The Battle for e-Books: A Lesson for Marketers
In my November post, “Digital Textbooks on Campus: When Will It Catch On?”, I mentioned that Amazon.com had made inroads on college campuses with its Kindle reading device. Soon after, the world’s largest online bookseller began slashing prices on digital books making publishers nervous about the future of their print sales.
Then Apple showed up and crashed the party in January with its iPad - introducing its own strategy of selling digital books and magazines at prices dictated by the publishers.  Amazon.com now has formidable competition for its pricey reading device and for download-able content.
In noticeable panic, Amazon.com sent out emails to all existing Kindle owners (I’m one of them) claiming that we could now download e-books to our computers instead of our Kindles. Huh? Why would I do that? Wasn’t the Kindle reading experience supposed to be more like a real book and less like a computer? They’ve abandoned the very premise that got me to shell-out $399 for the original Kindle in the first place.
What can marketers learn from this?
The reality is, content is more valuable than the digital reading devices now available. And booksellers realize that we are quickly moving to “device-neutral” environment.  If you want a hardcover edition mailed to your office, a digital edition downloaded to your Kindle or a digital edition downloaded to your PC, it’s all available - you choose the format.
Measure your brand’s accessibility by asking the following questions:
- Is your marketing team building a brand that is “device-neutral” or are they devoting too much attention to one marketing channel at the expense of others?
- Can consumers get a copy of your annual report and other print in a variety of formats?
- Can they easily find a library of opt-in email newsletters on your website?
- If a consumer is curious about an account balance, can she send a text to short code and get an instant answer?
- If they follow your brand on Twitter, will the tweets be timely and relevant?
John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” That’s certainly true for Amazon.com and Apple. Google, the gorilla of freebies and open source applications, announced its own plans to launch an online bookstore later this year.
Now the party is just getting started.
