whole, their approach is lofty, effectively aiming to further democratise publication via increasingly sophisticated virtual and translocal scenes. In the doing, these ad-hoc communities act to geographically re-centre publishing's production hubs and foreground histories and business practices seldom discussed within the traditional book industry. Yet despite their brash commercialism, these authors desire operational autonomy, stable revenue-streams and fulfilling craft-based production within a field plagued by a disparity of capital and power.

Agency Model and Wholesale Pricing: Apple versus Amazon in the E-Book Market

Apple’s choice of the agency model (i.e., Apple demands a share from the retail price set by the publishers) when entering the e-book market was surprising because: (i) the upstream firms can accrue all rents in a simultaneous move game if it determines the retail price; and (ii) the incumbent, Amazon, used wholesale pricing arrangements. This paper compares the two different contract types, pure and mixed: one retailer opts for wholesale, the other for the agency model. Departing from a standard and symmetric oligopolistic setup of Bertrand competing retailers and producers, the model accounts for retailers having (a) a significant contribution to the final value and (b) a strategic first-mover advantage. Both conditions combined are necessary (but not sufficient) in order to explain Apple’s choice and the possibility of an asymmetric equilibrium.

Welcome from the Editors

Welcome from the Editors

Legitimacy in Business Model Adaptation: An Investigation of Academic Ebook Platforms in China

The purpose of this research is to investigate the importance and influences in seeking legitimacy from the value network on adaptive business model innovation under the context of emerging market. Drawing on the institutional theory, legitimacy is believed to mitigate the uncertainty and risks in environment, and help firms to survive. However, little is known about how legitimacy generated from and lead to business model innovation from the value network approach. This paper employs the concept of legitimacy from the institutional theory as well as the value network approach to examine the adaptive business model innovation in response to exogenous threat in the context of emerging market. Based on comparative case studies on foreign firms in Chinese academic ebooks market, we find that firms required legitimacy from different players in the local value network, including regulatory authorizes, partners, customers and in some cases their parent company. The legitimacy geared adaptations are conductive to adaptive business model innovation towards defending the survive and grow in emerging market.

When There Is No Magic Bullet: An Interlocking Approach of Managing E-Books

ABSTRACTThis conference report describes the challenges arising from the growth of the e-book market and explores how a mix of proprietary and open source systems can be used to manage e-book collections. The author uses an analogy of building with Legos to evoke an interlocking approach to e-book management. The discussion addresses functionality and pain points of mainstream, commercial systems and explores the ways that open source tools can be used alongside traditional software to create a more full-featured environment.

E-book pricing and vertical restraints

This paper empirically analyzes how the use of vertical price restraints has impacted retail prices in the market for e-books. In 2010, five of the six largest publishers simultaneously adopted the agency model of book sales, allowing them to directly set retail prices. This led the Department of Justice to file suit against the publishers in 2012, the settlement of which prevents the publishers from interfering with retailers’ ability to set e-book prices. Using a unique dataset of daily e-book prices for a large sample of books across major online retailers, we exploit cross-publisher variation in the timing of the return to the wholesale model to estimate its effect on retail prices. We find that e-book prices for titles that were previously sold using the agency model decreased by 18 percent at Amazon and 8 percent at Barnes & Noble. Our results are robust to different specifications, placebo tests, and synthetic control groups. Our findings illustrate a case where upstream firms prefer to set higher retail prices than retailers and help to clarify conflicting theoretical predictions on agency versus wholesale models.

E-Books and a Principle of Technological Neutrality: Should PLR Apply to E-Lending?

Public Lending Right (PLR) and Educational Lending Right (ELR) schemes are remunerating Australian authors and publishers for making available their books in Australian libraries. However, e-books are currently not included under these schemes. With the expansion of the e-book market and e-lending services within Australian libraries, it has been suggested that the Schemes should be technologically neutral and extend to include e-books. After an extensive analysis of the technological neutrality principle, the paper concludes this principle does not pose a legal obligation to extend PLR and ELR to e-books since traditional lending and e-lending are not functionally and economically equivalent services. Nevertheless, such extension could be favourable when taking into account other economic, cultural and political circumstances.

