Ebook incarnation

I'm often asked why I am so intrigued by ebooks. It's very simple; ebooks are the incarnation of the two modern concepts I care about most: personalization and globalization. Ebooks allow every reader to personalize an author's work by marking passages, annotating passges, even changing and adding passages; and ebooks are quickly becoming a global phenomenon. To me, when you put together personalization and globalization you have the modern brew that will engage the world for the long future, and generation after generation of people will embrace and perfect some aspect of the twins. Personalization and globalization together are what created the global economy and the global mess. Banks were able to answer and react to every asset owners' wish and at the same time reach out beyond national boundaries to involve all the world economies. Now come ebooks, using a standardized digital format, well not quite, and standardized ereader devices, well not quite. Just as in the Biblical Tower of Babel, the plan was for ebooks to be globalized using one standard format and one standard device (certainly one channel, the internet), but personalization raised its knarly head and now we are headed toward an endless era of people around the world applying their proprietary cultural instincts to the digital products.

Reversing the traditional

The newest book publishing model -- starting out as print on demand (POD), then going to mass print -- has now officially turned the conventional publishing model on its head. PaidContent announced today that "50 Shades of Grey", which started out as a print on demand book just a few years ago, will be published as a hardcover this Valentine's Day. PaidContent reported: "The bestselling 50 Shades of Grey trilogy by E.L. James, which has sold over 65 million copies worldwide, is set to rake in even more cash: Random House’s Doubleday plans to release the books in hardcover for the first time in the U.S. on January 29, in time for Valentine’s Day. (The books are already available as hardcovers in the U.K.)." Go to the link: http://paidcontent.org/2013/01/10/with-release-in-hardcover-50-shades-completely-flips-traditional-publishing-cycle/?et_mid=598202&rid=68173885 So if you look at this albeit unusual book it's publishing history has reversed the historical book publishing process. Until a few years ago, most books would only be printed in large print runs of 10,000 or more. Then as print on demand became viable, some books would go from hardcover (large print run, say over 10,000) to print on demand (short print run, one at a time upon purchase). "50 Shades of Grey" started out as print on demand (short print run, one at a time upon purchase) and now has migrated to hardcover (large print run, say over 10,000. Storm the Bastille.

Ebooks' Tower of Babel

In the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, people woke up one morning and began to talk to each other as usual, but could no longer understand each other. In the global expansion of ebooks, that is what the world is waking up to today. France and Germany, in particular, with their strong history of book culture, has resisted Google's attempts at, in its own words,"organizing the knowledge of the world". They have taken Google to court, and started their own digitization projects -- Gallica, Europeana and Libreka -- according to O'Reilly's "The Global Ebook Market:Current Conditions and Future Projections", which is downloadable for free here: http://search.oreilly.com/?q=global+ebook+market&x=22&y=15 . What is the future of digital reading and learning? A patchwork of different formats, devices and accesses. You can't help but sense, as you read this wonderfully comprehensive report, that the very real execution of ebook globalization will be the opposite of a one-world dream, the hope of all globalists. What is the opposite of being a globalist? Let's say being a globalister. Then, a globalister is someone who knows that the example of the Tower of Babel applies to the worldwide expansion of digital communication.

Phablets, yes!

Here comes the Year of the Phablet, according to a Reuters story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/07/us-phablets-idUSBRE9050CS20130107 What is a Phablet? It's larger than a smartphone but smaller than a tablet. So it falls in the 5-6 inch screen size, as I understand it. The larger size is definitely because of the visual data that smartphones can now carry: books, magazines, newspapers, movies. Consumers like to enjoy this data on larger screens. The Samsung Note and Note 2 seem to be the market leaders. (A poll of nearly 5,000 readers of Yahoo's Indonesian website chose Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 as their favorite mobile phone of 2012, ahead of the iPhone 5, according to Reuters.) This is awesome. More devices that carry email as well as video as well as story-based content such as books, magazines and newspapers -- and allow phone calls. Are we moving to a one-device habit? That's something Jeff Bezos of Amazon has always said we wouldn't do. And it remains to be seen, whether we are multiple device creatures, or one-device creatures. Kristian Tjahjono, a technology journalist who posted the Yahoo poll, said phablets were a natural fit for Indonesians who liked tablets but also liked making phone calls. These phablets are also called phonelets, tweeners and super smartphones: suprise hits of 2012. The Asia-Pacific is, and will remain, the world's biggest market for phablets, says Joshua Flood, senior analyst at ABI Research in Britain, according to Reuters.

