Over the holidays I caught up on some of my recreational reading and read Ender’s Game, the scifi classic written by Orson Scott Card and published by TOR in 1985. It only took me ten years to get to it–I first heard about the book in high school when my friend Dash gave a book report on it in Freshman English. Light years ago, right?

What surprised me most about the book, though, was how accurately Card predicted future technologies: all the recruits have desks (touchscreen laptops), when they’re not studying or practicing they have time for free play (video games), the school has a system the students can send messages through (email), and back on Earth people communicate across the globe on the nets (the internet).

If anyone still doubts the power of Twitter and the blogosphere, this passage from the book, where Ender’s siblings back on Earth, Patrick and Valentine, take up the personas of Demosthenes and Locke on the nets in order to amass political influence, reads almost as prophecy:

With false names, on the right nets, [Patrick and Valentine] could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were their words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal, on the nets.

Of course they were not invited to take part in the great national and international political forums–they could only be audiences there until they were invited or elected to take part. But they signed on and watched, reading some of the essays published by the great names, witnessing the debates that played across their desks.

And in the lesser conferences, where common people commented about the great debates, they began to insert their comments. At first Peter insisted that they be deliberately inflammatory.

The responses that got posted were vinegar; the responses that were sent as mail, for Peter and Valentine to read privately, were poisonous. But they did learn what attributes of their writing were seized upon as childish and immature. And they got better.

Peter took careful note of their most memorable phrases and then did searches from time to time to find those phrases cropping up in other places. Not all of them did, but most of them were repeated here and there, and some of them even showed up in the major debates on the prestige nets. “We’re being read,” Peter said. “The ideas are seeping out.”

In an age when Ashton Kutcher has more followers on Twitter than CNN, this scenario couldn’t ring more true.

“I did too” says Timberlake. And then, a pause: “No I didn’t” Timberlake says, chuckling. Huh? I don’t get it. The message is.. a Sony Reader is a cool looking device…for people who pretend to read? I’ll take Hodgman any day over that.

After Esquire announced the new feature last week, posts quickly popped up reviewing the magazine’s execution and asking questions. December will surely see a boost in sales due to people like me buying the magazine for the novelty of the experience, but is this something that will go on to save the print industry? Will people be able to appreciate the need for a webcam to read something in print? Will the cost of AR technology ever be completely offset by ad sales and thus a sustainable feature? Are we creating a future for AR?

It’s important to remember that, while you may be adding a medium, you might not necessarily be adding value. In an OpEd for AgencySpy, Jack Benoff criticized Esquire for using AR as a self-proclaimed gimmick instead of adding any value beyond what could be accomplished online. As far as we can tell, the interactive feature is mostly entertainment based, but Benoff offers one way to take AR to the next, necessary level:

Of course it’s easy to sit here and rip on someone else’s work without providing any real value, so here’s an idea: what if Esquire’s “fashion spread” allowed people to overlay images of an article of clothing on themselves ( for example ties) so that they could match (or in my case, learn how to match) them with their existing wardrobe. Editorial content could provide tips, tricks and insights. Now, that might provide some real value to consumers looking to make a purchase (not to mention the brands that sell those articles of clothing) and would be an execution that could be updated and utilized all year long (that is, Esquire could sell the space to various retailers each and every season).

So while I’ll be picking up the issue to marvel at the AR magic, I would love to see magazines (or even books!) take on augmented reality to engage with the reader and provide valuable interaction.

More about Kevin Michael Connolly’s upcoming memoir, Double Take, can be found here.

So after finishing George Dawes Green‘s terrific new novel, Ravens, I immediately ordered his first one, The Caveman’s Valentine, a brilliant book that fully deserved its Edgar Award.

If my experience is any indicator, the downward pressure on price from e-books might very well be counter-balanced by something we can all feel good about, and hopefully find a way to make money from: a newly voracious appetite for page-turners (or page-clickers, as I guess we’ll now need to say).

“I really feel like my problem isn’t piracy.  It’s obscurity.” – Cory Doctorow

Now, basic knowledge of HTML is the new requirement for membership. At least according to me. Seriously, Kathryn, our Rotational Associate, came to us with HTML skills, and it comes in handy every single day — to the point where I realized I needed to learn 101 HTML skills to stay ahead of the curve.

Cut to a few weeks ago when I got an email from Maggie Hilliard at DailyLit telling me that their newly formed Digital Publishing Group was offering up a “free,” basic HTML class (I say this very quietly for fear that everyone’s going to realize what I already know — which is to say that this group is a gift to publishing and I’m afraid there won’t be room for me if I miss the email and don’t RSVP fast enough). To make this offer even more insanely appealing, the class was being taught by DailyLit founder Susan Danziger‘s husband, Albert Wenger, a partner at Union Square Ventures. Check out their portfolio and you’ll know why I placed such high value on this offering.

Space was limited. First RSVP, first serve.

