According to digital enthusiasts, printed books have long been on the verge of obsolescence. These prognoses seem to have little to do with fact, though, and the e-book phenomenon still remains nascent.

One important step forward was taken a few years ago when online bookseller Amazon.com launched its Kindle e-reader and a strong offer of e-books. Half a million Kindle devices were sold in 2008. But Amazon does not offer its Kindle device in the Czech Republic. It is possible to order it online, yet Amazon does not offer any Czech content. There are several e-readers being offered to Czechs by Sony and Bookeen, but Czech-language reading material is virtually non-existent, so potential e-reader buyers have very limited resources available.

One of the largest resources is the website palmknihy.cz, which offers the free download of around 3,600 books whose copyrights have expired. More than 5.5 million e-books have been downloaded from the server so far. Websites digibooks.cz and Vltava.cz also sell e-books, but the latter of these got into serious trouble this year and has halted sales for the time being.

The situation is probably not going to change anytime soon. Neither booksellers nor publishers are taking e-books into consideration. For instance, popular book publishing house Albatros is not planning to produce e-books in the near future. “For the time being we remain [focused on] classic printed books,” Albatros spokesman Radovan Suk said. Publisher Fragment feels similarly, according to spokesperson Iva Battová.

Jan Němec

This is an edited version of an article which originally appeared in Czech Business Weekly