somersault

Paolo Chikiamco, publisher of Rocket Kapre Books (@rocketkapre), writes on Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) about the roles of "big" vs. independent publishers in this new digital age. He says, "publishers need to be adaptable in order to survive; in order to thrive, they need to be willing to experiment. Many of the experiments they take when they test the waters will result in failure, but as Independent Publishers have less to lose and more to gain, they will be that much more innovative." Here are excerpts:

In the New World of Publishing, the Internet, ebook readers and print-on-demand outlets give authors the ability to distribute their work internationally, on a scale unthinkable even to Big Publishing (BTI), and at a fraction of the cost. Having spent so long at the bottom of the barrel, self-published authors have nowhere to go but up, and hence the New World is nothing but opportunity. In fact, in an era of social networks and blogs (and just recently, plugins like Anthologize which can turn a Wordpress blog into a functional and ready-to-sell ebook) where it can be said that we are all publishers, some wonder if third-party publishers are needed at all.

If all that one wants is to make a book, as a text, available to the world, then the answer is no, you don’t need a publisher. On the other hand, if the goal is to make a book as a commercial product, one that is visible and viable, then – unless you’re an established author or are willing to put a lot of work into the book above and beyond actually writing it – yes, you still need a publisher.

But in the New World, the Big Publisher is not your only option – nor is it necessarily your best option. In a publishing world dominated by the two extremes, the most “virtuous” means to get your book to the market may be through an entity which can combine the strengths of Big Publishing and Self-Publishing, and in so doing (because the strengths of one are the weaknesses of the other) minimize their weaknesses. The best option could be an Independent Publisher and small presses: entities with more resources and business savvy than your typical author, but which retain a flexibility and personal touch absent from bigger publishers.

...This is how an Independent Publisher can succeed in the New Era of digital and immediate content: by serving as a bridge between the author and the readers, adding value – in-house or through strategic partnerships – to the work that passes its hands, and ensuring that nothing gets in the way of a good story.

Read the article in full.

According to this article on TradingMarkets.com, "Samsung, the world's largest technology company by sales, believes that the emerging tablet PC will eventually drive electronic book (ebook) readers from the market and become a dominant platform for reading."

CEO Choi Gee-sung suggests "the current ebook readers, which support only black and white and are designed solely for consuming digital books, are doomed to lose a battle with multifunctional and Web-connected tablet PC devices, which enable ebook reading as well as hundreds of other functions."

"The remarks were made a day after the company unveiled the Galaxy Tab on the eve of the 2010 IFA show, Europe's largest consumer electronics trade fair held Sept. 3-8. The new tablet is seen as a challenge to Apple Inc.'s mega-hit iPad."

News reports say Samsung is throwing down the gauntlet to Apple, while Sony is taking on Amazon.com.

 
Read the full article.

What do you think? Will ereaders give way to tablet PCs?

Peter Donoughue (@peterdonoughue), a veteran of the Australian book publishing scene, gave a presentation to academic staff in the School of English, Media Studies, and Art History at the University Queensland on September 10, 2010. This post is the transcript. He examines, from a global perspective, "the critical issues of declining prices and revenues, relations with authors, the future of booksellers, device wars, business models, and others." His intention is to "challenge the publishing community to seriously lift its game, if it wants to survive."

He echoes the same sentiment we here at Somersault have: "I would prefer to see a publishing community characterized by boldness, not by fear; by a sense of opportunity, not of threat; by openness, not protectionism." He says

Our challenge is to move beyond the fear of cannibalization by courageously accepting the opportunity presented to us. The central tenet is to be aggressively and remorselessly customer-centric. That is hard for any business, for any industry, but it is the only way to break through into the future.

Read the presentation in full.

Hugh McGuire (@hughmcguire and @bookoven) writes about media, publishing, mass collaboration, and technology. In this post on O'Reilly Radar, he says "the distinction between the 'Internet' & 'books' is totally totally arbitrary, and will disappear in 5 years. Start adjusting now."

