Despite the cold snap we are experiencing in the UK this week, the heat being generated in the publishing sector continues to build when it comes to the pricing of ebooks (Evan Schnittman's post in July 'Demand Pricing for eBooks) and digital rights management (DRM) where the publishing sector is seeking to understand how to protect its intellectual property from hackers ( The Register - 'Hackers break Amazon's Kindle DRM') without numbing the experience of the customers who buy ebooks and audio books.

Furthermore, publishers of all sorts are gradually waking up to the fact that, in the digital economy, they are no longer solely publishers of books but distributors of content. Most 'publishers' have an array of books, ebooks, audio books and videos which they are selling in increasingly significant volumes to make them sit up and take notice of the trend.

Their business processes or work flows are starting to adapt to producing different formats from an original piece of content which gives their customers wider choice about how they want to access the content. Traditionalists will buy the printed book, listeners can buy the audio book and 'gadgeteers' can buy the ebook.

For digital versions of the original content, you will, of course, need a device to listen to or read the content. If you have ever listened to an audio book or a music file with something like an iPod, you will know that it is a good experience.

But when it comes to devices for reading digital books, the experience is less then inspiring. Devices like the Sony Reader have small screens which display the text using 'e-ink' but, to be frank, having read a book on the device, it was an underwhelming experience. Amazon's Kindle has a text-to-speech function which sounds good in practice to convert your ebook into an audio book but, according to the review of the device on The Register, it's a "dreadful American monotone" that greets your ears on top of mispronunciations.

Buying another device is not only going to be expensive (i.e. a Kindle costs about £207), it is another device to carry around and to have to worry about dropping, losing or charging. As it stands now, I have a work mobile phone, a personal mobile phone and a laptop to carry around. I don't want any more paraphernalia to lug around if I can help it.

In 2010, it is predicted that there will be one billion web-enabled mobile phones, according to Maja Thomas, SVP Digital and Audio Publishing at Hachette and there are only about three million standalone e-ink devices in circulation. So, it does not take much imagination to realise why publishers are getting excited about mobile phones as a reading devices.

With this in mind, I predict that 2010 will see publishers start thinking far more about the experiences they can create with their content more than just the devices which help their customers to access the content.

For example, when you are reading a good book on the train, it is always a little disappointing to have to put it down in order to get off the train to drive home. If you happened to be reading your book as an ebook on an iPhone or other device on the train but you still wanted to carry on with the book in the car, it would be a super experience if you could mark where you finished reading on the train and press play to listen to the audio book from where you left the book when you get into your vehicle.

Customers have a great experience. Publishers can sell more than one product to their customers. It sounds like a good situation for all. Publishers just need to make sure they get the right help in to make the experiences a reality.

*Since writing this post there has been a huge amount of discussion and speculation about the launch today of Apple's iSlate. One particularly lucid article about the opportunity that this device presents to publishers was posted on 26th January by Jason Kincaid at TechCrunch.

Will Hawkins
New Business Director