In the last few months, several e-book-only imprints have closed up shop.
First, AtRandom (Random House), then iPublish (AOL Time Warner) and last week MightyWords (BN.com-majority shareholder) bit the dust.
But that doesn't mean e-books are a lost cause. In fact, e-book reading and sales are stronger than ever.
In the past year, 1,600 titles were downloaded more than 3.1 million times at the Etext Library at the University of Virginia. That's 8,715 free e-books per day.
Meanwhile, independent publishers and retailers such as Fictionwise.com, Booklocker.com, Hardshell Word Factory and Palm Digital Corp reported sales increases in 2001 from between 100 and 400 percent over 2000.
What hasn't worked is heavily invested companies -- such as iPublish and MightyWords -- setting overly optimistic expectations.
But what has worked, albeit on a smaller scale, is selling quality work from recognized authors (Palm or Fictionwise), or offering readers niche titles that they are interested in reading (Hard Shell and Booklocker).
Hard Shell publisher Mary Wolf believes the industry isn't further along because too many players all want control. "Even worse, though, is the quick-buck mentality --nothing is nurtured and allowed to achieve its potential any more," Wolf said. "If something doesn't make immediate, compound return on investment, it's road kill in the path to the next glittering opportunity."
Mike Segroves, business director at Palm digital media, reports sales of 600 to 1,000 units a day and a catalog that has grown to almost 4,000 titles.
Sales at Fictionwise are more than 10,000 e-books a month, which is a 400 percent increase over last year; and registered membership increased 300 percent in 2001 to more than 30,000 users.
Hard Shell Word Factory is selling more than 1,000 e-books a week, and Booklocker.com's revenues are 65 percent higher than they were in January 2001.
"We've developed a system," Segroves said, "that does its damndest to emulate the physical book on a device that gives the reader the same kind of portability and mobility that the physical book does, while protecting the publisher's intellectual property without becoming so intrusive that the reader feels that the book police are constantly looking over his shoulder."
The consensus is that the industry will soar when an e-book reading device with a high quality screen and full PDA functionality hits the market for under $100, which is expected to happen in the next 18 to 24 months.
"In the meantime, our growth rates are very encouraging, and we plan to keep growing by continuing to improve our technology and by partnering with other e-publishers and distributors," said co-founder of Fictionwise, Scott Pendergrast.
Many hope that the industry will work more closely in the coming year to develop one universal format that can be used on all devices.
"Sure, there's a lot of lip service, and a lot of people have put in a lot of time on the open e-book standard," said Hard Shell's Wolf.
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Mighty knotty problem: MightyWords CEO Chris MacAskill last week sent an e-mail to thousands of writers or their representatives terminating their agreements and giving them the 30-day notice required in their contracts.
"Effective January 12, 2001 your content will no longer be for sale at MightyWords.com and our network of partner websites," the e-mail said. "Your files will be removed from all MightyWords systems after January 12. We will not "return" any digital files; they will be deleted from all servers."
But Steve Riggio, CEO of BN.com said the company is in the process of evaluating the more than 20,000 e-documents published by Mighty Words that are currently for sale at BN.com, and deciding which content is best suited for the online bookstore's customers.
Not so fast, says Paul Aiken, executive director of the Author’s Guild. Aiken said that BN.com cannot continue selling the documents past the termination date unless the contracts gave MightyWords the rights to assign the contracts to others, which, according to MightyWords, they do not.
A source at MightyWords, who would only speak off the record, said they had tried but failed to get BN.com to clarify that statement. BN.com had no comment.
Meanwhile, Aiken offered this bit of advice.
"Writers should, of course, make sure they download a digital copy of their work, if they don't already have it archived, before the site closes," Aiken said. MacAskill's e-mail suggested the same thing.
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Pyramid scheme: Starting next year, the Smart School Project will equip 100 test schools in Egypt with e-libraries, making e-textbooks accessible to students over a network of computers and handheld readers.
Readers can be checked out of the e-library and taken home for further study and learning with parents.
Initially a detailed K-12 course curriculum will interactively teach students about the creation and use of PCs, e-books, e-book readers, using the e-library system, how to get e-books on the Internet, and even how to create their own e-books.
Project director Dr. Mostafa Kamel hopes to develop a "truly effective and successful solution to the challenges that face us in the future of education."
BookZone.com, a Scottsdale, Arizona company, will help create the e-library and e-publishing system. Also participating in the Smart School Project will be Microsoft and Compaq, serving as vendors for the operating systems and hardware.
"To us, this story is bigger than education or e-publishing, each of which is fairly important in its own right," said Grant "Skip" Treaster, BookZone marketing director. "It's about promoting cross-cultural interaction, especially at a time when the need for positive efforts between diverse nations could not be greater. From our own recent discussions, indications are that many others feel the same way."
M.J. Rose is the author of two novels and two nonfiction titles.
