Week 11: Publishing

1 in 5 Americans read an ebook

in the past year

Souce: Pew Foundation, April 2012

Same old story?

Is the end of the book coming?

Is it already here?

Not the end quite yet

In 2012: 67% of American adults (16 or

older) read a printed book 23% listened to an audiobook 17% read an e-book

Pew Research Center, 2012

But the revolution is here:

There are four times more people reading e-books on a typical day now than was the case less than two years ago.

Souce: Pew Foundation, April 2012

But the revolution is here:

The e-book is the biggest thing that’s hit the

publishing industry since the invention of

movable type

What’s so great about the ebook?

1) Instantaneous access2) Broad selection3) Practical for travelling

and commuting (ie being mobile)

The ebook is less good for:• Sharing• Reading to children

But is this changing too?

How is the book industry doing?

First reactions were the same as music and newspapers and film:

Ebook sales will kill books salesYou can’t release ebooks at the same

time as paper books If the app costs only $2.99, who will

buy the book?

What should the book industry be doing?

How are we reading ebooks?

• 42% read on a computer• 41% read on an e-book reader

like Kindle or Nook• 29% read on their cell phones• 23% read on a tablet computer

How are we reading ebooks?

That means that 94% of readers of e-content are

reading on connected devices

The future: ebooks

Ebooks are soon going to be more than just the digital version of a

book. What do you think the future of

ebooks will be?If before it was just digital text…

what’s the next generation?

The future: ebooks

Like every other medium in the convergence era, books must

become a « platform » and must be, above all,

INTERACTIVE

Interactive ebooks

video that shows how to repair your sinkaudio that pronounces foreign language words

as you read themnovels will provide a platform for live

exchange with reading groups where you can discuss the book with the author

ebooks will come with experts’ commentary and video readings by famous actors

Reading, before…

The page used to be read on its own (2D)

The future of reading: deep

Reading has gone from a flat 2-dimensional experience to

« deep » multi-level experience

There’s more to digital than ebooks

The book App

What do you get in The Wasteland app?The final textcritical notes that were previously published in

a separate volumea facsimile of Eliot’s original manuscript as

annotated by Ezra Poundaudio recordings of the poem, including two

made by Eliot himself

The future of reading: deep

The page will be now be read in context (deep)

Interactive story-telling

Challenges for publishers

What DEVICE?–dedicated app with more flexibility for video

and audio on the iPad? – an “enhanced e-book,” which works on iPad

as well as Amazon’s Kindle Fire, B&N’s Nook and other devices? – re-create content several times to meet

each device’s specs?

The Trends

• Producing enhanced ebooks and apps = expensive• It’s a gamble as to which platform

will work best with readers• Independent publishers are

leading the way

The Trends

Just a few days ago on Reddit:

Remember library books?

Libraries are increasingly lending ebooks as well, with the percentage of borrowers (from 3% to 5% since last year) and the awareness of ebooks in public libraries growing. But why should libraries be the only place to borrow books?

New book business model

If everything else is being streamed—video on Netflix, music on Spotify—why not books?Publishers—and others—have already started

creating lending library models: eBookFling.com and Lendle.me give Kindle and

Nook customers access to tens of thousands of other potential e-book lenders for a 14-day period.

Even in France:

The trends: a case study

Case study: Chafie Press

Amanda Havard, YA author, launches her own imprint and produces her own ebook App:– integrates audio files of the music her characters

are listening to (some of it produced by Chafie)– pictures of the clothes they’re wearing– links to the characters’ Twitter accounts (Havard

mostly runs them herself) – Google Maps of the places they visit.

Case study: Chafie Presshttps://erica-erwin.squarespace.com/immersedition/

The future of books

Book eBook

NEW FORMS OF STORYTELLING

Ex: The Art of the Adventures of Tintin Apphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITU5PEja-LI&feature=player_embedded

The future of reading is also…

SOCIALLike everything else?

In the future, e-books are going to explode beyond just containing stories, becoming niche social networks where we discuss our favorite passages with other readers and even authors and publishers buy our data to make more informed decisions.

Even reading is social

It already was social if you went seeking the social experience around books:

And now it can be social even within a book:

Not just publishers…

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN FOR WRITERS?

As bloggers, you are all already writers and publishers.

Can anyone be a book author? Do writers need publishers?

Self-publishing

Number of self-published books up 287% since 2006

Source: Bowker® Books In Print and Bowker® Identifier Services

Self-publishingIt’s now a big business!

The future: readers

Will digitization change the way we read?

• Will we still read – and write – from beginning to middle to end?• Remembering what we read: any

traces?• What about lending books?• What about…book shelves?

The future: readers

It has also changed what we read:

What is the long tail for books?

The future: readers

Digital publishing is cheap + Digital distribution is cheap =

Previously rare book titles, esoteric content, old content, self-published content: now has the means to reach the few consumers interested

MORE DIVERSE CONTENT OUT THERE LONGER

CONCLUSION

Americans are actually reading more:

30% of those who read e-content say they now spend more time

reading

Source: Pew Foundation, April 2012