Jonathan Franzen spoke this week about the detrimental effect ebooks have on the world, claiming that serious readers will always prefer print editions and that ebooks are ‘not permanent enough’. Quoted in the Telegraph, Franzen said:
“The Great Gatsby was last updated in 1924. You don’t need it to be refreshed, do you?
“Maybe nobody will care [...]
Rediscovering lost classics thanks to ebooks
on 2 February, 2012 – 5:54 pm
Posted in General, Publishing, eBooks
The Third Player
on 10 November, 2009 – 5:21 pm
Posted in General, Reading devices
When we think of the Big Three West Coast tech firms poised to change publishing, we think Amazon, Apple and Google. Between them they embody a shift in discovery, distribution and hardware in reading and typify a move away from the traditional centres of the book world, in favour of more new media-native presences.
Kindle currently [...]
DRM Is Not Evil
on 14 July, 2009 – 4:39 pm
Posted in Copyright, General, Publishing
At Pan Macmillan we are no great fans of DRM. For a while now we have been selling a limited range of titles DRM free from our website; these are titles where the authors have requested that we retail sans DRM. Many writers are in favour of this, and so we see as it [...]
Ebooks in Africa: 2
on 15 June, 2009 – 4:10 pm
Posted in General, Publishing
After writing about the general landscape of digital publishing in South Africa a few weeks ago, I thought it was time to look at some of the specifics. There is a lot of cool stuff going on out there that deserves more attention. Here are some highlights:
- Arthur Goldstuck is something of a web celebrity [...]
Ebooks in Africa: 1
on 28 May, 2009 – 3:22 pm
Posted in General, eBooks
Recently I had the pleasure of going to South Africa, and whilst there attended a conference in Joburg on how digital books are impacting publishing, and what kind of changes and strategic decisions need to be effected as a result. In this post I’ll talk generally about the situation out there and in a follow [...]
A Bookish Experiment
on 14 April, 2009 – 4:18 pm
Posted in Reading devices, eBooks
A while ago you may remember Book Camp, a day of bookish experimentation. On the back of that I’ve been thinking of a bookish experiment and was wondering if it’s been done.
We are seeing a proliferation of reading formats- from grand, Royal hardbacks to reading on the Nintendo DS. Each of these has a different [...]
A New Class of Online Media (But Would It Work for Books?)
on 3 March, 2009 – 9:46 am
Posted in General, Reading devices, eBooks, mobile
Hello Digitalist readers! (Digitalists?) James and Sara asked me to guest blog, so I’ll be posting every now and then. I’m the Internet Marketing Manager for the U.S. side of Macmillan, and you can find out a little about me here. It’s best to imagine a flat American accent when reading my entries.
I’m very interested [...]
Shatzkin shizzle
on 27 February, 2009 – 9:47 am
Posted in eBooks, mobile
Mike Shatzkin posted a piece yesterday that seemed to me to have the ring of truth about it.
Asking the question, ‘Will Amazon’s current domination of the US ebook market persist?’, Shatzkin answers firmly, ‘No.’
He goes on to explicate the lack of a genuine compatibility between Amazon’s strengths in physical product supply, handling and selling and [...]
Pan Macmillan and GoSpoken
on 26 February, 2009 – 3:36 pm
Posted in General, Publishing, eBooks
Pan Macmillan are going into GoSpoken, the mobile reading platform. As regular readers of this blog will know, we are big fans of mobile reading and believe it has a hugely significant role in the future of how we read. Our lives are becoming more and more device centric while our devices get better and [...]
my tee oh see
on 17 February, 2009 – 5:19 pm
Posted in General, TOC 2009
I’ve had a full week now to digest my TOC experience in New York and hopefully I will manage to capture in this post the many points of real value that I gleaned from it.
For those of you I didn’t meet on Twitter, it was actually me behind the @thedigitalist tweets, not Sara. Like [...]
