The fairly recent growth in the popularity of e-books has some very significant implications for the future of publishing. As a result of the increased popularity of e-book readers – such as the Amazon Kindle for instance – e-books have rapidly been accepted by the general public. It would be very easy to consider them as no more than another way of delivering written content. However, they may prove to be the most significant change to reading since Gutenberg invented the printing press.

That may sound just a little melodramatic – but the fact is that e-books totally change the traditional printing cycle. Normally publishers release hardback books followed, typically between a few months to a year later, by the paperback version. Obviously there is no reason why the e-book edition wouldn’t be published at the same time as the hardback.

As e-books don’t use any paper, bindings or chemicals, and since they don’t require to be shipped – their selling price should be less than a conventional physical book. What this means is that the e-book version could be made available at a reduced price concurrently with the hardback book. That could have a serious impact on the profits of the big publishing houses – especially if you consider that the people who own e-book readers are likely to be fairly heavy readers.

Some fairly heated discussions have already taken place between Amazon – who planned to price all e-books at $ 9.99 or less – and the publishing houses. For a brief period, books by McMillan were removed from Amazon’s website. Things have quietened down a little at the moment – but it seems probable that e-book prices will fall in future.

However, there are definitely some very positive aspects for publishing firms. Publishers will have lower costs when marketing e-books, so they should still be able to turn a profit. Alternative techniques for promoting books will also be opened up.

Amazon’s collection of Kindle books is the largest available on the web right now. They have over 700,000 titles available – and there are a further 1.8 million out of copyright books which can be downloaded free from Amazon’s website. Most of these were published before 1923, but there are other examples of modern books which can be downloaded at no cost.

Publishers offering modern, sometimes recently published, books for free are becoming more common. Sometimes this is done for a short period. It lets them promote a new title or author and the increased number of downloads could cause the book to move upwards in the best sellers list. After it has risen in the rankings, publishers can begin charging for it and benefit from the added publicity. You might also find the first title in a series being made available free of charge. Obviously the idea is that readers will go on to buy further titles in the series – assuming that they enjoy the opening volume.

Of course, both of these techniques could have been used with printed books. However, it would cost quite a bit more and would, therefore, be a somewhat riskier exercise. It’s clear that e-books are now a permanent – and important – addition to the book market. No doubt there will be some publishing firms who will attempt to safeguard their profits using somewhat restrictive techniques. It will be the ones that are best able to adapt to the new digital publishing landscape by offering value to both authors and readers who survive.