http://www.blackplasticglasses.com Musings on Publishing and life in the Digital Age by Evan Schnittman Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:32:15 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/03/23/digital-reading/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/03/23/digital-reading/#comments Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:15:02 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=445 This was brilliantly summarized in 2003 by Niko Pfund, OUP’s VP of Academic and Trade Publishing, when he referred to this kind of reading as “extractive, as opposed to immersive.” Extractive reading is an extension of search – its primarily purpose is to “extract” information from searched databases. Extractive reading is easily done...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/03/23/digital-reading/feed/ 4 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/02/18/im-coming-back/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/02/18/im-coming-back/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:36:48 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/02/18/im-coming-back/ ]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/02/18/im-coming-back/feed/ 3 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/04/google-editions-cloud-publishing/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/04/google-editions-cloud-publishing/#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:23:04 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=236 These are not ebooks, these are Google Editions. Google Editions will be composed of content that is currently (or will be) found in the Google Partner Program.  The Partner Program of Google Book Search is the discoverability...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/04/google-editions-cloud-publishing/feed/ 17 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/15/ebook-discounts/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/15/ebook-discounts/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:41:18 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=85 To be perfectly clear, this blog is not sanctioned by, endorsed by, or even remotely associated with Oxford University Press, my fantastic employer. What I say here is my opinion and my opinion alone. In my inaugural post, Why Ebooks Must Fail, I promised to follow up by exploring a variety of business models I believe could work in the long run for publishers of all sizes and shapes. This is the first part of a 3-part series in which I propose changes and new initiatives for ebooks that, I believe, will help ensure that ebooks don’t fail. I theorized that the book industry relies too greatly on advance sales and billing and that the predominant model of ebooks,...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/15/ebook-discounts/feed/ 12 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/06/drm/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/06/drm/#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:47:58 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=24 All Things Considered I had a brief sound bite about DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the music industry. What you didn’t get to hear was the larger point I was trying to pull together – which is that DRM is not bad, nor is it good. It is like any tool, only as good (or bad) as it is implemented. DRM has gotten a lot of press over the years as there is a quite vocal group who are politically/philosophically, perhaps even morally opposed to any restrictions on the use of content once disseminated. I call them the “Anti-DRMers.” They come in many forms – from scholarly archivists to Swedish anarchists. http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/06/drm/feed/ 9 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/03/30/why-ebooks-must-fail/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/03/30/why-ebooks-must-fail/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:33:14 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=5 NB - I have noticed from the amazing amount of commentary this post generated over the last two weeks that there seems to be a misunderstanding of my intentions here. Granted, I chose a very inflammatory title, but this article, especially when taken in context with the follow up piece Discounts Must Align to Risks, is about supporting growth in the ebook market, not predicting its demise. Ebooks are the future and getting there as an industry will require some hard evaluation of how things work and a better understanding of publishing economics. Evan This piece is about consumer or “trade” publishing as we call it in the industry.  To begin, let's review how a book becomes a book. A...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/03/30/why-ebooks-must-fail/feed/ 61