Learn to be a Reader Again

Last week, Don Linn, wrote a couple of very practical blog posts entitled "What Men (and Women) Talk About When They Talk About Publishing". In those posts, Don advises how best to focus management attention and move organizations forward during these early days of ebooks.

Don has hit the nail directly on the head with his posts, but from my perspective, there is still a piece missing. While Don has laid out "what" publishing executives should focus on, I have a few tips on "how" they should start to do it. In offering these tips, I must acknowledge that these come from some very savvy publishers who are already doing this!

1. Understand the Consumer's experience. As a company executive, you should OWN many different devices, a Kindle, a Nook, an iPad, a Kobo Reader, and any other device you can get your hands on. You should be BUYING books from different retailers (all around the world), downloading them to your device or devices and READING them. BUY books from your own website and from the websites of other publishers. This is a relatively small investment of money compared with the insights you will receive in doing so.

2. Become at least as "tech savvy" as your readers. Read books that have DRM applied and those that don't. Understand the difference in the user experience. Download a book or two from a "Pirate" site. Try to borrow a title from your local library. Try to lend a title from your Nook.

3. Where ever your titles or discussions of your titles can be found, you should be there. If your house is using NetGalley for disseminating review copies, join NetGalley and request your e-ARCs. If you house is using Edelweiss for electronic catalogs, get on the distribution list. Join GoodReads. Join LibraryThing. If your publicity department is putting up facebook pages for certain titles, visit them.

4. Ask lot's of dumb questions internally. Understand your internal processes. Understand why certain groups work differently than others. Understand what kinds of stresses and strains producing ebooks puts on your staff. Understand how production quality breakdowns occur. Understand how rights are managed.

As you progress down this path you will come to understand many things, and your experience and training as a leader will help your company break down many barriers.

The moral of all of this is, that as publishing executives, you cannot delegate understanding how your products AND the products of your competitors are consumed in the marketplace.

Good Luck!

The New Leadership Paradigm

Please read this blog post by Kat Meyer. It really got me thinking not only about the ‘leadership vacuum’ in publishing today, but more importantly how the internet is changing our notions of leadership. Specifically, it got me pondering the notion of how internet communication mechanisms – whether they be social networks, chat rooms, blogs, Twitter, or whatever – are changing the entire paradigm of leadership.

If you think about it, we in society take leadership from fairly rigid hierarchical structures. The structure may be your family or your church or your place of employment, or your city, state, or federal government. In some of those structures we may be leaders and in others we may be followers.

Leaders tend to be ‘in charge’ of leading very specific groups of people, and they tend to become leaders because they either started the structure (like a family or small business) or they were elected or promoted into it by people further up the hierarchical ladder.

On the internet, leaders are no longer bound by these traditional structures. What emerges on the internet are ‘thought leaders’ – people we want to listen to and follow by virtue of the fact that we are in alignment with their ideas. Leaders in this paradigm are made in the most egalitarian way – they are made because we choose to follow them, not because we exist in a structure where the leadership is defined for us.

Thought leaders don’t require a pedigree, or any special training. They only need ideas that other people think are interesting and insightful. Anyone who has the courage to speak up on the internet can be a leader. It doesn’t matter whether a person is scrubbing bathrooms at the local McDonalds or the CEO of a major corporation. The only thing that gives a leader power is the people that choose to follow them.

Another thing about leadership on the internet is that leadership is no longer hierarchical - its relational. There is no one single individual who sets the direction of the masses following them. People follow many people all at the same time often on the same topics. They then choose the best ideas from all of them and come to their own conclusions.

I believe that this truly free society is why we are seeing the crash in mainstream media, like television, radio and print news organizations, as well as magazines and other structured information services. There is a quiet revolution going on. People are rebelling against the notion that others are making decisions about what they read and listen to, and what stories are important to them. Instead they are looking for the new voices of reason; the new leaders to point them in a direction and help them find the things that are of the most interest.

The new leaders act as information filters, helping the people that follow them sift through the myriad of information floating around and pointing them toward new ideas – and possibly even new leaders.

So, as I see it, the traits of the ‘new’ leader are:
1. The courage to stand up and take a leadership role
2. A Platform from which to lead (a blog, website, or social network page)
3. A message that consistently resonates with other people
4. The understanding that they exist in the service of and at the pleasure of the people that follow them
5. They are comfortable not being the only leader, and actively promote the ideas of other leaders
6. They are comfortable with the idea of power without authority
7. They are comfortable with the idea that there are no boundaries to their leadership

Anyone care to stand up?

