The E-volution of Magazines and Reading

By • Sep 12th, 2008 • Category: 26th Story, Big Ideas, Entertainment, Technology

The much-awaited Esquire cover, the first in which a magazine uses e-ink, hit stands this past Monday.

Since book publishing has been buzzing about e-ink for awhile now, I was eager to see how this experiment turned out.

The initial reviews of the cover, like reviews of most things, are mixed…even negative. Wired calls it a "21st century flop" and Gizmodo says "it’s one of the worst ideas I’ve heard from a publication in awhile." (But hey, all publicity is good publicity, right?) And most of the stories acknowledge that the e-ink cover is a genius marketing ploy.

I have to agree. Not only did Esquire get Ford to sponsor the expensive venture (genius move #1), and get tons of press for being the first to mag to make the move into e-ink (from NPR to the New York Times (genius move #2), but now people are hacking the cover (unintentional genius move #3).

In a fourth move, their most genius one yet, Esquire is encouraging the hacking.

After all, getting people to read about your latest marketing strategy is one thing. But getting people to actually play with your latest marketing strategy? They must realize that not even Ford can buy that kind of exposure.

I can’t help but think about how this relates to DRM and book publishing. To-have-control, not-to-have-control is a constant topic of discussion among publishers…will releasing a book’s full content bastardize the book? What about the author’s rights to his or her creative property?

What do you think? Should books have DRM or should publishers try to take the Esquire route and encourage people to experiment with them?

Sarah

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  • http://stonyriverfarm.blogspot.com Susan

    EEK, what a question.

    The writer in me wants an iron grip on anything I create, but then, I look at how fan fiction sometimes takes an original work to whole new levels (thinking of the hundreds of Star Trek paperbacks published in the past few decades, for instance).

    So I agree with you, that if people can *play* with your idea, not just read about it, you’re on to something. Caroline Smailes gifted her readers with her Black Boxes widget which is fun to play with and generates hits to player’s websites (not always her own), and is free to take, yet at the same time, it’s creating a buzz for her…this ‘ad’ for her book is being put in blog sidebars everywhere, on blogs that don’t post ads. That’s had me thinking about publicity in new ways.

    Interesting!

  • http://mortalghost.blogspot.com Lee

    Play away!

    I’ve been watching one of my short stories undergo metamorphosis into a film, and I think it’s fascinating – and not just very different than, but in many ways superior to the original. Why should I mind? Once I’ve made something public, it no longer belongs to me – if ever it did – but enters the general culture. Everyone still retains the choice of which version they prefer to enjoy.

    Which of course means that writers need to find new income-generating models. The old ones based on copyright are doomed.

  • Sarah

    Lee,
    I think the manuscript-to-film transition is an interesting take on the idea of playing with a work. It’s something that most readers and writers are accustomed to. So why is it that playing with a work in a way that might not hit the big screen is so scary? Are they really that different?
    In terms of writers finding new ways to profit from their work, that brings up a new challenge. A recent op-ed from Paul Krugman addressed this too (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/opinion/06krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin). He says it much better than I can.
    All good things to think about.
    - Sarah

  • Sarah

    Susan,
    I think your desire to keep an iron fist on your work is a common one. After all, you’ve put so much into creating your work, letting it go so that people can play with it is a lot like letting your first born go off into the world. But I agree that for those writers not ready to let go of DRM, there are other ways to let people “play” with works through widgets. Contests, even allowing select pieces of a work out, are good options. I think we have an interesting road ahead of us – I’m eager to see which fork publishers and authors take when it comes to DRM.
    - Sarah

  • http://www.softskull.com/news Richard Nash

    The horse bolted the stable a long time ago on DRM. People can hack printed books very simply, through OCR scanning. The question isn’t whether to use DRM—the answer is of course not, all the data from other media indicates it’s worse than useless—but can we achieve a reasonable level of friendliness in term of pricing and usability vis-a-vis the customer/reader that piracy will remain as marginal as it currently is. How we treat the legitimate customer will determine piracy, if we treat them like a potential thief, some of them will act that way.

  • Sarah

    You bring up a good point, Richard. I think the key is to make a transaction of buying an e-book an easy one – people will pay for ease. But if you try to keep something locked away, they will spend countless hours trying to unlock it.

  • http://www.softskull.com/news RichardNash