The e-book war in Denmark

The aim is to investigate how digitisation and in particular e-books have changed relations between private players and public institutions within the Danish book world through a case study of eReolen, a private-public partnership functioning as common platform for public libraries’ lending of e-books in Denmark. Traditional and new models of the book world are discussed as the basis of understanding relations between the players. A new way of analysing the field outlined by literary sociologist, Professor Johan Svedjedal, is adopted. The main conclusions are that the lending of e-books has disrupted the traditional understanding and interaction between the public library system and the commercial book market. In addition, the Danish library system through the partnership has taken on a new function in relation to the commercial market, namely acting as the engine in building a market for Danish e-books.

Research on Chinese E-book Market and Developing Strategies

With the rapid development of digital publishing, Chinese traditional publishing industry has experienced profound changes in recent years. The development of digital publishing has not only led to the changes in the content carrier, form of expression, mode of transmission and methods of reading, but also extended the scope of the digital publishing to nearly all digital content industries. The paper firstly analyzed the current scale and competition of Chinese e-book market, and then discussed the three big bottlenecks in developing e-book market in China. Based on these analyses, it proposed that strengthening copyright protection and regulating related standards are the only ways for China to develop e-book market rapidly and healthily. In the future for a long time, Chinese book market tends to be the convergence of traditional media and new media.

Antitrust Enforcement in the Developing E-Book Market: Apple, Amazon, and the Future of the Publishing Industry

Antitrust Enforcement in the Developing E-Book Market: Apple, Amazon, and the Future of the Publishing Industry

전자책 시장 활성화를 위한 기업 요구사항과 CPND 가치사슬 분석

Abstract This study derived the policy implications and market strategies by analysis the e-book companies requirements & the CPND value chain structure, in order to revitalize the e-book market in Korea. Specifically, we examined the prospect of e-book market in Korea, current situations of production and distribution, awareness of service utilization and requirements for support policy with targets of 30 companies. As a research, the most needed item for e-book companies is ‘PR and marketing support to enter and open the markets’(27%), which is the highest. ‘Financial support such as labor costs and business expenses’, ‘support for retraining personnel to develop the expertise in respective fields’ are followed and they account for 22%. Currently, the most effective support item is the external support program(35%) and funding power(30%) is followed. Unlike a paper book market, e-book is turned into a platform business in terms of the value chain. Based on these research content, e-book market activation and corporate competitive strategy was derived as follows : 1)literacy reinforcement about SNS marketing and e-pub3 authoring tool. 2)statistical DB construction of retail sales channels. 3)diversification of the billing system. 4)The quality of the e-book content certification.Key Words :E-Book, Publisher, Requirements, CPND, Value Chain

Building an Online Reputation with Free Content: Evidence from the E-book Market

An important strategy for sellers to build an online reputation is to practice introductory pricing. By selling at a lower introductory price, sellers increase demand, induce more buyers to provide...

Building an Online Reputation with Free Content: Evidence from the E-Book Market

In markets with asymmetric information, it is crucial for sellers to establish a reputation. An important strategy for sellers to build a reputation is to practice introductory pricing, i.e. to offer their products at a lower price to increase demand and thus induce more buyers to provide feedback. In this study, I look at a particular form of introductory pricing, namely offering products for free. I show that giving away free products to build a reputation can be a double-edged strategy. It does not only attract buyers with a high preference, but also buyers with a low preference. Low-preference buyers give worse feedback, resulting in a negative selection effect on a seller's reputation. I estimate the strength of this effect using data from an online self-publishing platform where I observe independent e-book authors either selling their e-books at a price or giving them away as free content. By using the fact that I can observe both online ratings for free and purchased versions of the same e-book, I show that those reviewers who obtain an e-book as free content rate it worse than reviewers who buy it at a positive price, consistent with a negative selection effect on reputation. However, the effect is weaker for female reviewers, consistent with female reviewers reciprocating free content by giving better ratings.