Give Books This Holiday

This post has been simmering for a long time. But the events of the past week have finally stirred me to write this. The book retail market has been in trouble for a long time, and the publishing industry is really challenged, especially at the moment. But, I'm not going to spend alot of time on that topic here. There was a good summation of publishing's ills done by Lynn Neary of NPR yesterday.


We, in the publishing industry, don't have the luxury of just sitting idly by and waiting for the axe to fall. We each can find a way to support the industry that supports us - by giving books this holiday season!


Many of us already do this, but I don't think many of us are promoting that we do it.


I could swear that a month or two ago, there were many blog entries (or maybe they were twitter feeds) about people trying to start a movement for buying books this holiday season. However, a casual search of both the web and twitter came up almost empty. It's time to re-energize the movement!

Here are two ideas:


1. Add something to your email signature. This idea comes from some friends at Ingram Publisher Services. Recently, in their email signatures, they had a simple and tasteful logo:



When I first saw it, I loved it, but never said anything about it. I hope they don't mind that this will now become part of my email signature as well. Maybe we can get everyone in publishing to add it to their emails also. Please feel free to copy it.


2. Subscribe to and become a follower of Buy Books for the Holidays 2008 blog, and add your logo to your own blog. Maybe if we all band together, we can make a difference.

Me Too Strategy?

It has been a horrible week in the book world.  And, I apologize in advance if this post sounds just a bit cynical.  

There is no question that the book business is in a world of flux.  Between yesterday and today, I've read no less than 30 different accounts of layoffs, salary freezes, hiring freezes, and warnings about all of the above, in the book business.

Some, there can be no doubt, are legitimate business moves made in light of the current economic climate.  But I wonder if some publishers didn't just see the opportunity to make cuts because they heard others were about to.

I raised this question with a colleague on the phone today, and he said that he was thinking the same thing.  Isn't it a little suspicious that all of this took place in a two day period?  How could it be that Random House, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Putnam, Thomas Nelson, Bowker, and of course, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt all chose this week to cut staff.  Even HarperCollins got into the act by announcing a salary freeze.  At least Macmillan made their announcement about a hiring freeze a few weeks ago.

Now, I don't think that there was any collusion going on, but I do think that there was a lot of communications between these houses and that rumors abounded long before we were made aware of the situation.

One bright spot - Hachette announced that they were giving out bonuses this year!  

Can't wait to hear tomorrow's news... it's got to be better than the last two days.

Blogging Hiatus

It's been a while since I've posted anything. At first, I could 'blame' it on a vacation. It was a great one, too. Very little possiblity of internet access or cell phone service.

That vacation gave me time to think, and I came back with lots of ideas to share. But, for the past couple of weeks, I've been completely consumed by another project - the organizing of our first ever, user conference.

I'm extraordinarily excited by this conference, and our team has been putting a lot of time into its planning. As of this writing, we're closing in on 100 or so publishing professionals who have committed to joining us on April 8th and 9th in Newburyport, MA.

The themes of the conference are Community Building and Reinvention, and these themes really seem to have struck a chord with our customers, and several others who have signed up to come.

For more information about the conference check out this http://wiki.qsolution.com/index.php?title=2008_Open_House_and_User_Conference_Wiki

In Defense of Reading Books

I was surprised that Steve Jobs comments last week at Mac World about people not reading books anymore didn’t garner more reaction in blogosphere. There were only two, one from Joe Wikert, and one from David Rothman that showed up in my RSS feeds.

Fortunately, doing a search of blogs using the keywords "Steve Jobs reading books" brought up several thousand reactions. Until I did that search though, I thought that I was the only publishing person to feel angry. Now that I know I'm not alone, I feel much better. But where are my book publishing friends on this issue? Are we just going to stand by and take this crap?

Is the quiet out there in the book publishing community the result of people fearing that Steve Jobs is right about so many things that he must be right about this? Or, is it that most book people actually agree with him? I would have expected a reaction similar to that about the weapons of mass destruction that never were, but instead there was relative silence. Did his comments ring so true as to strike a sense of futility about the books future into the hearts of all who work to bring them to life?

