Medium and the Message

A debate is raging in e-publishing circles: should content be encrypted and protected (the Barnes and Noble or Digital goods model) - or should it be distributed freely and thus serve as a form of viral marketing (Seth Godin's "ideavirus")? Publishers fear that freely distributed and cost-free "cracked" e-books will cannibalize print books to oblivion.

The more paranoid point at the music industry. It failed to co-opt the emerging peer-to-peer platforms (Napster) and to offer a viable digital assets management system with an equitable sharing of royalties. The results? A protracted legal battle and piracy run amok. "Publishers" - goes this creed - "are positioned to incorporate encryption and protection measures at the very inception of the digital publishing industry. They ought to learn the lesson."

But this view ignores a vital difference between sound and text. In music, what matter are the song or the musical piece. The medium (or carrier, or packing) is marginal and interchangeable. A CD, an audio cassette, or an MP3 player are all fine, as far as the consumer is concerned. The listener bases his or her purchasing decisions on sound quality and the faithfulness of reproduction of the listening experience (for instance, in a concert hall). This is a very narrow, rational, measurable and quantifiable criterion.

Not so with text.

Content is only one element of many of equal footing underlying the decision to purchase a specific text-"carrier" (medium). Various media encapsulating IDENTICAL text will still fare differently. Hence the failure of CD-ROMs and e-learning. People tend to consume content in other formats or media, even if it is fully available to them or even owned by them in one specific medium. People prefer to pay to listen to live lectures rather than read freely available online transcripts. Libraries buy print journals even when they have subscribed to the full text online versions of the very same publications. And consumers overwhelmingly prefer to purchase books in print rather than their e-versions.

This is partly a question of the slow demise of old habits. E-books have yet to develop the user-friendliness, platform-independence, portability, brows ability and many other attributes of this ingenious medium, the Gutenberg tome. But it also has to do with marketing psychology. Where text (or text equivalents, such as speech) is concerned, the medium is at least as important as the message. And this will hold true even when e-books catch up with their print brethren technologically.

There is no doubting that finally e-books will surpass print books as a medium and offer numerous options: hyperlinks within the e-book and without it - to web content, reference works, etc., embedded instant shopping and ordering links, divergent, user-interactive, decision driven plotlines, interaction with other e-books (using Bluetooth or another wireless standard), collaborative authoring, gaming and community activities, automatically or periodically updated content, ,multimedia capabilities, database, Favourites and History Maintenance (records of reading habits, shopping habits, interaction with other readers, plot related decisions and much more), automatic and embedded audio conversion and translation capabilities, full wireless piconetworking and scatternetworking capabilities and more.

The same textual content will be available in the future in various media. Ostensibly, consumers should gravitate to the feature-rich and much cheaper e-book. But they won't - because the medium is as important as the text message. It is not enough to own the same content, or to gain access to the same message. Ownership of the right medium does count. Print books offer connectivity within an historical context (tradition). E-books are cold and impersonal, alienated and detached. The printed word offers permanence. Digital text is ephemeral (as anyone whose writings perished in the recent dot.com bloodbath or Deja takeover by Google can attest). Printed volumes are a whole sensorium, a sensual experience - olfactory and tactile and visual. E-books are one dimensional in comparison. These are differences that cannot be overcome, not even with the advent of digital "ink" on digital "paper". They will keep the print book alive and publishers' revenues flowing.

People buy printed matter not merely because of its content. If this were true e-books will have won the day. Print books are a packaged experience, the substance of life. People buy the medium as often and as much as they buy the message it encapsulates. It is impossible to compete with this mistique. Safe in this knowledge, publishers should let go and impose on e-books "encryption" and "protection" levels as rigorous as they do on the their print books. The latter are here to stay alongside the former. With the proper pricing and a modicum of trust, e-books may even end up promoting the old and trusted print versions.

About The Author

Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com

---

7 Ways You Can Make a Huge Impression With Your Ezine Welcome Message

Many times I receive a Welcome Message from someone after I subscribe to their ezine that leaves me wondering what I just jumped into. A welcome message... Read More

Are You Wasting Your Time With Free Ezine Ads?

