Russian publisher Lamartis (@lamartis) says it strives to combine all the elements that make books timeless, majestic, and beautiful. It positions its books for “sophisticated art connoisseurs and book collectors” and creates books for “the adornment of public, corporate, and home libraries.” The above video wonderfully captures the artistic craftsmanship of the Lamartis method.
The promise we can all go paperless has been around for years, so why is it that despite email, smartphones, e-readers, tablets, and computers, we’re still so dependent on pen and paper?
BBC Click (@BBCClick) reporter LJ Rich explores why paper has such staying power in this hi-tech age. She says
Demand for paper is at an all-time high. Finnish paper provider Foex predicts that the global paper market could reach a new record of 400m tons in 2012.
Since paper is not going away, technology is being developed to enhance it. The above video is from Layar (@Layar), a company specializing in augemented reality that wants to make the print world clickable.
With Layar, publishers and advertisers can quickly and easily activate their static print pages with digital experiences...all without hiring developers or installing software.
Layar makes it possible for consumers to scan with their smartphones a printed magazine cover, articles, photos, and more, to immediately see digital content such as a video or more detailed and localized information.
Back in April, one of our blogposts explained how AbeBooks (@AbeBooks) uses videos to promote itself. One of them answers the question, “Why do old books smell?”
Similarly to how people enjoy the smell of the interior of new cars and look for ways to replicate it, now comes a perfume for people who prefer the smell of books.
Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld came up with the name Paper Passion, which launched on July 12 in Wallpaper magazine’s annual Handmade issue. It was actually at Wallpaper‘s Handmade exhibition in Milan last year that the idea for the perfume originated, when German publisher Gerhard Steidl remarked that his favorite scent was a “freshly printed book.”
Since then, Steidl has been working with perfumer Geze Schoen on perfecting the scent, using only four or five ingredients. Synthesizing paper’s unique aroma was apparently not an easy task. Schoen explained, “The smell of printed paper is dry and fatty; they are not notes you often work with.”
If you’ve read this far, you obviously have a keen interest in books. So you’ll want to visit this website (@bookshelfporn) that features photo upon beautiful photo of bookshelves.
Erin Griffith (@eringriffith) writes on PandoDaily (@PandoDaily) about Macmillan Publishing’s resolve to embrace the disruption happening in the world of education publishing and to intentionally change its structure, business model, and processes to succeed in this Internet age.
Macmillan Publishing has taken an entirely different route altogether. It’s one that, until now, has remained relatively under the radar. The company hired Troy Williams, former CEO of early ebook company Questia Media, which sold to Cengage. Macmillan gave him a chunk of money and incredibly unusual mandate: “Build a business that will undermine our own.”
The publishing giant has given Williams a sum greater than $100 million (he won’t say exactly how much) to acquire ed-tech startups that will eventually be the future of Macmillan. The plan is to let them exist autonomously like startups within the organization, as Macmillan transitions out of the content business and into educational software and services. Through the entity, called Macmillan New Ventures, Williams plans to do five deals this year and 10 to 15 over the course of the next five years.
He’s buying companies that will help Macmillan survive as a business once textbooks go away completely.
Wattpad is a Toronto, Ontario-based...online writing community with more than 3 million users and over 5 million pieces of content uploaded to the network....
Instead of just uploading books, many members of Wattpad’s community upload unfinished chapters that are still in development, or pieces of poetry they need feedback on, and then get comments and advice from other users of the service — both other writers and readers....
In addition to her work with Wattpad, Atwood is one of the founding artists involved with a startup called Fanado, which is trying to raise funds through the crowdfunding service Indiegogo (@Indiegogo) in order to launch a kind of digital-community platform for artists....
The idea behind Fanado is to give authors tools that they can use to interact with fans remotely, including the ability to share live video and audio of readings or get-togethers with a community, and to autograph and distribute both electronic books and printed books, as well as CDs and other offerings related to a work. In some ways, Fanado is the logical extension of an earlier project that Atwood was involved in, which led to the development of an electronic book-signing device called the “LongPen (@Syngrafii) — which authors could use to sign physical books in remote locations while on a virtual book tour.
The Verge (@verge) reports on a publishing/marketing concept that uses disappearing ink to print books whose text gradually fades away over a period of 2 months as it comes into contact with light and air.
Dubbed "The Book That Can't Wait," the format — an intriguing one in a world increasingly dominated by Kindles and Nooks — is being pioneered by independent Argentinian publishing house Eterna Cadencia, which is using it to promote new authors. As the promo video points out, “if people don't read their first books, they'll never make it to a second.”
As the above video reports, this Wall Street Journal Life & Culture (@WSJLife) article focuses on the amount of information about readers that booksellers and their e-readers are now able to glean through ebook technology.
It takes the average reader just seven hours to read the final book in Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games" trilogy on the Kobo e-reader — about 57 pages an hour. Nearly 18,000 Kindle readers have highlighted the same line from the second book in the series: "Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them." And on Barnes & Noble's Nook, the first thing that most readers do upon finishing the first "Hunger Games" book is to download the next one.
In the past, publishers and authors had no way of knowing what happens when a reader sits down with a book. Does the reader quit after three pages, or finish it in a single sitting? Do most readers skip over the introduction, or read it closely, underlining passages and scrawling notes in the margins? Now, ebooks are providing a glimpse into the story behind the sales figures, revealing not only how many people buy particular books, but how intensely they read them.
More homeowners are designing libraries and reading rooms in their homes. See the above video by The Wall Street Journal (@WSJVideo) (although note: the Encyclopædia Britannica (@Britannica) has not gone out of business as the reporter says around 1:15 into the video; it has ceased print publication and is concentrating on digital editions — see our blogpost "Encyclopædia Britannica Stops the Presses").
The above video demonstrates the value of a company taking a consumer’s question seriously and answering it honestly. A consumer askedMcDonald’s (@McDonalds), “Why does your food look different in the advertising than what is in the store?”
The hamburger chain responded with a behind-the-scenes tour of a McDonald's Canada photo shoot showing how Watt International (@Wattisretail) preps a Quarter Pounder to look edible for ads. In 3 days, the 3½ minute viral video had 3.5 million views.
Lesson? Answer your customers’ questions with transparency and it will contribute to your brand’s positive reputation.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategize public relations and produce videos that effectively communicate your brand’s message to your target audience.
</object><p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #808080; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 500px;">Watch Digital Nation on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.</p>
In our Internet era, publishing houses are having to reinvent themselves as technology companies in order to adapt their business models and remain viable. But when does technology cease to be a value-add to the consumer experience?
Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the technology moving faster than we can adapt to it?
This video explores what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world. It seeks to understand the implications of living in a world consumed by technology and the impact that this constant connectivity may have on future generations. "I'm amazed at the things my kids are able to do online, but I'm also a little bit panicked when I realize that no one seems to know where all this technology is taking us, or its long-term effects," says producer Rachel Dretzin.