He says "it should happen because a book properly hooked into the Internet is a far more valuable collection of information than a book not properly hooked into the Internet." He says "it will happen, because: what is a book, after all, but a collection of data (text + images), with a defined structure (chapters, headings, captions), meta data (title, author, ISBN), and prettied up with some presentation design? In other words, what is a book, but a website that happens to be written on paper and not connected to the Web?"

He challenges book publishers to go beyond "mere" ebooks and create an API for books to reside on the Web.  He says,

An API is an Application Programming Interface.' It's what smart Web companies build so that other innovative companies and developers can build tools and services on top of their underlying databases and services.... We are a long, long way from publishers thinking of themselves as API providers -- as the Application Programming Interface for the books they publish. But we've seen countless times that value grows when data is opened up (sometimes selectively) to the world. That's really what the Internet is for; and that is where book publishing is going. Eventually.

Read his article in full. Also read the comments.

Because of the current news swirling about a Florida pastor and his actions toward the Koran (or the alternate spelling Qur'an), we thought you may be interested in seeing a collection of published books, available through ChristianBook.com, that explain the Koran and its role in Islamic belief. Here's the list. And here's a list of books dealing with the broader topic of Islam.

You may also be interested in reading the Christianity Today interview with Lawrence Wright, subject of the HBO documentary My Trip to al-Qaeda.

Book marketing expert Michael Drew (@promoteabook) writes on the website Beneath the Cover that in 2 years, “the dynamics in publishing and the economy will have shifted so much that traditional publishers will either be acquiring emerging publishing technology and evolving — or going out of business.”

He says, “The future of publishing is open source, free content leading into premium content.” He predicts:

• By the end of 2012, 50% or more of all books will be sold in a digital or electronic format.
• By the end of 2015, 80% or more of all books will be sold in digital or electronic format
• By the end of 2015, “new” digital books will be sold at an average of $0.99 or less

Read his article in full.

RetailCustomerExperience.com  (@retexperience ) offers a few predictions on what to expect to find in the coming decade at your favorite bookstore, now that ebooks and DIY publishing is on the increase. The article states bookstores have already morphed "from stacks of books on shelves to entertainment destinations that are as much about the coffee as anything else, and it looks like the coming years might bring the biggest changes it has ever seen." One forecast actually doesn't seem so bad:

I think that the megastore as we know it today will disappear from many towns and those that remain will be only in large urban centers," said Richard Day, publisher of Self-Councel press, which has published DIY legal books since 1971. "My expectation is that bookstores will revert to what they once were: smaller, neighborhood stores concentrating on selling print and digital to an audience with common genre interests. The stores may be book/coffee/tea shop hybrids, with a while-you-wait book printing facility, digital connections to facilitate ebook browsing and purchase, and staff who know and love the books they sell.

Read the article in full.

At BookNet Canada’s Technology Forum 2010 (@BookNet_Canada), Michael Tamblyn, Kobo (@Kobo) ereading service's VP Content, Sales & Merchandising, condensed "12 months of learnings, lessons, mistakes, and improvements into 40 minutes." For example, he says Wednesday through Sunday are the days when most people use their ereaders to read books, with Sunday being the heaviest user day.

Michael Hyatt (@michaelhyatt), chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, maintains an active blog and personal social media network. In a recent blog post, he created a spreadsheet and compared 10 popular ereaders. He writes

We have really come a long way since Amazon introduced the first Kindle. Today, there are so many great options. Competition has not only created a viable e-reader and digital publishing market, it has also improved the quality of all the offerings.

 

In addition to looking at the price and features, I think you should also must answer one preliminary question: Do you want a dedicated e-reader device (like the Kindle, Nook, and Reader) or do you want a multi-function device (like the iPad)? This will at least get you pointed in the right direction.

Read the post in full and see the spreadsheet.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2010/09/06/cartoons_20100830#slide=1