The book trade's annual international convention, Book Expo America (BEA) (@BookExpoAmerica) (#bea12), is happening right now in New York at the same time the Electronics Entertainment Expo (@e3expo) (#E3) is underway in Los Angeles. Even though they’re occurring on extreme opposites of the continent, they may have more in common than you think.
E3 is where developers announce advanced technology in the computer and video game industry. That may sound like an entirely different world from literary interests, but in today’s digital publishing universe, technology in gaming is probably a short circuit away from being used in an ebook tablet!
The symposium, organized by two postdoctoral fellows in Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT, Amaranth Borsuk (@amaranthborsuk) and Gretchen E. Henderson, lingered most on what forms the book might take.
The answer varied from Christian Bök’s (@christianbok) The Xenotext, an attempt to genetically engineer a bacterium to store a poem in its genome, to Nick Montfort’s computational poem, 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10, a one-line Commodore 64 BASIC program, to Bob Stein’s SocialBook, a post-print publishing platform that allows users to share comments and drawings on books and articles read in Web browsers.
James Reid-Cunningham, associate director for digital programs and preservation at the Boston Athenaeum, a private membership library, was the only speaker to proclaim the book dead, specifically the reference book. “Books that carry data will be dead; the phone book is already dead,” he said, and drew parallels to other “dead” technologies like the daguerreotype. Digitization may be replacing the codex, but one form that Reid-Cunningham thinks may be a future of the book is art books, which are in and of themselves works of art.
In looking at reshaping the book, Gita Manaktala (@sylviamath), editorial director of the MIT Press, the only traditional publisher on the roster, discussed the difficulties faced by scholarly presses. “Our authors live in a wiki world, where knowledge is produced quickly,” she said. Yet publishers have to figure out what content should be preserved. She also discussed the need for alternatives to peer reviews given that today’s authors put up content and solicit comments as they prepare their manuscripts.
Stein suggested that Manaktala use SocialBook, which is currently in beta, and invited her and all 240 attendees to sign up by emailing him at futureofthebook@gmail.com. The idea behind the platform, he explained, is that a book becomes a place where readers and authors can gather. “Google Docs, wikis, they’re great at letting you change the text. They’ve grafted social awkwardly on top of it. For us,” said Stein, “social is not a pizza topping, it’s the cornerstone of reading and writing.”
Somersault (@smrsault) is attending Q’s (@Qideas) 5th annual Gathering (#QDC) today through Thursday in Washington, DC. According to its own description, “Q was birthed out of Gabe Lyons’ (@GabeLyons) vision to see Christians, especially leaders, recover a vision for their historic responsibility to renew and restore cultures.”
Q explores topics that fall into 4 broad themes: culture, future, church, and gospel. Q facilitates the investigation of deeper engagement and responsibility in each of these areas. As we continue to work through these ideas on a deeper level, so grows our commitment to equipping innovators, social entrepreneurs, entertainers, artists, church-shapers, futurists, scientists, educators, historians, environmentalists and everyday people to do extraordinary things. At Q Ideas, you'll see a broad spectrum of content represented in our small group curriculum, videos, and articles. These are all contributed and commissioned to shed light on unique areas of culture and the church.
Q is a place where leaders from every sphere of society gather to learn, reflect, collaborate and take action to renew culture. We share a common commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ and an awareness of our calling by God to join him in his redeeming work throughout every channel of culture.
Free live streaming of the opening and closing presentations is available this morning and tonight. Speakers and their topics include
·Gabe Lyons, Founder of Q: “Ideas for the Common Good”
SXSW (@sxsw) (pronounced “south by southwest”), the annual Austin, Tex.-based festival of interactive ventures, music, and film, runs March 9-18, for another year’s presentations on innovation in technology, music, cinema, and new business platforms that will attract more than 20,000 attendees. SXSW Interactive runs March 9-13, focusing on books, publishing, and new media technology.
Panel presentations and discussions include “The Future of Lifestyle Media,” Making a Grand Entrance: How to Launch a Product,” and “The Present of Print: Paper’s Persistence.”
The Somersault team is at the annual NRB convention (@NRB_Convention) (#nrb, #nrb12, #nrb2012, #nrbconvention) taking place in Nashville, TN, Feb. 18-21. NRB (@NRBonline), formerly limited to Christian radio and TV broadcasters, has broadened itself to include bloggers, pastors, writers, and others as “a non-partisan, international association of Christian communicators whose member organizations represent millions of listeners, viewers, and readers.”
Publishing industry leaders attending the NRB convention: Doug Knox, senior vice president and publisher, Tyndale House Publishers, and Dan Balow, publisher for the eC Publishing Group.
