ETEXTBOOK DREAM The glossy ads of e-reader device makers would have you believe that they will usher in a new era of reading. They claim their devices will revitalize newspapers, magazines, and textbooks by transforming them into multimedia formats of Potter-esque perfection. That vision may someday be realized, but only […]
Publishing
18 posts
I left teaching to enter a Master’s in Publishing program in Canada. These articles all have to do with the publishing industry and the disruption of traditional publishing by the inception and expansion of e-publishing.
Nicholas Carr refers to the great unbundling in his book The Big Switch. Carr claims that the internet is unbundling content from newspapers and other media forms and creating large value for commercially driven content that can be easily “added” or linked to click-thru ads. What I’d like to examine […]
Soon large media conglomerates will scramble to address an inversion of their current publication model. Amazon’s straight-to-device self-publishing platform (Digital Text Platform) is sure to spawn competitors and these services may very well threaten the long and arduous print process that has existed for hundreds of years. In this post, […]
Ironically Amazon’s Kindle may eventually cannibalize one of their most profitable areas- used books. No ebook seller has yet created a used ebook market. The obvious obstacle is that these ebooks will remain forever and thus they would pose a serious threat to the first sales market. But what if […]
An upcoming development in e-readers will be the battle for revenue from non-English content. Though Amazon has made large strides in English ebooks their international rollout of the Kindle has left them somewhat vulnerable on this front. A fully capable e-reader that allows UTF-8 and thus can display every language […]
Jeff Bezos has said of the Kindle “The one thing you’ll notice about the Kindle is that it does disappear when you read it.” And on many levels, I think that is true. But I can think of four books that would benefit from utilizing the ebook format in a […]
Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (now KDP) and all those services that copy it will necessitate the rise of Cloud and crowd editing. Large publishers so deeply ensconced in their current business model will lose control of a lucrative share of their publishing business. They will demonize their customers, and […]
In the digital era of books, I’ve come to the conclusion I have to distinguish between books and the ideas they convey. The book as an object is important, but sometimes only the ideas books, magazines, and newspapers convey are important. I have a collection of first editions and books […]