Entries Tagged 'e-Publishing' ↓
February 5th, 2008 — Books and Publishing, New Markets, e-Publishing
This is something that we blogged about back in October and now the NY Times has written about the Japanese mobile phone novelists as well. It seems to be pretty big news at the moment and 5 of the Top 10 bestseller novels in Japan last year were orginally cellphone novels, with the Top 3 all being written by 1st time cellphone novelists.
There’s a real buzz around this format which is basically just an extension of blogs becoming books, and in a technology-focused country such as Japan it was probably inevitable that this kind of instant novel would evolve – whether those in more literary circles like it or not.
We then came across this great blog about it - complete with an English translation of a passage of text from one of the ‘novels’ – so you can see what all the fuss is about! Can’t say it has left us exactly gagging for more but you can see the appeal (I think) - although it may be a bit longer before it catches on in the rest of the world…
January 31st, 2008 — Best-Of, Books and Publishing, e-Publishing
Mike Shatzkin, US expert on digital change, has written this article for Publisher’s Weekly that identifies the 15 trends he thinks will impact the most on the writing and publishing industry in the near future. Not reading trends – he’s not predicting a rise in the popularity of historical fiction, or novels about Hiroshima – but larger trends in the way books are produced and published, and the way they’re read.
Digital publishing seems to be the odds-on favourite, with the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader, and Apple’s upcoming foray into e-books readers as products to keep an eye on. He does talk a bit about the Borders v Barnes & Noble skirmish, suggesting the ways each chain might develop to take a bite out of the digital pie. Online marketing for books will naturally increase, in more and more experimental ways (Shatzkin mentions video trailers for books; if you haven’t seen one, click here). And Print-On-Demand could apparently save the hardback.
All in all, quite an interesting projection for the publishing industry, and lots of solid points to use in the argument against those killjoys who keep telling us the book is dead.
