All I Want For Christmas

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, a growing number of publishers, authors and distributors are hoping they'll see more electronic books on consumers' wish lists. But many wonder if the reading public is ready to make the leap into a purely digital literary experience. For this reason, most major print publishers have refrained from running headlong into the e-book market, and instead, offer electronic versions of select titles. Others, such as Random House and Harper Collins, took the chance of setting up e-book imprints of their own, with varying degrees of success.To fully understand the e-publishers' dilemma requires an investigation of a bibliophile's unique relationship with the book they hold in their hand. The clean, fresh smell of a new hardcover, the crisp feel of the paper between the thumb and forefinger, the well-worn look of a favorite old paperback, even the sound of a page being turned—all conspire to make reading a sensory experience far beyond a simple method of comprehending words and sentences. Rikke Bjorneboe Johansen, author of the essay "The Book and the Internet: Booktrade in the 21st Century", suggests that for many people, an electronic book symbolizes something primarily utilitarian, more a medium for information than a work of art. "It is interesting that when it is suggested that the e-book should be used for technical books and other reference works people generally think it is a great idea, but as soon as it is suggested that it should also be used to read fiction most people are less enthusiastic," says Johansen. "Perhaps the reason for this attitude can be attributed to the fact that people, who love to read, also love the physical book itself." He explains, "The physical experience [of shopping for books] is not limited to people meeting people but also includes the act of seeing and touching the books. Browsing, impulse purchasing, actually looking at and holding a book are important aspects that may be the strongest things the bricks-and-mortars stores have going for them." Still, this hasn't stopped millions of people from buying books on the Internet without having seen them in "real" life. And it's the very hesitance on the part of the big publishing houses to embrace this trend that has prompted a growing list of true-believers to hedge their bets on the e-book revolution. With over 100 e-book publishers and nearly as many portals on the Internet today, new, unpublished authors are finding their works listed next to classics. And there is no shortage of software and appliances geared toward the e-book crowd. Adobe offers a free version of its e-book reader, Rocket eBook, two different versions of its Gemstar device, and Microsoft and Palm both also market e-book devices. To complicate matters, e-book publishers won a major coup this summer when a U.S. District Court judge in Southern New York ruled that publishers of print titles do not hold exclusive rights to the electronic versions of those materials. The issue came to a head when Rosetta Books, a popular electronic publisher, contractually acquired and paid for the electronic-publishing rights to nearly 100 titles—including several works by William Styron, Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Parker. Publishing giant Random House subsequently filed suit claiming that it owned the rights to the three authors' titles and that its copyright protection - established long before the advent of the Internet - should nonetheless extend to electronic distribution. The court disagreed. On July 11, 2001, U.S. District Judge Sydney H. Stein denied a Random House request that Rosetta Books be restricted from selling eight titles for which it had contractually acquired the electronic rights directly from their author. In his ruling, Judge Stein emphasized that the unique nature of the e-book itself qualifies it as a "new use" and therefore a "separate medium from the original use—printed words on paper." This week, just a month after filing an appeal to that ruling, Random House announced that it will fold its e-book outlet, AtRandom.com, choosing instead to market electronic titles among other imprints at the publishing house. Random House cited market factors rather than the court ruling as influencing its decision. "The e-book market was not as buoyant as we would have hoped,' adds Random House spokesman Tom Perry by The Associated Press.-Chris Moraff (cmoraff@napco.com)

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All I Want For Christmas

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