Talk on the W3c Publishing Summit, November 2017, San Francisco

1. 9 November 2018
Digital Publishing, EU Market
W3C Publishing Summit, November 2017, San Francisco

2. Date
Sources / FEP, R.Wischenbart, SNE

3. 44 countries (UN)
90+ languages (EU: 24 official lang)
Europe
575.000 new titles / year
€ 22,5 billion sales revenue
22 million titles in stock, 4 million digital

4. data / 2015
ebook market ... 6 to 7 %?
digital =
apps, db
subscriptions

5. "Hidden" market shares ...
✤ Self publishing
UK: 22% of the ebook market (/units) in 2015
Germany: Tolino 20% (/units), Amazon 40% in 2016
✤ Web subscriptions, essentially for professional and
educational publications
✤ Business reports ... currently sold as PDF
✤ Audiobooks

6. BookstoreS
One algorithm
cannot fulfill all
desires
✤ Discovery, serendipity
✤ From small shops, city center
✤ To large brands, with strong digital
presence
✤ The EU defends this diversity

7. Who are the EU e-Booksellers?
✤ EU Context:
High VAT (15-27%) going down to 5% in 2017
Fixed price, by publishers, in Germany, Austria, , France, Spain,
Italy, Norway, Denmark ...
✤ Amazon: leader in most EU countries; dominant in the UK (90%?)
✤ Global platforms: Google Play, iBooks
✤ Regional or local booksellers like Tolino (now KOBO), FNAC
(KOBO), Cultura (TEA), ...

8. EPUB vs other
formats
✤ EPUB now THE
publishing format in
Europe
✤ But PDF still strong in
catalogues, non-fiction.
✤ And EPUB is still not a
end-user brand
epub
39%
epub fxl
4%
pdf
37%
streaming
8%
mobi
6%
other
6%
Electre, France, 255K titles
epub epub fxl pdf streaming mobi other

9. EPUB3 still not ubiquitous
✤ EPUB 2 still strong in fiction trade, but
Publishers are moving to EPUB 3
- Better typographic capabilities
- Avoid distribution of obsolete ebooks
- Better accessibility
European Accessibility directive (2018) will push EPUB 3.
✤ EPUB 3 heavily promoted by EDRLab
✤ Reading apps should read EPUB 2, 3 ... soon 4

10. Important future features
✤ Put lot's of attention on interoperability
✤ Optimized support for audiobooks
✤ Optimized support for visual narratives