The future of publishing may be digital, but costly Kindles and eBooks on iPhones aren’t enough to trigger a digital book revolution. It’ll take more than the promise of a portable library to convince readers they’re better off without paper.

The iPod heralded a seismic shift in content distribution. Music downloads now seem as obvious as they were inevitable, so it’s reasonable to expect written content to follow music, movies, and TV down the path towards digital distribution. But to get consumers onboard, eBooks will need to supply a superior reading experience and better value for money than they currently offer.

Increased availability satisfies a demand that doesn’t yet exist

Last week Google released Book Search for mobiles and made over 1.5 million public domain books available on iPhones and Android mobiles. As well as introducing a revamped Kindle 2.0, Amazon has announced that its more contemporary range of Kindle titles will be made available for download to devices other than the Kindle.

Both companies are addressing the issue of title availability, but that’s not the eBook bottleneck. Having more titles is an important step, but it’s not enough to trigger a fundamental shift in people’s reading habits.

It’s easy to blame the slow uptake of digital books on nostalgia for printed paper

There’s a some good reasons digital books haven’t taken off, and the least of them is the ‘I just like paper books’ problem. Don’t get me wrong, like many people, I don’t think that the look, feel, and smell of books will ever be fully replaced. But it’s possible to imagine a future where convenience, cost, and environmental concerns make digital books a mass market alternative to the paperback, in the same way that paperbacks have become a cheaper, more convenient alternative to hard covers.
The true causes of consumer reluctance are more compelling, and more easily addressed, than an enduring love of paper:

• Readability and the user experience
• Value and the total cost of ownership
• Flexibility: to sell, trade, and loan books

eReaders need the readability of a paperback printed on recycled paper, to last 12hrs, and be durable enough to throw in a backpack

Many books will soon be available on mobile phones, letting you read eBooks on hardware you already own, though at a cost to your battery-life and with poor readability. With better batteries, phones may yet become a reasonable platform for reading, but it’s hard to see such a small, eye-straining LCD screen leading to the mass desertion of paper.

Both the Kindle and Sony’s eReader use breakthrough technologies to offer improved readability and extended battery life, as such they seem the more likely catalyst for mass eBook adoption. They’re not cheap though, they cost over $350 and lack the readability, durability, and portability of a paperback. The hefty price tag doesn’t include a contrast ratio that approaches black text on white paper and the low resolution is a problem for the line drawings in text books.

Paper books combine content with the hardware needed to read it in one convenient package

Like CDs, books are a way to distribute content, but unlike music, electronic books introduce a new hardware cost for consuming written content. CDs don’t come with headphone jacks, so the removal of the physical media makes sense for content that’s always needed a separate ‘player’. Fully self-contained, books have never needed extra hardware to be read: no turntable, no CD player, no iPod. Electronic book readers need to be much better value and find ways to justify their upfront costs.

As a reader, what do I gain from electronic distribution?

People like the option of listening to a lot of different music, so an iPod that makes your entire music collection portable is a big win.

Digital books ask readers to sacrifice the advantages of paper for the same reward as iPods, but if you’re not at school or working in publishing how often do you want to carry around more than a couple of books? I’m a big reader, but I don’t often have more than two books on the go.

Until digital books can be traded as easily as their paper cousins, publishers must consider the implicit costs of digital delivery

DRM is a regular source of contention in the tech industry, and there’s plenty of debate over the use and effectiveness of rights management for books. Leaving aside the important arguments over fair use and piracy, it’s worth remembering that the exchange of books has been a powerful force in their marketing. I’ve borrowed, loaned, and traded a lot more books than I’ve bought new, but it’s the books I’ve borrowed that have fuelled my appetite for buying new fiction and trying new authors. It’s important to consider the implied costs of DRM if it means eBook readers won’t share books with friends and family.

Aside from that, by selling or exchanging their used books, readers have been able to subsidize the cost of further purchases. Digital editions, at a discount of only one or two dollars, don’t offer a payoff comparable to exchanging or selling used books.

