eBooks « Publishing Talk

Are you too big for social media?

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.

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads

Rich Holman | 5:26 pm 12 May 10 Comments Off

There is a lack of skills in the publishing industry to deal with new emergent paradigms. But it’s not just skills and structure that are lacking, but culture and attitude. In a period of accelerating change we need vastly more efficient methods of developing new concepts. In this post I want to share some thoughts about some of the changes that would be required for publishers to become more agile, generalist and collaborative in an age where we are all becoming publishers, authors, creators and consumers and as such all have a voice and opinion as well as the ability to implement our own ideas.

Tags: agile, development, eBooks, print, skills —

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 —

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 [...]

Kindle 2 and the publishing revolution

Jon Reed | 11:06 pm 24 Feb 09 Comments 4

Everyone’s talking about Kindle 2. To those outside the industry this must sound as opaque and mysterious a revolution as Vatican 2. [My only reference for that is The Thornbirds, which you can now buy as a Kindle edition].
The Kindle 2 is the next generation of Amazon’s wireless e-book reading device, and it started shipping [...]

who needs publishers?

Jon Reed | 9:43 pm 02 Jun 08 Comments 3

A quick heads-up for anyone who’s not yet seen Sara Lloyd’s excellent piece for US-based library journal, Library Trends, called A Book Publisher’s Manifesto for the 21st Century, on how traditional publishers need to adapt to the new media economy – something we’re always banging on about on this blog. The whole article is now [...]

re-kindle your love of e-books

Jon Reed | 10:29 am 10 Dec 07 Comments 1

The Amazon Kindle has finally launched in the US (we need to wait a bit longer here in the UK), and I want one. See the BuzzFeed round up of blog postings for more detailed reviews.
I’m not convinced that this is yet the killer device to make e-books mainstream, as the iPod did for music [...]

eBooks: end of the page-turner?

Jon Reed | 4:45 pm 24 Oct 07 Comments 1

Interesting article in today’s Independent about eBooks – including plenty of quotes from Jeff ‘Print is Dead‘ Gomez:
In just a few short years, MP3 downloads and the iPod changed the face of the music industry. CDs are going the way of the dodo, and high-street music stores fear for their future. Now there’s a [...]

scratch-and-sniff e-books

Jon Reed | 8:17 pm 24 Aug 07 Comments 3

OK, page-sniffing blog rant alert: book fetishists, literary bathers and Margaret Atwood look away now. I hardly know where to begin with this one.
Part of me thinks it must be a hoax. But Reuters seem convinced that the age of the scratch-and-sniff e-book has finally arrived – and who am I to argue?
From the wires:
An [...]