The Digital Reader

Ken Aulette was just interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air. The MP3 has just been posted online, so I haven’t had a chance to listen to it. But there are some highlights available.

NPR

On how publishers hope e-books will work

“It opens up a new market, potentially to younger people. Secondly, what publishers hope to do — and they’ve belatedly jumped into this and I think they were much too late — but nevertheless, they’re trying to create multimedia functionality out of a book. So they’re offering a new kind of book in an e-book. It’s not just an electronic book. It’s a book that allows you to go to an archive — to access things in a multimedia dimension. And their hope is that they can actually charge more for that.”

On how the iPad fits into the existing market for electronic — and traditional — publishing

“By the iPad coming into the market, it gives the publishers leverage over Amazon. They were afraid that Amazon — with an 80 percent market share of e-books — would basically continue to lower prices and basically have them over a barrel. And now they feel like they’ve regained some leverage and regained leverage over their ability to price books. Apple has allowed them to set the price of a book and they’ve compelled Amazon to go along with that, much to Amazon’s reluctance.”