The Google challenge last week and the deal concluded with publishers in the US last week has once again brought this question centre-stage. Google has just concluded a deal with the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Authors Guild where it has agreed to pay $125 million to settle a five-year-old dispute. In return, users and subscribers will now be able to search and pre-view millions of titles, including out-of-print books, via Google's online Book Search Program. While details are yet to be worked out, it's expected that users would have to pay fees to download and read particular titles while browsing and pre-views may be free. The Google revenue model states that money will be made by advertising, subscriptions and sales and the receipts will be split 63:37 between the rights holders and Google. Google's independent and not-for-profit organisation, the Book Rights Registry would locate rights holders and distribute payments to them.
While the deal is yet to receive court approval in the US, it has already raised the hackles on both sides of the Atlantic. Ironically, it's the Booksellers Associations (BA) in the UK and Europe who seem most agitated. According to the BA in the UK, if this deal was introduced in the UK, 'it would have a hugely damaging effect on the publishing and bookselling industry and consequently, on authors and the public as well'. The press note from the BA goes on to add that the deal ‘if abused, could easily create a de-facto monopoly’. It's interesting to note that sharp reactions to putting books online seem to come mostly from booksellers while publishers have taken a slightly different view.
It’s not the first time that there has been divergence between publishers and booksellers on a vital issue. The last time this happened was the divergence of views on the Net Book Agreement (NBA) about 20 years ago. The NBA was, in essence, a retail price fixing mechanism for books. It fixed the maximum rates of discount that publishers could offer to booksellers. This meant that retail booksellers would get the book at a fixed rate from the publisher. Some of the bigger retailers, dissatisfied with this, managed to mount a campaign and succeeded in persuading a section of publishers to bypass the NBA. The retailers felt that if they would get higher discounts from publishers, they would be able to sell more units. As a result, the NBA collapsed, in spite of support to it from some major publishers.
While it may not be necessary to belabour the divergence in views between publishers and booksellers, nevertheless, simply put, publishers do see an additional market for their books online, and booksellers do see online delivery as eventually leading to a fall in demand from 'brick and mortar' shops. Ultimately, of course, there would be a convergence because a fall in demand would lead to a decrease in booksellers' offtake and this would affect publishers as well.
This brings to the basic question. Do people prefer reading online? Some do and many don't. Online readers have not yet assumed threatening proportions, at least, not yet. It depends on the suitability of the medium and on individual preferences. The comparative success of Amazon's Kindle and Sony's eReader are precisely because they have been able to reproduce a printed page electronically. Care has been taken to exactly match the reading experience of a print format. There will be better versions of the eReaders in the years to come. In Japan, millions already read entire novels downloaded on their phone screens. I-cue.co.uk offers books that can be downloaded on to your phone to be read in a variety of ways. The jury is still out on whether the future of reading will continue to lie in print format or will it be digital.
The Google challenge joins an already existing online market that publishers and retailers have been tapping. The cry that Google's challenge will result in a monopoly is a far cry as online trading ahs still not assumed massive proportions. It may be so in the future.
But for the present, the fact that out-of-print books can be accessed in a digital format is an exciting prospect. This is likely to serve the needs of an academic community. Will the Google model work? Google's attempts to jumpstart other companies has not exactly been unsuccessful. Googlemail is better than Hotmail but has not yet been able to match its number of users. Its video subsidiary was not successful, so it bought YouTube instead and its Google Talk free telephony has not been a raving success either.
But books are different from videos, emails and photographs. Diehards will always maintain that reading online or from a digital device will never compare to reading from a print format but as the digital revolution rolls on, there may be a huge market for online books.
Sridhar Balan has taught at the JNU, New Delhi and the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. He has been involved in publishing for almost 30 years and has been a Director with Oxford University Press India. He is currently a senior consultant with a publishing house.
Personalities 
The Google challenge last week and the deal concluded with publishers in the US last week has once again brought this question centre-stage. Google has just concluded a deal with the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Authors Guild where it has agreed to pay $125 million to settle a five-year-old dispute. In return, users and subscribers will now be able to search and pre-view millions of titles, including out-of-print books, via Google's online Book Search Program. While details are yet to be worked out, it's expected that users would have to pay fees to download and read particular titles while browsing and pre-views may be free. The Google revenue model states that money will be made by advertising, subscriptions and sales and the receipts will be split 63:37 between the rights holders and Google. Google's independent and not-for-profit organisation, the Book Rights Registry would locate rights holders and distribute payments to them.
It’s not the first time that there has been divergence between publishers and booksellers on a vital issue. The last time this happened was the divergence of views on the Net Book Agreement (NBA) about 20 years ago. The NBA was, in essence, a retail price fixing mechanism for books. It fixed the maximum rates of discount that publishers could offer to booksellers. This meant that retail booksellers would get the book at a fixed rate from the publisher. Some of the bigger retailers, dissatisfied with this, managed to mount a campaign and succeeded in persuading a section of publishers to bypass the NBA. The retailers felt that if they would get higher discounts from publishers, they would be able to sell more units. As a result, the NBA collapsed, in spite of support to it from some major publishers.
This brings to the basic question. Do people prefer reading online? Some do and many don't. Online readers have not yet assumed threatening proportions, at least, not yet. It depends on the suitability of the medium and on individual preferences. The comparative success of Amazon's Kindle and Sony's eReader are precisely because they have been able to reproduce a printed page electronically. Care has been taken to exactly match the reading experience of a print format. There will be better versions of the eReaders in the years to come. In Japan, millions already read entire novels downloaded on their phone screens. I-cue.co.uk offers books that can be downloaded on to your phone to be read in a variety of ways. The jury is still out on whether the future of reading will continue to lie in print format or will it be digital.
