Just had a very busy day at the London Book Fair. It is hard to post from here; I don’t have my normal 12 or more hours a day at the keyboard of my laptop. But what Book Fairs are all about is the compressed opportunity to encounter smart and knowledgeable people and I had […]
The Google settlement, answering some of the questions about the windfall
The post from Thursday about the Google “windfall” provoked a lot of information sources to help me understand the settlement, large parts of which I clearly did not. We’ll go over the answers I got (as I understand them; my understanding seems to be a moving target…) to the questions Michael Cairns and I posed […]
The Google settlement and unanswered questions, particularly about the windfall
Michael Cairns and I have both been frustrated with most of the conversation surrounding the Google Book Search settlement. The principal concerns of most of the participants in the dialogue seem to be: 1. Has Google unfairly captured a monopoly on some content? 2. Has the “class” of “orphan authors” been dealt with fairly, since […]
This ebook thing is just going to get more complicated
Adam Hodgkin at the Exact Editions blog posted a piece that explains the ebook strategies of Apple, Amazon, and Google in simple terms. Hodgkin’s piece really helps think things through, but I think his analysis is a bit oversimplified (which is part of why it helps think things through.) Hodgkin sees brilliance in Apple’s move not to […]
Will You Recognize the Industry in 10 Years?
There is no doubt that the industry is in a period of significant transition. What can we expect 10 to 15 years from now?… Ten years from now, there will still be more books sold that were printed centrally and warehoused for sale than all other ways combined, but the end of that era will be in sight.