Readers choosing

Salon Magazine has a fascinating article on the ebook/print book faceoff. The article by Laura Miller makes many points including: "New self-publishing enterprises are a godsend for traditional publishers because they can take much of the uncertainty out of signing a new author." Inherent in that observation may be a scenario by which many authors are "somewhat" successful at publishing their book electronically, so that a few can rise to the surface and be snatched up by New York publishing companies, like E.L. James ("50 Shades of Grey"), Amanda Hocking and now Hugh Howie ("Wool). The article points out that the growth of ebooks has slowed, and that three times as many people say they prefer print books to electronic books. The one reality the article overlooks is the reality of acceptance that the two media are here to stay -- together -- and there should be no nostalgia for one (print) or euphoria for the other (electronic). Once the two are wedded, so that you buy both the ebook and the print book rights together, reader choice will finally have arrived so that after the book has been consumed the reader can choose the incarnation he or she desires in perpetuity.

Where is the world going?

Book sales in the US in 2012 were down 9.3 percent, Spain -10.3 percent, South Africa -8.8 percent, Italy -7 percent, and in the UK fell by 3.4 percent. That's according to data presented March 21 at the IfBookThen conference in Milan, Italy, and since reported by Publishing Perspectives. The one bright spot around the world may be India, where book sales were up 16 percent. What could be the cause of the seeming worldwide withdrawing from reading literacy? Perhaps simple: Digital devices, that with broadband make video possible, are making watching rather than reading more popular. Does that mean the two media are equal in firepower? Probably not. My take would be that the world needs to make more of an effort to teach reading literacy. So communication can be more powerful.

Time flies

As recently as 2007, before Kindle, there were no ebook sales and upwards of 85% of print was sold in stores. Whew, how time flies when you are having fun. What the latest Bowker information has to say, lumping ebooks into “online commerce”, is that 44% of sales are online, 32% through physical retail, and the remainder through book clubs and warehouse clubs (physical retail) and “all other channels”. But they also report that 30% of sales are ebooks, which would mean that they’re only calling 14% of the remaining 70% online. Does that put in perspective how fast the ebook evolution has happened? In the words of The Shatzkin Files, a blog I like to read: "Only a quarter to a half of the sales now — far less for fiction and far more for illustrated books — require a publisher to 'put books on shelves'. And that number is going down."

Kells alive

This may be the moment I truly turn electronic. Years ago I took my family to Dublin to view the Book of Kells, because I am a design and printing fanatic. Totally out of character, I bought a the tourist's book of the Book of Kells and brought it back to America with me. I have stashed it away in my meager library, but recently as I threw a lot of my books out in an effort to "consolidate" I threw out that wonderful book. Today I discovered that the book is available online: http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?DRIS_ID=MS58_003v

Read first, buy later

As the virtual world joins the physical world, different habits grow. Take buying books or newspapers or magazines, or any media. The physical model is to "buy first, read later"; the vitual model is to "read first, buy later". The former would be considered legacy or a remnant model; the latter the new media model. And now there is a oompany, launching in mid-March, Total Boox (pronounced “books”) which believes the legacy or remnant model distorts the market for authors, hampers discoverability, stalls distribution and reduces reading. With Total Boox a reader no longer has to purchase a book upfront. Instead he or she downloads the book into his tablet device and pays for the portion he actually reads, when he or she reads it.

Epub and print go together

Epub and print go together like peas and carrots, peanut butter and jelly, coffee and cream. Why? Because half the people in the world say they will buy an epub by the end of 2013; which leaves the other half who won't. According to a new survey from free ebook distributor Bookboon of nearly 6,000 Americans conducted in person and through the internet, 49.8% of Americans will purchase an ebook this year. "In the past, Bookboon has put out numbers that are not quite in line with results from other surveys but there is some evidence that suggests this survey is more accurate. In it, 27.1% of Americans report having read an ebook with 22.7% saying they will by the end of 2013," as reported by Digital Book World. Some other interesting findings: - 57.7% of Americans think that 50% or more of their book reading will be ebooks in three years; among current tablet owners, that number is 71.9% - 22.2% of Americans don't plan to start reading ebooks any time in the next three years.

Where is the real digital divide?

Is the digital divide real? Well are you talking about the U.S. digital divide or the Global Digital Divide? They are both real. But different. The U.S. digital divide is social, between classes. According to the most recent PEW Internet and American Life Project report: "One in five American adults does not use the internet. Senior citizens, those who prefer to take our interviews in Spanish rather than English, adults with less than a high school education, and those living in households earning less than $30,000 per year are the least likely adults to have internet access." Also: "The 27% of adults living with disability in the U.S. today are significantly less likely than adults without a disability to go online (54% vs. 81%). Furthermore, 2% of adults have a disability or illness that makes it more difficult or impossible for them to use the internet at all." You can download the full report at: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2000/Whos-Not-Online.aspx The Global Digital Divide is geographic, between countries. For instance, 65 percent of the world's 7 billion people are not using the internet, according to the International Telecommunications Union. (In America in 2011, nearly 96 percent of the 400 million people are using the internet.) If you want to get an unusual view of internet activity world wide check out tweetping.net at http://tweetping.net/ which give yes a real time picture of the tweeting going on globally using clusters of lights on the globe to represent usage -- so you can quickly see how dark Africa and Russia/Asia are. But if you are trying to figure out what the real digital divide is, I think you have to turn to its literal definition. As I remember it, President Bill Clinton, in his second inaugural, popularized the term, referring to the U.S. digital divide, a social issue. And now there is a growing use of the term to describe those who put or ingest contnt on the internet and those who manipulate the tools of the internet. Between those two groups there is a growing inequality. There is yet to be a term invented for the global digital divide: besides, perhaps, dreadfully sad.