All books may be ebooks first

Jamie Fiocco, Co-owner of FlyLeaf Books in Chapel Hill, N.C., explains in a Media Shift video that although it’s not a perfect analogy, the current discussion about whether ebooks will put print books out of business is like the discussion 250 years ago about whether photography would force painters to retire. Check out what she says: “When the camera came out painting didn’t go away. It will be a different thing selling print books, but this industry has been evolving the last 20 years.” Watch the video: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2012/12/video-can-print-and-e-books-coexist356.html There are two very likely scenarios for print books of the future. Both envision a book’s first incarnation to be electronic. So ebooks may become the first, most inexpensive way to put a book out, to see if it has legs. Then after the book has proven itself with myriads of downloads, then 1. Some people who have truly loved the ebook might want a personalized printed copy as a unique keepsake. 2. Or, the opposite. (And we already have examples of this opposite scenario.) A book starts out as an ebook, gathers an audience, and then the author gets signed by a large publisher and myriads of copies of the book are printed for the public to buy. Witness 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James, which started out as an epub and print on demand book and evolved into a book carried by Vintage Books, which was founded by Alfred A. Knopf. On the same video, Land Arnold, the other co-owner of Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, N.C., at first likens the epub/print book dialectic to I-tunes music vs. album collections, but observes that the two situations are not parallel because a book is a longer commitment of time than a song. So, by inference, one can’t imagine ebooks replacing print books the way I-tunes music totally eviscerated albums. What do you think?

Nook sales aside, the tsunami continues

What does it matter that Barnes & Noble had bad holiday sales? Does that mean books will mean less to people in the future? No. You can read all about the disappointing B&N digital device sales (Nook sales down 12.6 percent) in various places on the web right now. (Here's a pretty good one: http://www.idealog.com/) And what does it matter that digital content sales were disappointing (even though they were up: only 13 percent from last year). Does that mean that fewer people are reading books electronically? No. Only strict market watchers and investment people care about these short-term holiday sales figures. Those of us who believe in the progressive/revolutionary nature of digital readers and content know that the tsunami-like transition to electronic reading continues unabated. About one third of Americans now have read a book on a digital device. And there are by some accounts about 2 million ebooks out there. And every day more ebooks are sold by Amazon than print books. And the big news, as I've reported here before, is how the world is poised to adopt ereaders. There will be a big push of digital readers into South America, China, India and Europe this year.

Newspapers in the game in 2013

Well the Guardian should know what it is talking about. In its predictions for 2013 number 10 is "Newspapers will become bigger players in the ebook market, following the example of the New York Times, which has joined forces with startups Byliner and Vook to publish original and archive material." See http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/30/future-publishing-2013-predictions-digital This makes a great deal of sense. After all newspapers have content, talented writers and self-defined audiences. The hard part of book publishing -- matching readers with subjects -- is for the most part automatically done. And with a little testing about and watching viewers' interests through web analytics it should be very straightforward for newspapers to determine what stories should be repackaged into ebooks. In Denver, the Denver Post last year did an ebook about the startling Tim Tebow/Denver Broncos arrival in the playoffs. And the Atlanta Journal Constitution did a restaurant guide: "The Atlanta 50." That's just to name a few of the newspapers that have gotten in the game. And now more are expected in 2013.