There are lots of ezines (newsletters) out there that offer free classified ads to new subscribers (and many even offer free ads on an ongoing basis).This can... Read More

Your First Newsletter: 5 Sure-Fire Ways to Annoy People

I read a lot of newsletters. Some are great and some are not so great. I put together this article to highlight the five mistakes I see... Read More

7 Useful Free Services For E-publishers

If you want to have an online business, without doubt, you should have your own newsletter. Why is that important? Most people won't buy your product on... Read More

6 Ways to Catch More Opt-ins Than Ever Before

Remember that when you have new visitors at your website, your #1 goal is to get them on your ezine list! That way you have permission to... Read More

Where And How To Get Information For Your Newsletter And Ezines

With the rapid expansion and diversion of commerce, manufacturers, career seekers and even hobbyist move into more and more specialized areas of endeavor, there is an increase... Read More

Want To Start a Publishing Revolution?

Calling all publishers, editors, journalists and freelance writers. It's time to breathe more life into your copy. Turn your articles into living pieces that spark measurable debate,... Read More

How To Make Your Subscribers Stick To You Like Super Glue

One of the biggest obstacles to building a good sized opt in list is the drop out rate. Sometimes it seems subscribers are leaving as fast as... Read More

Ezine Publishing Donts

When I teach ezine classes, I ask the students what they've disliked about the newsletters they've subscribed to. What makes them push that "delete button" or unsubscribe?... Read More

Email Newsletters: The Header

Managing Subscriber addresses: At the top of your email message you see the header, where you insert addresses and a subject heading. It all looks simple enough,... Read More

Why I Started My Ezine

Why I started this E- ZineSit back, and travel with me.I discovered my need to write and gather inspiring stories about baseball as I drove on route... Read More

An Embarrassment of Riches - Part II

The DOI Foundation has unveiled the DOI-EB (EB stands for e-books) Initiative in the Book Expo America Show 2001, to, in their words:"Determine requirements with respect to... Read More

Future of Electronic Publishing

UNESCO's somewhat arbitrary definition of "book" is: "Non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages excluding covers".The emergence of electronic publishing was supposed to change all that.... Read More

Need Ezine Content - Think Holidays

Publishing an ezine certainly has its benefits and rewards, but even the most prolific publishers often need more content ideas, topics and graphics.One of the best resources... Read More

Newsletters ? Keeping Your Customers Informed

Many businesses use email newsletters to introduce themselves to new customers and to maintain contact with existing and past clients. By sending useful and relevant information on... Read More

Ezines ? An Excellent Approach To Internet Marketing

What is an ezine? An ezine is an abbreviation for "electronic magazine", also simply put, a "newsletter". Ezines are extremely popular today and are used as an... Read More

Why Do We Publish?

WHY DO WE DO THIS?A major "character" in Mark Salzman's first autobiography is his father. Sometimes his father paints. But his father hates painting. He likes it... Read More

Medium and the Message

A debate is raging in e-publishing circles: should content be encrypted and protected (the Barnes and Noble or Digital goods model) - or should it be distributed... Read More

Newsletter Names - Creative Ideas for Newsletter Titles

Your newsletter name has a big effect on your readership, so it's essential you choose a good name right from the start. Here are some ideas to... Read More

10 Tips For Ezine Publishers

1. Many Ezine Publishers use too many styles of separatorin their Newsletter. I recently saw an Ezine that used no less than 7 different separators: (+), (-), (~),... Read More

Word Newsletter Templates - How to Easily Create Them

You can use Word newsletter templates for both Word and PDF newsletters. PDF is one of the most popular newsletter formats because it is easy to read... Read More

Emerging Trends in Web Content and Web Publishing

Content is King but the web pages are still littered with writing that does scant justice to the word content, least of all creative, useful and valuable... Read More

What Ive Learned From My Subscribers

As editor/publisher of Book Promotion Newsletter, I am fortunate in having an eclectic group of subscribers who number in the thousands. The ezine is interactive and subscribers... Read More

Self Publishing At The Speed Of Thought

Publishing, both electronic and hard copy, from articles to books, has come a long way in recent years. I used to be fascinated by anyone who had... Read More

Newsletter Software

Newsletter SoftwareWhat types of newsletter software can I use to make the creation and publishing of my newsletter an easier task?Newsletter Software can be divided into different... Read More

Does Your Subject Line Do the Job?

It's proven that the FROM field of your emails is the MOST important factor in getting your messages opened. But after that, it's surely the subject line.Many... Read More