Paradoxically, the global expansion of ebook platformssuch as Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, and Koboat first resulted in fragmentation within a basically integratedeconomic space such as the EU. Although this fragmentationmay lessen over time, it highlights a deeperproblem that results from contradictory policies betweenmember states of the EU and the European Commission,which is calling on publishers, retail platforms, and nationalgovernments to embrace digital change more boldlyand create a single market for ebooks (see this blog entryby Commissioner Neelie Kroes and launching an ebookround table from June 2012).In Sweden, there is no Amazon.se website, probably becauseAdlibris, a local Swedish platform run by a local company,Bonnier, has a strong presence; in addition, the Swedishmarket is too small to fight over, at least for such a globalbehemoth as Amazon. Furthermore, many Swedish consumersare also readers of English-language books and caneasily purchase them online, even from Amazon, if theywish. But how long will such exceptions be sustainable?Legal battles are not limited to Europe, as also in severalemerging economies, policies - or at least local specifics -aim at preserving local markets from bein overrun by globalplayers.In India (one of the most attractive emerging economies),Amazon could not get a license for opening a local enterprise;this situation allowed one local Indian equivalent,Flipkart, to build relevant market positions. (A second, IndiaPlaza,has failed, though. Only in August 2012 couldAmazon open a dedicated site with a huge catalog of morethan a million titles priced in rupees.91 The Global eBook Report
Key drivers and forcesPublishers -but also authors, as well as the readingpublic, the consumers- shape the ebookmarkets through various choices and strategies.Several key drivers and debates governingthese choices are framing what, in fact, works,and what doesn’t.• A small number of relatively new global actors are setting(and radically changing) the framework of howbooks are made visible, and distributed to readers andconsumers, where for over two centuries, a relativelybalanced and priviledged value chain had providedclear cut roles to the main actors, from author to publisherto retailer to reader.• Ebook bestsellers are not necessarily the same as inprint but allow a better understanding of the dynamicsof ebooks as a new market segment, and not justas an additional format that complements printededitions.• Pricing strategies differ significantly between countriesand highlight how publishers assess the marketpotential of ebooks - and how their new competitorschallenge their mostly conservative practices.• Many authors opt to selfpublish their books as an alternativeto the traditional value chain, and find suchservices offered by a rapidly expanding field of localand global self-publishing platforms and communities,some even -again- proposed by publishing companies.• Readers do not always choose to download theirebooks from legal sources, so piracy must be understood,aside from the involved legal issues, as a reflectionof the shifting behaviors of consumers.• In addition, in more and more countries, reading marketsdevelop a bilingual segment, as growing numbersof readers read both in their mothertongue andin English, which introduces both new opportunitiesand real challenges to local publishers and retailers.• Regulatory frameworks, including the debate on adaptationsof copyright law, define an important contextfor ebooks.Each of these sets of parameters, and combinations thereof,will not only affect each market’s ebook evolution butalso frame the interplay of domestic and global factors asthey encourage either globalizing. or more differentiatingforces.The aim of this chapter, though, is not to portray each ofthese factors in every detail for every single market but,rather, to develop an analytical framework to understandthe driving forces, the resulting patterns, and the resultingimpact of these forces as they are currently reshaping thebusiness of publishing and the culture of authorship andreading.The Global eBook Report 92
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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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Market share of ebooks (in various
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English Language eBookMarketsThe fo
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United States (2010-2011 Book Marke
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Ebooks accounted in 2013 for one in
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stores, and 700 Argo stores, as wel
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Metadata is the key to online sales
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EuropeGermanyUpdate spring 2014Afte
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GermanyKey Indicators Values Source
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Ebooks evolve in a complex and chal
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actively seeking Google’s coopera
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- Page 46 and 47: early days there. Yet according to
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- Page 52 and 53: PolandKey Indicators Values Sources
- Page 54 and 55: The emerging role of ebooks in Cent
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- 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
- Page 66 and 67: tribute the PDFs they had received
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- Page 72 and 73: ChinaKey Indicators Values Sources,
- Page 74 and 75: lion in 2008 to ¥60 million in 201
- Page 76 and 77: The National Book Trust (NBT), the
- Page 78 and 79: tion. Of these, 73% youth are liter
- Page 80 and 81: Wiley were among the first. Much of
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- Page 88 and 89: Contributed articleCopyright Cleara
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- Page 92 and 93: In the current battle over emerging
- Page 96 and 97: The Expansion of GlobalPlatformsPub
- Page 98 and 99: Interestingly, all Amazon figures b
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- Page 104 and 105: By January 2013, Kobo claimed to ow
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- Page 108 and 109: edition of the same titles is still
- Page 110 and 111: Self-publishingUpdate spring 2014In
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- Page 116 and 117: Regulatory frameworksThe litigation
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- Page 120 and 121: suffers not in spite of but because
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- Page 128 and 129: In France, the independent literary
- Page 130 and 131: eBook Yellow PagesThe eBook Yellow
- Page 132 and 133: dotbooksEdiciones B, founded in Bar
- Page 134 and 135: Neowood Éditions is a French digit
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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