Margaret Langstaff writes about books and the book business for several national periodicals.

OverBooked reflects her views on trends in the book industry.

Plug in a good book

BY MARGARET LANGSTAFF

Say the word "e-book" and most people's eyes glaze over. Nothing registers except perhaps a black box with tiny buttons and a stylus. Not a pleasurable reading experience, if one is indeed able to "read" from such a device at all.

This is about to change if the plans of major hardware and software companies come to fruition. According to a study by Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) for the Association of American Publishers, within five years e-books will account for $2.5 billion or 10 percent of today's $25 billion book retail industry. Right now, you can download an e-book from an online retailer or publisher to your PC or PDA if you've got the right software (which in many cases is free). The selection of titles is still limited and, given the unfriendly interface between person and machine, not many people care to try. But with the introduction of new and more humane hardware within the next two years by companies like Microsoft, Compaq, Sony and more, industry oracles predict that people will eventually be won over to this new technology. The hardware companies themselves admit that until you see and feel the new iPaq (Compaq), Acrobat e-Book Reader (Adobe), Peanut Reader (Palm) and others, you won't be convinced.

The larger market for e-books, says the Accenture report, is not composed of today's avid buyers of physical books. It is the kid with his nose glued to the monitor in the twilight of his bedroom who thinks reading on a screen is more natural and exciting than turning paper pages in a book -- which to him seem static and frozen in time.

This is why there is such a fuss over electronic rights and why Random House and other traditional publishers are at odds with e-book entrepreneurs who want to snap up any available rights to great books. And the little secret nobody is crowing about is that since it costs considerably less to produce an e-book than a physical book, the new business models are enormously profitable.

Enter an e-book Prometheus in a three-piece suit. Arthur Klebanoff, 53, an influential agent and attorney, and owner of Scott Meredith Literary Agency, has launched RosettaBooks (www.rosettabooks.com) as an e-book publisher and has drawn the ire of publishers and the curiosity of the press. He has a strategy that would position RosettaBooks at the forefront of the electronic revolution in reading, if everything goes according to plan.

While The New York Times has called him an "iconoclast," Klebanoff prefers to call himself an "accidental crusader." He says, "I am an agent for change for issues that go to the heart of the author-publisher model, which itself is an obsolete 19th century arrangement, giving the publisher all the leverage with intellectual property rights with no obligation to perform, no obligation to exploit the rights on behalf of the author." A villain to publishers, Klebanoff is a hero to the Authors Guild and Association of Authors Representatives, both of which filed amicus briefs when RosettaBooks was sued by Random House for signing electronic rights to several of its authors. The litigation, incidentally, was decided in Rosetta's favor, although Random House is appealing.

A little irritated that the special book and reader intimacy is being violated? Doubtful that this latest techno-whatsit is going to catch on? A University of Virginia Library project (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu) may be worth checking out. An e-reading demonstration is making available more than 1,500 public domain titles in MS Reader and Palm formats for free download from the Internet. So far, more than three million downloads have taken place in a 10 month period. And downloads are running currently at 350,000 per month. Pretty stunning numbers for readers willing to pore over a "page" (screen) the size of a deck of cards that is hard to decipher in bright daylight. But then Gutenburg didn't get it right the first time either.