To say I hit the “Reply YES” button so fast your head would spin, would be an understatement.

The class took place last night. I’d say there were about 25 people there — seemed to be a mix of age and gender (though mostly women, and mostly younger!) — and I’m proud to say there were 5 HarperCollins peeps in the crowd (woo hoo @DominicanPie — I should have known you’d be there. I knew as soon as I met you that you get it.).

It was the most potent, amazing, useful, 2.5 hours I’ve spent in a long, long, time.

THANK YOU ALBERT! And thank you Susan Danizger and Maggie Hilliard for bringing this group together. You guys are amazing, and Book Publishing is lucky to have you.

A little bit of digging into the concept lead me to Pecha Kucha, a style of presentation that was born in Japan and is spreading around the world. Turns out there are Pecha Kucha nights everywhere. Book lovers like 800ceoread are already deep into this Pecha Kucha movement — which then got me thinking that maybe it’s something that all authors should give a whirl when their book is published?

Senior Vice President of Symtio, Tim Close, answers a few questions:

1) What is Symtio?

Symtio (a division of Zondervan) is a comprehensive digital content and e-commerce platform. Its “retail 2.0″ approach means retailers have minimal inventory expense, and publishers gain deeper access to shelf space with higher margin. Symtio’s unique title cards and POS system integration mean there is a finally a bridge between brick-and-mortar retail and digital media. Perhaps equally important, Symtio has web services integration that allows retailers the first multi-channel approach to digital media.

Symtio also has launched a way for publishers to engage customers on a more direct basis through a white label e-commerce and content delivery platform. Any digital media format – ebooks, audiobooks, music, movies, software – can be delivered in a totally-branded and seamless environment under their own domain.

2) How do you see your role in the evolution of books?

We’re expanding the market for publishers, content providers, and traffic aggregators to enter into digital and engage consumers directly and in an open fashion. There seems to be too much focus on formats and niches right now, and that’s fostering the ability for some retailers to take control of markets and pricing. I believe the focus needs to center on how we can make digital books and digital media as convenient, accessible, and interesting for consumers as possible.

Digital consumers want their files to work on their devices of choice. It’s likely that DRM and closed systems stymie the ease-of-use factor and diminish the overall consumer experience. Moving toward an open system is what’s going to improve adoption and really deliver on the most important factor, which is convenience.

3) Can you download a Symtio book on your mobile phone, and if so, have you seen any growth in this area since you’ve begun?

Mobile is to ebooks what the iPod was the music. Our view is that the iPhone – perhaps even more so than the Kindle – brings ebooks into the mainstream. While it’s not all that likely that teenagers are going to walk around with a Kindle, there are millions who already own iPhones. But mobile as whole facilitates convenience and therefore is important to the growth of the digital book marketplace. Symtio offers several formats for smart phones, including the iPhone.

4) You’ve been in the Christian Bookstores since October 2008. What’s the response been?

It’s been very positive. We’ve sold through more than 75 percent of the catalog, which means consumers are not only shopping the bestsellers, but also browsing through the backlist. We’re expanding the catalog each month and are really encouraged by the velocity and quick consumer adoption within a relatively small marketplace.

5) How long until you role out Symtio in the non-Christian bookstores?

We’re working on some tests now for the mass markets.

I feel so guilty.  I cancelled my $42 a month home delivery subscription to the  New York Times.  I’ve had it delivered since 1990.  

Just one week on the Kindle and I couldn’t go back.   It’s just so smooth and clean on the Kindle…….

I cancelled in stages.  First the weekday, then I called back a few days later to cancel the weekend edition too.  I felt awful when the operator asked me if I’d reconsider if they gave me a deal.  ”It’s not you, it’s me,” I said.  But then I remembered my conversation with an elderly gentleman at a dinner party on Saturday night and he told me he prefers to read it electronically too.  I remember thinking “it’s doomed.”  

I asked the Times operator to please be sure to mark on my record that I’d pay more than the $14 a month I’m being charged for the Kindle edition.  In fact, I think they should charge for all electronic versions, I told her. Why should their hard work be given away for free?

I felt so awful…….but then I hung up and read Steve Rubel’s Micropersuasion blog this morning which says the Kindle is creating a moment of hope for the media — and I felt optimistic that the media might embrace the concept of working the Kindle.

The “Free” people are definitely loud — but that’s not to say they are right.  Speaking now as s a consumer (and not as someone in publishing ), I do believe people should, and will pay for great content (The Wall St. Journal and Consumer Reports are great examples).  It  has value and should be charged for.

I’m sure I’m going to be stoned by the “free” people for saying this…….

…….but just one more thing: don’t miss David Carr’s column today.  He says everything I’ve been thinking, better than I ever could.

This is a guest post from our friend Ryan Chapman at MacMillan.

