No matter how fast you think technology is moving, it's probably moving faster. When we started Atavist, it was to fill gaps we thought existed in digital publishing -- for a certain kind of book, and a certain kind of highly-designed digital reading experience. The speed with which others followed us into those gaps, and pushed those ideas to places that frankly we hadn't predicted at the beginning, continues to surprise us. And this year has seen changes that even last year we wouldn't have anticipated.
Despite the popular [mis]conception that digital textbooks haven't taken off, the educational ecosystem-particularly in higher ed-is where some of the most active digital developments are happening. Most college textbooks have associated online resources and are often available as ebooks or online.
Habits are hard to break, especially for book publishers. How else can you explain the industry's insistence on sticking with rigid, tightly synchronized release dates for new publications? It made sense in the old days when print ruled and the big brick-and-mortars dominated retail. But even back then I used to think it was silly to delay a book's release date for months just so we could get a slot in one of those brick-and-mortar promotional campaigns.
Books have a unique power, especially the beautifully illustrated works my father collected. And that kind of power is staying. How can a tablet recreate the stunning spreads I eyed excitedly as a child? How can an ereader recreate the pile of books my fathered hauled from the attic, which quickly became strewn across my brothers' floor? There is a value in the object itself, in the beauty of its pages.
Although I was in the midst of a break from Book Business, publishing debates pervaded many of the conversations I had with my family over the past few days, and they left me with a stunning realization.
"Compelling ideas expressed at their natural length." That's Amazon's tagline for their popular Kindle Singles program. And while Singles hasn't exactly been a major industry disruptor I believe it lays the foundation for some of the bigger, bolder initiatives Amazon is planning for the future. I also believe it's a model that will become much more common over time.
"Research is about a long, hard slog of building an understanding about how all the different parts of a business or a market works. It's about being willing to look at numbers that scare the hell out of you."
Today app analytics company App Annie announced its first foray into the ebook sphere with App Annie for Ebooks.
Another excellent Publishing Business Conference and Expo took place last week. Having three keynote speakers provided a very interesting cross-section of information and opinion. Amazon was the focus for the first two.
Admittedly, yesterday's news could have been much better. In some alternate reality, William Lynch could have gotten on that earnings call and announced that things were so smashingly good for the NOOK tablet business that Barnes & Noble was stepping up production and launching bigger (NOOK HD+ LANDSCAPE) and smaller (THE POCKET NOOK!) versions.
But in this reality, Lynch announced that competing with the likes of Amazon and Apple in the tabletsphere was not working for the retailer, and that while it would continue to manufacture its popular NOOK eInk e-readers (Simple Touch & w/GlowLight) and develop NOOK apps for other devices, B&N would cease manufacturing NOOK tablets and look for a third-party partner to license and manufacture co-branded NOOK tablets.
