<div id="subtitle">Taiwan companies push e-book readers but lack Chinese-language content</div><div><p>Taiwan leads the world in development of readers for the fast-growing electronic book market, but when it comes to satisfying the e-appetites of the island's highly literate population, it seems distinctly pre-digital.</p><p>The problem: A gaping lack of appealing Chinese-language content.</p><p>At this week's 18th annual Taipei Book Exhibition, cutting-edge gadgets offered by Taiwanese tech companies were loaded with little beyond translations of classical Western literature and well-known Chinese standards like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Compelling material to entice contemporary-minded readers was conspicuously absent.</p><p>And while buyers of devices like the nReader K60 — made by Taiwanese PC maker BenQ — are given the opportunity to purchase additional material from affiliated Web sites, the selection is limited and best sellers are almost nowhere to be found.</p><p>The problem arises partly because publishers are uncertain what impact e-books may have on their revenues, said Albert Hsu, a manager in the e-Publishing Service Platform Department of Taiwan computer maker Acer Inc.</p><p>"One major problem is that publishers are worried that if they sell books in their electronic format, it could hurt the sale of paper copies," Hsu said.</p><p>Hsu added that publishers are also concerned the content could be more easily shared — and sales suffer — if books are published in electronic format.</p><p>One company trying to buck the dull content trend is Yuan-Liou Publishing Co., a Taipei-based firm cooperating with e-book reader developer Koobe Inc. to produce an e-reader that will feature the works of a renowned writer of Chinese martial art novels.</p><p>Yuan-Liou assistant marketing supervisor Ophelia Chen said her company's reader will come with all 36 books by Hong Kong-based Louis Cha — better known as Jin Yong — in their electronic format.</p><p>Chen said the 6-inch screen device will go on sale in the first half of this year, and cost between New Taiwan dollars 13,000 and NT$15,000 ($413-$468). She said Yuan-Liou will also have thousands of e-books ready for purchase on its Web site when the reader becomes available.</p><p>The electronic-book industry is becoming big business on this island of 23 million people.</p><p>Last month the government announced a 2 billion New Taiwan dollar ($65 million) initiative to help makers cash in on the rapidly growing world market.</p><p>Taiwan is already a leading player in the digital book market, being the exclusive supplier of e-paper displays for Amazon's Kindle and Sony's e-Reader through collaboration with foreign firms that hold cutting-edge electronic ink technologies.</p><p>Prime View International Co. currently supplies 90 percent of the e-paper displays to the world market, with the rest coming mainly from Taiwanese maker AU Optronics Corp., according to Austin, Texas-based research firm Display Search.</p><p>Display Search says worldwide e-book sales in 2009 likely surpassed 4 million, and are expected to double this year.</p><p>Taiwan's Industrial Development Bureau report said at least 10 other Taiwanese firms are making related chip sets or assembling the digital readers.</p><p>With near 100 percent literacy, Taiwanese are big readers.</p><p>Leading chain bookstore Eslite says people generally like to purchase novels and nonfiction works like contemporary political essays. A Chinese translation of Stephenie Meyer's four-part vampire series Twilight ranked No.2 on their best-seller chart for 2009.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=67952864&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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