Technology

You’re probably pretty happy with Google search today, right? It’s incredibly fast, extremely reliable and almost always delivers the desired results. What more could you ask for? I think the problem with today’s search solutions is that we’ve limited them to what’s online. If the content has a web address and it’s been crawled by…

Explore content architectures and workflows that ensure content is more discoverable and accessible, no matter what you’re publishing.

Ad blocking is one of the more controversial features of Apple’s new iOS release. Apple prefers to call it “content blocking,” but it’s mostly intended to block all those pesky website ads that nag us every day. Publishers are, of course, totally freaked out at the prospect of their content being consumed without monetizing the…

While the music industry continues to respond to the changes in consumer behaviour emanating from technological advances, audiobook publishers are facing many of the same issues. One major subject for record labels has been the question of ownership versus access: do consumers want to own content or are they happy simply to access it whether…

Shipments of tablets are struggling as phablets like the iPhone 6 Plus become more popular. Enterprise users, however, may be the tablet’s saving grace, boosting sales of higher-end models like the Surface Pro 3 and the anticipated iPad Pro, which Apple is expected to announce in fall. This means increased sales of tablets with larger…

Booktrack, a startup out of New Zealand that creates soundtracks to accompany e-books, has raised another $5 million in funding to make sure that reading is no longer a quiet activity.

Led by COENT Venture Partners and Sparkbox Ventures, the Series B round brings Booktrack's funding total to $10 million. Previous investors include Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures and filmmaker Peter Jackson's Park Road Post Productions.

Booktrack launched its first two tracks on the app store four years ago, and today the company offers a library of 15,000 titles to its 2.5 million users.

Although it is only in its second year, BookExpo's Startup Challenge has become one of my favorite parts of BEA. For those unfamiliar with the Challenge, it pits tech startups that serve the publishing industry against one another over the course of two days. Each startup is required to pitch their service to a panel of judges and four finalists will pitch live on-stage to the BEA audience. The winner takes home $10,000 and an elevated status in the industry.

Few publishers are developing digital content alone. Partnerships are key for publishers to transition from print-centric production cycles to truly multi-channel production. Partnership may be as minimal as shipping print PDFs to a conversion service to create EPUB files or as involved as hiring an expert to implement a new production workflow.

Depending on your point of view, digital technology has either undermined or enabled the book publishing industry. Either way, there's no denying that digital technology has changed publishing. Change is constant, inevitable, and often irreversible. So it goes.

The Book Business Buyer's Guide is a technology primer for book publishers: It's not meant to be comprehensive but rather offer a reference on the significant and emerging technology that is paving the way for the future of the book industry. Now in its second year, the Buyer's Guide is broken into four major categories that require publishers' attention: Ebook & App Solutions, Digital Conversion & Workflow Services, Marketing Automation & Email Marketing, and Ecommerce. The buyer's guide will continue to live online and evolve as new publishing and marketing technologies emerge.