The LBF has prompted a number of posts and ruminations. Mike Shatzkin’s paper at the digital seminar has been posted on the Bookseller blog.1 It’s well worth a read for a wide-ranging view of the industry. With my data-preparation hat on I was particularly struck by the comment:
Peter Balis, the ebook wizard at John Wiley in Hoboken, talks about the fact that he has to take IP designed to be optimized on a print page and figure out how to make it work on different sized ebook screens. He openly longs for the day when his outputs become the dog and the printed book the tail. He points out, correctly, that it would be an easier workflow for everybody if it worked that way around.
This is surely the experience of most publishers, and it’s not just in respect of ebooks, but all output formats; platform neutrality is the key. His paper makes clear how much the ebook phenomenon is causing waves through the industry, and the impact of that is addressed by Michael Cairns, who speaks of all-important standards, interoperability and collaborative action between publishers,2 and how essential it is that publisher direct the technology rather than be led by it.3
- Shatzkin, Mike. “ The future of trade publishing in the digital marketplace.” 27 April 2009. BookBrunch. http://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1682:the-future-oftrade-publishing-in-the-digital-marketplace&catid=918:digital&Itemid=97
- Cairns, Michael. “Amazon Stanza: This Changes Nothing.” 27 April 2009. PersonaNonData. http://personanondata.blogspot.com/2009/04/amazon-stanza-this-changes-nothing.html
- Cairns, Michael. “London Days of Futures Past.” 27 April 2009. PersonaNonData. http://personanondata.blogspot.com/2009/04/london-days-of-futures-past.html