Marketing Profs

Have electronic books finally gotten respect? Until recently it seemed e-books were a bad idea. But then in March, Stephan King's 66-page electronic novella "Riding the Bullet" flew off the servers with over 400,000 copies downloaded the first day.

True, Stephan King isn't an ordinary author, and giving away his novella for free isn't exactly a great indication of the viability of electronic books. Nonetheless, some say this is proof there is a market for electronic publishing, and e-books in particular.

Barnes & Noble (BKS) is a big believer. They now have a section devoted to e-books and Stephan Riggio, the Vice Chairman and Acting Chief Executive Officer of barnesandnoble.com (BNBN) believes the e-book revenue stream will be much larger than for MP3 music.

Apparently companies like Softbook Press and Nuvomedia (divisions of Gemstar International (GMST)) agree, and now even Microsoft (MSFT) is pushing its ClearType technology for reading on handheld devices like e-books.

Everyone seems to be focused on improving font clarity on screen, providing a good selection of reading material, making the technology easy to use, and of course making the technology affordable.

But I'm not convinced that e-books will be more than a small niche technology for a very long time. I think they're all missing a key point.

What's Wrong with E-Books?

First, are e-books better than traditional books? Yes, to some extent. The e-book allows you to download and carry lots of books, search for words and change text format. You get features like bookmarks and backlighting for reading in bed and all sorts of things.

But a long history of research on new products shows consumers resist buying products, even if they have marginal benefits because they lack compatibility. I'm not talking about technical compatibility – technologically oriented firms seem to understand this well – but compatibility with consumers past experiences and values.

For example, books possess aesthetic and tactile qualities, they are often used as status symbols and displayed in personal libraries. Their well-worn nature often makes them personally (if not financially) valuable, and most importantly, people learn to read traditional books and do so throughout their school years. As a result, people often treasure books. To be very successful, e-books must override these potentially deeply held experiences (will people ever treasure an e-book?). I don't think they can.