Targeting the European e-book market

epublishabook

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The European e-book market lags far behind its US equivalent. In other words, it is still a relatively untapped market. This is due partly to the high price of e-readers and partly to the traditional reluctance of Europeans to adopt new technologies.

Does that mean targeting the European market, that will catch up at some point, a clever marketing move, worth investing in a good translation?

As publishers are slow to adapt, the competition in foreign languages is far less important than in English, so am wondering...
 

DrZoidberg

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I think the main reason is the reason given in the article. Sweden is a tiny market. We don't have enough Swedish language books to make investing in an e-reader worth it only for those.

Swede's are very litterate in English. We read a lot of English books in English. But because we're in Sweden we only have access to a fraction of the available English language market. We can buy a paper book from Amazon.com, no problem. But it's impossible to buy an e-book from the same site. It's legally prohibed. Because Sweden is such a tiny market there's very little incentive for American publishers to muck about with finding digital distributers for Sweden. This is of course multiplied for every other country and langauge in the world.

I don't think reluctance about new technology is remotely a factor. Not more here than anywhere else. USA has a huge benefit from:

1) Being a large country, ie one legal entity.
2) They all share one language.
 

Kitty Crocodile

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I'm Finnish. I own a Kindle (wasn't too expensive), and I frequently buy ebooks from Amazon. I mostly read in English (print & e-).

I hardly ever bother checking what Finnish bookstores offer in terms of e-books, because the prices are ridiculous - I will not pay 20 euros for an e-book. It peeves me to have to pay a little extra at Amazon, too; I usually pay about 2 or 2.99 for a book that's advertised as 0.99. (Sorry, I'm not sure if I'm thinking of dollars or euros! Probably dollars :) ) But I do shop at Amazon, and as a consumer I'm a little baffled by the article. The European e-book market may lag behind, but then e.g. Amazon would seem to fill that void. (DrZoidberg, I'm quite indignant for your sake!)

As for the devices, Kindles don't seem to be popular, but iPads are everywhere. (Anecdotal evidence, but still.)

I'm by no means an expert, but I wonder if that article has really captured the entire reality of the European e-book scene.
 

ebar

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I'm seeing e-readers crop up a fair bit in Ireland, plus people reading from IPads and similar machines. Of course we have the advantage of speaking more or less the same language as the Americans. :)
 

DrZoidberg

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The European e-book market may lag behind, but then e.g. Amazon would seem to fill that void. (DrZoidberg, I'm quite indignant for your sake!)

I didn't know Amazon USA now sells to Finland. If they do they probably also sell to Sweden? When I did my research regarding buying readers Amazon didn't sell to Sweden.

I ended up buying Sony's e-reader. I'm very happy with it. I use it to proofread my own texts and stuff I find on the net for free. Their on-line shop is truly terrible though.

What prevents me from buying Kindle is that I don't like their business model. I don't like that a Kindle book is tied to the reading device. I want to be able to back my books up. I want it to be easy to switch readers. Not just different devices but having the ability to switch between readers from different company's.
 
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veinglory

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For the most part the European buyers of English language work are getting it the same place Americans do, unless barriers are put in place to prevent it.
 

Hiroko

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Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me to stretch overseas. If anything, you're definitely tapping a larger market, especially if a lot of English speakers head your way (provided YOU speak English :tongue). I'm not opposed to selling overseas myself, but of course if you translate, you have to assign new ISBNs to each translated version.
 

gingerwoman

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Doesn't the British ebook publisher Total-E Bound do quite well? That is an erotic romance only publisher though.
 

nkkingston

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There's a few things in the way of adoption, including taxes on ebooks (in the UK they're subject to VAT), regional restrictions on books, and ereaders are much more expensive (the $89 Kindle is selling for £89 on Amazon UK, or nearly double the price!). It's like businesses don't want to sell to us...
 

veinglory

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I think a lot of these commentator mistake low sales from Europeans sources for low buying by European consumers.

When I lived in NZ I did all my ebook buying from American based companies. Even when some local alternatives sprang up they had fewer books for higher prices, so I didn't use them.
 

epublishabook

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There's a few things in the way of adoption, including taxes on ebooks (in the UK they're subject to VAT), regional restrictions on books, and ereaders are much more expensive (the $89 Kindle is selling for £89 on Amazon UK, or nearly double the price!). It's like businesses don't want to sell to us...

No, they want to sell us, they just want to make more money than we do, hence no-one makes any :)