The Criterion Collection has taken an interesting step forward, almost contrary to their “mission statement.” A little background first: way back in the day, they invented the Director’s Commentary and the “Deluxe Edition” with their line of laserdiscs (remember those?), and soon after moved to DVDs. They’re essentially an arthouse imprint for lost and underrated classics of world cinema, like the Taschen or Rizzoli of DVDs. (Bob Stein of the Institute for the Future of the Book was a co-founder.) Each film is presented in the best possible format, with updated packaging, scholarly essays, definitive “Director’s Editions” and clean, beautiful transfers. A 1953 film like The Wages of Fear looks better in a Criterion edition than most recent DVDs. If anyone would resist the digitalization of content, it would be these guys.

Well, surprise: with their website re-launch, Criterion is offering online rentals of a broad selection of their almost 500 titles. For five bucks you get to watch the film as many times as you want for one week. A little like iTunes or Netflix, sure. But their real innovation, in my opinion, is that your rental fee also acts as a coupon off the purchase of the physical DVD from their online store. They’ve found a great way to link the online and offline content experience.

Would this work for books? The subscription model idea has been kicked around the industry for a while now – what if it was tied to an easily accessed online platform? What do you guys think?

I’m a big fan of Joe Wikert’s, so I asked his opinion about a few issues, including eBook pricing.

He told me he thinks we’re having the wrong conversation.  It’s not about how fast we can get to zero — it’s about how the content should be built……and then he said something that really inspired me:  The first TV shows were basically radio programs on the television — until someone realized that TV was a whole new medium.  Ebooks should not just be print books delivered electronically.  We need to take advantage of the medium and create something dynamic to enhance the experience.  I want links and behind the scenes extras and narration and videos and conversation…….

My new mantra is: Start Over:  How Should the Content Be Built.  

Turns out it’s not as easy to do as it should be.  I’m on the hunt for developers who can help me realize this dream.  Soon.  Like now.  If you are that person, or know that person, please get in touch with me ASAP. I have a zillion ideas and I’d love to hear yours and make this happen.

Check out our newest poll: It’s tax time. How much did you spend on books last year?

Check out this Voice Stick, which is an advanced optical character recognition scanner designed to make all books available to the visually impaired.

As you pass the wand over a page, optical character recognition technology translates it into text, and the text is read to you in a friendly voice. It can be used to convert any text from books, newspapers, contracts, mail, business cards, etc., into audio, listened to through headphones. The wand length is about the width of a page, making this device just as portable as the Kindle 2 and certainly just as helpful.

She’s discussing ebook pricing in this clip, though she wrote to me later to say that she she was wrong about the number of books women who took the survey buy.  Turns out it’s two to five books per month.  You can check out the Booksquare blog for the wrap up of the TOC Smart Women Read Ebooks panel.

Kat may not have been perfect with the numbers this time………but she’s always a treasure trove of info, and her blog and tweets fun and informative.

Martha comes to us from Brazil where she was an entrepreneurial publishing sensation.  She’s now a graduate student at the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies where she’s working on a graduate degree in their Publishing Program.

You can learn more about Martha in this video:

I can’t imagine a more deserving candidate to receive this scholarship.

CONGRATULATIONS MARTHA!!!!!

–Bob

The Printed Blog selects its content depending on reader votes and their location, creating news that is suited for each community and delivered in two editions (AM and PM).  This is a revolutionary integration of web-based syndication technologies and printed media that acknowledges the movement toward individualized information.  “This isn’t about the newspaper, this is about you.”

We love the shifted focus that The Printed Blog is bringing to the table (literally!).  Sure, we can scroll through our feeds on our screens, but now we can enjoy the added boost that off-screen, printed media needs to survive.  You know we’re all about embracing technology here, and we’re glad to see it popping up elsewhere.

The first issue of The Printed Blog was distributed in Chicago and San Francisco today, but they also have it available online for download – naturally.

In this case, the site was conceived as a complement to, not a replacement for Dante’s work. In other cases, however, technology is used as part of the reading experience, like this book made by the German author Christoph Benda with Google Earth illustrations. It is considered a “geo novel”, with pages accompanied by a satellite view of the current location of the story.

Should technology be part of the reading experience, as Christoph Benda’s suggests, or should it just be a complement for books, like Danteworlds?

- Martha

The short answer is sell books. But it ain’t that simple.

If you stop and think about it, give or take a few bells and whistles (the ubiquitous flash intro page, for example), most author websites are exactly the same: Descriptive copy, an excerpt, author bio, possibly a trailer or Q&A, reviews, events & readings, and a link to Amazon and other book retailers. In other words: an electronic business card. It comes as no surprise, then, that a recent Codex study quoted in Courtney Sullivan’s article “See the Web Site, Buy the Book” found that 8% of book buyers had visited author websites in a given week. 8%!

So what would engage the other 92% of the book buying market? What are the elements of a successful author/ book website? (On Friday Debbie is hosting a breakfast for our authors to discuss these very questions so more to come on this subject from the rest of the HS gang). For now, here are some of my unscientific observations. I would love to hear yours….

