A Short History of EBooks

by Marie Lebert

1994: SOME PUBLISHERS GET BOLD AND GO DIGITAL

= [Overview]

Some bold publishers decided to use the web as a marketing tool. In the U.S., NAP (National Academy Press) was the first publisher in 1994 to post the full text of some books, for free, with the authors' consent. NAP was followed by MIT Press in 1995. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, wrote in 1997: "As university publishers struggle to find the right business model for offering scholarly documents online, some early innovators are finding that making a monograph available electronically can boost sales of hard copies" (excerpt from the Project Gutenberg Newsletter of October 1997). Digital publishing became mainstream in 1997. Digitization accelerated the publication process. Editors, designers and other contributors could all work at the same time on the same book. For educational, academic and scientific publications, digital publishing was a cheaper solution than print books, with regular updates to include the latest information.

= Publishers get bold

Some publishers decided to use the web as a marketing tool. In the U.S., NAP (National Academy Press) was the first publisher in 1994 to post the full text of some books, for free, with the authors' consent. NAP was followed by MIT Press (MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in 1995.

NAP was created by the National Academy of Sciences to publish its own reports and the ones of the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. In 1994, NAP was publishing 200 new books a year in science, engineering, and health. The new NAP Reading Room offered 1,000 entire books, available online for free in various formats: "image" format, HTML format and PDF format. Oddly enough, there was no drop in sales - on the contrary, sales increased.

In 1995, MIT Press was publishing 200 new books per year and 40 journals, in science and technology, architecture, social theory, economics, cognitive science, and computational science. MIT Press also decided to put a number of books online for free, as "a long-term commitment to the efficient and creative use of new technologies". Sales of print books with a free online version increased.

Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, wrote in 1997: "As university publishers struggle to find the right business model for offering scholarly documents online, some early innovators are finding that making a monograph available electronically can boost sales of hard copies. The National Academy Press has already put 1,700 of its books online, and is finding that the electronic versions of some books have boosted sales of the hard copy monographs - often by two to three times the previous level. It's 'great advertising', says the Press's director. The MIT Press is experiencing similar results: 'For each of our electronic books, we've approximately doubled our sales. The plain fact is that no one is going to sit there and read a whole book online. And it costs money and time to download it'." (excerpt from the Project Gutenberg Newsletter of October 1997)

= Publishers go digital

Digital publishing became mainstream in 1997, as the latest trend in the many changes underwent by traditional publishing since the 1970s. Traditional printing was first disrupted by new photocomposition machines, with lower costs. Text and image processing began to be handed over to desktop publishing and graphic art studios. Impression costs went on decreasing with photocopiers, color photocopiers and digital printing. Digitization also accelerated the publication process. Editors, designers and other contributors could all work at the same time on the same book.

For educational, academic and scientific publications, online publishing became a cheaper solution than print books, with regular updates to include the latest information. Readers didn't need any more to wait for a new printed edition, often postponed if not cancelled because of commercial constraints. Some universities began to create their own textbooks online, with chapters selected in an extensive database, as well as papers and comments from professors. For a seminar, a few print copies could be made upon request, with a selection of online articles sent to a printer.

Digital publishing and traditional publishing became complementary. The frontier between the two supports - electronic and paper - began to vanish. Recent print media already stem from an electronic version anyway, on a word processor, a spreadsheet or a database. More and more documents became "only" electronic, and more and more print books were digitized to be included in digital libraries and bookstores.

In the mid-1990s, though, there was no proof that electronic documents would make us paperless in the near future, and save some trees. Many people still needed a print version for easier reading, or for their archives, in the fear the electronic file would be accidentally deleted. We were still a transition period, from paper to digital.