I think that there is a much more worthwhile discussion to be had about what the word ‘book’ means in the digital age, but to write the book off as an obsolete form is about as arrogant as a person can get.

I am biased about this subject, hence my anger. But, what has surprised me so much about this situation is not Steve Job’s arrogant ideas, but our acquiescence to them. Isn’t it possible that even a superstar ‘prognosticator of hip’ can strikeout once in a while? It feels like we as an industry seem to just want to roll over and accept our obsolescence. What a bunch of wimps!

The book industry needs to change – to reinvent. Change is scary, change hurts. We need to stop worrying about creating so many titles and start worrying about how to make books relevant for a generation where kids talk on the phone, IM, connect on MySpace, listen to music, and do their homework all at the exact same moment.

To transform our industry and keep it vibrant and alive, we need to understand the very core of what makes a book (especially one of fiction) so special. Then we can take on the task of how to adapt that to technology’s new world order.

Here is a list of 10 things (in no particular order) that make books – for me - stand out as not only relevant, but necessary to society:

1. Books invite us in.
2. Books offer our imaginations a place to roam.
3. Books do not judge the reader
4. Books that are published are subject to editing and severe scrutiny before they are released.
5. Books provide a safe haven for the reader.
6. Books inform and educate us.
7. Books allow us to project ourselves into the action, or stand by and watch from the sidelines.
8. Books show us situations from a point of view that we might not have considered before and allow us to debate with ourselves.
9. Books prepare us for real world situations.
10. Books help shape our personal philosophies about life.
    
    

Perhaps a few of you who read this might offer up your own lists as comments to this post. If 10 people offered up 10 important traits of a book, we’d have 100. Then in the next week or so, we can start to explore how those traits can be matched to the superfast paced, multi-faceted, technology dependent, world that is here now, and will only become more complex in the future.

Perhaps, if we work together, we can regain a hold of our industry’s destiny and continue to educate, entertain, expand, and enlighten the minds of our society.

A Sad Day in Publishing

Yesterday, all of the electronic industry ‘rags’ (I guess we’ll have to come up with a new term for this) were abuzz with the news that the San Diego office of Harcourt Trade Publishers will be closed by June 30th. The news articles don’t say it specifically, but allude to the fact that most of the 65 employees who work in that office are being let go.

The news articles all go on to say that this was ‘no surprise’ considering the recent news that Dan Farley (President of Harcourt Trade) was being let go at the end of January. Well, from a pure, cold hearted, business perspective they are right, it’s no surprise. It is just how a consultant would write it up on a white board. But, from a position of knowledge, I’m shocked.

Harcourt Trade is one of our clients and has been for about seven years. This is a company that is one of the most organized and best run trade publishing operations that I have ever known. Whenever we talk to a prospective client, we use them as the example of what can be achieved in terms of operational efficiency in the publication process. They are a team of people that through their dedication to their processes and attention to detail know how to make money on lists of books that any other publisher (I know) would not be able to support. I am frankly worried that these titles will not survive very long under the new management.

Harcourt Trade was one of the first companies to realize the importance of bibliographic metadata, and to work (very hard) to improve their publishing processes so the data about their titles was excellent throughout the pre-publication life cycle of the title. When Barnes & Noble first instituted their EDRP system, Harcourt was the first to score ‘100’ on those monthly reports. Harcourt’s performance on those reports proved that the bar set by B&N for publishers with respect to metadata could be met. In a very real way, Harcourt vindicated B&N’s stance on insisting that publishers improve their metadata practices. And, by extension, as I have said many times before, this insistence has resulted in a vast improvement in bibliographic metadata in the entire book publishing industry.

My sincere hope is that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will use the next six months very wisely, and take the time to understand the processes that Harcourt had been using. Unfortunately, processes alone to not make a better publisher. I also hope that they recognize that there are many very talented individuals working in San Diego, and work to secure them in the new company. It is through those individuals’ talents that this small trade division has become the gem that it is.

When will Kindle Ship? Is it a Hoax?

Like any self-respecting blogger, every day I look at the analytics of my page to see how many people read what I have to say. There aren't many of you, and my relative anonymity lets me be pretty free with my words.