A good author website:

- Is interactive and speaks to a distinct community

- Is inherently entertaining

- Engages someone who has never heard of the book or author

- Gives the reader a reason to come back

- Can be found easily on Google

Here are 5 authors who are getting it right.

John Hodgman: http://www.areasofmyexpertise.com/

Tim Ferris: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/

Chris Anderson http://www.thelongtail.com/

Sloane Crosley http://sloanecrosley.com/

Cory Doctorow http://craphound.com/

(note the savvy publicist Sloane Crosley is the only author here who has used her name rather than the book title)

- Julia

“As the photographic industry was the refuge of every would-be painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies, this universal infatuation bore not only the mark of a blindness, an imbecility, but had also the air of a vengeance. I do not believe, or at least I do not wish to believe, in the absolute success of such a brutish conspiracy, in which, as in all others, one finds both fools and knaves; but I am convinced that the ill-applied developments of photography, like all other purely material developments of progress, have contrib­uted much to the impoverishment of the French artistic genius, which is already so scarce….Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place. If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude which is its natural ally.” [On Photography, from the salon on 1859]

I suppose one could argue the Kindle is hardly a populist device at $399 a pop, but then again neither was the first camera. It was the potential to go mass that frightened Baudelaire who, it seems, now has 50,662 friends on Facebook.

–Bob

Desperate parents of organizationally challenged children will find relief with Marcella Moran's great tips.

• It gets much worse before it gets better.

• Online advertising demonstrates it isn't immune to gravity.

• Media ownership consolidates.

• Ad pullback whacks big broadcast TV networks.

• A picayune change in how magazines count circulation is O.K.'d by industry arbiter Audit Bureau of Circulations.

• New York Times Co. (NYT) sells About.com to buy time for its flagship paper.

• A sort of shadow media industry is born—properties created and staffed by those pink-slipped in '08 and '09. This sets the stage for epic clashes with existing players in '10 and beyond.

[Businessweek]

Debbie

Joi ito is an activist, entrepreneuer and venture capitialist.

1) Can you explain what Creative Commons is to people who might not know?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in the US with partners in 49 jurisdictions and relationships with groups in approximately 80 countries.

Creative Commons makes copyright licenses available without charge to anyone who would like to facilitate the sharing of their work. Authors decide whether the works can be used for commercial purposes or whether derivative works have to also be relicensed under a similar Creative Commons license. Once the author has made the choices, there is a simple tool on our website which creates the appropriate license. By pasting the code onto the website or embedding it in the work, the work is marked with a Creative Commons icon. When the icon is clicked, anyone wishing to use the content can see the Creative Commons “deed” which clearly shows what you can and can’t do with the work. This is what we call the “human readable” deed.The license also provides “machine-readable metadata” which get embedded in your work or website which allows services such as Google and Yahoo and various editing program to automatically understand which licenses are attached to which works and the original owner of each part of each work.

The key reason for using these licenses is to create an open and interoperable specification so that each time, for instance, that a professor from one university wants to incorporate works from another professor in their curriculum, a legal team does not need to get involved in reading the licenses of both works and negotiating a contract. If the professors have marked their works with the appropriate rights, for instance “as long as you provide attribution, please feel free to use without any other restrictions.”
 

2) Does Creative Commons have different implications for different forms of media? Would books be affected differently than music, for example?

Absolutely. One big difference relates to the underlying business models around the works. When you make the choices above, Creative Commons licenses end up in the form of six basic forms. The most permissive allows users to do anything they want as long as they provide attribution. The most restrictive licenses do not allow derivative works and commercial use or allow derivative works but force the derivative to also be Creative Commons licensed.

In the case of book publishing, we have seen a variety of different examples. The basic consideration is how much demand the book already has versus the potential demand that a free download version of the book might create. Clearly there is some cannibalization of sales if people who were going to buy the book end up reading it online. However, we have quite a bit of data which supports the fact that making the book available for free increases the likelihood that the book will get stronger coverage on blogs and word of mouth and also find its way into markets not typically marketed to by the publishers. If, for instance, one allows derivative works, a good book will often quickly get translated, whole or in part, which can drive demand in International markets.

3) With regard to e-commerce, you talk about the value of getting more money from fewer people as opposed to a little money from a lot of people. Can you elaborate?

Before e-commerce the cost of manufacturing, packaging, shipping and selling content in the form of books, videos and CDs was very expensive and cost intensive. It was very difficult for a musician, for example, to be in touch with their fans directly, especially from a commerce perspective. The way that a fan “touched” a musician was typically by buying a standardized sized and priced CD at some megastore, a majority of the cost going to the distribution and manufacturing system.

