Publishers hopeful about future of Turkey’s e-book market

The first electronic book was launched in Turkey in April 2010 by idefix.com, now one of the most popular online bookstores in the country. The website offered 25 e-books for free to booklovers, in cooperation with the Can Publishing House. There are now 2,964 e-books for sale on idefix.com, a modest figure compared to the number available on Amazon.com, one of the biggest online booksellers in the US. Amazon now boasts almost 2 million e-books available for download, announcing that sales of e-books surpassed printed books in January 2011.

Although there are people in Turkey who have never heard of e-books or e-readers, there is a large group of people who are keen on reading and welcome new developments in the sector, such as the advent of e-books.

Following the introduction of e-books to Turkey by idefix.com, many publishing houses have decided to support the e-book market in Turkey. Some publishers convert paperback books to e-books by scanning them, while others release e-books in conjunction with the printed edition. The Turkish Publishers Association has established a digital publishing commission in order to spread news about recent developments in the e-book market to its members.

The Publishers’ Copyright and Licensing Society -- an İstanbul-based union that works to encourage the lawful use of text and image-based copyrighted works and to eliminate unauthorized copying by promoting efficient collective management of rights -- has also established a commission to prevent violations of copyright over the Internet. Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Alper Zorlu, a board member of the society, said he does not agree with those who think Turkey is late in entering the e-book market. Zorlu said they are following developments in e-book markets around the world and added that it is not always easy for publishers to gain permission from authors to reproduce their works in electronic formats. He also said they are working together with the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations to increase the lawful use of works and protect both authors and translators’ rights.

While some publishers think e-books will undermine the sale of printed books and have a negative effect on publishing houses in Turkey, which base their profits on traditional formats, a large number of publishers see the growth of e-books as an inevitable development and want to turn the perceived threat into an opportunity. They think what matters is the content, which will be easily accessible to booklovers in the form of e-books. Many publishers do not consider e-books to be a threat to printed books, emphasizing that the format is not that important as long as people are reading.

Zorlu thinks e-books will gain more popularity in the field of education, particularly in light of plans by the Movement to Increase Opportunities and Technology (FATİH), a Turkish education project, to provide 15 million tablet PCs to schoolchildren across the country.

Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Murat Gülsoy, editor-in-chief of Boğaziçi University Press, said that although e-books are not as popular in Turkey as they are in the US, they will gain more popularity over time and will not have a great impact on printed book sales.

E-books have many advantages. First of all, an electronic book never goes out of print. It can be obtained online quite easily. An e-reader weighs little and does not take up much room, even though it can carry thousands of separate titles. E-ink technology, which has been integrated into many e-readers, imitates the look of a paperback book and does not tire the eyes in the way many LCD screens do. Online vendors offer e-books in many languages which are often not released as printed editions.

While an e-reader costs much more than one printed book, e-books often cost the same as their printed counterparts. Moreover, a large number of e-books are available online for free. It is cheaper and easier to publish e-books than printed editions, as they do not consume paper and ink and they never go out of print. E-books can be read on almost any electronic item that has a screen. They can be purchased, borrowed and downloaded, whereas one must go to a bookshop or public library during limited hours to purchase or borrow printed books.

Amazon deserves most of the credit for the rapid growth of the e-book market, since e-books truly gained popularity in 2007 when Amazon launched the Kindle, a mobile electronic device designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books.

New e-readers have been developed since then. The Kindle’s launch was followed by the Nook, which was produced by Barnes & Noble, another prominent book retailer in the US. Apple’s multifunctional iPad also includes a built-in application for reading e-books. In January 2010 Apple announced agreements with publishers that would allow the company to distribute e-books. Although electronic books are usually read on dedicated e-book readers, personal computers and some mobile phones can be used to read them as well.