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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.

Read this in full.

Reid also reports

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.

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PW’s news editor Gabe Habash (@gabehabash) writes

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.

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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).

Read this in full.

Also see DBW conference coverage by paidContent (@paidContent), especially its article about e-singles (and its “guide to e-singles”).

Read Porter Anderson’s (@Porter_Anderson) conference wrap-up on the Jane Friedman site (@JaneFriedman).

See GalleyCat's (@galleycat) coverage.

See DBW’s (@DigiBookWorld) own coverage of the show at “Video: Seen and Heard at Digital Book World.”

And see conference photos.

Stay current with news about the publishing world by bookmarking Somersault’s (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Making ebooks just became easier (at least ebooks only for the iPad). That’s the outcome from today’s announcement at the Apple event in New York City (see the QuickTime video of it). Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) says

Apple's event was first rumored to be a self-publishing venture then called an "education" venture. It turned out to be both. Apple is launching iBooks 2, a new multimedia textbook platform and iBooks Author, a shockingly easy authoring tool to create them – indeed to create any kind of book – and publish them instantly to the iBookstore. Both the new iBooks 2 app and iBooks Author app are free and available today.

On top of all that, iBooks 2 textbooks will be priced at $14.99 or less. The new iBooks 2 app will provide the usual access to the iBookstore but will also feature a new category: textbooks….They feature beautiful layouts, endless multimedia (audio, video, animation, animated 3D models, interactive quizzes, the list goes on). And iBooks Author makes it really easy--any author can follow the template or make up a new one and drag-and-drop prepared materials like text and video right into the new book. Once complete, a push of the button places it in the iBookstore in a digital marketplace holding hundreds of millions of credit card numbers....

In addition, Apple is relaunching iTunes University with a new free app. Originally focused on offering videos of university lectures, the new iTunes U app will make it possible for professors to offer full online courses, complete with assignments, notes and communications with the students, all situated on iTunes U and all for free. Several universities, including Duke and Yale, have already started posting courses.

Read it in full.

The Washington Post covered the event live, quoting Apple’s iWork vice president, Roger Rosner, “In like 5 minutes flat, we created an ebook and deployed it to the iPad. I hope you find that as inspiring and empowering as I do.”

Read it in full.

Lindsey Turrentine (@lturrentine), editor-in-chief of CNET Reviews, offers her commentary in “Apple iBooks in schools: Devil is in the hardware.” She says the high cost of outfitting classrooms with an iPad for each child and the blunt-force trauma students would inflict on the tablets, coupled with rapid advancements in technology leaving the school’s investment soon outdated, make her skeptical that today’s announcement is actually practical.

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Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid), editorial director, Digital Book World (@digibookworld), says of today’s event:

In a stunning display of ebook creation acrobatics, Apple executives dragged images and video into an e-book page and text wrapped seamlessly around it. 

The company also demonstrated completed textbooks, showing off interactive features, including: Images that come alive with explanations when tapped; fluid layouts that shift smoothly from portrait to landscape view; and index and glossary functions that are integrated directly into each page.

Read this in full.

As for the ease of creating ebooks, CNET’s (@CNET & @CNETNews) technology columnist Don Reisinger (@donreisinger) explains it in “Apple’s new iBooks Author targets ebook creators.” Also see "Apple revamps iTunes U, makes it class portal."

Other articles to read are "6 things we don't know about Apple's e-textbooks strategy" by CNET's David Carnoy (@DavidCarnoy) and Scott Stein (@jetscott), and "This is Apple At Its Absolute Worst: It Thinks It Owns Any Book You Make Through iBooks Author" by Business Insider's (@sai) Steve Kovach (@stevekovach). 

What do you expect today’s announcement will mean for your publishing plans? Write your comments below.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you with your textbook and reference publishing. Veterans with more than 100 combined years of experience in the field, we eagerly embrace current technology and the revolutionary changes it’s making in the publishing world.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially see the list of self-publishers in the Publishers tab.

In Publishing Executive (@pubexec), Dianne Kennedy (@DianneKennedy), head of nextPub and Vice President of Emerging Technologies for IDEAlliance (@IDEAlliance, @IdeasINprint, @IdeasINemedia, @IdeasINcreation), writes a summary of the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (@intlCES), especially as it pertains to publishers.

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.

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Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you navigate the churning and fast-changing waters of 21st century publishing.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

A CNET (@CNET) article by Eric Mack (@EricCMack) reports on a new tablet poll by Maritz Research (@MaritzResearch) that simplifies the tablet market into 4 types of tablet customers based on the responses – low-end buyers, newcomers, single-minded buyers, and tablet-committed buyers. Statistically, 3 of the 4 types are dominated by women.

In other words, the profile of the average low-end buyer, tablet newcomer, and single-minded buyer (someone only interested in one particular tablet, most often the iPad) are all women in their 40s.

Single-minded buyers (21%): 60% female, average age is 41. iPad-only. Little familiarity with other brands, 78% purchasing the Apple iPad. 40% make purchase decision within 2 weeks.

Tablet-committed buyers (44%): 56% male, average age is 38. Highly aware of 3 or more brands, open to purchasing any brand. 58% purchasing iPad. 34% make purchase decision within 2 weeks.

Newcomers (13%): 60% female, average age is 46 and 29% over 55. Know Tablet brand names, but nothing else. 58% purchasing the iPad. 28% purchase within 2 weeks.

Low-end buyers (22%): 54% women, average age is 41, buy tablets based on price, want to spend less than $250, 45% purchasing the Amazon Kindle Fire, 39% make purchase decision within 2 weeks.

The household income of all four groups is roughly around $70,000 on average. Even the low-end buyers don't have a much lower average household income, at $62,000 a year.

Read this in full.

Read the poll in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, “New Study Reveals Generational Differences in Mobile Device Usage.”

Bookmark and use daily our SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.

Chart of the Day (@chartoftheday) compares current tablet ownership with the world population. Two extremes, granted, but not so far-fetched when you compare with mobile subscribers.

The potential for growth in the tablet market for Apple, Google, RIM, and others is still massive. Only 0.3% of the Earth's inhabitants owned a tablet at the end of 2010, RBC analyst Mike Abramsky notes today in a detailed, 88-page report about the future of the tablet market. That means 99.7% of the people on Earth still haven't bought a tablet yet!

Read this in full.

What do you think the implications are for publishers, agents, ministries, organizations, and authors as you go about creating content?