Smaller publishers want in to Apple's iWalled book garden

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 04 November 2010 14:14

Your IT - Entertainment

Yesterday, Apple announced a list of who's in at the Australian iBookstore, and by virtue of doing so, announced a list of who's currently out of the Australian iBookstore too, causing a furore among smaller publishers who feel miffed at thus far being left out of the crunchy kingdom and away from all its digital iCitizens, and right before Christmas, too!

Ah, Apple. No matter what it does, or what it doesn't, there will always be unhappy people, whether that unhappiness is justified or unjustified, along with its legions of happy users.

In this case, the unhappiness with Apple is surely to be only on a temporary basis, although how long that temporary basis is, is the question.

In this case, the introduction of a retail sales arm of the already available iBookstore on iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches has seen major publishers Macmillan, Hachette, Hardie Grant, HarperCollins, Murdoch Publishers and Wiley all decide to start distributing a range of their titles, and are adding plenty of new books on a regular basis.

Previously, only out-of-copyright books have been available from the iBookstore, featuring all the classics and greats from Charles Dickens' novels to Pride and Prejudice, Jules Verne's amazing voyages to those of Huckleberry Finn and up to 30,000 more, although the iBooks app also allow users to open any PDF file and read it, too. 

While PDF reading capabilities and the literary classics have certainly been handy in whetting the appetite of the iDevice owning public, and allowing people to show off the capabilities of the magical and revolutionary page turning experience (which some avid readers say they turn off, preferring instead to tap for a faster page turn), the arrival of what will be a growing range of ebooks from a range of publishers large and small will likely kickstart the ebook industry in a way that the Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Sony e-readers and others haven't quite yet in Australia.

Indeed, the arrival of Apple's retail iBookstore with brand new titles on sale now in physical bookstores will likely be the catalyst that boosts all of the other ebook readers into greater popularity as iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users take to buying ebooks with the same kind of gusto to iTunes existing selection of music, music videos, TV shows, movies and 300,000 apps, of which the iBooks app is just one, and iBooks themselves simply a sophisticated in-app purchase.

Naturally, this has come to the attention of all the publishers not on Apple's list for the launch of the Australian iBookstore, and as you'd expect, several smaller publishers are quite disappointed to find they weren't on the list despite reportedly trying to get in contact with Apple to offer books to the iBookstore, without any success, or at least as yet.

Musings into Apple's mysterious moves are in motion on page two, please mosey on over!