New iPad idea

Note to book and magazine publishers: this is an idea that's worth listening to, and if you go ahead and implement it, all I ask you is for a few free ebooks a year. Deal?

I've been thinking about app ideas for the newly launched, but somewhat embarrassingly named, Apple iPad. One of this device's personal let-downs for me was the rather underwhelming iBooks app. Nothing wrong with the app itself: it's stylish, and has the classic Apple touch. However, I was expecting something ground-breaking; something revolutionary for ebooks, something akin to what iTunes did for music. Alas, that was not to be! But the beauty of the iPhones and their bigger-sized cousins is not in the device itself; rather, it's in the fantastic applications (more than 140,000, Apple tells us) that have made them the stars of the smartphone market. And so it is that my idea is not about any tweaks to the device itself. Intrigued? Read on.

The trouble with ebook readers in their present form is, again, not their form factor, or their display, or any of their hardware characteristic. Rather, it's the ebook delivery model that's flawed. No one in their right mind seriously thinks that ebooks should be priced at $10 (or their global currency equivalent). So, while it's admirable that Amazon steps up to the publishers and challenges them, it's not going to resolve anything until the publishers choose to not commit the same folly as their counterparts in the movie and music business: miss the forest for the trees. You see, while the global market for books may not be as big as that for music and movies, it's still huge. Empirically, however, one of the barriers to an even higher readership is the price and availability of books, and that is something book publishers cannot afford to lose sight of. In India, for example, in many major cities, unauthorised copies of books are sold on pavements for a fraction of the price of the original, and people - even the ones who can afford the originals - buy them. The reason in the case of most such books is that the perceived value of those books is far less than what the publishers had in mind. Enter book rentals.

Book rentals are not, strictly speaking, a new idea. The concept of lending libraries is at least a hundred years old, and in western countries, public libraries lend books free of charge. However, this is where the delivery mechanism comes in. Imagine a device like the iPad - or even the Kindle or Nook for that matter - being able to offer book rentals, for an amount as small as a few cents a book. After all, the cost of creating copies of ebooks is infinitesimal, especially as compared to the cost of printing a physical book. Thus, while the publisher doesn't really incur any cost in making an e-copy, he would incur a small profit for each subscriber that 'borrows' the book. And, unlike with physical copies of books, the customer could be allowed to keep the book for as long as he / she wants. This only makes sense when you remember that while there may only be limited copies of a book in a library, the number of e-copies of a book can be virtually infinite. Thus, more people than ever before can read the latest bestseller, and (electronic) book stands need never put up 'Out of stock' notices on their store fronts.

To me, the notion that this is a win-win situation for everyone concerned is a no-brainer. The subscriber gets to read all the books he wants, when he wants, where he wants (on his iPad, iPhone, computer, Kindle),and publishers get a good profit for each electronic copy that cost them nothing to produce. As an added benefit, there are no vendors, middle-men, retail channels, distribution headaches, etc. to worry about.

Is anything not to like? Is anyone listening?