Ebooks are experiencing a crisis of confidence

A few weeks ago Microsoft closed their digital bookstore and customers have lost access to all of the ebooks they paid for. This is not a small startup, where people throw their hands up in the air and exclaim “oh well.” Microsoft is an established giant and the fact that they failed at ebooks  proves that Amazon dominates the entire US market and it is impossible to compete against them. Microsoft has also proved that customers do not have true ownership of an ebook, they are merely licensed.

Microsoft is just the latest in a longline of companies that have shuttered their bookstore and left readers in a larch. This includes  Blinkbox Books, Parable Books, Diesel e-books, Scholastic Storia, Sony Reader Store, the Barnes and Noble Nook UK store and a bunch of others have completely closed their doors and left customers with all sorts of questions and concerns when their apps stopped working and their library is deleted.

The vast majority of ebooks from major online retailers have digital rights management from Adobe or have developed their own DRM solution. If you buy an ebook Amazon, it is incompatible with your Kobo or Nook. The only way you can circumvent this is to illegally strip the DRM from your book. Opting into DRM basically is a matter of trust. You are trusting the company to send you the book and that they will provide access to it.

I believe that ebooks are suffering from a crisis of confidence.  It is beginning to be quite difficult to trust a retailer to not disappear overnight with your ebooks, no matter how big they are. You can literary spend thousands of dollars and they just disappear overnight. Microsoft is at least offering refunds, but most other retailers are there one minute and gone the next.

Maybe the crux of the ebook issue, is more psychological than anything.  People’s sense of psychological ownership is affected by three primary factors: whether they feel as if they have control over the object they own, whether they use the object to define who they are, and whether the object helps give them a sense of belonging in society. A recent study published in the journal Electronic Markets found that the vast majority of  people felt a constricted sense of ownership of ebooks versus physical books, based on the fact that they don’t have full control over the products. For example, they expressed frustration that they often could not copy a digital file to multiple devices. Along similar lines, many study participants lamented restrictions on sharing ebooks with friends, or gifting or selling the books, saying this made ebooks feel less valuable as possessions than physical books.

Sabrina Helm, a UA associate professor who researches consumer perceptions and behaviors. said “One of the conclusions of our research was that digital books and physical books are entirely different products,” she said. “ebooks feel like more of a service experience; overall, they seem to offer a more functional or utilitarian experience. You have much more richness if you deal with a physical book, where all your senses are involved.

Digital bookstores rise and fall and thousand of customers are left with nothing to show for the money they spent. This is likely the reason why every year, ebook sales fall a few percentage points and print is on the rise. Print is trustworthy, ebooks are not.

Ebooks can tell which novels you didn't finish

The Goldfinch may have won Donna Tartt the Pulitzer, praised by judges as a novel which “stimulates the mind and touches the heart”, but the acclaimed title’s 800-odd pages appear to have intimidated British readers, with less than half of those who downloaded it from e-bookseller Kobo making it to the end.
New data from Kobo shows that, although The Goldfinch was the 37th bestselling ebook of the year for the retailer, it was completed by just 44.4% of Kobo’s British readers. Kobo speculated that it “likely proved daunting for some due to the length of the novel”.
Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup’s account from 1853 of how he was kidnapped and sold into slavery – “I sighed for liberty; but the bondsman’s chain was round me, and could not be shaken off” – was, according to Kobo, similarly overwhelming. Ninth on their British bestseller list, following the hugely successful film adaptation, the book was completed by just 28.2% of British readers.
The onset of digital reading means that Kobo – and other ebook retailers – are able to tell more than ever before about how readers engage with books: which they leave unopened, which they read to the end, and how quickly they finish.
Earlier this year, the American mathematician Jordan Ellenberg proposed the so-called “Hawking Index” in a blog for the Wall Street Journal, using Amazon’s “Popular Highlights” feature in an attempt to pinpoint how far into novels readers were actually getting, but retailers have been reluctant to share the data they are harvesting themselves. Kobo’s first analysis of trends in e-reading, released on Wednesday, reveal an unexpected divide between bestsellers, and the books that readers actually complete.
After collecting data between January and November 2014 from more than 21m users, in countries including Canada, the US, the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands, Kobo found that its most completed book of 2014 in the UK was not a Man Booker or Baileys prize winner. Instead, readers were most keen to finish Casey Kelleher’s self-published thriller Rotten to the Core, which doesn’t even feature on the overall bestseller list – although Kelleher has gone on to win a book deal with Amazon’s UK publishing imprint Thomas & Mercer after selling nearly 150,000 copies of her three self-published novels.
“Rotten to The Core by Casey Kelleher was the most completed book in the UK, with 83% of people reading it cover to cover,” said Kobo, “whereas the number one bestselling ebook in the UK, One Cold Night by Katia Lief [also a thriller] was only completed by 69% of those who read it.”
Kobo’s UK ebook bestseller list also features novels by major names including Gillian Flynn, John Green, James Patterson and Robert Galbraith, while its “most completed” list mixes romance, thrillers and erotica by the likes of Sylvia Day, Stella Rimington, Nora Roberts and Lynda La Plante. Kobo said that thriller powerhouse Patterson “was the most completed author in the UK for his entire portfolio of books”.
“A book’s position on the bestseller list may indicate it’s bought, but that isn’t the same as it being read or finished,” said Michael Tamblyn, president and chief content officer at Kobo. “A lot of readers have multiple novels on the go at any given time, which means they may not always read one book from start to finish before jumping into the next great story. People may wait days, months, or even until the following year to finish certain titles. And many exercise that inalienable reader’s right to set down a book if it doesn’t hold their interest.”
Kobo also revealed that the people of Britain were most likely to finish a romance novel, with 62% completion, followed by crime and thrillers (61%) and fantasy (60%). Italians were also most engaged by romance (74% completion), while the French preferred mysteries, with 70% completion.
Kobo’s UK Bestseller List
1.One Cold Night – Katia Lief
2. Gone Again – Doug Johnstone
3. Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
4. The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
5. My Sister’s Keeper – Bill Benners
6. The Husband’s Secret – Liane Moriarty
7. The Cuckoo’s Calling – Robert Galbraith
8. Her Last Letter – Nancy C. Johnson
9. Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northup
10. Bloody Valentine – James Patterson
Kobo’s most completed books of 2014
1. Rotten to the Core - Casey Kelleher
2. The Tycoon’s Vacation – Melody Anne
3. The Traitor – Kimberley Chambers
4. Concealed in Death – JD Robb
5. Wrongful Death - Lynda La Plante
6. All Revved Up - Sylvia Day
7. Present Danger - Stella Rimington
8. The Empty Cradle - Rosie Goodwin
9. The Witness - Nora Roberts
10. The Promise (Fallen Star Series, Book 4) – Jessica Sorensen