By Emma House
Emma House attended the Shanghai Exclusive Publishers Trip organized by the Frankfurt Book Fair and Creative Publishing Consulting.
There are around 40 to 50 hardware manufacturers of ebook readers here in China. Unlike the Western markets, the Chinese market is very hardware-driven. Content however is a different matter. Apart from the publishing houses who have developed their own ereaders (we have so far met Shanghai Century Publishing Group with their own ereader hosting only its own content, and Shanda Literature with their Bambook, again hosting only Shanda content), all other hardware manufacturers are working to sell their wares to publishers or aggregators. If they have any content at all, it is all “public domain” works.
Hanvon Technology Co has the bestselling ereader with 70% of the market share and retails at 1,200 RMB (130 euros). This device comes pre-loaded with approx 200 books with an option to pay extra for more books which are downloaded from a number of sources — Hanvon has an “open platform.” However Hanvon does claim to work with publisher wholesalers to obtain its content, with 80% of the profits going to the publisher and 20% for Hanvon. What did emerge is that readers such as this one are used to download content from a variety of websites hosting content illegally.
The majority of buyers seem be within the government who buy the readers as gifts, seemingly a very popular reason for buying ereaders in China. What did emerge is that readers such as this one are used to download content from a variety of websites hosting content illegally.
Ray Zhang, our speaker from Hanvon shared his views on the future, believing that in the next 10 years ereaders will be free and revenue will come from selling content. The hardware provider would it turn recoup costs from the content provider.
A second presentation came from Mr. Hu Kui of the Shanghai Founder Digital Publishing Company Ltd, the leading publishing solutions provider for the education market. The Chinese government, he said, has high ambitions to make the education system completely digital within 5 years. Founder has a strong plan to work with institutions on one side and publishers on the other to develop its product, most of the costs being met by the government.
The readers we have seen so far [on this trip] appear to have many similarities. However we are of the conclusion that the market will be flooded with ereaders and as a result the consumer would end up with a myriad of devices to suit different needs: one for school books, one for literature reading, one for entertainment and possibly even one for each of your favorite publishers? Surely this cannot survive and eventually 3 or 4 devices will reign.
Emma House is the Trade and International Director for the Publishers Association, joining after seven years experience as Head of International Development at The London Book Fair and six years experience in international business to business magazine publishing.
One Comment
The e-readers produced in China will immediately hit the markets across Asia. The attractive pricing and availability of low cost devices will woo a lot publishers in the region to evolve compatible content. E-books will get downloaded from the websites of Publishers and content repositories.
The pdf and epub conversion of books will happen in large volume.
The challenge for mainstream publishers will be the issue of large scale piracy that would happen in the digital format. Many textbooks and bestsellers would get converted into digital formats by illegal local vendors. Governments need to be sensitized about this threat and necessary laws need to be evolved to check piracy in these new formats.