lion in 2008 to ¥60 million in 2010) and 10.2% from onlineadvertising (up from ¥3 million in 2008 to ¥21 million in2010). Cloudary was the largest paid content provider forChina Mobile’s central reading station in 2010.In October 2010, Cloudary/Shanda Literature launched itsebook platform Yun Zhong Shu Cheng, meaning “Libraryin the Clouds” (source).Key players in the digital environmentOver the last decade, China saw the rise of many majoronline platforms for all domains of Internet-based communicationand ecommerce, including online search(www.Baidu.com); the trading platform Alibaba, which includesan online payment system (Alipay); and Yahoo! China(acquired in 2005); as well as—in the case of books—online retailers DangDang, Amazon, and Jingdong (www.360buy.com) (interview with Cheng Sanguo for this report).In recent years, all these platforms have—each in their respectivefield of action—engaged in aggressive price warsmotivated by very price-sensitive consumers; plus, theyhad to agree to the terms of the Chinese government’sstrict policy of control over any content, both domesticand from abroad, on sensitive political and social issues,banning unwanted websites, and very effectively discouragingdomestic content providers of any kind from referringto topics considered to be controversial (for a detailedaccount, see this study by Octavio Kulesz for the InternationalAlliance of Independent Publishers titled “DigitalPublishing in Developing Countries”).As for publishing, a premier role is being played by ChinaMobile, by far the country’s largest communications providerand a Fortune Global 500 company (ranked number87 in 2011), with 610 million subscribers as of June 2011and with 300 million mobile Internet users in 2012, a numberthat is expected to more than double by 2013. ChinaUnicom and China Telecom range second and third. In October2011, China Mobile started a new business modelcalled Yi Book Store. Customers can order books via mobilephone and—as an innovative approach to services—paycash on delivery. The China Mobile Portable Reading Platformholds a book collection of 300,000 titles (as of February2012). The accumulated amount of customer visitssince 2010 is said to be 300 million, reading 400 millionpages per day (information provided by China Mobile, atBIBF 2012).Although the ambitions of China Mobile to shape the entiredigital sector are huge, it has yet to be seen which sector,after the current transition period, will have the upperhand in defining the digital future. At this point, three anglescan be identified in this strategic competition: the(mobile) network providers, led by China Mobile; the manufacturersof hardware devices, notably Hanvon, but alsomost recently Huawei; and the content providers, whichinclude publishers as well as various online platforms.By summer 2011, it became clear that hardware manufacturersin particular were facing an increasingly tough economicenvironment. eReader manufacturer Hanvon reportedsignificant losses, and both Founder and Aigo announcedplans to stop production of ereaders altogether.The new competitive situation was brought about by pricewars for reading devices, especially since the spring of2011, as well as new platform competition from tablets—notably Apple’s iPad—and the major companies have reorientedtheir strategy by launching content-based ventures(source).Hanvon, founded in 1998, is thought to control an estimatedtwo-thirds of the markets for E Ink–based reading devices,claiming over 1 million units sold. In its own ebookshop, Hanvon claimed in March 2011 to have 130,000ebook titles available for download and to soon be expandingthat number to 200,000 titles (http://bit.ly/xWRyHn). In June 2011, Hanvon signed an agreement withShanda to gain access to Shanda’s ample list of online titleson its “Cloudy Bookstore.” Shanda’s own device, the Bambook,introduced in 2010, is assumed to come in second,at a low double-digit market share (http://bit.ly/zoCfes).Doukan (“All to see”), a proprietary reader sold by Dang-Dang, has gained a reputation of poor usability, resultingin growing popularity of the Kindle among Chinese consumers(interview with Cheng Sanguo).As Jon P. Fine declared on his second visit to China duringthe Beijing International Publishing Forum on August 28,he soon hopes to officially import Kindle devices to China.eBook distributioneBook distribution platforms of relevant size have alsobeen introduced by a number of publishing companies,such as www.Dajianet.com, launched by China PublishingGroup Corporation, one of the largest players in the Chinesepublishing industry.Reading as well as writing platforms, bundled with ebookdistribution to large user communities, have been introducedby several more popular portals, such as Sina.com,71 The Global eBook Report
China’s huge infotainment portal and microblogging website(http://book.sina.com.cn).Domestic ebooks are most commonly published in CEB, orChina Ebook Format, promoted in particular by Apabi(founded in 2006), the former digital content division ofFounder Group, a major Chinese technology conglomerate.The CEB format has also been used by European andAmerican publishers for introducing their ebooks to theChinese market (such as by Penguin, when convertingmore than 2,000 titles into CEB in 2009 and distributingthem via Founder Apabi; http://pear.sn/wIcKjO).International cooperative venturesOver the last ten years, at an accelerating pace, most majorinternational publishing brands have looked at establishingcooperative ventures with Chinese counterparts, amovement that was actively welcomed by Chinese authorities.This list includes, to name just a few examples,companies such as Penguin, which opened a Beijing officein 2005; Hachette, which announced its joint venture withGuangdong-based Phoenix Publishing & Media Group in2009; Cambridge University Press; and Amazon.com,which acquired the domestic online retailer Joyo.com in2004 and since then has operated the localized version ofits store, branded since 2007 as www.amazon.cn. In 2012,Hachette also opened an office in Hongkong.IndiaBy Vinutha MallyaUpdate spring 2014eBooks consumption and productionEnglish-language trade publishers producing ebooks continueto report that sales of ebooks remain less than 1% oftotal sales. The number is marginally higher for STMebooks. The STM publishing segment brings 84% of theprofit to the India publishing industry. But the share ofebooks in STM segment is only 2%. This figure reflectsconsumption and not origination of ebooks. It is unclearhow many STM ebooks are produced in India as yet.In the ebook retail space, it is rumoured that Flipkart holds75% of the market share for ebooks in the country. However,it is currently impossible to verify this “rumour”. In abid to expand its offerings, Flipkart has signined up