Read it and weep: why eBooks must change the record

Few media companies now believe they can survive the digital revolution without adapting.

Few media companies now believe they can survive the digital revolution without adapting. Only the most foolhardy newspaper executives still ignore the internet while the appetite for online video content is at last being embraced by major broadcasters. Even record companies – after years of denial – are beginning to accept that they will need to radically rethink the way they sell digital music.

Despite these winds of change, one sector of the media remains blissfully unaware of the growing demand for digital content and consumer control. Major book publishers are dangerously unprepared for the emerging electronic book or “eBook” market, believing their own traditional product will be immune.

Their complacency is understandable. The rise of eBooks has been heralded numerous times since the late 1990s, but the format still accounts for just 2% of book sales. Poor technology has always been the major stumbling block; customers had to read eBooks on devices that weren’t designed to display hundreds of pages of text and soon found ploughing through Dickens on a Blackberry just wasn’t worth it.

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