Without the opportunity to experiment with digital music, it’s unlikely that its adoption would have been so fast or comprehensive

When music started shifting to digital, early adopters could rip CDs they already owned to MP3s. If publishers offered free digital copies along with every paper edition sold, wary consumers could experiment without paying twice. Eventually ‘digital only’ editions could be sold cheaper to encourage people to make the switch.

Until students, editors, and literary agents are reading textbooks and manuscripts on eReaders, there’s little chance that the general public will welcome them

Rather than focusing on paperbacks, publishers and book sellers should look to replace the backpack full of textbooks. Students, and people in publishing, are an obvious target for replacing a bag, or briefcase, full of heavy books with a lightweight, convenient device. At $350 it’s clear why this hasn’t already happened.

By targeting students, you can develop a market for digital fiction through an audience that’s already comfortable with electronic books and the associated hardware.

Free, durable hardware and cheaper digital content will make eBooks as inevitable as on-demand movie downloads

Where iPods offer a familiar user experience at a familiar price, with the convenience of having all your music on hand, eBooks on mobiles and $350+ readers offer poor readability at a premium price. Consumers being asked to consider taking their libraries digital aren’t being given enough reasons to take the plunge.

The future of print may be digital, but for a real industry shakeup we’ll need to see cheap, easy to read, durable hardware coupled with cheaper digital editions. If Amazon started giving away Kindles while including a free Kindle edition with every paper book sold, they could quickly become the iTunes of the written word.

Reto Meier is a mobile software engineer and author of Professional Android Application Development. He’s based in London and blogs about Android, technology, and programming.

I’m not going to spend time going through loads of statistics confirming that nearly every man, woman, and child at every age in every country and continent is online, buying stuff, finding jobs, partners, and hopefully our books.   What I would like to put in front of you briefly is the idea of our customer’s EVOLVING EXPERIENCE EXPECTATION.

Some would argue that, and I include myself in this camp, that the Experience is the product.  When someone buys a book or a new perfume or cologne, they will judge that product on the experience that it create. Did the book empower me, did the perfume or cologne get me a date?  Did it make me feel better about myself?

The experience of music and the evolution of the music business is always held up as the harbinger for the book business.  And I think this analogy has reached a fevered pitch with the release of Amazon’s Kindle seven months ago.

Some of you probably saw this picture of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, in the Economist a few weeks ago with the heading “YOU’RE ALL DOOMED”.  Many have recognized that Amazon seems to be following a similar “digitize, divide and conquer” strategy masterminded by the maestro himself, Steve Jobs.

I don’t think many of us would question that Jobs and the iPod have revolutionized the music business,   BUT is it right then to assume that Bezos and his new toy will have the similar impact on the book business?  Last week , analysts in the US predicted that by 2012 global ebook sales at amazon will reach $2.5 billion. An astounding number considering amazon’s overall revenue in 2007 was $10.7 billion. How did they get there, with the music comparison of course.

If we look at some key points in history for both the music and book business in the context of the customer’s EVOLVING EXPERIENCE EXPECTATION, which I mentioned before. I think it starts to become clear that this comparison doesn’t really hold water.

A long time ago, when you wanted to experience music, you had limited options. You had to be in the presence of those creating the music, so your mobility was limited.  Unless you were royalty, or whoever was paying the orchestra, your choice of music was limited.  So, improving the mobility of music and the choices that were made available were huge factors in music’s widespread adoption.

Along came the phonograph and suddenly music could be mass produced and distributed, widening its market.
Now, personally, I think the real breakthrough moment in music, that paved the way for Apple, was the dawn of the boom box.

Clearly, this is when music became an accessory for fashion (have you ever seen a better matched bandana and boombox?) The point is, when music went mobile, it fit more readily into people’s experiences.

Then the race was on to make it more portable, stylish, all changing experience expectation. Now, when we think of a comparable breakthrough moment for the reading experience, many wonder if it happened 7 months ago with the release of the Kindle,  but I would argue it really happened just under 700 years ago with our friend, Mr. Movable Type, Gutenberg, himself.

