Pearson’s Penguin subsidiary will launch its ePenguin digital book imprint in September.
Pearson’s book publishing subsidiary Penguin, one of the most famous names in publishing, has announced it will make many of its back catalog titles available online through a new ePenguin imprint. The company says it will make 200 books available to start with, through its own website and external vendors. It also plans to launch some titles online before they go into print.
The move is definitely a sign of things to come in the publishing market. The eBook concept is simple – a book in electronic form. However, it has several advantages over normal printed books. Most obviously, eBooks don’t need to be manufactured. As a result, overheads are lower and books need never be out of print, cutting costs and boosting publishers’ potential revenues.
At the same time, eBooks have searching facilities far in advance of paper books. Particularly for textbooks and reference books, this is highly useful – time-pressed consumers can ensure that they only read what they need to read.
The obvious problem is that reading a book (and particularly a novel or biography) on a computer simply isn’t very enjoyable. Handheld devices are still too cumbersome and expensive, while PCs and even laptops aren’t portable enough. The eBook concept has been around for some time, but so far has failed to take off.
However, this time around things should be different. Penguin is just the latest major publisher to get into eBooks – for example, AOL Time Warner invested in ePublisher bookface.com in May. And handheld technology is finally catching up with the demands of books. Within the next couple of years, smartphones will have easy-to-read, stable, reasonably sized color screens: ideal for reading text. Books’ small file size will make them quick to download.
Whether the mobile industry makes returns on its huge investment in technology or not, Penguin, its fellow publishers, and readers will all benefit from the mass availability of convenient eBook readers. Even if they are meant to be mobile phones.