President and CEO of NRB, Dr. Frank Wright, says Christian communication continues to evolve:
To the extent that Christian radio stations can become interwoven into the fabric and essence of the community that they serve, they’re going to be dynamic and helpful for decades to come.
However, having said that, I do think that many content producers are becoming agnostic as to which platforms their content goes out on. In other words, they’re beginning to look at distribution systems… as the UPS man, the FedEx man. I don’t think they care as much about which distribution system they use as long as their content is distributed to the largest possible audience.
O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change for Publishing (@ToC) (#toccon) was held in New York City Feb. 13-15. It’s the annual conference for professionals to discuss where digital publishing is headed.
Some sessions are available to watch on video; for example Andrew Savikas (@andrewsavikas), CEO at Safari Books Online (@safaribooks) gave a presentation on the growth of subscription-based access to books online.
Probably the most startling presentation of the day was “Kepler 2020,” a look at the efforts to transform the iconic independent bookstores into a new wave community owned bookstore that will embrace technology and a fairly breathtaking slate of new initiatives. Among them: split the store into for-profit sales and non-profit cultural foundation entities; diversify beyond the sale of print books to include services, subscriptions, memberships and corporate sponsorships, and aggressively adopt technology, including digital e-readers and e-books, perhaps even giveaway Kindles and Nooks!
Bob Young (@caretakerbob), founder and CEO of Lulu (@Luludotcom), spoke on “There Is No Such Thing As a Book, or Re-Thinking Publishing In The Age of the Internet.”
O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change for Publishing (@ToC) (#toccon) has begun in New York City. It’s the annual conference for professionals to discuss where digital publishing is headed. Some sessions will be live-streamed; also see the program schedule.
This vision will be achieved by building on WebKit, the widely adopted open source HTML5 rendering engine.
“Adobe has been a strong supporter of EPUB 3 and we look forward to continuing to provide our customers with the ability to create and render rich content experiences and compelling eBooks with this format, which enables enhanced interactivity, rich media, global formatting, and accessibility,” says Nick Bogaty, Director, Business Development, Digital Publishing, Adobe Systems Incorporated. “Adobe welcomes the Readium project as an important step to help foster increased consistency across EPUB 3 implementations.”
Others supporting the IDPF EPUB® 3 standard are ACCESS, Anobii, Apex CoVantage, Assoc. American Publishers (AAP), Barnes & Noble, Bluefire Productions, BISG, Copia, DAISY, EAST, EDItEUR, Evident Point, Google, Incube Tech, Kobo/Rakuten, Monotype, O’Reilly, Rakuten, Safari Books Online, Samsung, Sony, VitalSource, Voyager Japan.
Noticeably absent is Amazon and its Kindle ereader, which uses the proprietary digital format AZW based on the Mobipocket standard.
Verso's (@VersoDigital) director of business development and president of Books & Books Westhampton Beach (@bookswhb), Westhampton Beach, NY, Jack McKeown (@bookateur), emphasized that many in the business like to use Darwinian metaphors for what’s happening in the book world, implying that the growth of ebooks and ebook readers is a zero-sum game pitting print against digital and that the book business will follow the course of the music world, where most bricks-and-mortar music retailers have vanished.
But the findings of the Verso survey suggest a different model, McKeown said, one of symbiosis mirroring the situation of species who “depend on each other for survivability.”
Among the findings:
·Bookstores remain an important place for readers to discover new books
·Indies' market share continues to lag behind indies' popularity
·Most Borders customers were casual shoppers and are still "up for grabs"
·Readers of all kinds split purchases between a variety of retailers, including indies, chains, big boxes and online
·E-reader device owners intend to buy almost as many printed books as ebooks
·Ebook purchases are increasingly across a range of categories, more and more resembling sales for printed books, and are less focused on certain categories such as mysteries and romance
·Some readers are quite open to buying some kind of indie-branded e-reader device
·Half of all readers don’t want to use any kind of e-reader and there is no sign of a “killer” device — like the iPod in music — that would break through this resistance
·Avid readers — those who purchase 10 or more books a year — tend to be older, female, wealthier, and better educated — and represent 30.2% of the US adult population, about 70 million people. “They are the market that's a driver for our industry,” McKeown said. These avid readers buy books for a variety of reasons, including entertainment/relaxation (32%), education and self-improvement (22%) and for gifts (14%).
·Readers find out about books mostly through personal recommendations (49.2%), bookstore staff recommendations (30.8%), advertising (24.4%), search engine searches (21.6%) and book reviews (18.9%). Much less important are online algorithms (16%), blogs (12.1%), and social networks (11.8%). These results “reaffirm the power and necessity of bricks-and-mortar stores and traditional marketing efforts,” McKeown commented.
