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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