Having your cake. . .

A printed book is a very personal item. I have books that are 40 years old, collected during my 20s when I had the first chance -- after the force-fed experience of high school and college -- to read what I really wanted to, slowly and completely personally (with no concern with accepted interpretation). Electronic books are public events. I belong to a church book group now. We read and email each other as we read the book so that as we are reading the book, we are thinking of each other and actually communicating with each other. I would want to experience both with an important book: the personal and the public. However, it would be impossible to have a public experience efficiently with a printed book. And it would be weird to have a totally private experience with an electronic book. However, buying the electronic and print rights to the same book at the same time would be like having your cake and eating it too. Why can't we do that?

Good for Goodreads

With Amazon buying Goodreads, the future could take many roads. But what is safe to say, I hope, is that Goodreads will be more open to encouraging print-centric readers to try reading on ereaders. That will bring electronic books and print books more readily to the inherent characteristics and values of each, clarifying for readers when one is preferable to the other. I think this is predicted by Goodreads CEO Otis Chandler who has spelled out why he's excited about the sale, as explained on Digital Book Week. According to Chandler, the sale is good for several reasons: 1. Expanding the reach of Goodreads with Amazon’s resources. 2. Bringing the Goodreads experience to an e-reader, a frequent request of members, according to Chandler. 3. Amazon will allow Goodreads to continue to operate independently.

New epublisher alert

The Shatzkin files this week writes about the new publishers. What intrigues me about the new publishers is that they are mostly print publishers turning to ebooks. But why totally abandon print is my question? Although I obviousy love electronic books I most like the combo of print and electronic together. I'm trying to imagine why these companies want to produce exclusively electronic books. And look how many of them are print-content (read "newspaper" or "magazine") companies, something I blogged about a few months ago by following up on a new year prediction from England's The Guardian, see Globalister 1/3/13. So here's the list from Shatzkin: "Most recently, Scientific American launched a series of ebooks. American Express Publishing launched an ebook line with Vook. The Atlantic began to publish its own ebooks. USA Today published USA Tomorrow, a collection of expert predictions about the future of America. Harlequin and Cosmopolitan magazine inked a deal to publish several ebooks a month together. Newsweek/Daily Beast entered into a partnership with Vook to publish ebooks. Playboy launched a series of shorts for the Kindle, the Washington Post announced an e-book program, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, a trade publication focused on the higher education field, launched an e-book business. Other notable companies to jump into the space are magazine publishers Conde Nast and Hearst and NBC News, a division of NBC Universal. And the Wall Street Journal has recently rejuvenated its e-book program. In addition to these, we know of more: the New York Times, the Toronto Star, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, TED Books, Esquire, the Guardian, Wharton Business School, the US Army, Provincetown Public Library, the Saturday Evening Post, Xiamen Bluebird Cartoon Company of China, cartoon-producer Fred Seibert creating Frederator Books, and Scott Rudin and Barry Diller’s Brightline, and many others. Of course, all of these are content-producing entities; many of them are even print-content producers. But it simply wasn’t in their power to decide to become book publishers until the world changed. Three companies which started out with content-generation ideas of their own — Vook, Byliner, and Atavist — are frequent partners for these new publishers, as are existing publishers from Big Six players to Perseus’s Constellation, Ingram, new ebook publishers Open Road, Diversion and Rosetta, and other companies like INscribe and PressBooks. Actually, from my own experience, I would add The Denver Post and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Legacy vs. legacy

Digital Book World reports: "Barnes & Noble is pushing publishers for better terms, higher marketing funds and cutting back on their initial orders of books. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times both recently reported that B&N and corporate publisher Simon & Schuster are feuding." In my opinion this situation is a red herring. This is a perfect example of legacy companies fighting for legacy victories. Neither is a winner. The future of selling books will not be a battle for shelf space at a superstore bookstore or a mom and pop book store. The future of selling books is digital. That's where people will first read a book; where the word of mouth will begin; and where the momentum for sales will begin. Once the value or appeal of a book has been established, getting the book will take the path of least resistance, past whatever is sitting out on shelves.

New teen trend?

Publishing Perspectives has an interesting observation that teens may be "snapping back" to print. The website writes: "Could this ongoing preference for print be because the digital titles available to them are underwhelming in relation to competing forms of digital entertainment? Or is it more a question of the lower percentage of teens who have access to digital reading devices, with just 13-14% of teens owning an e-reader and 20% having an iPad or tablet?" No question digital reading devices are not as fast or smooth as other mobile devices, but close. The difference is scale. The 6 to 8" screen is small. And the content is harder to digest, demanding reading as well as listening and watching. I think in the end, the device of choice for a teenager may NOT be a digital reader. But in the past, so many teenagers chose TV over books. What's new? They all got older, and many changed.

