Digital « Publishing Talk

The Smirnoff effect – coming to a magazine near you

You know those Smirnoff ads where people look through the lens of a bottle and see strange wonders? I’ve never quite understood what the marketing message there was supposed to be – “get off your face on vodka until you hallucinate”? Well, you can now have that experience with a magazine and an iPhone. So long as the magazine is Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, the first magazine to use augmented reality browser Junaio.

2010: A Publishing Odyssey

Jon Reed | 10:01 pm 26 Jul 10 Comments 4

Über-agent Andrew “the Jackal” Wylie has hatched an audacious plot. Or maybe he has just seen the future. Either way, he has disintermediated the publishers he works with – for ebooks at least. With last week’s launch of Odyssey Editions, his Kindle-only ebook imprint, a range of his authors are now available digitally for the first time. To me, this seems inevitable. Many authors and their agents get the new digital realities – and, more importantly, the opportunities – while too many publishing discussions still focus on a protectionist response to the ‘threat’ of digital. If publishers won’t grasp digital, authors and agents will.

Do iPad or do I Kindle? – Part 2

Tom Evans | 5:08 pm 15 Jul 10 Comments 2

Should authors and publishers publish for the Kindle, the iPad, or something else? Some of the current options are:

- Print – not going away in a hurry
- Publish for the Kindle and iPad via the Amazon Digital Text Platform
- Publish for the iPad via the iBookstore
- Publish via a third party ebook app like Stanza
- Publish via an aggregator like Smashwords, Lulu, Myebook, Issuu

If you are an author, my advice is to write, create accompanying audio and video assets and by the time you are ready to publish, there will be more than one route open to you.

Are you too big for social media?

Jon Reed | 5:25 pm 02 Jul 10 Comments 7

There are natural advantages to being a small, independent publisher when it comes to social media marketing. But, big or small, there’s a social media marketing strategy for you. Just keep it appropriate to your type of organization, make sure you engage your audience, and go for a personal voice – whether that is you and/or your authors.

London Book Fair Digital Conference

Jon Reed | 9:32 pm 25 Apr 10 Comments 7

Publishers get real about digital as they are told: “This industry doesn’t owe you a living”.

I was lecturing at Birkbek yesterday, on digital publishing, social media marketing – and men in their pants in Basingstoke. For this was the key takeaway message for me at this year’s London Book Fair Digital Conference, which I attended and live-tweeted last weekend: if publishers don’t produce digital content, such as apps, there are plenty of men in their basements in Basingstoke in their pants who will.

Karmic Rights Management

Tom Evans | 12:59 pm 03 Mar 10 Comments Off

In case you hadn’t realised before the announcement of the Apple iPad in January, this is the decade of the eReader. The publishing industry is going through a similar transition to that of the music industry in the last decade.

In these days when you can publish direct for ereaders like the Kindle, Cool-er and soon the iPad – or just blog a story – what’s to stop anyone stealing and copying your work illegally?

Tags: DRM, eBooks, ereader, ibooks, iPad, iPhone, karma, Kindle, rights —

If the Digital Economy Bill fails, we’ll all pay

Danuta Kean | 12:52 pm 08 Feb 10 Comments 18

If the music industry is anything to go by, it is not the J K Rowlings, Stephanie Meyers or Dan Browns who will suffer if peer2peer file sharing becomes rampant in books, it is the already beleaguered midlist authors, whose work already struggle to find a place in a market dominated by multi-million pound global hitters and celebrities.

Do iPad or do I Kindle?

Tom Evans | 2:58 pm 29 Jan 10 Comments 1

Tom Evans is an author, author mentor, writer’s unblocker and e-publishing wizard. Follow his memes and musings on Twitter @thebookwright
The debate is not about which device is better than the others. It’s about authors and publishers embracing a whole new world of opportunity.

Much has been written over the last 48 hours or so about Apple’s [...]

Tags: Amazon, apple, E-book, IBook, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, sony, Sony Reader —

The future of the ebook

Tom Evans | 3:10 pm 07 Jan 10 Comments Off

With the introduction of ereaders last year and the imminent announcement from Apple about the much rumoured Tablet – or iSlate – the future of the ebook has never been rosier.
The opportunities for authors and publishers abound to create an experience for readers which delivers an amazing array of immersion and interactivity. Watch this short [...]

Tools of Change at Frankfurt Book Fair

Jon Reed | 7:25 pm 14 Oct 09 Comments Off

For those of us not at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week, it’s been easier than ever to keep up with the presentations, the deals, the gossip and the bar-hopping (er, I mean stand-hopping) with the #fbf09 hashtag.
The various blogs and Twitter accounts covering the Book Fair include @thebookseller, the ever irreverent and entertaining @missdaisyfrost, [...]