SPECIAL REPORT: Embracing the ‘Kindle Effect’
The subtitle of their essay, a quote from HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, in many ways says it all: “The challenge is to be the smartest marketer.”
Rising to that challenge has led publishers to embrace a number of new media technologies, from podcasting and online video to blogging and social networking. As a positive consequence of the alarm raised by the NEA’s “To Read or Not to Read” study (which showed “startling declines” in how much and how well Americans read [in fiction and nonfiction, and in various formats—book, magazines, online, etc.]) and its “Reading at Risk” study (which showed a dramatic decline in the number of American adults reading literature), national organizations such as the Library of Congress and NEA are also getting in on the multimedia act.