·The preferred places to shop for books are at independent bookstores (23%), chain bookstores (22%), online (21.1%), and big box stores (11.7%).
·Book buyers buy their books online (49%), at chain bookstores (42.7%), local indies (36%) and big box retailers (24.3%). Avid readers tend to buy even more online (65.5%) although avid readers buy almost as often at indies (47.5%) as at chain bookstores (51.4%).
Another survey, conducted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (@new_rules) in partnership with several business groups including the ABA, finds that independent businesses appear to be benefitting from increased public interest in supporting locally-owned retail enterprises. ABA CEO Oren Teicher says "a growing shop local trend is now a business reality."
Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) senior news editor Calvin Reid (@calreid) says, “Despite the constant economic pressures on a book publishing industry in the midst of change, the Digital Book World conference (#dbw12) [that ended yesterday in New York City] offered a snap shot of a range of industry positions and best practices as it comes to grips with digital delivery.... the book industry is indeed reinventing itself on a daily basis.”
There are more electronic reading devices, some 60 million e-readers and tablets, in the hands of consumer and there are more ways to buy books, read them, and talk about them, than ever before. “Books today are elastic and dynamic,” said Hyperion president Ellen Archer.
The transition to digitization continues in book publishing, an industry that is both susceptible to digital disruption, but also positioned to benefit tremendously from it, according to Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey (@jmcquivey) who kicked off this year's Digital Book World conference. That said, a survey conducted by Forrester in collaboration with Digital Book World found that while 82% of publishers were optimistic about digital, the number was down from 89% last year. Indeed only 28% of those thought their own company would be stronger in the future, down from 51% last year.
The decline has a lot to do with a realization of hard work ahead for publishers to adapt to the new digital environment, according to McQuivey.
Other stats:
·25 million people in the US own an e-reader
·34 million people own tablets
·8 million homes have at least 2 tablets.
·75% of publishers have an executive level person responsible for digital
·63% of publishers report that digital skills are formally integrated into all departments
·69% of publishers expect to increase digital staffiing in 2012
·22% expect overall company staffing to go down in 2012.
·75% of the publishers surveyed produce apps, but 51% said they cost too much to produce; only 19% believe apps will change the future of books and 15% say apps represent significant revenue for them.
Perhaps the most eye-opening facet of a study on the children's ebook market discussed at a Digital Book World panel was how great the potential for ebook reading in children really is:
·27% of 7-12-year-olds own their own computer
·25% own a cell phone
·7% own a reading device.
·teens have tripled their reading rate of ebooks in the last year.
Ron Hogan (@RonHogan) reports that Shelf Awareness’ (@ShelfAwareness) editor-in-chief John Mutter (@JohnMutter) moderated a panel on “The Bookstore Renaissance” where it was stressed that bookstores must stay relevant. Roxanne Coady of R.J. Julia Booksellers (Madison, Conn.) (@rjjulia) talked about the recently launched JustTheRightBook.com (@JTRBook), which offers subscribers a monthly book selection based on a personal review of their reading tastes — “the opposite of the wisdom of crowds,” she quipped.
Coady elaborated on how the site’s “human algorithm” drew on one of their biggest strengths as booksellers: “We know how to put the right book in the right hands,” she said, “and we are early discoverers.” She noted that 67% of the visitors to the site who took their quiz wound up buying or borrowing one of the recommended titles (though not always from R.J. Julia).
For publishers, last year the star of CES was clearly the "Tablet.” The tablet onslaught clearly had huge implications for publishers racing to deliver their content as widely as possible across the emerging tablet publishing channel. This year, while we saw refinements and hybridization in the tablet market space, the lack of overwhelming leaps in publication delivery technologies was good news. CES 2012 predicts we will have a year to refine production tools and workflows to deliver content to a relatively stable delivery platform environment.
Here’s what she predicts based on her observations:
·Tablet display size seems to be standardizing at 7.7 inch and 10.1 inch This is good news for publishers who are designing publications for a target device size.
·Tablet display resolution is increasing, and for these tablets battery life is decreasing.
·The functionality of tablets is rapidly increasing while the price is dropping. Price point for new Ice Cream Sandwich tablets sets a new price point of about $250. This means a larger audience for content will be in place by the end of 2012.
·Office Tablets are emerging to provide more PC-like interfaces and functionality while maintaining the mobility of Internet Appliance Tablets
·Ultrabook PCs will begin to compete head-to-head with tablets.
