Battleground: E-Book
Meanwhile, the Disney Publishing Group plans a similar project later this year, making favorites such as "The Jungle Book" and "Cinderella" available online. While Scholastic, for now, is sticking to the school and library market, Disney will offer books to general consumers, charging a fee, still to be determined, for downloads.
"We saw a void in the marketplace and decided to act upon it," said Jon Yaged, U.S. publisher of the Disney Book Group.
The void at the center of the marketplace. Almost sounds poetic if you tilt your head and squint just right. I don’t know if or where all of this might lead.
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Obviously these are just the early days of e-books. In time our other publishers may forge ahead in similar areas. Whether or not it is A) profitable and B) a good idea remains to be seen.
Thanks to Galleycat for the link
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About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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A forecast: brace for an onslaught of derivative, eye-glazing, mind-numbing, psuedo-educational, poorly animated, lazily-written, market-driven crap.
That’s a given. But then, that’s true for a lot of books in print form as well (with the possible exception of the “poorly animated” part). Still, I’ve yet to be convinced that the e-book can win me over. Does anyone wish to speak in its defense?
Microsoft applications books. Our print collection of these books is always checked out or the books have never been returned. This collection is also on another floor. If I am working on an Excel spreadsheet, a Powerpoint presentation, or whatnot, I can search the e-book, shrink the screen, and do what I need to do.
E-books are helpful for research. As for reading fiction or even browsing nonfiction, I’m not sold on the matter.
Jennifer’s got a point. I betcha that ebooks will fill a niche and print books will keep on being printed. Does anyone remember the Stone Age days of the late 70’s/early 80’s in which there was serious talk of videos replacing movies? And do we do now? Go out to the theatres when we want and also stay home to watch. I can’t imagine ebooks replacing good fiction, though–can you picture anyone curling up on a sofa or lounging on a beach chair with an ebook?