Press Room: Press Releases: Consumer Survey Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 Executive Director
Nicholas Bogaty
(212) 924-9081
www.openebook.org

Popular eBook Beliefs Questioned in Consumer Survey - -

Consumer eBook Adoption Measured

New York, New York, December 16, 2002: The Open eBook Forum today announced the findings of the Consumer Survey on Electronic Books. Conducted at New York is Book Country in October 2002, the survey examines consumer preferences towards electronic and paper books. Unique to this study is an attempt to measure attitudes towards eBooks by people who read "paper" books.

Contrary to a commonly held industry belief, results indicate no correlation between computer skills or daily Internet use and downloading an eBook. General readers are as likely to adopt eBook technology as people who have expert computer skills and people who visit the Internet daily.

Factors in consumer willingness to read eBooks in the future were also measured:

• 67% of respondents agreed that they would like to read an eBook in the future;
• 62% said they would read an eBook from their library;
• 61% said eBooks should be priced the same as paperbooks and
• 70% said that they would buy an eBook if it could be read on any computer.

There was a correlation between those that have read an article about eBooks and those that are more likely to buy and read an eBook á indicating that awareness is a key factor in the growth of the eBook business.

óBy consistently stressing the value-add, including mobility, instant access to content and the audio and dictionary features that eBooks offer, combined with the constant increase in material publishers are making available,Ç states Nick Bogaty, Executive Director of the Open eBook Forum, óWe can make the consumer an educated consumer. And the survey indicates that it´s knowledge of eBooks more than computer skills that are likely to make consumers read digitally.Ç

The survey, sponsored by the Open eBook Forum, was developed and written by Harold Henke, Ph.D., Principal Consultant for the research company Chartula. Henke stated, óThe survey is useful for the industry and scholars in that we targeted a group of consumers who buy and read paper books on a regular basis. Research on eBooks has often been conducted by surveying people via the Internet, which while useful, can overlook these consumers because these consumers may not frequently access the Internet or may not want to participate in an electronic survey.  By surveying people who attended a book fair, we were able to develop a representative profile of these consumers which includes their attitudes and preferences towards eBooks as well as their buying and reading habits of paper books.Ç

The full survey is only available to OeBF members. Non-OeBF members can obtain a copy of the survey upon application for membership to the OeBF. Member benefits and forms can be found at www.openebook.org/join.htm. Qualified members of the media can request a copy of the survey by contacting Nick Bogaty, Executive Director at nbogaty@openebook.org.

The survey´s Table of Contents is as follows:

About the OeBF

The Open eBook Forum, http://www.openebook.org, is an international non-profit trade and standards organization for the electronic book publishing industry. Gold Sponsoring Members include technology leaders Microsoft Corporation, Adobe Systems, Palm Digital Media and OverDrive, Inc. Members include leading publishing companies such as Random House, Simon & Schuster, AOL Time Warner Book Group, McGraw-Hill, HarperCollins and Reed Elsevier; and educational and government agencies including the Library of Congress, American Foundation for the Blind and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. 

The Open eBook Forum hosted the Tablet PC Digital Publishing Conference in December 2002.

About Chartula:

Chartula (www.chartula.com) is a firm specializing in providing research for the education and publishing industries.  Dr. Henke is also the author of Electronic Books and ePublishing, (Springer) and An Empirical Design for eBooks, (Chartula Press). Henke is a Research Fellow at the Open eBook Forum.

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