eBooks Maturing:

Electronic books are finally moving into the key area of textbook publishing. The big bucks in book publishing are derived from those massively expensive texts that students need for classes, especially the ones that employ color and large images.

Anne Eisenberg reports in today's New York Times on the current advances in this sort of publishing, including the new eDGe ebook reader that employees two screens, one to handle standard black and white eBook printed word material and the other that addresses color with an LCD screen.

The real issue, however, that is not addressed in the article is copyright. These sorts of textbooks often have multiple rights issues well beyond those of novels and the like. Usually this is what drives their printed costs up so high ($100 to $350 per printed copy). Currently, the biggest advantage of the eBook is that it eliminates the costs of warehousing and moving the texts. That in itself is also a major cost.