withinternational content platforms such as Smashwords.More recently, at the New Delhi World Book Fair held inFebruary 2014, the company inked a distribution deal withthe US-based Publish on Demand Global. This arrangementwill “allow all digital content distributed throughPODG’s network to be made available for sale in India toany reader with an Android, Apple iOS or Windows 8 device.Additionally the platform makes their full store frontavailable via their website, http://www.Flipkart.com, forthose who prefer desktop viewing.”With the presence of Amazon Kindle and Kobo, ebook retailis picking up in India. In the case of Kindle, Amazon appearsto be tapping into the growing self-publishing segment,which is expected to “explode”; the company was seenheavily promoting its Kindle Direct Publishing platform atthe New Delhi World Book Fair. “We have been here (in India)for 18 months with the KDP and have already witnessedabout 20 per cent of top 100 e-book titles, in any givenweek, being self published on Kindle Direct,” said Jon PFine, Director, Author and Publishing Relations, Amazon.com,in an interview with The Indian Express.In the educational ebooks space, a new entrant, MumbaibasedStudyeBuddy, claims to be “the largest e-book platformin India for academic books”. By the end of March, theplatform will have 100 publishers and 50,000 educationalebooks, claimed founder Nizam Ahmed. Through the website,StudyeBuddy makes available textbooks, references,supplementary reading and books that “make good reading”,to schools, colleges, universities and corporates. Theplatform has already tied up with publishers in India, andalso with international publishers like Springer andThieme.In all this, the appearance of ebooks in Indian languagesremains slow, both due to technological constraints, aswell as lack of support for the scripts on the reading devices.However, there is a growth in ebooks in Hindi language,which has received more support from level, andfor which the tools are more evolved. A few Hindi ebooksare now available on Kindle and Flipkart, but there is a longway to go for Indian languages in general.In a bid to address the problems faced by publishers ofIndian languages, the Kolkata-based firm, Swiftboox, hasdeveloped a proprietary technology for digital conversionof content in Indian languages. The company is workingwith 20 publishers to digitize and distribute their books.At present, the company digitises books for publisherswithout a charge, and takes a share from the sales. With acollection of 250 books available on their site, and 30–40titles getting added every month, two-thirds of Swiftboox’ssales come from selling to the Indian diaspora, particularlyin the US and UK.The Global eBook Report 72
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ContentsAbout the Global eBook Repo
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• The Bookseller (United Kingdom)
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Executive SummaryThis report provid
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The ambitions, and thelimitations o
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ending requests by email and face t
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Chris Kenneally, Copyright Clearanc
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A Global Industry, and Many Local P
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transformation longer than other se
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The Bookish Elites: Market size & n
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Book markets evolution in selected
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- Page 26 and 27: English Language eBookMarketsThe fo
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- Page 36 and 37: EuropeGermanyUpdate spring 2014Afte
- Page 38 and 39: GermanyKey Indicators Values Source
- Page 40 and 41: Ebooks evolve in a complex and chal
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- Page 44 and 45: SpainKey Indicators Values Sources,
- Page 46 and 47: early days there. Yet according to
- Page 48 and 49: According to the Danish book trade
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- Page 52 and 53: PolandKey Indicators Values Sources
- Page 54 and 55: The emerging role of ebooks in Cent
- Page 56 and 57: Nemokamospdfknygos (Aida Dubkeviči
- Page 58 and 59: play a role for starting to change
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- Page 62 and 63: RussiaKey Indicators Values Sources
- Page 64 and 65: OzonOzon is a general retailer sell
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- Page 72 and 73: ChinaKey Indicators Values Sources,
- Page 76 and 77: The National Book Trust (NBT), the
- Page 78 and 79: tion. Of these, 73% youth are liter
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- Page 100 and 101: $1.8 billion”, equalling some 8%
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- Page 104 and 105: By January 2013, Kobo claimed to ow
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- Page 110 and 111: Self-publishingUpdate spring 2014In
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- Page 116 and 117: Regulatory frameworksThe litigation
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utors. Börsenverein’s own Librek
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sources and blogs promoting and poi
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In France, the independent literary
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eBook Yellow PagesThe eBook Yellow
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dotbooksEdiciones B, founded in Bar
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Neowood Éditions is a French digit
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those who would like to create thei
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about 60,000 ebooks. In November 20
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making the ebook creation and publi
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extended ranges of books and audio
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MyiLibrary is an econtent aggregati
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that publishes RNTS branded digital
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lishers and over 30 sales channels,
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Professional organizationsProfessio
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Advertising in the eBookYellow Page
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The acceleratedtransformation of th
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IndexSymbols100knygu, 13224Symbols,
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INscribe, 139Integral, 139iStoryTim