Best practices for creating effective online components for your book titles that help maximize reader involvement, develop communities and boost sales.

By James Sturdivant

Marshall envisions a future where the issue of digital rights has been ironed out and content is delivered directly to consumers on-demand, to the extent that the line between what is “primary” and what is “companion” will be difficult to distinguish. “The ultimate textbook is an online thing that can link out to original research, that can link out to case studies, that can be kept up to date in an automated way,” he notes. “If only a book could do that, it would be the ultimate book.” BB

James Sturdivant is an award-winning freelance writer based in Philadelphia, Pa.