Peter Zieleman is the Managing Director of eBook manufacturers, BeBook

In the last decade electronic ink (e-ink for short) screens have been invented, enhanced and implemented in dedicated electronic book readers or eReaders.

Nowadays there are devices which have the same characteristics as paper printed books, but with some important twists. The downsides are the lack of 'feel' and 'smell' of paper, but advantages are the greatly improved portability (take thousands of books on holiday) and the possibility to change the appearance of a book to your liking (changing font size or type) amongst a lot of other things.

When we at BeBook first noticed an early prototype of an e-Ink screen on the CES showfloor in Las Vegas a few years ago, we were immediately convinced that the tech was the future of book reading. We realised the book industry was on the verge of a total makeover.

There are clear parallels with the changes in the distribution of recorded music in recent years, which has transitioned from vinyl records to CDs which to MP3s, within less than a 20 year timespan.

Another similarity is the role of the publishing industry itself. The music industry was confronted with MP3s, without asking for it. Long after the public embraced this new music standard, the industry started to realise it was an opportunity instead of a threat and they had to (and still have to) catch up and adopt, instead of reject, the new format.

Consumers driving e-ink innovation

Like the introduction of the MP3, the introduction of eBooks was almost entirely consumer based: there was a demand from the consumers itself which got fulfilled by a small group of enthusiasts at first followed by a rapidly growing group of early adopters in both consumers and companies.

It truly turned out in "seeing is believing": almost anyone who saw an eReader and an eInk screen were immediately convinced of it's potential.

Unlike the music industry the book industry realized in time that things in their industry were about to change whether they liked or or not. The first concern, of course, was DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the traditional role of the publishers.

All large players in the industry got organized in the IDPF, the International Digital Publisher Forum, after some initiatives of private parties using their own DRM system, the industry together chose ePub and Adobe DRM as the standard. Epub being an open source text format and the DRM system from Adobe was 'independent' within the book industry.