Now, with the Web and e-commerce, many of these restrictions are no longer a problem. For example, when Nine Inch Nails released “Ghost”, they made the music downloadable and available for free under a Creative Commons license. They sold a 2500 copy limited edition boxed set for $300. They also had a $70 luxury edition with a photo book as well as various other versions. They had very little transaction “friction” and were able to design the experience so that the fans were interacting directly with them instead of through a florescent lit cashier at a megastore. They were able to sell $1.6 million in worth of product in one week and sold out the special edition in one day. Prince also makes millions of dollars a year from fans who pay to be members of his website fan club.

We are now shifting from what I call the “delivery problem” to the “discovery problem.” Whereas the difficulty use to lie in the mechanics of getting the product to the user, now the challenge is getting the attention of the customer. How do I find the product that I’m interested in?  In the past we had the stack of best sellers at Border’s and MTV that helped create a mass demand on marketed product, but in the world of increasing choice and diversity, the discovery problem is a real one.

4)  What is the best business decision you’ve made?

My passion and my background is in main stream media – motion pictures, music, journalism and television. The best decision that I made was to become an Internet entrepreneur to help build the Internet which, increasingly, allows anyone to participate and innovate without asking permission. While this causes a variety of problems and risk for professional media, I believe that in the long run, it will greatly enhance the quality and diversity of our culture.

Here Carr talks about the evolution of his relationship with Google and why, for example, Schmidt & co didn’t go to great lengths to publicize their new video chat function. In a line: “The most powerful form of advertising is to be exceptional.” [Google Seduces with Utility: NYT]

This week MIT’s Media lab announced the creation of the “Center for Future Storytelling” which, in conjunction with several Hollywood executives, will look at the breakdown in quality in our films (and books). Is our thirst for game-like blockbusters with small stories such as “Spider Man” and “Transformers” the result of our content saturated, text messaging, ADD culture? Or is it simply the product of the business challenges that plague the entertainment industry (will Shrek 5 always be a better bet than an unknown quantity?). We’re interested to hear more about the Center for Future Storytelling’s work, especially with regard to books.[New York Times]

The launch of these APIs is huge for two reasons:

1) It means the Times is recognizing the immense value of making the data in their archives available (a traditional search is way limited compared to what a nuanced API can deliver).

2) The Times is signaling a willingness to share the vast amounts of data they’ve collected for non commercial uses. And, as an added bonus, the Times will be better able to track the queries people make of their interface and use that data to their advantage.

Several content providers / media companies have created APIs (just take a look at Mashery) to give users access to customizable data. One example is Netflix’s recent API for Blackberry. Listen to Netflix engineer Michael Hart talk to the guys on thesocialweb.tv about Netflix’s API (really, this is worth checking out).

So, how is all of this relevant to book publishers? Well, now that we’ve invested in scanning our books and creating digital archives, the huge question becomes: what do we do with all of our content? Do we look at a subscription model like Netflix? Do we follow the lead of the New York Times (which has only just dipped a toe in) and create an interface that makes content available to all? And, if so, how do we make sure that our authors get compensated for their work?

Julia

Can these electronic editions of amalgamated magazine content be considered books? Is that question even relevant?  Do these four – let’s call them kinooks – represent an important new content package for readers?

Julia

Julia

“It mostly involves putting “Britney Spears Sex Tape” in the headline and then using it in the first 15 words of the blog post. I mean really, beyond that, there isn’t that much in terms of tips ‘n’ tricks, as you can apply the Britney Spears Sex Tape principle to any topic!”

And here I was thinking the web was this democratic space where good content was rewarded with traffic! Palin Fey Sex Tape. But I guess I’m naïve not to realize that good content gets lost online just like great books often go unnoticed because they don’t make it to the front of the bookstore. In that sense word of mouth is just as important on and offline. Or, in this case, Palin, Fey, Sex Tape.

SEO advice welcome.

Julia

Could it be true? Is the iPhone the most popular eReader on the market? And how could anyone actually know since Amazon won’t release any real stats to the public? And frankly, just because more people are downloading an app on their iphones than buying the Kindle, does that mean they are actually reading more books on the iPhone?

I had to try Stanza (the self-proclaimed “Revolution in Reading”) and the program that allows users to download book content for free to their iPhones, myself. It reads well, and it’s true that there are thousands of books available for free – but most of them are from the public domain. What if you want to download a newly published book? What if you want to read the latest #1 bestseller on your iPhone?

After a little research and a few additional articles, I found myself back in common territory.

Stanza “does not currently support reading books that are encumbered with Digital Rights Management (DRM).”

It seems all roads lead back to DRM…

- Sarah

1)   First of all, it’s really hard.  Do you know how many times I told authors, without batting an eye,….”Blog Blog Blog.”  I feel so guilty now that I’ve discovered how hard it is to be “on” when someone says "go."

2)   Good content is what it’s all about.  Forget the blah blah blah.  No one cares.  People want useful information.

3)   Repurpose other people’s blog ideas and share them with your readers (giving credit, of course!). That’s what 3/4 of the blogs out there do.  I’ve come to understand that that’s the purpose of many blogs — to aggregate content you think is interesting and useful.  I know it sounds like plagiarism, but look around and you’ll see.