However, lately, or more precisely, since Christmas day(December 25, 2007), the change in these analytics has been astounding. Prior to Christmas, there was a pretty even distribution of people coming to this blog either directly, or they clicked through from another blog, or they found it through a search engine. Today, that distribution is completely skewed. Since Christmas, the vast majority of readers have come via a search engine with the key phrase, 'how many kindles sold'. What they are finding is a previous post of mine with that same title. (Joe Wikert recently reported this in Kindleville). The numbers reading this post outstrip any other posts by a factor of 4 - 1. Pretty impressive considering about 3 people read it when I first posted it.

I can only surmise, that these people are (like me) waiting for the Kindle that someone gave them as a Holiday gift. And, Amazon is completely mum on when these are going to be shipped. As Joe would say, very 'Un-Amazon-ish'.

It's got me thinking, is this whole Kindle thing a hoax? Is there a great guffaw echoing from the top of the Veterans Hospital in Seattle? Is this the great practical joke of 2007? Obviously, they don't have them, or they would have been shipped already. What gives? Maybe they just wanted to give all of us, 'pundits', something to distract us while they moved in another direction.

Or, alternatively, did Amazon bet the farm on the assumption that the Kindle would fall flat on it's face? Was Kindle only introduced as a mechanism to shake up the book publishing industry and show them all how foolish they have been to eschew digital distribution?

Well, in any case, my initial excitement about getting a Kindle is turning to anger. And, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm a pretty patient guy. I imagine that there are many angry people out there, which is another reason in the 'massive' uptick in finding my old blog post. People have plunked down money and there are no goods coming. It's as simple as that.

And, unfortunately, it is very 'Amazon-ish' to not have any 'person' to go to. It doesn't seem that there there is a real responsibility taker anywhere in the entire operation. It's all computer systems. And when the systems don't work correctly, no one has to take personal responsibility.

It would be ironic if this 'Kindle debacle' single-handedly destroyed Amazon's (well earned) reputation for under-promising and over-delivering. Maybe then, a 'person' might have to eat some humble pie, and someone might (God forbid) have to take some responsibility and lose a job.

2008 is Going to be Great

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2008! I am very excited about the year ahead for our company, our customers, and the book publishing industry.

Michael Cairn's blog today lays out some interesting prognostications about our industry. While I'm not thinking at the same level as Michael in my exuberance, many of our thoughts dovetail. I particularly agree with the line, "In the not-too-distant future, we may look back on 2007 as a significant transition year for the media business." I made a similar statement in a post I made in December.

So, here are a few of my own prognostications:

• I think that 2008 will be a 'wildfire' year in terms of the use of technical devices (pc's, ebook readers, cell phones, pda's etc.) for the purpose of reading. I say that with my XO pc sitting next to me, and thinking about all of the children that will be introduced to technology who don't have access to printed materials. I think that in general, 2008 will be the year that ebooks go 'mainstream'.
• 2008 will be the year of infrastructure building for book publishers. The new digital paradigm requires a much different infrastructure than the traditional print paradigm. Most book publishers spent at least part (if not all) of 2007 creating strategies and figuring out what the infrastructure should look like, and 2008 is the year to make all that a reality.
• I agree with Michael that the 'squeezed value chain' from author to consumer is going to challenge many book publishers. But, I am very excited about what I see as potential opportunities in those challenges (more on that in a future post).
• In 2008, both Google and Amazon are going to do something that knocks our socks off. I have lots of ideas about what could happen, but I won't speculate here. I'm willing to bet that they both spent a lot of time in 2007 planning to release something big this year.
• In 2008, the killer app is going to be the one that helps consumers identify the content that they want to read and cull out the content they don't want. Peter Bloom used the term 'separating signal from noise' at the AAP Annual Meeting last year. There is so much content available to read, that even with RSS feeds, and subscriptions, there is too much to sift through. Software and people that provide that kind of service will surely hit the market in 2008, and continue to get better and better in the future. I especially see an important role in this for social networks, libraries, and bricks-and-mortar retailers.
• I think that blogs will continue to grow and improve in 2008, and will become an increasingly important aspect of online communication. Minimally, they will be used to keep ecommerce sites fresh with content, but more and more, you will see them used as instructional tools, and dialog starters. I especially like what Seth Godin had to say the other day about how it doesn't matter whether a blog only gets a few hits, as long as they are the 'right' hits. (Unfortunately, I couldn't find that entry again, so I can't link to it, sorry!)
• The lines between all forms of media are going to get blurrier and blurrier. 2008 will see a continued trend toward simplifying our abilities to move between (and interact with) audio, video, and text based medias. I expect many new types of hybrid products being experimented with in 2008.
• In 2008, I think that there is a real possibility that consumers will become overloaded by the amount of content pushed at them, and look for ways to eschew some technologies and simplify their lives.
• Unfortunately, I also expect that in this year of very rapid change, some of the more monolithic companies are going to feel some pain, and may even be toppled because they couldn't adapt fast enough. (I never thought I'd think of Microsoft as a monolithic company!) Publishers that don't get very entrepreneurial this year are going to find themselves in big trouble by 2010.

