Adobe

Nine experts weigh in on scholarly publishing and ebooks:

Suzanne BeDell, managing director, Science and Technology Books, Elsevier:

When we talk about e-books we mean books to be read on devices and e-readers, which all our books are, in all e-book formats. One third of our e-book sales last year came through Amazon but access on the iPad is increasing. Our e-books are also available through the B&N platform on the Nook device and through Google Books too. It requires considerable work and investment to manage and support the different feeds…

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) announced today the preliminary program and speakers for Digital Book 2012 at BEA (idpf.org/db12). The conference, held in partnership with BookExpo America (BEA), will be held June 4-5, 2012, in New York City's Javits Center, and is expected to draw global leaders in the publishing industry, including technologists, marketers, retailers, solution providers, publishers, authors, and agents.

Featured speakers at Digital Book 2012 will include best-selling authors Seth Godin and Bella Andre, as well as publishing CEOs and senior executives including Jane Friedman (Open Road Media), Madeline McIntosh (Random House), Otis Chandler (Goodreads) and more.

With consumers reading content on multiple devices, book publishers are being forced to take a new look at their digital business plans and adjust.

Compared to other entertainment industries, such as music, book publishing has been slow to adapt for mobile and publishers are still testing many marketing efforts. Although all sectors of book publishing have undoubtedly been changed by digital, children’s book publishing has been particularly strong to jump into mobile because of content that naturally fits in with interactive platforms.

Ebooks from Kobo ebookstore are available worldwide (opposite to Barnes & Noble) and to get them from abroad you don’t have to pay an international fee (opposite to Amazon Kindle). Kobo sells ebooks in epub format, either DRM-free or with Adobe DRM, what makes it compatible with many ebook distributors around the world. The same [...]

An energized Publishing Business Conference and Expo, Book Business and Publishing Executive magazines’ annual event at the Times Square Marriott Marquis, March 19-21, was grounded in optimism and realism, and primed for a promising future in the digital age for book manufacturing and print-based book production.

Addressing the overflow audience at the Marriott's Astor Ballroom, our very own Joan of Arc at the ramparts, Editorial Director Noelle Skodzinski—fully armed with the arguments of comon sense and history to support her—sounded a much-needed balancing and defiant keynote to prevailing “stiff upper lip” scenarios about the decline of the publishing industry. She reminded us, paraphrasing from both Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the Encyclopedia Britannica blog’s notice that it had discontinued its venerable print edition, that publishing is not dead, change is okay, and that the future is alive with new opportunities in our pursuit of continued success and excellence in the publishing business.

Blurb, the creative publishing and marketing platform, today announced that its collaboration with Adobe Systems to enable streamlined bookmaking within Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 4, is now available to all. The integration offers a seamless experience by providing the tools directly within Lightroom 4 "Book module" to create professional-quality photography books, coupled with a direct link to Blurb.com for printing, marketing and distribution. During the public beta period, which kicked off on January 9, Lightroom customers made more than 1000 unique Blurb books using the integrated Lightroom workflow.

For a while there were two accepted methods of producing, conferting and delivering content across multiple devices—"XML First" and "Print First."

However, over the past year, a number of cross-platform publishing success stories have emerged that indicate a third practical approach. It is, in some ways, a cross between the first two. This third approach, which might be named "Manuscript First," involves the creation of a manuscript that conforms to specific conventions or standards as defined by the publisher. This is most often implemented in Microsoft Word by the use of standard Word style names to create a "well-formed" manuscript.

The future of books may be here. Augmented reality book Between Page and Screen is an innovative art project that seeks to renew the reading experience by combining the physicality of a printed book with the technology of Adobe Flash to create a virtual love story.

To see the technology in action, you simply lay the 44-page hardcover across a laptop with a webcam and words will suddenly appear, spin and rattle. Turn the page to experience the wordless book of poems and see the future of interactive reading.

The New Year will be more of the same – and the same will be continued transformative change.

My headlines are that the publishing enterprise structure will continue to become more market driven, more distributive, less intermediated, and less top down.

Governor Markell celebrated a technology milestone for Delaware libraries announcing that all Delaware public libraries now provide wireless access to the internet. In addition to wireless access, downloadable eBooks are now available as a beta test through the Delaware Library Catalog portal at www.lib.de.us. Thirteen hundred eBook titles are available, ready for library patrons to download to computers and eBook readers like Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, and Kobo eReader.