4)   Less is more.  Don’t ask people to guest blog who don’t understand this point. 

5)   People love to give their opinion…..so if you have a question, ask and you shall hear back.  I was so pleased with all of the responses to the Website vs.. Blog post (below) and used every bit of the advice.

Here are a few examples of what I consider to be really well done blogs:

Freakonomics — La Crème de la crème.  Takes the author blog to a whole other level.  Great use of the "Guest Blogger." 

Chris Moore — Hilarious.  Really well done author blog.  If you like Chris Moore, you’ll love this.

Micropersuasion — Useful information posted frequently.

Wine Library TV — Great use of the Video Blog.  Fun to watch and useful info.

Galleycat — If you’re into publishing, there’s no better place to get the latest news.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about what makes a good blog.

Debbie

]]> http://theharperstudio.com/2008/10/5-things-i%e2%80%99ve-learned-about-blogging-after-blogging-for-about-5-minutes/feed/ 9 http://theharperstudio.com/2008/10/doctorow-to-microsoft-drm-is-a-bad-business-move/ http://theharperstudio.com/2008/10/doctorow-to-microsoft-drm-is-a-bad-business-move/#comments Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:04:26 +0000 Steffen http://theharperstudio.com/2008/10/doctorow-to-microsoft-drm-is-a-bad-business-move/ I’ve been a fan of Cory Doctorow‘s work for a long time (Bruce Sterling calls him “a political activist, gizmo freak, junk collector, programmer, entrepreneur, and all-around Renaissance geek”) but ever since I joined HarperStudio over the summer, I’ve developed a new found admiration for Doctorow’s advocacy for freedom of speech and freedom of information- as well as his general chutzpah. His new book, Content, should be required reading for anyone interested in the future of publishing.

Here’s an excerpt from a talk he gave at Microsoft (click here to download the book in its entirety, for free):

Greetings fellow pirates! Arrrrr!

I’m here today to talk to you about copyright, technology and DRM, I work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation on copyright stuff (mostly), and I live in London. I’m not a lawyer — I’m a kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though occasionally they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and send me to a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble. I spend about three weeks a month on the road doing completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk about DRM.

I lead a double life: I’m also a science fiction writer. That means I’ve got a dog in this fight, because I’ve been dreaming of making my living from writing since I was 12 years old. Admittedly, my IP-based biz isn’t as big as yours, but I guarantee you that it’s every bit as important to me as yours is to you.

Here’s what I’m here to convince you of:

1. That DRM systems don’t work

2. That DRM systems are bad for society

3. That DRM systems are bad for business

4. That DRM systems are bad for artists

5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT

Publishers are still grappling with decisions about the importance of DRM. We would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Julia

But now I think Twitter got a bad rap.

I’ve been seeing increasing media coverage about Twitter, not to mention that EVERYONE from the O’Reily conference was giving out their Twitter addresses along with email and phone numbers.

I’m an information junkie. I like to know the news, new technology, gossip, publishing deals, etc. – and I like to know it first and fast. Turns out Twitter is perfect for that.

Yes there are people on there who tweet inane details…..but I don’t have to follow them. There are also Twitterers whose info I want to hear: CNN, Steve Rubel, Tim O’Reilly, Obama, etc. etc. etc. I was so surprised to see that nearly every major company I looked up was Twittering — even a sister division of my own company, HarperTeen.

So I’m a new Twitter junkie, as my friends and colleagues will attest. I haven’t Twittered yet myself (well, once, to my daughter who was home sick and sending me tweets from her sick bed upstairs)…..

But stay tuned…..as soon as I can figure out something useful to say, I’ll be Twittering myself.

Debbie

Given that we’re planning extensive digital marketing campaigns for each of our books, we need a great website, right?

While we figure out the next step, we started this blog, www.26thstory.com …..for about $15 a month; It’s scrappy. It’s no frills…….but it does show videos and photos, and it takes questions and comments, and has living, breathing author pages such as these for Emeril and Joann Davis, and will have one for each author as we sign them up.

Which then leads me to ask: Why do we “need” a website? We’ve been looking at proposals for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I am still not clear what we would accomplish with a website that justifies that amount of money.  I certainly understand the difference between their functions, just not the ROI.

Nearly everyone who’s opinion on the matter I highly regard says we need one. Certainly the companies we’ve looked into hiring say yes. And yet no one seems to be able to explain to me “WHY” in a way that makes sense to me.

So I’m asking YOU……what could we gain with a website that’s worth spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on?

Debbie

“There just have to be fewer adjectives and adverbs,” [McMullan] said. “Just nouns followed by verbs. I think a Joan Didion sentence—a lot of short sentences—can do that. Joan Didion’s sentences don’t rely on subordinate clauses.”

I’m curious to hear what people think of this. Could you enjoy reading a magazine on a 4 ½ inch screen?

