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.

A book-less library

You knew it was going to be recommended eventually: a bookless library. And now it has. According to Education Week, Nelson Wolff, a judge in Bexar County, Texas, where San Antonio is located, and Sergio Rodriguez, commissioner for the county's first precinct, have proposed a plan to create a library called BiblioTech that offers electronic media exclusively. This doesn't mean the books will all be ebooks, but close. The Bexar County Commissioners Court will consider proposals for e-book providers -- the plan is for BiblioTech to deal with integrated library systems vendors like Polaris Library Systems and 3M rather than with publishers or e-book retailers like Amazon. The court will also consider a project budget, construction services and the creation of a seven-member advisory board. BiblioTech intends to start with 100 e-readers that can be loaned out, 50 pre-loaded e-readers for children, 50 computer stations, 25 laptops and 25 tablets, with additional accommodations planned for the visually impaired. But it may not be long before libraries with books seem as unusual as garages with horses. "When you go into a public library today, people are gathered around computer terminals," Wolff observed. Here's the link: http://www.informationweek.com/education/online-learning/a-digital-public-library-without-paper-b/240146262?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Government

Gifting yourself

Let me clarify. The newest book publishing model -- shortened version -- is ebook to hardback, as in "Fifty Shades of Grey". Yes, "Fifty Shades of Grey" also has all the steps in between: ebook to print on demand book, print on demand book to mass print softcover, mass print softcover (Vintage Books) to mass print hardcover (Random House). But if you shorten that evolution, you've got ebook to hardcover, digital to analog. NOT the usual: Analog to digital. How different (reversed) from the past can you be? First of all launching a major international book (which has sold 65 million copies) as an ebook on an obscure Australian website is pretty unexpected. And then after 18 months of downloading, deciding to print the book and sell that iteration, is surprising. Yes, ebook-to-hardback is way more radical than ebook to print on demand book, which when "Fifty Shades of Grey" was first launched in 2011 was radical enough. How many other authors in this world would like to go from ebook to hardback? Or, more importantly, how many readers in this world would like to go from ebook to hardback? In my opinion, more and more. It's like gifting yourself the memory of a prized experience. It's the newest (and safest, and most likely to succeed) book publishing model.

Can ebooks and print books coexist?

I think there is a real issue in whether ebooks and print books can coexist. Nothing is clear right now with everyone. Either you feel one way or the other. Either you prefer an ebook or you prefer a print book. And whichever you prefer is generally what you think will dominate. (Although sometimes you hear that someone likes both -- in fact buys the ebook and the print version of the same book.) I don't think this is an either-or situation. I think both ebooks and print books can thrive, in the future. Here is a very good video about this subject: http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/aggregatedcontent/video-can-print-e-books-coexist . Right-on is the video observation that the best analogy to this situation is the 19th century development of photography and its affect on painting. Photography thrived as a depiction of reality and painting thrived by becoming more subjective. But they both thrived; one did not replace the other.

2013 will be the year the ebook evolution goes global. Many countries, for the first time, will have the opportunity to get ebooks galore, or more accurately, be able to choose between ebooks and print books, to purchase one or the other, or both. Download for free "The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions and Future Projections" from O'Reilly and read for yourself. Here's the link:http://search.oreilly.com/?q=the+global+ebook+market%3A+current+conditions+%26+future+projections The UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia, Poland, Russia, Brazil, and China: all will experience the phenomenon. I love the ebook evolution because it makes the physical more virtual and the virtual more physical. My belief is that in every ebook file there should be a "Print Now" button so that people can buy and read the ebook first, and if they wish a unique keepsake, purchase the physical incarnation immediately and seamlessly. The "Print Now" button will link to an ordering page (URL) and the "ebook" can be designed (to a limited degree) by the reader; purchased; printed and delivered to his or her physical address.

First customer-dedicated book

2013 innovation begins with a book that allows readers to write their own dedication prior to its being printed so that, once printed, the book is personalized. It's as if the purchaser of the book met with the author in person and received a signed, dedicated book. Except the purchaser never met the author and instead ordered the book online with a customer dedication and a digitized signature from the author. Pictured below, the dedication ("Peter, The future is now") on the first page looks like this:

"Communicating with the Future," a book by Tom Frey, Google's top-rated futurist speaker and founder of the Davinci Institute in Louisville, CO, has been ordered 160 times by people who requested personalized dedication pages in the books they ordered. The dedications were printed on the first page of the book, which includes a digitized signature by Tom Frey as well as a dedication from Leaonardo Da Vinci: "It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sit back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things." If you would like to order "Communicating with the Future" and input your own dedication, paste this URL in your browser: https://asoft8136.accrisoft.com/newsconf/index.php?src=forms&ref=Personalizing+a+publication&id=Personalizing+a+publication FYI, here are some of the dedications people ordered: Aaron -- Wishing you much success in the future / To Mark, Here's to Reinventing the Future / To the Clark Family, Never Stop Reaching for the Future. / To Gordon, Make the Future, rather than Predict It. / To Danny & Stephanie The past and the future are based in light. Ours is to live in the grey inbetween /