Apple to Challenge Amazon in eBooks

Some authors are bypassing traditional publishers and going straight to the Internet to publish through blogs and ebooks. Amazon, which got its start in ecommerce by selling books and media, is helping to disrupt the publishing world thanks in part to its Kindle ebook reader. But reports are surfacing this week that Apple is readying an announcement that could challenge Amazon in the ebook market.

Geekwire reports that, thanks to Apple's iPad tablet, "Apple has emerged as one of Amazon's biggest foils in the digital book market, working out alternative arrangements with book publishers on the behind-the-scenes pricing structures for e-books. Amazon, meanwhile, has been going its own way by establishing its own publishing imprints and promoting its direct-to-Kindle publishing program for authors."

Apple is holding a media-related event in New York at the end of the month, according to AllThingsD and is rumored to be making an announcement centered around its iBooks platform.

eBook publishers face another challenge, according to a recent report. The Daily Mail in the UK reports a rise in websites that give away pirated versions of ebooks, including bestsellers.

There's no question about the increasing importance of ebook revenue for publishers - according to a report from PaidContent, mass market books were down 33.7 percent for the first ten months of 2011 compared to 2010, while ebook sales were up 131.1 percent.