A Publishers Job Is to Provide a Good API for Books

If we start to think of “books as data,” then the traditional publisher’s role starts to sound a lot like the role of providing an API: A publisher’s job is to manage how and when and under what circumstances people (readers) or other services (book stores, libraries, other?) access books (data).

We know what this job looks like in the old world of bound paper and bricks and mortar stores, and we’re pretty sure we understand it in a world of EPUB and Kindle.

But as we move into a primarily digital world…