That's probably enough for now. Times of change are always good for Quality Solutions, and I am sure that the roles we play with our customers will only grow in both size and importance.

Here's to a great 2008!

A Zany Amazon Prediction for 2008

It's just too much fun trying to predict the moves of one of the most important players in the book industry.... I guess I'm officially one of those 'pundits'. there is no price to pay for a wrong prediction, so why not throw a few out there, right?

Yesterday, I went to the local Apple Store to purchase a gift for a family member (who must remain nameless for a couple of days). Their primary 'Christmas product', the iPod Nano was set up in stacks, with an express checkout assembly all setup to maximize the sales of these little wonders.

This morning, I was reading Joe Wikert's Kindleville, about the fact that Kindles haven't been shipping... and bam... these two disparate ideas clanged, and I couldn't help but think that maybe Kindle will take Amazon into the Bricks and Mortar world. Is it really too hard to imagine, an Amazon store tucked in with all the other upscale stores in every mall and in every major city? The picture of Kindles stacked up like nano's seems very plausible to me.

After all, I may be wrong, but isn't this the first Amazon Branded product? Could the Kindle simply be a test to see whether the Amazon brand is ubiquitous enough to be placed on different types of products? Can the virtual brand float into the tangible world? The voices highlighting this aspect of the Kindle have been pretty weak... I'm sure someone has made this connection, but I haven't read about it.

But a leap from branding to bricks and mortar? I know it may seem a bit far fetched, but then I'm reminded of all those huge distribution centers Amazon built a few years back. Were they really designed to be just to facilitate mail orders to online customers? Their geography seems to be designed more like supporting retail distribution.

Anyway, enough punditry for now.... We'll see what 2008 brings. Whatever it is, I'm sure we're in for a few surprises. You can almost feel them in the air.

2007: The year we embraced Technology

When book publishing historians look back at 2007, there will be much for them to remark on. But, in my view, the overwhelming theme of this year in the book industry is that 2007 is the year that technology (in general) went from being feared to being embraced.

And, as I think through this, it didn't just happen in one place. It happened at all levels of the 'value chain'. It happened at the publisher level, at the author level, at the retail level, and at the consumer level.

Let's consider some of the following:

1. At the beginning of 2007, how many of you knew what a social network was? (I didn't really)
2. At the beginning of 2007, how many of you either wrote or read (or even considered) blogs as a main source of information? (not me)
3. I'd love to know how many self publishing service companies there were at the beginning of 2007 compared to what seem like 'hundreds' now.
4. How many of you had your entire concept of personal technology design turned on it's ear by the iPhone, even though you knew it was coming?
5. How many publishers are actively converting titles, and changing their workflows for digital distribution now, as compared to last year?
6. How many would anticipate at the beginning of 2007, that an e-reading device would DOMINATE the industry dialogue? (I would have laughed if someone suggested this)
7. How many of us thought that the One Laptop Per Child or $100 Laptop (OLPC) was just wishful thinking, and couldn't possibly expect that hundreds of thousands of them would be shipped into EMERGING MARKETS?
8. How many thought that there would be realistic - as opposed to theoretical - conversations about new publishing business models?

I have to admit that I didn't see most of this coming, but now that it has, it's not too hard to see where it might lead us.

So, what caused all this? Well, I would argue that it was just a handful of vanguard companies that started down their individual roads with their ideas a couple of years ago. And this year, they came together to show (the rest of us) that this is no longer science fiction - it is real stuff.

Some of the credit needs to go to all those publishing conferences this year. In an earlier post, I complained about there being too many of them, but looking back, it was really what we all needed. Starting with the Google Unbound conference at the NY Public Library, and progressing on through the O'Reilly, 'Tools of Change' conference, and even to the ECPA's Publishing University in November, the dialogue dramatically changed from denial, to grudging acceptance, to foregone conclusion. Book Publishing is at a cross roads, and, our very survival as a relevant industry is hanging in the balance.

