Jay Huldeen
on Feb 20th, 2010
@ 12:44 am: 

Gooooogle: what happens when they ‘own’ digital copies of all non-copyrighted books? (or is it all books everywhere that they are trying to grab?) Will the world end? Or will mankind just continue to get stupider, once the original copies have been disposed of and there’s no way to tell what they’ve altered in the digital version?

For example, will 1984’s Winston Smith character one day become a kindly rescuer of lab rats liberated by animal rights activists, whose passion for maltreated rodents is assisted by a certain benevolent Internet company’s search engine features, which allows him to organize the movement much more quickly than if he’d had to rely on word of mouth or even yesterday’s electronic mass media?

Maybe more to your liking: what happens to your business and the business of other actual publishers with a history of making stuff out of paper, ink and leather once Goooooogle digitizes it all? I know there’s not much backlist market, (but then why is Gooooogle so hot to acquire this stuff?!?), but are there implications for the publishing business?

Looking forward to your soon return! Please include some morsels of your travels to exotic and faraway places, whatever you write about. It’s like adding a little garlic pepper sauce to your soup.

[Reply]

Jay Huldeen
on Feb 20th, 2010
@ 9:10 am: 

Evan,

I may be paranoid, but I am no Luddite (obviously). Still, it is disconcerting to see the paradigm shifting so rapidly. I — fear is not the right word — dislike is probably better — that a couple of college geeks who were essentially just bright code-monkeys have figured out, with their Boolean strings and webcrawlers, how to ride on the backs of the thousands of database administrators who built the web — database administrators who are basically people who build electronic library shelves. That’s not bad in itself, but now Gooooogle has transmogrified from this mildly annoying but harmless spinster librarian into a bald guy in an expensive but tasteless suit stroking a purring Angora cat on his lap as he plots world domination from his bunker. (Probably now they’ll publish all my personal information, once their bots find this post.) (Oh wait, they already have, and I didn’t get a dime for it.)

As for Apple, all I have to say is: http://www.cracked.com/article_18377_5-reasons-you-should-be-scared-apple.html

Looking forward to your thoughts on the real threats to publishing, and to news of the current state of Mexico City street tacos, and perhaps some descriptions of authentic curry from Bangalore, or figgy pudding from Warwickshire.

Also, and meaning no disrespect, but what is a ‘publishing ecosystem’ exactly? And where does OUP fit into that? Are you part of the canopy, perhaps?

Jay

[Reply]

Mike Shatzkin
on Oct 24th, 2009
@ 11:42 am: 

Hurry back, Evan, we miss you. But while you’re gone, go get those sales!

[Reply]

Jeroen
on May 6th, 2009
@ 3:04 pm: 

You’re asking two things here:
1) The question is whether we can deliver immersive reading in a manner that is relevant to Generation On-Demand.
2) What will we need to do as an industry to make that happen?

You already gave the answer: put it in the “clouds”. This will automatically lead to a “usage fee” instead of a “buying fee”. For the consumer than it is important to know what they’re paying for. Is it a product I’m paying for or is it the usage of the content? And is the content mine? Can I resell it or lend it to a friend? No, why not? Next to changing the contract structures I think the transition to e-reading involves a lot of communication to the consumer about what is possible and what is not.

[Reply]

Jeff
on May 6th, 2009
@ 8:50 pm: 

Good analysis, though I think issues of reading need separating from issues of access.

Immersive reading might be slippery to define. Those of us who value long-form prose have always been in the minority throughout history. We just hate to confront that reality for fears of being called elitist. As far as “immersive reading” in digital media goes, everyone should look more towards documentary films than print as a content model though there’s obviously not much of a revenue model there. Intellectual property constraints will do more to limit creativity or new forms of “writing” in digital media than on reading and distribution.

I think you’re absolutely right in that the future is about on demand access to material. And that can be in the format of one’s preference (be it digital or print via print-on-demand or even traditional bookstores).

[Reply]