E-books have made impressive inroads into the
English-reading world, but their success in Europe — even among wealthy,
tech-savvy countries with robust publishing industries — remains spotty at best.
In the United States and Britain, sales of e-books represent between a quarter
and a third of the consumer book market and, by 2018, will edge out printed and
audio books as the most lucrative segment, according to projections by the
consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. But the picture is radically different
in continental Europe. Last year, digital books made up 8 percent of the
consumer book market in France, less than 4 percent in Germany and Italy, and 1
percent in Sweden and Norway.
(In Asia, Japan led e-book markets with 15
percent of the country’s total consumer book revenues; China and India,
meanwhile, lagged far behind with 3 percent each. )
The reasons for Europe’s slow embrace of
e-books vary from country to country, said Rüdiger Wischenbart, a publishing analyst
based in Vienna who studies emerging e-book markets. In the case of Sweden, he
said, e-books are popular, but are mostly lent out for free through the library
system. In France and many other European countries, Mr. Wischenbart said, there
is a cultural attachment to print that’s hard for readers and publishers to
shake. “When you read a book, you define yourself as being part of a cultural
elite, and that elite is very conservative,” he said. “They don’t want their
high status to be undermined by some new gadget.”
Mr. Wischenbart said the biggest challenge
affecting the success of e-books in Europe was pricing. Germany and France have
been reluctant to discount e-books for fear of hurting their print business. As
a result, the average price for a digital version of a best-selling novel in
Germany or France is over $20, compared with $9 in Britain.
from: NY Times
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