As he points out, there are plenty of alternative stats which suggest that ebooks are still pioneering mountainous change for the industry rather than languishing in a plateau. A recent PwC Media trend report called ‘Ebooks on the rise’ predicted that ebooks will make up 50% of the $21 billion US trade book market by 2016, while at the start of this year, Apple claimed that its iBooks platform was gaining a million new users a week.
“The benefits of ebooks haven’t changed,” Tamblyn insists. “Immediacy, portability, affordability. Incredible selection on any device. Digital lets you bring your whole reading life with you wherever you go – a compelling benefit. Innovation is everywhere.”
Unfortunately, innovation can prove particularly dangerous for any company with a big stake in a specific format. Today, Kobo releases its annual Book Report, which reveals that nearly 32% of British Kobo users now choose to read on apps. With Kindle sales in steady decline since 2011 and Barnes & Noble’s Nook division losing $70m a year, is this the end for the dedicated ereader device?
“Our report does illustrate a growing British trend towards using apps, but 68% of total reading time was still spent on a Kobo ereader device, so it’s clearly still a hugely popular way to read,” Tamblyn rebuffs. “The best customers do both – read on a device and on an app. They’re using digital to fit as much reading into their lives as possible. For example, last year we created the Kobo Aura H2O, with a waterproof and sandproof design, a direct response to insights from customers looking to read in the bath or the pool.”
It can be easy to imagine, as you swipe through page after ugly page, that ebook innovation reached its peak with the development of electronic paper in the mid-nineties. At FutureBook, however, Pottermore’s Susan Jurevics could be heard enthusing about a new range of enhanced Harry Potter ebooks about to take the next generation of fans by storm (snitches jump off the page!), while Jane Friedman of Open Road gave an evangelical speech about using ebooks to rejuvenate authors’ backlists.