Much as I cling to paper, our publisher (Avalon) is fearlessly navigating us into the new world of ebooks. Virtually all of my books are available as ebooks, except for Europe 101, European Christmas, and our phrase books. Twenty of my Snapshot Guides (excerpts of big guidebooks sold as smaller, cheaper, more portable and focused guidebooks) are sold only as ebooks, including Salzburg, Helsinki, Milan, and France’s Loire Valley. Electronic versions of my various guidebooks are generally ready for sale about three months after publication of the print version.
In general, Rick Steves ebooks are sold for every type of ereader, but there are some exceptions. Europe Through the Back Door is available only for use on the Barnes & Noble Nook, and Best of Europe is sold only in Apple’s iTunes. That’s because our publisher makes these exclusive for these companies for more enthusiastic promotion. On my website, you’ll find a list of which Rick Steves ebook titles are available in which format.
Everyone is salivating for the day when old-fashioned guidebooks come souped up, with extra video and audio features. For 2012 editions, five of our ebooks will be “audio-enhanced” (with audio tours): the city guides for Paris, London, Rome, Venice, and Florence.
As for video enhancement, Apple is attempting to embed video clips into Best of Europe, and may succeed any day now.
Most Rick Steves ebooks are in black and white, because most ereaders don’t display colors. On the iPhone, iPad, and the new NookColor, the color maps and color photos in our ebooks do appear in color.
In the next month or two, our publisher will start selling iPhone apps of 10 books: Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, London, Paris, Florence, and Rome. These will be content-heavy, each consisting of a 600- to 1,000-page book, including maps but not photos.
On paper, this May we are releasing a series of full-color Pocket Guides (glitzier, pocket-sized versions of our Rome, Paris, and London guidebooks). At this point, these will not be available as ebooks or apps.
Ebook and app sales currently constitute only about 4 percent of all Rick Steves book sales. Yet nearly everyone would agree that this market will only grow.
The major players are Kindle, Nook, and Apple’s iBooks; Sony is losing ground. While ereaders are great for novels and books you cuddle up with and read straight through, I find them not yet guidebook-friendly; they don’t allow for easy page-flipping and hyperlinking. They’ll get there someday soon.
It’s expensive to figure out better ways to make ebooks more user-friendly, and any innovations are quickly picked up (read: stolen) by competitors. I keep encouraging my staff to stay focused on what we do best ‘ generating content ‘ and not be distracted by the ever-unfolding electronic market. Thankfully, to keep from losing market share in this emerging field, my publisher is committed to maintaining an ebook presence as well as striving for a better electronic product for our travelers. As long as they’re spending the money to keep up with this, we’ll happily continue to generate the best content in travel publishing.
Bottom line: Whether you’re traveling with your guidebooks in electronic format or in print, equip yourself with good and up-to-date information, expect yourself to travel smart…and you’ll have a great (and affordable) trip.
I am really excited about this. I have a Kindle and even though someone will always have a good book to have me read, I really like the spontanaity of the Kindle. If I hear of a book that interests me I can down loaded it in 30 sec. and some are cheaper than buying a book. Also I can see myself traveling and deciding it would be great to lets say get the Rome quide book if we are in Italy. It will be great when some how you can flip around a little easier, hopefully technology will resolve that. But I am always on the road with a quide book full of sticky notes on favorite things. And you can down load all over the world with Kindle. With the Ipad you have to signed up for an International plan with AT&T
I have a Kindle and love it. But we`re going to Great Britain in September and I bought Rick`s GB book even though it`s available for Kindle. I just can`t see trying to go back and forth trying to find things in an e-book while being on the road. Also, reading e-book maps is really difficult. I did download Kindle`s sample of the GB book, which gives a nice overview. I also downloaded the Kindle samples of London and Scotland which are also good overviews.
I have a kindle as well and going on the 21 Best of Europe in September so I downloaded the countries now to the kindle to practice with it before I go. BUT I know that I am also probably going to buy the books as well because sometimes it is just easier to navigate the books themselves when you are in the actual place. I love the idea of the audio and video. Keep up the great work.
I`d happily buy your books if I was still able to travel, Rick, but never electronically while they`re in any kind of proprietary format. Amazon demonstrated (inadvertently) that they have control over what you have on a Kindle by deleting whatever it was that they thought had been pirated (the details are hazy at 4:30am). If I ever travel with electronic guides, it will be on a standard Linux laptop, you can keep all the gadgets that tie you in to a particular company`s whims as far as I`m concerned. *I* control the data that`s on my devices, nobody else.
the notion of an exclusive title for a particular type of hardware is extremely irritating please avoid this as much as possible
Anything Rick Steves Europe Thru the Back Door tries in order to innovate is a legitimate business experiment/
Awesome! I`m buying a Nook Color next week–I`ll have to get ETBD for it. Congratulations on this new foray, Rick. I think you`ll find it will pay dividends. You are, however, correct about generating good content being more important than worrying about the delivery method.
Three weeks ago after missing a connecting flight we found ourselves with a few extra hours at the “Ski Pole,” the Amsterdam airport. Though a little tired and greasy from a 9-hour flight from Seattle we opted to squeeze in a canal boat tour by hoping a train downtown (10 minutes) instead of just wandering the airport shops (the Schipol is a combination of Sea-Tac and the Southcenter Mall). It got me to thinking that this kind of lemondade-out-of-lemons tactic when forced to change plans (we d had a two-hour security delay prior to departure so our rebooking was free and convenient) could benefit from some added info, something like “Only have two hours in Madrid? Here s what you could do from the airport/train station/etc.”
Presently enjoying “Travel as a Political Act” on my Nook Color. I will be adding more. One neat part is that you can also read your ebooks on a PC or phone.