Julia

I spent last week at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo in New York. Wow. I can not believe that was the first time I attended. Here are a few take-aways from a book publishing perspective:

1) SEO is 6 times more effective than a banner ad. 80% of Internet users begin a session on a search engine.

2) iPhone has a fraction of the handsets but 75% of the internet traffic. Google sees 50 times more searches from iPhones than from any other type of phone.

3) The “walled garden” mentality that I face with the media nearly every day is O V E R. The tech people will all tell you that links out lead to links back in. What’s that old saying….. “If you love something set it free, if it comes back it’s yours, if not it was never meant to be?”

4) Collaborative work is the way of the future. Everyone’s using Wiki’s.

5) Publishing should look far beyond its own industry when considering how to face the future. To my surprise, even a software company can be a great source of inspiration as a business model (thank you Jason Fried)

6) Passion rules. I already knew that, but Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library)  drove the point home for me. Man is he inspiring. I would have quit my day job after seeing him if I didn’t love what I do so much.

7) Speakers at a tech conferences curse a lot and business casual would have looked formal.

I will definitely be spreading the message to the book industry that business clothes are out, cursing is in, working less is more, bigger is not better, “sharing” is not just a nice manner your mother taught you, and we should all learn what wikis are and start using them. The rest of the world has already figured it out.

Debbie

Roxanne had warned us ahead of time that she was going to push us to give constructive advice for the indies in the room.  Jonathan encouraged the booksellers to become more “emphatic” in their selectivity, reminding the booksellers that their ability to influence book sales had far exceeded their roughly-ten-percent market share on many of his most successful titles, from Seabiscuit to God Is Not Great. Roxanne pointed out that this influence was being done for publishers without compensation, and asked if we could imagine a day when publishers might compensate the indies for their support of new material.

I’m not sure how to quantify that influence, but I did suggest a few things I hope might be useful for other booksellers, or at least get some conversations going:

1. Indie exclusives: perhaps indies could band together, either in the form of the ABA or regional organizations, and approach publishers with book ideas that they might get first in exchange.
2. Self-publishing: the ABA has just set up a print-on-demand system for booksellers; why not use that system to publish local-interest titles, as Larry Abrahamoff did at Tatnuck with his guidebook to the Worcester area.
3. Blog, blog, blog: the internet has created the ability for expertise and strong opinion to compete effectively for attention on a large stage. Indie booksellers should be blogging up a storm, making use of the military history buff on their staff, for instance, to make their store the go-to place for military history titles. For inspiration, check out the success story of this indie wine-store owner in New Jersey.
4. Stop complaining about the Kindle and start selling e-books yourselves: Indiebound.org now has the ability to sell e-books; why not create partnerships with Indiebound.org and publishers to link e-book sales to regular book sales?

Finally, in a brazen attempt to promote HarperStudio’s upcoming attempt to sell non-returnably, I said that while we would be offering a choice between going returnable or non-returnable with our books, I hoped that the booksellers would give the non-returnable option a try, using the additional discount we’ll offer to create in-store promotions, and to increase margins while reducing waste. I also managed to divide the room by proposing that HarperStudio’s books wouldn’t carry a suggested retail price: half the room liked the idea, because it would give them the freedom to set their own prices, while the other half thought it would create an advantage for the chains, whom customers would assume were charging less. I’m still tempted to try it…

But if you are a truly modern person, you probably know all this already, because Ann Kingman was Twittering about the panel as it was happening–so even though I’m writing this a matter of hours after the event, this is actually old news!

Bob

Never mind that I was getting less than 1/3 of the retail price I’d paid less than 6 months earlier. Forget that some of my college professors rarely even referenced the textbooks and they looked brand new when I went to sell them back. I didn’t even care that the store was going to turn around and sell my book back “used” to someone else for way more than they just gave me. I was just happy to get a little cash in my pocket. I was a sucker.

Now, it looks like the days of selling back physical textbooks are coming to an end. Yesterday’s New York Times had an article about downloading textbooks, some for free and some not-so-free.

R. Preston McAfee, an economics professor at Cal Tech, is running what seems to be the perfect print-on-demand experiment. Students can download his book, Introduction to Economics Analysis, for free.

Another, relatively new organization called CourseSmart now offers digital downloads of textbooks for lower prices than physical books. They’ve partnered with 6 textbooks publishers, including biggie McGraw Hill, to offer more than 4,000 digital textbooks, for an alleged savings of  $56.89 per book (as compared to physical book prices).

But what the Times didn’t mention was the catch for both of these options. How many students do you know who don’t takes notes in the margins? Maybe some are fine with reading solely on their desktops (and taking notes the old fashioned way – in notebooks), but the others have to either print out each downloaded book or spring for an ereader.

This is where I think we’ll begin to see ereader sales take off.  I would imagine most students can justify the $300 it costs to buy an ereader since they will recoup at least much that by buying digital instead of physical books. And as the software improves (better note-taking and highlighting capability) and more publishers enter the e-textbook market, I can’t see many reasons someone would continue to spend an average of $900 a year on textbooks and supplies.

