E-Books and Interactive Publishing

You may have heard by now about author Stephen Covey's deal with Amazon, selling the exclusive electronic rights (via e-book publisher Rosetta Books and for a one-year period) to two of his titles, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and "Principle-Centered Leadership." You also may have heard (or been a voice among) the resounding, collective industry gasp.

In perhaps the worst-kept-secret in Silicon Valley history, Apple today announced the launch of a tablet device it's calling the iPad to an auditorium of press, tech folks and Apple fanboys.

If you believe the hype, everyone on the planet either has or soon will have a Kindle, and if they don't, they will have one of the many competitors coming to market. No one will ever buy a print book again.

I've spoken with some publishers that have expressed to me that they're not quite ready to jump into the e-book fray. And in many ways, their rational makes sense to me.

According to a PRIMIR study entitled Trends in Books: 2008-2012, published in 2009, conventionally printed books reached the peak of their product life cycle with publishers' net sales of 3,127 million book units in 2007.

Along with 3D televisions and mobile devices and apps, e-readers were among the hottest products at the Consumer Electronics Show, held January 7-10 in Las Vegas. And technophiles internationally have been talking about the new players on the market, the prototypes of those still to be launched and what the future holds for this exploding market.

Borders Group, Inc. (NYSE: BGP) today announced a strategic investment and commercial partnership with Kobo, Inc., a global eReading service that is the newly named spin-off of Toronto-based Indigo Books & Music Inc.'s Shortcovers digital reading initiative.

Scribd, a San Francisco-based social publishing Web site, has announced a partnership with John Wiley and Sons Inc. to market and sell thousands of e-books through its Scribd Store, which was launched earlier this year to offer professional publishers and independent writers and artists an option for selling their works. Scribd, which currently is partnered with more than 150 professional publishers, also recently signed agreements with Sterling Publishing, Chronicle Books and University of Chicago Press.

FastCompany's Kit Eaton reported today (on the technology blog at FastCompany.com) that two new tablet PCs are hitting the market, ahead of Apple's much anticipated but still rumored Tablet.

Amazon and FranklinCovey Co. announced that electronic versions of business author Stephen Covey's best-selling books, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and "Principle-Centered Leadership," are now available exclusively in the Amazon Kindle Store for $7.99. Longtime best-seller "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" has helped make Covey Amazon.com's 13th best-selling author of all time.