All in all, it was really a year that book publishing historians will look back on as one of the more important in the industry's evolution.

2007 in Review: Let's Discuss!

This is the time of year when all the book industry trade publications start naming their top picks for the best books of the year. There are so many different top ten lists that I can't keep up with them all.

For me, though, it's the time of year when I look back at the major trends in the business, and try to look forward to what might happen next year. So, for the next couple of blog posts, I'll explore these topics. I hope that whoever reads this will chime in with some ideas of their own, and that perhaps instead of a monologue, this blog can start to become a dialog.

Please post some comments, even if they are anonymous. Thanks. fpt

Can the e-Galley idea make a comeback?

Joe Wikert’s post the other day about Simon & Schuster's internal use of e-reading devices got me thinking about the possible resurgence of the idea of electronic galleys.

Two years ago, I personally phone surveyed about 30 book buyers from stores all over the United States. To a person, they all told stories about their love-hate relationship with galleys. They loved them because it gave them advanced understanding about the books that they were buying, so that they could decide whether or not to recommend them to their customers. They hated them because a. they couldn’t sell them, and b. because they were hard to store and eventually recycle. They seem like such a waste of paper.

One of the huge take-aways from that informal survey for me was that independent bookstores that survived the age of the internet, and survived big-box retailers, and chain superstores, did so by embracing the new realities, and directing their attention to things they could do that the competition couldn’t. It was interesting that many actually made their businesses far more successful than they had ever been before the large threats came along, simply by better engaging their communities.

Now booksellers (of all types) are facing another huge challenge, the possibility that e-book reading devices will gain real traction in the marketplace, and that sales of e-books may cut into sales of print books. As I have mentioned in another post, I believe strongly that the 'indies' need to have a role in the e-book world. The way it looks from my perch, it’s time again for booksellers to make a survival decision: be stalwarts against the new invader, or embrace the new reality and use it to their advantage.

My money is on those that will embrace the new technologies, and figure out how to leverage them into revenue. I’m not sure what those business models will look like yet, but I suspect my friends at Ingram Digital have some notions about that topic. But, one thing I do know from my years in ‘change management’, there are two necessary ingredients to developing a new business model: 1. completely understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of the new product or service, and 2. Use the product or service yourself before offering it out to others.

And so, one way for booksellers to embrace and understand the new technologies are to to use them themselves. Using them for reading electronic galleys would be a great start to this process. There would be many advantages, not the least of which is the ‘green’ angle. Think of all the paper that could be saved, and the recycling that wouldn’t have to be done. It seems like a such a logical win-win situation for the publisher and the retailer.

I also think this is an opportunity for the American Booksellers Association to take a real leadership stand. Perhaps they could start to work with Sony, iRex, and other purveyors of e-reading devices, and get a few samples to pass around to their constituents to ‘test’. It would be a great first step in having a centralized approach to having bookstores (who want to survive) start selling the e-reader devices in their stores.

Food for thought.

e-Books are a Whole New Canvas for Authors

It seems to me that in all the hand-wringing about the end of printed books, there is an important opportunity not being discussed at all.

The printed book is a closed system. It stands completely alone, and interacts with only one reader at a time. It is, as an old mentor of mine would say, "perfect".

By contrast e-books are open, and can possibly interact with many people at one time. So, I guess they are "imperfect".

But authors haven't had this much creative opportunity since the book of Kells. Perhaps that is what all the hand-wringing is about? Are the authors afraid of the challenge of dealing with such a vast canvas?

They shouldn't be. And, neither should editors, or agents, or publishers. No one has to use the entirety of the canvas yet. Just push out the borders a little... create some alternative endings... link to a few websites that have additional information about the topic you are writing about... set up some links to wikipedia.

As the borders get pushed a little here and a little there, I am sure that reading experience will become enhanced, and the reading public will reward the creativity by buying more works (notice I didn't say books).

In some ways it feels like book publishing is where television was when color TV sets were first introduced. At first they were just for the 'early adopters', and the programming wasn't any different, it just used color film. I still remember our first color TV. (We were not early adopters). As consumers of the media, we were amazed and enthralled with the new paradigm. That interest eventually fed into the creativity of the television studios, who invested more and more in the technology, and the 'creative pallet'.

