Digital Books in

Lithuanian Language:

is there Anything to

Read?ARŪNAS GUDINAVIČIUS

VILNIUS UNIVERSITY

Current situation

23 min per day for books – we are after Estonia (39

min), Germany (38), Norway (36), Sweden (32), Latvia (28)

and UK (26) in EU.

So, what we have to read in digital?

Research questions:

What are main e-book sellers in Lithuania?

What are main e-book publishers in Lithuania?

How many e-books in Lithuanian language available

on sale?

Can I save money if I read digital?

What are most popular e-book formats?

What is the situation with publishing in universities?

Black market: should we afraid of?

Four mayor Lithuanian

e-book stores

skaitykle.lt (Jan 2010)

knygute.lt (2011?)

knygos.lt / eknygos.lrytas.lt

(Nov 2012)

pegasas.ekps.lt /

eknygos.delfi.lt (Alma

Littera) (Dec 2012)

Number of titles

skaitykle.lt

778

knygute.lt

554

knygos.lt

665

pegasas.

ekps.lt

578

Unique titles: 1293(on 1st July 2013)

Prices

Price ranges: (see chart)

Average price: 4,19 EUR (14,50 Lt)

Highest price: 12,11 EUR

(41,89 Lt) Antony Beevor,

Stalingradas. EPUB, Alma

littera, 2012

Lowest price: 0,57 EUR (1,98

Lt) Andrew P., Kristen Stewart.

Mergina, pamilusi vampyrą.

EPUB, Media Incognito, 2009

Free titles: 26 (8 classic)

26

707

303

257

0 EUR >0-3 EUR >3-6 EUR > 6 EUR

Prices: e-book vs printed

E-book, internetbookstore

Printed, internet bookstore

Printed, traditionalbookstore

Shopping cart of 20 random selected titles, EUR 108,96 € 155,78 € 171,97 €

Publishing dynamics

• Academic publishers not included (mainly with print ready PDF’s)

• Printed books statistical data from Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

61 117384

48594559

4270 4223

4548 4567 4580

3972

3176 32783449

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

E-books Printed books

Publishers

69 publishers (including 22 as self-publishers)

Average 19 titles per publisher

Top self-publisher is Jonas Mačiukevičius with 13 titles

25

27

28

46

56

174

340

373

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

VERSUS AUREUS

KNYGUTE.LT (ONLY ON KNYGUTE.LT)

EUGRIMAS (ONLY ON SKAITYKLE.LT)

LUCEO (ONLY ON SKAITYKLE.LT)

MEDIA INCOGNITO (ONLY ON …

SVAJONIŲ KNYGOS

ALMA LITTERA

ERIDANAS (ONLY ON KNYGUTE.LT)

Publishers with 20 and more titles

Universities

0

232

288

465

704

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

VU / ---

MRU / EBOOKS.MRUNI.EU

VDU / EBOOKS.VDU.LT

VGTU / EBOOKS.VGTU.LT

KTU / EBOOKS.KTU.LT

Universities in e-books market (mostly textbooks, monographs)

Titles

All these books are in PDF/FLASH based mostly protected format for online and with limited offline reading options. Not compatible with e-readers.

ebooks.knygininkas.lt sells 952 e-books (VDU and KTU titles)

(~1700 titles)

Format

1271 titles available in EPUB (2.0)

469 titles available in PDF (almost all at knygute.lt)

313 titles available in MOBI (only at skaitykle.lt)

EPUB

1271

PDF

469

MOBI

313 E-book store EPUB

pegasas.ekps.lt 100 %

knygute.lt 99 %

knygos.lt 98 %

skaitykle.lt 98 %

Protection

Only 5 books (!) on skaitykle.lt are protected with Adobe DRM

Pirates?

Black market

Total e-books titles in Lithuanian language in biggest and oldest Lithuanian file sharing website:

aprox 5000

Titles by categories (aprox) 5000Audiobooks (MP3) 400

Digital text books (PDF - scanned, OCRed) 500

Magazines (PDF - scanned, OCRed) 1000

E-books (PDF - scanned, OCRed) 3000

E-books (EPUB - converted from scanned, OCRed PDF) 50

E-books (EPUB/PDF - from official stores) 3

Black market or official sellers?

More then 3000 titles in ONE black market “shop” vs

1293 titles in ALL official stores

Piracy level

3 e-books are stolen from ALL official stores (1293 titles).

E-books piracy level in Lithuania – 0,23 %

Conclusions

Four mayor Lithuanian e-book stores was on 1st of July, 2013

About 1300 titles on sale with average 600 e-books in one store

About 1700 titles of textbooks available in main universities

Average e-book price - 4,19 EUR (14,50 Lt)

Main e-books publishers are Alma littera, Eridanas and Svajonių kygos

Almost all e-books available in EPUB format

3 e-books are pirated from official stores and more then 3000 are

published (without copyrights) by readers

Copy protection (DRM) are not popular in Lithuania

If you want to save on books – buy e-book.

But sorry – the choice is miserable.

Thank you.

Arūnas Gudinavičius

VILNIUS UNIVERSITY