5 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections The ambition is not and cannot be to track every ebook market development worldwide. We are very much aware of the incompleteness of the report in both geographical and thematic regards. Japan, Korea, and India are missing from this study, as is a chapter on education, to name just a few blind spots. But much more fundamentally, we cannot yet refer to any useful global map of the ebook business, although one is forthcoming. This report is thus very much a global survey based on the available material. Despite all the previously listed limitations, the ambition is to serve the industry as well as all nonpro t stakeholders as a reference. In return, we strongly encourage feedback and—even more enthusi- astically—the input of information and data to improve the foundations of this analysis. The goal of this study—and particularly of this Autumn 2012 update, after its initial presentation at the TOC Frankfurt conference in October 2011—is to pursue a mapping process of international ebook markets and to provide details and insights for a better understand- ing of those challenges and opportunities. This study primarily dwells on data, reporting, and research done by others, adding original research only on some key aspects (such as ebook pricing issues in Europe). Its aim is to summarize, to condense, and—with a certain ambition to compare trends and develop- ments—to frame the status quo and strategic perspec- tives with regard to global ebook markets. (It is signi cant that the plural “markets” is used here, as compared to the initial 2011 study.) To some extent, descriptions of earlier developments, reaching back to 2011 and even 2010, have been kept in the text as a reference and for historic context.