Book publishers agree that there will be a change in the e-book market, but are unsure when this anticipated change will help shake up a market that is expected to grow despite the use of DRM.
At the BookExpo America conference, e-book companies and manufacturers are carefully watching a slugfest between Apple and Amazon -- with the iPad and Kindle devices wooing consumers interested in the e-book market -- as onlookers worry about a cluttered, yet fractured market.
"Today you can buy a book at Barnes and Noble and you can buy a book at Walmart and you don't have to keep them in separate rooms in your house," said Michael Serbinis, Kobo CEO, during the BookExpo conference. "You buy a book from Apple and Amazon and you have got to keep it tied up with your Apple universe or your Kindle universe."
Kobo offers lower-priced e-readers that don't come equipped with Wi-Fi and 3G support, but does support multiple formats, ranging from Adobe DRM, PDF and ePub. Manufacturers have to walk a careful line to try and figure out which e-book formats to support, and follow industry news as publishers possibly start solidifying allegiances.
If a universal e-book format is developed, it's unlikely Amazon, Apple and other companies will support the format. In addition, piracy is another major issue that prevents development of a universal e-book format. For example, e-books for the iPad tablet, as expected, ship with FairPlay DRM to prevent the books from being shared on other devices.
As e-books have become more and more popular, publishers have battled Amazon over their $9.99 for all e-books pricing, forcing Amazon to start offering some e-books at different prices.