I think the next 10 years will bode the same thing for 'books'. We'll always call them that... at least for a few more generations.

On Kindle and e-books and much more...

On Monday, my friend, David Berlind, who is an executive editor for ZD-Net interviewed me about a pretty sweeping array of topics related to Kindle and the book publishing industry. He wrote in his blog today, and even published a podcast of our conversation.

For anyone who has been following this blog, it should be interesting. Thanks, David for saving me a ton of writing.....

Amazon’s Kindle: Much needed revolution or book industry power play? by ZDNet's David Berlind -- Like Apple’s iPods and the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) from which they can so effortlessly acquire content, the transparency of the automation and infrastructure that makes Amazon’s Kindle work so effortlessly with the Amazon.com Web site is a marvel in terms of the user experience. But the same technology under the hood that makes [...]

Will Kindle help Amazon Command the Self Publishing Marketplace?

Yesterday a friend asked me about the proprietary nature of the Kindle. "Why would Amazon want to only have content in its own format?" I didn't have a good answer. My first inclination was that the use of only proprietary formats of ebooks might be simply a functionality prioritization, and that in a later release, Kindle will be able to handle other forms of e-content.

This afternoon I was cleaning up my desk and ran across the business card of someone from BookSurge - and that got my gears grinding.

BookSurge is an Amazon company that helps people self-publish their books. They offer editorial, marketing, and print-on-demand services for people who (for whatever reason) won't get published by an established publishing house. This is a burgeoning market and one where BookSurge has many competitors.

In fact, according the the Under the Radar Study by BISG back in 2005, aggregated sales of books from publishers who (individually) have less that $1 Million in annual revenue, is estimated to be nearly $3 Billion per year. That's a pretty big market to service, especially if you have way of taking a significant chunk of that $3 Billion for yourself.

From BookSurge's website, they even say the following:

Not only can BookSurge help you create a high-quality, highly marketable book, we can also provide you with exclusive tools and resources to help you gain exposure, develop an audience, and build readership for your work.

Exclusive tools? Like maybe we can distribute your titles through Kindle, and we won't take any from other self-publishers? That's a pretty big exclusivity factor for an author thinking of self-publishing.

food for thought.

How many Kindles were actually sold?

Does anyone really know? I've been scouring the web everywhere, and can't come up with a number.

There are tons and tons of articles talking about how the first 'lot' sold out in 5.5 hours. Truly amazing, huh? I guess we're all assuming that the there were 'a lot' of units in the first 'lot'. But, how many is 'a lot'?

Is it just a marketing ploy? To some extent it must be, otherwise, Amazon would have shouted the numbers from every rooftop in Seattle. Creating artificial demand by manipulating the supply is a good way to justify the big price tag.

I am personally very excited by the Kindle, and the effect it will have on book publishers. I think this is the type of shot in the arm the book publishing industry really needs. I will even go on to say that I want one, and I think Amazon did a masterful job of PR. I'm just a bit bothered by the lack of, even ball park, figures.

When I look and see stories like yesterday's about the XO, and the news that Peru has signed up for 260,000 units( and another 50,000 to Mexico!!!), it seems a stark contrast to the lack of any numbers from Amazon.

A Discussion of Book Publishings Future

There is an interesting blog post this week, that I had a chance to participate in. Both the content and context of this post are interesting to me.

The post written by Ajay Jain, in a blog called Techgazing, asks the Question, "Will Kindle send book publishing the music industry way?" Please take the time to read it.

What I find interesting here (besides the obvious that he included my opinion in the post) were several things:

1. The post was 'built' by using a feature of the LinkedIn social network, called Q&A. I'm not even sure I understand all the magic here. One day, I logged into LinkedIn, and there was a 'question' about the book industry that was just too tantalizing to pass up. So I answered it. It was clear that mine was one of maybe 50 answers. I thought to myself at the time, that this was an interesting method to write a piece, and after I answered, I didn't think anything more of it. All of the people who answered were in the LinkedIn network.

2. The post was more of a survey aggregation than something written by the author. If you notice, aside from the opening 3 paragraphs, the author lets other people do all the talking. This is both interesting, and powerful. We don't need to 'trust' exclusively in the opinion of the author, and the fact that there are so many voices in the piece, I think, helped turn this piece more into a discussion forum than an editorial like piece.

