E-books are going global

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by Steven M. Zeitchik

FRANKFURT, Germany (IDG) -- A sign above Microsoft's booth at the Frankfurt Book Fair tells you all you need to know about electronic publishing's new playing field. "Die Evolution des Lesens," it reads, and even if you don't speak German, the message is clear: E-books are going global.

Never mind that Microsoft Reader has established a foothold with only a handful of European publishers. Or that Gemstar, another American player reaching out to the German market at the fair, has yet to make good on its promise to roll out hundreds of thousands of devices to electronics stores in the U.S., let alone anywhere else. Why dwell on pesky facts when there are continents to conquer?

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Until now, e-books have been mostly primping themselves in the privacy of their own country - the U.S. But the Frankfurt show is their debutante ball. Normally a button-down affair where agents and publishers peddle global literary rights, this year's show is, well, a button-down affair where agents and publishers peddle global literary rights. But there's one big difference: E-book companies are represented as never before. This includes exhibitors in the Electronic Media pavilion - known players such as Adobe and Versaware - as well as firms such as San Francisco startup Bookface, which is trolling the so-called agents' and scouts' center for global deals. (Perhaps they're on to something: the company that lets readers view portions of a book for a fee just reached an arrangement with Britain's Bloomsbury.) And Xlibris, which also has a presence at the fair, just announced plans to expand into Asia and Europe.

For each U.S. outfit looking to widen its reach, there seems to be a foreign company mirroring the U.S. moves. Take Cytale. The French firm has manufactured a device through which one can, much like Gemstar's new line of REB 1100 and REB 1200 devices, order e-books without logging on to the Web. (The company boasts of deals "with many French publishers," but declines to reveal specifics.)

Another company exhibiting Wednesday, the first day of the show, is Germany's Booxtra. The company has a hybrid approach that evokes Barnesandnoble.com, whose mix-and-matching is evident through its financial stakes in publishers MightyWords and iUniverse. Like Barnesandnoble.com, Booxtra is an online bookseller, but it also recently published an original short story from German fantasy writer Wolfgang Hohlbein. Meanwhile, WiseBook, a South Korea-based firm, is blending e-book "content solutions" with original interactive content. It's a move practically lifted from the pages of U.S. content plays that are restructuring themselves as infrastructure outfits.

"Every publisher is thinking multinational, so it doesn't surprise me that there's a strong push for e-books here," says Scott Lubeck, who oversees the electronic efforts of Westview Press. "But we're finding success mostly with educational and academic works. It's not sexy, but that's the way it is."

But sexy - and consumer-focused - is exactly what many of the show's e-book participants want. Friday night will see the Frankfurt eBook Awards presented at a ceremony in the city's Old Opera House. Short-listed for the awards are commercial successes such as Zadie Smith's White Teeth and David Marrannis' When Pride Still Mattered.

Turning the hype into something more substantial is the real trick and might be part of the reason companies feel the need to reach beyond their borders. "It took Dostoyevsky quite a few years to become popular in this country [America]," says Bookface marketing director Len Liptak. "The Net can tighten that cycle."

Also looking to the rest of the globe is erstwhile traditionalist and Frankfurt eBook Award Foundation President Alberto Vitale. In one corner of the Electronic Media pavilion, the one-time Random House chief answered questions Wednesday from a German journalist about the virtues of e-books. Vitale talked about how digital publishing will allow citizens of one country to be exposed to the books of another country far more efficiently. But he added, "We need some kind of due process." In book publishing, even the new digital globe has its limits.

Textbook publishers embrace the Web
October 11, 2000
Study: U.S. reads e-books, but won't pay
August 30, 2000
Full text of popular books available online for free
June 5, 2000
Publishers debate technology's role in their future
May 4, 2000
Top 10 free e-books
April 11, 2000

Judging e-books by their printers
(The Industry Standard)
Will Gemstar's e-book strategy work?
(The Industry Standard)
E-Book industry warned of piracy threat
(IDG.net)
Toshiba debuts LCD for e-books
(IDG.net)
The book industry goes digital
(CIO)
E-books go mainstream
(PC World)
Xlibris turns a new page in Europe
(The Industry Standard)
The free e-book market economy
(The Industry Standard)

Bookface Inc.
Xlibris, Inc.
Cytale
Booxtra
Westview Press

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