Gallery

Why eBooks are the future

Posted on 15 Dec 2008 at 10:22

Devoted bookworm, Stuart Turton, says it's time to swap paperbacks for the digital delights of the eBook reader.

On a balmy summer weekend in July 2007, Harry Potter performed his final and most spectacular magic trick: he made three million copies of his latest novel disappear.

Thanks to authors such as JK Rowling, Ian McEwan and (depressingly) Jordan, The Publishers Association reckons £4.4 billion-worth of books were sold in the UK in 2007, a 7.7% rise on the year before. Books are still big business, even in these days of Sky Sports and Sony PlayStations. And with eBook readers on the cusp of finally fulfilling their promise, that business is about to change for ever.

The concept of the eBook has been around for years, but until recently companies could never quite meet Anthony Trollope's assertion that "of all the needs a book has, the chief need is that it be readable". The problem was digital reading devices were hampered by LCD screens - a reading experience akin to staring into a sandblaster for half an hour. The advent of E Ink has changed everything. E Ink mimics the look of words on paper, so that even a protracted session with War and Peace won't leave you rubbing red eyes. E Ink allows you to forget that you're holding a gizmo, granting you the space to sink fully into the story just as you would with a paperback.

With this foundation finally in place, engineers are now busy reinventing the book, and the early signs are promising. All eBook readers have at least enough internal memory to squeeze in around 160 fully indexed eBooks. The Kindle and iLiad also offer the ability to annotate text, with future models promising touchscreen interfaces, full text search, web services and colour displays capable of delivering video and images.

It's these kinds of innovations that manufacturers believe are going to drive people towards eBooks. "Two years from now, around 30% of people will have some form of eBook reader to read their books, magazines or news," predicts a spokesperson for manufacturer BeBook. "I can put on ten or 20 books before I go on a trip, whereas usually you take one or two Tom Clancys - then you realise you've already read one of them."

Anybody involved in education must be dribbling in anticipation; as a student, the sheer weight of textbooks I had to lug around during my degree course made every day purgatory. Even better, imagine being able to read and annotate your 100-page thesis, without having to worry about your eyes exploding in pain, or your beer money going down the drain on printer credits. Engineers, doctors, executives; there isn't a profession out there that won't benefit from having their vast library of reports and journals condensed into a device the size of an A5 piece of paper or DVD case. And all those kids queuing outside Waterstone's at midnight, worried about the "next big thing" selling out, can stay at home. Just one click of the mouse and by 12.01am they're reading contentedly in the comfort of their beds.

Pricing and proprietary formats are a pain, but manufacturers are convinced prices will fall as demand grows. "The combination of good technology and good pricing will open the market," says the BeBook spokesman. "It's inevitable. Publishers are coming on board with eBook manufacturers because they have to make their money and they see the future is changing. Give it one more year and you'll be reading your newspaper on an eBook reader."

DRM is a thornier issue, but it's one that's now very much in the public consciousness. The music and games industries are already turning away from DRM, and surely publishers will follow suit. Indeed, Sony - a long-time advocate of DRM - has already opened up its Sony PRS-505 reader to support formats beyond its own proprietary BBeB, which is a bit like discovering Colonel Sanders is actually vegetarian.