According to Wired, via Reuters, a consensus arose at this year’s BookExpo America (the yearly orgy of commercialism for the book publishing industry) among publishers that an e-book alternative must arise to sidestep the Apple/Amazon battle for hegemony. Which suggests, remarkably, that unlike in previous platforms wars, such as Betamax v. VHS or HD-DVD v. Bluray, the winner won’t be one or the other but rather none of the above. As it stands you have Amazon, and their attempted i-Tunes-ification of the publishing industry versus latecomer Steve Nobody-Reads-Books-Anymore-but-We’re-More-Than–Happy-to-Sell-Them-to-You-Anyway-in-a-Format-Unreadable-by-Devices-Other-Than-Ours Jobs.
All of this digital maneuvering has drawn attention to what might be called an analog advantage to printed books. As Susan Peterson Kennedy, president of Penguin, points out, “The devices have not caught up with the content. Contrary to popular opinion, the book is actually so far more flexible.”
"Unfortunately, the article suggests that much of the buzz at the convention surrounded Barbra Streisand’s forthcoming book on interior design..."
ReplyDeleteThe only accounting for taste will be a reckoning, in the form of stacks of the Streisand book appearing on the remaindering shelves six months after it is published. Alternatively, maybe it's a good candidate to be the first illustrated book published in e-book format.