I don’t think anyone will be nostalgic for those last-day-of-semester payouts. Expect maybe me. But realistically, it was only enough to buy a few pizzas anyway…

Sarah

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

Turns out I’m not alone. A new study says that 19% of Americans are now watching their TV online.

Amazon’s right there to meet the trend (of course!). They just announced they have Videos on Demand. And Hulu has been a huge success.

Talk about online television viewing moving online, it’s everywhere. I just got an email from TED with a video  of Peter Hirshberg, a Silicon Valley executive, talking about the rivalry of the Web and TV. Turns out they’re both around 60 years old, but the internet is winning the war.  My favorite part of the lecture was a focus group of “tweens” unanimously and enthusiastically agreeing that the internet is way more fun than TV. None of them wanted to be TV execs when they grow up.

As I’ve been interviewing interns, I always ask them how they get their information (all internet), which then leads to the a conversation about how they no longer have televisions…which then leads me to ask them about books. How do young people today decide what to read and do they read eBooks or old fashioned paper books?

Given that music, media, and television are all moving to the internet, you would think that young people would want to read their books online too, right?  They could download them to their iPods like music and TV shows. Makes sense to me. Kindle sales are through the roof.

But their responses have surprised me. While they all find out about books through their friends, usually on the internet through Social Networks or emails, none of them are reading books electronically. Not one. In fact, we had a blogger breakfast a month ago, and they’re all reading on paper too.

I’d love to see the demographics of who all these Kindle buyers are. My guess is that they are well-to-do business travelers.

I’m sure Johannes Gutenberg would be pleased to know that when it comes time to cuddle up with a book, old fashioned paper seems to be winning the war with the web for the next generation…at least so far, according to my very unscientific study.

Debbie

I don’t think it’s news to anyone that there’s more content in every format vying for the same 24 hours we’ve always had or that marketing a book is getting harder by the minute.

Gone are the days when a newspaper would give a rave review and everyone would run to buy the book. Today a reader can google, read blogs, watch videos, subscribe to an author’s RSS feeds, read the Amazon reviews, and then click to buy (or not). Andrew Bruce Smith described it perfectly in his blog about how he decided to buy Dan Roam’s BACK OF THE NAPKIN book…and this video of one author (who doesn’t even refer us back to his book) says it better than I could ever:

The more I investigate how to be heard above all the noise, the more overwhelmed I feel by the vastness of it all. It reminds me of college astronomy when my brain could barely comprehend how expansive and infinite the universe is.

Everyone’s encouraging authors to blog these days…”blog, vlog, twitter…connect with your readers…blog, vlog twitter, network…”

Ok. Blog. Now.

It turns out that it’s really hard for some of us to think of something relevant to write about on the spot.  I know…I’m trying.

I’ve developed new and deep respect for authors who’ve got this down and have been making it look so easy:
Freakonomics
Stephanie Klein
Felicia Sullivan

And a new sense of empathy for authors who find it agonizing and overwhelming and exhausting:
Joe Andoe  ,
Rick Newman

And the authors who manage to do great video blogs…OMG…what multifaceted talent:
Meg Cabot

I keep feeling like there might just be an informational big bang and suddenly we’ll be back to rotary phones and Franklin Day Planners…and it’ll be manageable again and we’ll live happily ever after.

I’d love to hear how you find out about books these days.

Debbie

There is a wide range of disagreement about whether or not this is a good or bad thing . Will the e-book undercut pricing in a way that further erodes the profitability of our whole business? Will the e-book have limited sales potential but become the way in which books are browsed and sampled before purchase? Or will the e-book become the new standard, with old-fashioned books becoming collectibles, like LPs? And if it’s the latter, what will a bookstore be? A place to drink coffee while waiting for your book to download or print out?

It’s anybody’s guess, but if you’ve tried to read on a Kindle or a Sony E-Reader, you know that it’s almost as pleasurable as reading the same book on paper. And while there isn’t as bright a page, there are other advantages: the ability to carry 80 or more books in your carry-on bag, and in the case of the Kindle, the ability to download 80 books you forgot to bring…wirelessly…while stuck on the tarmac.

At HarperStudio, we certainly plan to use our tabula rasa status as an excuse to experiment with these new formats, in hopes of finding out what a reader might actually want. Now that I have a Kindle and an ipod, for instance, I find it frustrating that I have to purchase the same book three times to read it in bed (treeware), on a plane (Kindle), and as I drive (audio download to my ipod). I imagine that there will be a growing number of consumers who share this frustration, and I’m interested in what O’Reilly Media is doing to offer a range of choices to consumers who might want only the physical book, or only the e-book, or only the audiobook, or might instead want to pay only a bit more for two or three of these formats at once.

We’re certainly going to try this approach as one of our experiments. And we’d love to hear your suggestions for other new twists we might try as well.

Bob

Julia