Re: The Electrification of Books

> Are audio books closer to books than music? My money is on the fact
> that books are books, whether read or read to you. That's one of the
> reasons they tell you to read to babies and small children, before
> they can read to themselves. There may be blurring of the lines, but
> books are books, in the base sense of how you process the words you
> see or hear.

Yeah, but people who read (and people who listen to books) know that  
reading is not listening and listening is not reading. So rather  
than, "are audio books books or music?" you should be asking, "where  
do audio book lies on the continuum between books and music?" For me,  
it's about here.

books........audio books....................................music

Audio books are closer to books than they are to music, but they are  
audio, so they are not, strictly speaking, books. But the other  
question you should ask (and Apple answered it) is "is the market for  
audio books different than that for print? Are music buyers likely to  
buy audio books?" The answer to both appears to be a resounding YES.  
The music market is huge and where "people who listen to books"  
intersect "people who buy music," the potential is much greater to  
sell books than just within the smaller market of "people who buy  
books to read." So it makes sense to sell audio books among people  
who listen to music.

So then it follows, we ought to be asking, "does it make sense to  
sell ebooks there too?" And I would argue that it does, but for  
totally different reasons. The reason it makes sense for something  
like iTunes to sell ebooks is that rather than being in a market  
where people already listen to content, you are in a market here  
people already have a device to read on. You don't have to sell an  
ebook reader. You don't have to convince people they really DO want  
to read anything but "work" on their computer. They already have a  
nice, handheld, take anywhere (and they take it EVERYWHERE) gadget  
that while it may not be perfect, it's __ubiquitous__. So it makes  
sense. Too bad Fictionwise can't get a deal done with iTMS.

I have long said that the long term, mass market (not the niche  
succes it already enjoys) success or failure of ebooks in the  
marketplace is predicated on the ubiquity of the reader. The iPod  
comes close to being ubiquitous enough. So does the GameBoy. Neither  
the Ebookwise, nor the Kindle, nor any of the other dedicated ebook  
readers come before, will EVER be ubiquitous _enough_.

And so, I must get to work today. Have a good weekend.

dej

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