2008 Publishing Trends
Publishers Weekly has the details on «15 trends to watch in 2008», which includes, of course, «Kindle»:
‘1. The popularity of e-books will increase, with titles formatted for Amazon’s Kindle leading the way. Content for the Sony Reader will sell faster than ever, but by this time next year, Kindle-compatible books will be outselling them by more than 2 to 1. And Palm, which has historically been the bestselling format, will have had its best year-on-year increase as well. Powells.com, which offers the largest selection of titles in formats that are not in closed distribution (a total of 150,000 in Adobe, Microsoft and Palm so far) will also have a record year for e-book sales. By year end, nearly every straight-text title published with commercial intent will be available for Kindle; the trick for the other formats will be to make sure they’re included, too. And Kindle pricing will drive the market. But despite the fast growth, e-books will still make up a tiny share of the market—no more than 2% of sales for most titles—and will contribute only a minimal amount to publishers’ bottom lines.’
—Publishers Weekly
Number 15 sounded interesting:
‘15. In addition to being the Year of the Author, 2008 will be the Year of the Experiment. Initiatives like the widgets used by HarperCollins and Random House, the video trailers produced by Simon & Schuster, the publishing to cell phones being enabled by Mobifusion and tried by several publishers, and Macmillan’s call to employees for ideas for the company to bankroll show a growing awareness that publishing companies need to create a culture of experimentation. What’s an experiment? We’ll define it as a commercial effort undertaken without any real conviction as to how it will work out, and with the expectation that learning from failure is a more likely benefit than success.’
So I tried it out in two entries below. As you can see, it seems that Harper Collins widget seems to work, while the Random House (at least at this writing) does not.
Interesting stuff, though. Especially on the Apple side. I’m finding that I can read books just find with my iPod Touch and «ManyBooks.Net». Check it out. ★
• 369 Words written by Steve @ 17:34 | 09-Jan-08 in Literacy •