Think about it. Since then, the experience of reading has changed very little. They come in all shapes and sizes. Mobility isn’t much of a problem. And as those traditionalists always say, I like books because you can curl up with them in bed, or read them in the bath.

So, I guess the point I’m trying to make is, unlike the music business the relationship customers have with the printed book is still quite strong and have been meeting the experience expectation for hundreds of years. And I don’t say this because I’m overly sentimental traditionalist.  But I do think it’s an important time to remind ourselves that the printed book still provides an excellent user experience.  And this is a real strength that only enhances our position in a digital age.

So, having read Christine thoughts, what do you think?  Are books still the ultimate experience when it comes to reading, or can what we think of as a book be so much more?  How will the book customer’s experience expectation evolve in the coming years?  Are we indeed doomed?

During our conversation, Alan hit upon something that resonated with me. “You won’t become a better marksman by enlarging the target”

I can think of a variety of situations where this axiom comes into play, but I’m curious – what does this mean to you?

In an ideal imaginary world, a book is finished only when the author is fully satisfied that every word and comma is perfect. In the real world, that doesn’t work. The only way books ever get finished is with the imposition of a deadline — sometimes from the author him or her self, but most often from a publisher.

This is a good thing. The deadline requires much focused work to drive the book into a completed state. It is one of my fears about online publishing that books will never be finished — that they will exist forever in some slippery amorphous state, forever demanding that they be twiddled and tweaked, enslaving the author in a never-ending cycle of continual revision.

The finality of publication is ultimately liberating. The author is given permission to let go, but more importantly, to move on. This book must be finished and left to live on its own because there are many other books that need to be written.

You probably won’t get it right the first time.

I’m not trying to be negative here, so hear me out. Every once in a while I get a proposal where the author just absolutely nails it, but the majority of the time the first draft outline is a great start that needs some fine tuning to get it ready for the shelf.

I look at the book proposal process as a collaborative effort with the author. If I believe in your book idea and you as an author, then I am going to take the time to help you develop your ideas into something that I think has the best chance of success.

An exercise I like to suggest to authors who are bogged down in the outline is to forget that it’s a book. We will worry about turning it into a book a little later, but for now imagine you are creating something other than a book outline. How would you think about your outline differently if I told you were:

• Drafting a presentation for SxSW, Microsoft TechEd or TED (insert the most appropriate conference here)
• Writing the script or talking points for a podcast or video
• Preparing a series of blog posts on a subject

Sometimes thinking about content as just a book is limiting. As publishers move to providing content in a variety of formats – not just books – I think it’s important to open our thinking up a bit during the proposal process. Not everything will necessarily end up in the book per se, but the ideas that don’t may make for great supporting materials, or interesting marketing and promotional angles.

Thinking beyond the book allows you to be a bit more creative with your ideas. Couple that with an editor who is willing to work with you to develop those ideas into a great book is a winning combination.

(Photo credit: Massdistraction)

DailyLit began with mostly public domain works, syndicating them to readers in snack-sized chucks via email and RSS. Recently, the site began offering books from a variety of publishers at prices that range from free to just under $10.

I must admit that I didn’t pay much attention to DailyLit initially (shame on me.) But with this recent announcement, they are certainly on my radar. I’m trying out the service, and reading Cory Doctorow’s Scroogled via RSS on my Blackberry.

For the majority of publishing my group does (computer programming titles) this model of distribution might not make a lot of sense, but for other types of books it might work very well. Only caveat I can see is in the scheduled delivery. You can control the time and frequency of the updates, but it seems to be limited to only 1 installment a day. If I want to read a book on a long flight, I am sure to want more than just the day’s installment, and I am not likely to “store up” installments in anticipation of a long reading session.

What about you? Would you read books in this fashion?

Age of Conversation is a self-published work that the authors describe as follows:

In what began as a half dare, the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan challenged bloggers around the world to contribute one page — 400 words — on the topic of “conversation”. The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brings together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication.