Heady time

There is some discussion in some quarters now -- apropos schoolbooks -- as to whether ebooks are, in fact, books or software. Very interesting discussion and impossible to resolve right now. But what is more germane to me is whether or not ebooks that an individual consumer might download on his ereader is a book, or software. And that is quite easily resolved. In the case of one reader and one ebook, the answer is: that's a book. Not software. Perhaps if the book is heavily enhanced with audio, video and interactivity one might have an easier time arguing that the ebook is actually software. But if only one person is purchasing the creation it is then not a service but a product. In the generic sense, that person and only that person will utilize the creation, so whether that creation is a unified product or a multifarious service, it appears as one product: a book. Whew this is getting heady.

Ebook "downturn" a lie

So often stories about the future of printed books begin with the old Mark Twain adage that his death was greatly exaggerated. I feel that way about ebook growth stories, although as you know I am not ebook-centric, in fact believe that ebooks can't survive without print book options. But the Digital Book World daily report, which I love, has this headline: Ebook growth slows. The story goes: "Remember when ebook revenues were growing by triple digits month-over-month? Well, those days are long over. That's the bad news. The good news is that ebooks are still growing at a healthy double-digit clip - and on a much larger base. According to the latest numbers from the Association of American Publishers, ebook revenues were up about 21% in Nov. 2012 versus the same month last year. This is down from Oct. 2012, when ebook sales grew by 41% and from Sept. when they grew 31%. For the year, ebooks are up about 35%. Year-to-date, ebooks comprise nearly 20% of all trade revenues." Whew 21 percent growth. The newspaper industry, that I used to work for, hasn't seen 21 percent growth in more than 30 years. I'll take it. And please note, this growth is on a much larger base than before. Important.

Darwin ebook

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." That's according to Charles Darwin. Applying this concept to the ebook revolution, one might immediately jump on the bandwagon. But evolution does not work from a whiteboard like that. It utilizes given props -- such as printed books -- and changes them only so slightly into ebooks. Only over time does the evolution culminate. Sometime in the far future, the nature of a book will have changed. Mutated. Become a new species. But only then. Not now.

Not the chicken or the egg

Rumor has it that the next iteration in the ebook/print book faceoff is a print book with an embedded chip that has the electronic version, so when you buy the print book you get the electronic version, too. First of all, I love that the two media have been brought together. That's progress. However, I think this combo is backwards. I think people will want to get the ebook first, and read the book that way, and then decide whether to spend the extra money to get the printed book -- personalized for them perhaps, with their choice of cover, and their own dedication. If you pay for the print book and also get the ebook, but then read the ebook first and don't want a print version, you really had no need to have already paid extra for the print book. That overcharges the reader. If you sell the reader the inexpensive ebook first and then make ordering the print book easy, the cost of the print book should be happily paid if the desire is there. This is not an example of the chicken or the egg. It's clear which should come first: the electronic book.

Readers choosing

Salon Magazine has a fascinating article on the ebook/print book faceoff. The article by Laura Miller makes many points including: "New self-publishing enterprises are a godsend for traditional publishers because they can take much of the uncertainty out of signing a new author." Inherent in that observation may be a scenario by which many authors are "somewhat" successful at publishing their book electronically, so that a few can rise to the surface and be snatched up by New York publishing companies, like E.L. James ("50 Shades of Grey"), Amanda Hocking and now Hugh Howie ("Wool). The article points out that the growth of ebooks has slowed, and that three times as many people say they prefer print books to electronic books. The one reality the article overlooks is the reality of acceptance that the two media are here to stay -- together -- and there should be no nostalgia for one (print) or euphoria for the other (electronic). Once the two are wedded, so that you buy both the ebook and the print book rights together, reader choice will finally have arrived so that after the book has been consumed the reader can choose the incarnation he or she desires in perpetuity.

Where is the world going?

Book sales in the US in 2012 were down 9.3 percent, Spain -10.3 percent, South Africa -8.8 percent, Italy -7 percent, and in the UK fell by 3.4 percent. That's according to data presented March 21 at the IfBookThen conference in Milan, Italy, and since reported by Publishing Perspectives. The one bright spot around the world may be India, where book sales were up 16 percent. What could be the cause of the seeming worldwide withdrawing from reading literacy? Perhaps simple: Digital devices, that with broadband make video possible, are making watching rather than reading more popular. Does that mean the two media are equal in firepower? Probably not. My take would be that the world needs to make more of an effort to teach reading literacy. So communication can be more powerful.