E-Books Go Mainstream

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em--the "dead tree" publishers who fear the competition of electronic books are now going wholeheartedly digital. A selection of titles to be published as e-books is now part of the season's catalog at leading publisher Simon & Schuster.

Its list of publications for Fall 2000 includes titles from every Simon & Schuster division, according to the publisher. The company expects to publish some titles simultaneously in both media and to release existing print books in digital form.

E-Books Enhance Timeliness

What's more, the medium permits Simon & Schuster to speed book publishing to startling timeliness. The day after the November 7 presidential election, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing division plans to release an e-book biography of the newly elected president, covering his childhood through his acceptance speech.

E-books enable just-in-time publishing that breaks out of the typical book-creation process. But publishers and hardware designers need to shake their efforts to make e-books resemble the familiar printed product, suggests one analyst.

"The term e-books is a quivering oxymoron," says Paul Saffo, director of Institute for the Future, a consultancy and think tank. He criticizes the design of current e-book hardware, explaining, "We take innovative technology and try to make it look like something familiar," even if that's not best suited to the purpose.

Simon & Schuster will ship its e-books for several platforms, including Microsoft Reader; Glassbook (recently acquired by Adobe); netLibrary's peanutpress.com; SoftLock.com; and the Rocket eBook and SoftBook Reader, both now marketed by Gemstar.

Early Adopter

Simon & Schuster focused attention on e-books last March when it released horror novelist Stephen King's Riding the Bullet as an exclusively electronic publication. It was downloaded more than 500,000 times, according to the company. (See "Hacking the Bullet.")

Stephen King's On Writing, a memoir of his craft, is among the e-books being published this fall; it will also be available in print.

King went a step further with the recent release of The Plant, a multipart novella, on his own Web site. He asks readers to pay a dollar to download it. (See "Stephen King Counts on a Web Honor System.")

Book publishers are regarding King's experiment with interest and concern, Saffo notes. "I think we may see the rebirth of the short story and the novella," which may be better suited to online publishing, Saffo says.