I got a call today from Laura Sydell of NPR in San Francisco to have a conversation about DRM. I found myself telling the story this way. From the beginning, there were multiple ebook formats, the leading ones being Adobe, Palm, and Microsoft Dot Lit for a time, with Mobi originally intended to be the […]
The Book Business Ain’t The Music Business
Len Vlahos of the ABA is the latest to take on the noble but very difficult task of encouraging independent booksellers in the digital age. Independent booksellers face a challenge similar to that of publishers adjusting to the change we’re facing: the skill sets and predelictions that are useful for what they’ve been doing don’t […]
Enhanced Ebooks, Part 3
This is the third and final post of a series which spells out a new ebook strategy for trade publishers, expressed in the form of a letter from the publisher to its authors. The first post — the beginning of the letter — expressed the publisher’s intention to invest in a database of digital assets […]
If you could fix something, what would you fix?
The question asked on an email list of digerati-types was: “On the trade side of the business, what are some of the unmet challenges, the unsolved conundrums, at the intersection of books & technology? If you could fix something, what would you fix?” 1. Enhanced ebooks. Nobody seems to have developed a standardized way to […]
Enhanced Ebooks, Part 2
This is the second post of a series which spells out a new ebook strategy for trade publishers, expressed in the form of a letter from the publisher to its authors. The first post — the beginning of the letter — expressed the publisher’s intention to invest in a database of digital assets to enhance […]