“Perhaps we are already discovering that this new world is a touch more fertile” for enhanced ebooks than we thought. Or is this wishful thinking on my colleague Philip Jones’ part? His musings on this issue are timely, particularly as they came to us in his Tuesday FutureBook column, The smart book for a new… Read More
'Smart layers' and resistance: Joe Wikert on the 'Dynamic Book'
Allowing publishers to ‘webbify’ the book At Books in Browsers, the annual conference produced by Peter Brantley, you hear the phrase “networked book” quite a bit. In its most reachy potential, the “networked book” is an exhilarating concept of information existing in its most connected state — whatever that state might be. No longer a thing but… Read More
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Many young, digitally oriented companies enjoy taking a specific kind of staff photo these days, I’m sure you’ve seen it. In such a photo, everyone is happily gregarious but individualised. Several staffers laugh together. Two or three peer at some paperwork as if it were intensely interesting. Another small knot of employees watches something on a screen.… Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
We like that word now, don’t we? Disruptive. Oh, yes, we do. Not for nothing did Gayle Feldman, covering the American Association of Publishers for TheBookseller quote one publishing executive saying, “things are going to get ugly” as the US Department of Justice circles with warnings of a collusion suit. Read More
Extra Ether | JaneFriedman.com
A dizzying amount of copy is hitting the fan of the publishing community about the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation of “agency pricing.” This post is an off-day Writing on the Ether collection of selected writings on a potentially a key moment in the digital evolution of the industry. Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
Can real sense ever be made of the digital disruption of publishing — mothership retailers hovering in cyberspace over flocks of woolgathering independents in pastures below — if the core industry’s relationship with writers isn’t addressed? During discussions of the new incident between Amazon and the Independent Publishers Group (more on that below), I’ve been reminded by our colleague, Andrew Rhomberg in London, of the phrase “creative destruction” from economic theory. Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
ToC: Techno-calities: Locution, locution, locution. In its sixth year, the Tools of Change Conference — just closed in New York City — easily held its own as one of publishing’s two great confabs of a stressful year, the other being last month’s Digital Book World Conference + Expo. And when it comes to locution, ye shall know them by how they say “data.” Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
If the Digital Book World Conference helped prepare our souls for the coming travail, the battle now is joined by reinforcements, in the form of the annual Tools of Change Conference (#TOCcon). In ToC we trust. Read More