This is my personal opinion of what could be the solution.
1) Ebooks will be kept on publishers' servers
2) A standard which all ebook readers can read will be adapted (during the crossover period publishers can keep ebooks in multiple formats)
This could be it. Now the retail sellers can sell the book for a lower cost. Every time a purchase is made, let's say a key is generated by the retailer (e.g. amazon) that will allow you to download the book from the publisher's (e.g. penguin) server.
or
3) An umbrella organization for all the publishers is created. The organization manages the ebook standard and hosts the ebooks themselves. Publishers pay money to the organization per download basis (to cover the hosting cost) + a yearly membership fee (to cover the management costs)
4) The umbrella organization can actually sell the ebooks itself (maybe even use advertising to cancel out the yearly membership fee) and/or resell them to major retailers.
Everybody could sell their book to the umbrella organization, pay for the sharing costs and make their book available around the world.
This would allow easier publishing, cut out the 30-40% retailer margin and make the books more available.
The current model has the retailers to closely tied to the whole system. Without them, nothing works, so they are the price-makers. Furthermore, retailers actually make the ereaders so they get to subsidize the reader and spread the cost on the books, this unfortunately provides disincentives to support other platforms. Therefore we need to centralize the distribution system.
The first steps would be creating an open standard that every retailer has to support, so we wouldn't have to be tied to their devices.
1) Ebooks will be kept on publishers' servers
2) A standard which all ebook readers can read will be adapted (during the crossover period publishers can keep ebooks in multiple formats)
This could be it. Now the retail sellers can sell the book for a lower cost. Every time a purchase is made, let's say a key is generated by the retailer (e.g. amazon) that will allow you to download the book from the publisher's (e.g. penguin) server.
or
3) An umbrella organization for all the publishers is created. The organization manages the ebook standard and hosts the ebooks themselves. Publishers pay money to the organization per download basis (to cover the hosting cost) + a yearly membership fee (to cover the management costs)
4) The umbrella organization can actually sell the ebooks itself (maybe even use advertising to cancel out the yearly membership fee) and/or resell them to major retailers.
Everybody could sell their book to the umbrella organization, pay for the sharing costs and make their book available around the world.
This would allow easier publishing, cut out the 30-40% retailer margin and make the books more available.
The current model has the retailers to closely tied to the whole system. Without them, nothing works, so they are the price-makers. Furthermore, retailers actually make the ereaders so they get to subsidize the reader and spread the cost on the books, this unfortunately provides disincentives to support other platforms. Therefore we need to centralize the distribution system.
The first steps would be creating an open standard that every retailer has to support, so we wouldn't have to be tied to their devices.