All proceeds (less costs) will go to the Variety, the Children’s Charity.

It will be really interesting to watch Wilson’s marketing plan in action, which is a literal bum rush on Amazon.com on March 29 in an effort to push the book to the top of the bestseller list. Wilson’s call to action:

With the infinite amount of social sites and connections on the web, this is a huge undertaking. That is why I came up with this plan of action list with the highest priority items at the top. The idea is to generate as many touch points around the web as possible so that it will be hard not to spot the Age of Conversation activity.

1. Buy the Book & send others to buy the book. This is the number 1 call to action, because this is where we want to see the most impact. NOTE: Please buy 1 copy at a time because Amazon counts bulk orders once, and please use this affiliate link, which will help us in tracking sales. Remember, all the proceeds from the book sales and referrals will go to charity. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1847992994?ie=UTF8&tag= drewmclellan-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325& creativeASIN=1847992994
2. Blog About It - Make sure you have a prominent link to the Amazon listing so that readers can easily purchase the book. (Remember to use the affiliate link above. All of these earnings will go to charity as well.)
3. Twitter Commentary - Join Drew and I as we give a Bum Rush play-by-play on Twitter. (Follow us: @Freshpeel, @DrewMcLellan, @Servantofchaos) We also ask that everyone saying anything about the Bum Rush to use the code #AOC so that it can be picked up by Twemes.com
4. Trackback or Comment on the post that I will leave here on March 29th at 12am CST, so that everyone can follow the conversation and help promote exposure on social sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, etc.)
5. Digg the posts listed here & send emails and shouts to friends requesting Diggs.
6. Stumble the posts listed & tell friends to do the same.
7. Bookmark your posts on Del.icio.us
8. Add your post to other social media outlets ( Technorati, Ma.gnolia, Furl, BlinkList, Newsvine, Facebook, etc.)
9. Send an Old Fashioned email to your friends about the Bum Rush for AoC.
10. Keep talking – Get on ooVoo, iChat, Aim, or where ever you like to talk, and start talking.

(Hat tip Douglas Karr)

After all, Amazon.com really does it right in so many ways.

Border’s new online storefront will have one benefit that Amazon.com can not offer – retail locations. For me, the killer feature is the convenience of purchasing online, but getting products same day by swinging by a local retail store for pickup.

As Border’s moves to its new face-out shelving strategy, the reduction in inventories may reduce the usefulness of what could be the new site’s best feature.

On Kindle:

While the purist in me refuses to imagine a world without physical books, I can’t help but think of my children and the entire generation to which they belong, who have grown up in a world not only digital, but instant and on demand. The other night we dug out an old VHS holiday movie and my youngest had to have the concept of “rewind” explained.

On finding your audience:

Books enter the market in a unique and largely untested way. There are generally no focus groups or beta testers. And while no one would dream of launching a computer game, a new line of low-fat snacks or a snazzy new sneaker without extensive market research, every year 6,000 business books hit the shelves exactly that way — based on one author’s vision, one editor’s belief and one publishing company’s faith that they will find a market.

On selecting books:

But there are thousands of books published in a single year, and I am in the business of working on publicity for perhaps a dozen or so. The books I select will become my sole focus for at least six months and I will live with the decisions and books for each of those days as I work to bring the book to the media’s attention.

Barbara’s blog looks to be shaping up to be a must read.

Disclosure: Barbara’s company works on many Wiley bestsellers.

(Via Brand Autopsy)

Here are 9 tips for writing a book proposal that will get attention.

1. The Sell Before the Sale
2. Writing a Good Book Proposal: Introduction
3. Pitching Your Book
   
4. Knowing Your Competition
5. Manuscript Details
6. Writing Great Author Biographies
7. Writing Great Book Outlines
8. Understanding Your Book’s Audience
9. 5 (Sarcastic) Ways to Get Me to Reject Your Book Proposal

(Photo credit jm3)