3. The post generated (as you can see), many many comments - and obviously touched a nerve. The content, obviously found a place where people have strong emotions, as have all the pieces in the past few weeks about ebooks. I find this very encouraging for our society. If we can take this type of discussion into the world political arena, perhaps we could all become a little more tolerant of each other.

4. While definitely a 'geek' perspective on the world of books and publishing, it is a 'world geek' view, not just an American view. It seems that one very interesting thing is that social networks eliminate territorial borders. The author was from India, but many of his participants were from places all around the world. Again, sociologically speaking, I find this to be very encouraging.

My kudos to Ajay for pulling this piece together, not only on the topic, but for how he did it. This type of 'facilitation' is very interesting.

Why Kindle is a Watershed event for e-Books

I don't know where the term 'watershed' came from, but to me a 'watershed event' is one that we can look back on historically and identify a real turning point in the evolution of a certain cause.

I think that the launch of Amazon's Kindle reader is a watershed event in the cause of e-book adoption.

What I think is very interesting about e-books is that they are probably more reviled by real bibliophiles than they are by those of us for whom books are just another part of our lives. It's not that we don't love them - far from it - it's just that we are more interested in the content than the form. Thus, it seems the battle for e-book adoption seems to be us against ourselves - a civil war of sorts.

So, when I think about e-book adoption, a military metaphor comes to mind. It seems that for generations those that have revered the hard bound, printed tome have held the high ground. Over the centuries they have repelled many intruders. Paperbacks, both 'trade' and 'mass market', have tried to win the top of the mountain, but have had to settle for 2nd tier status. While those formats didn't win, they did inflict casualties and win some converts, reducing the numbers in the high ground, but not reducing their power or position.

Then along came audio books. Although strong for a brief period, they never were able to pose any serious threat to anyone above them, nor form alliances with other forms that could pose any threat to the high ground. Eventually, audio books found their own small place on the mountain side away from everyone else.

For the past 10 years, e-books have been trying to work their way up the mountain. Because there numbers were small, and relatively weak, they were easily repelled by both tiers of books at the higher ground. In fact, it seemed that all books were in union to repel this latest invader.

The e-book generals continued to throw weapons and soldiers against the ramparts, but have failed to make any real break through. There were times when the e-book army thought that they had the weapon to break past the fortifications of the higher ground (like the Sony reader), but alone, it was simply not enough.

But, the tide seems to be turning for the upstart e-books. e-Book forces have been consolidating (aligning on standards). And, a new 'armies' have come to join the battle - handheld devices, like iPhones and other PDA's can now display e-books. Search programs, like Google Print and Microsoft Live Book are developing new online reading followers. And with it's introduction, probably the most powerful new army is joining the fray - the Kindle army.

Kindle has the power to convert a whole new population of book readers into foot soldiers. The marketing power of Amazon almost guarantees that many, many of these devices will sell.

What appears to me to be happening is that many of the second tier landholders are re-evaluating their loyalties to the high grounders and starting to side with the e-book armies and Kindle. The high grounders are starting to feel the threat as is evidenced by their vociferous pronouncements about why the e-book revolution will fail, and the hardcover will never go away. This is a major shift in the battle, and why I think the Kindle launch is a watershed event.

While it will be a while before the results of this latest onslaught are in, one thing is for certain, defenders of the print book world are taking casualties, and the e-bookers are gaining ground. Additionally, the paperback book forces are seeing a weakness at the top, and attacking the hardcover as well.

However this battle ends up, there is good news all around: the number of readers will grow, and the opportunities to have a work published will grow as well. Instead of fighting among ourselves, we should welcome each other and try to figure out the best ways to work together to take advantage of these new market opportunities.

Read Michael Hyatt's blog!

I spent a lot of time thinking about Michael Hyatt's blog entry yesterday. There are so many different things to say about it, that it is probably fodder for about 10 different blog posts.

At the end of those thoughts, the most succinct comment I can make is read it!

It is so refreshing to see a publisher of Michael's stature say the things that need to be said about our beloved industry. We are so wrought with inefficiency, and it goes right down to individual people in individual departments inside the publishing houses. (Don't let me get started on book production...) Some of it may be inescapable, but the fact that Michael admits it means -to me - that he is ready to transform his company to mitigate risks associated with that inefficiency.

Bravo!

ps. I just went out there again to grab the link, and the number of comments to Mike's blog are astounding.