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Bill Esler

At the Digital Book Publishing Forum
May 19, 2008

Digital books and e-books are making their way into the supply chain. A May 14 conference in NYC examined trends. Here's a report from our sister magazine, Publishers Weekly.

The Customer is King at Digital Book 2008
By Craig Morgan Teicher, Publishers Weekly
“Give the customers what they want” was the message at Digital Book 2008, the annual conference sponsored by the International Digital Publishing Forum, held yesterday at the McGraw-Hill auditorium in Manhattan. On panels about e-book standards, new innovations, international digital publishing and the education market, publishers and technology developers sounded the same note over and over again, pointing out that the Internet has given them unprecedented access to consumer feedback, and that the way to grow the e-book market is to listen to what readers are saying. “Power is shifting to the consumer,” said Matt Shatz, v-p of digital at Random House.This means new products and new ways of thinking about existing ones. Malle Vallik, director of Digital Content and Interactivity at Harlequin, talked about how, after seeing a comment on a blog from someone who was excited to be able to read Harlequin newsletters during lunch breaks, she began developing what she calls “nooners,” downloadable romance fiction just the right length for a lunchtime read. “You have to get out there and experiment,” she advised. Shatz, talked about the success of Random's customizable Pokey Little Puppy—from a Web site, a buyer can add a photo and a dedication to the book, which is then printed POD and shipped off under an agreement with Shared Book. An RH business book, Made to Stick, is being offered in individually sold downloadable chapters. RH is also trying an ad-supported model using Google’s AdSense to monetize their “House of Collectables” reference series. Sean Devine, CEO of CourseSmart talked about rethinking the textbook market, citing statistics showing that college students spend over $1,000 on books, and carry 20% of their body weight worth of textbooks.Vallik also cited the e-book market in Japan as a model for Harlequin. Mikio Amaya, president and CEO of Papyless, a Japanese e-book e-tailer, gave a thorough breakdown of Japan’s e-book culture. According to Amaya, there is a $150 million annual e-book market in Japan. Sony debuted its e-book reader in Japan in 2004, and devices from Sony, Panasonic and mobile phone manufacturers drove the mobile e-book market to overtake the PC e-book market in 2006, said Amaya. According to him, there are currently 448 sites that sell mobile e-books. Amaya noted that comics, which are especially popular on mobile phones, have the largest market share.While all the speakers seemed to agree that the book business has a long way to go before readers are as familiar and comfortable with digital books as they are with paper books, it was also clear that publishers see rapid growth in the digital book market and that the format is becoming an increasingly important part of their business.

Posted by Bill Esler on May 19, 2008 | Comments (1)

Industries: Digital Printing, New Products, Premedia

November 8, 2008
In response to: At the Digital Book Publishing Forum
Where's the innovation in digital publis commented:

I've been heavily involved in digital publishing for over a decade and I'm always surprised at the lack of innovation in the business. At least part of the problem may be that too many publishers are trying to directly convert paper books to digital models without understanding that this is a whole new medium, requiring richer content and an expanded view of what constitutes a book. Sales figures so far, pretty clearly suggest that simply converting paper pages to digital form isn't enough--it doesn't make up for the inherent disadvantages of reading online. I think we all need to think a little bigger, we need to make full use of computers and the Internet to create digital publications that go way beyond the limits of paper, first-generation e-books, and PDF files. Our company, MediaTechnics Corporation, has done this with great success with the digital versions of our best-selling college computer textbooks where photos come to life as video, illustrations turn into animations, and additional info is just a mouse-click away. For samples of what digital publishing can, and should be, visit www.mediatechnicscorp.com and www.sixstarsinthewindow.com.