Enhanced e-books are dead, discoverability is the most important issue facing e-book vendors, while pricing strategies should be measured against other digital content, not physical books. These were the key themes that emerged from the recently concluded London Book Fair's Digital Conference, The Digital Now: Creating Lasting Value.
The event, held April 10, 2011, was chaired by Stephen Page, CEO, Faber and Faber.
Evan Schnittman, MD of sales and marketing, Bloomsbury was reportedly the only publisher among the keynotes. He stated that enhanced content for narrative-based e-books was dead in the water, illustrating the point with a slide that featured a gravestone featuring the words 'Enhanced ebooks and apps: 2009 to 2011'. Schnittman suggested that enhanced content was unnecessary since what sold e-books was the same as p-books. His view was contested on Twitter by those following the conference tweets.
Enders analyst Benedicte Evans was also one of a number of speakers who stressed that 'discoverability' was a key challenge for e-book vendors. Gordon Willoughby, Amazon's vice president of Kindle Content Europe, echoed the view that where the customer was when he/she bought the content was crucial, arguing that the pricing of e-books had to take into account what that content was competing against, which could include a £3.49 film download and even cheaper digital music. Willoughby also reiterated some of the points made at previous conferences by Amazon representatives, that putting books on the Kindle generated sales, particularly for series, while Kindle owners read more.
Kobo's Michael Tamblyn was one of many speakers to remark on the pace of change. But there were repeated warnings that Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook could monopolise the routes to the customer in the digital world.
The London Book Fair 2011 opened on April 11, 2011 with new countries exhibiting, its largest ever Market Focus Pavilion, the doubling in size of its Digital Zone and an expanded programme of seminars and events. This year the fair will feature over 1,600 exhibiting companies from 58 countries including Turkey, Iran and Kuwait - all new for 2011. The Russia Market Focus 2011 will place a spotlight on contemporary Russian authors and Russia as an important publishing arena in the international community. The Russia Pavilion is the largest Market Focus Pavilion to date, and will feature over 60 major publishers from Russia.
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