(Or, to misquote my friend Eoin Purcell, publishers feel like they have this whole digital thing sorted. Done and done.)

Of course, if you’ve been paying attention (and I know you have), you know there is a lot of innovation happening outside the world of traditional publishing. And, to be honest, inside of traditional publishing, though I would characterize many of those experiments as baby steps instead of bold initiatives. Perhaps this is how it should be.

What I mean is that it is hard to run your core business while transforming part of it into an R&D operation. Particularly when “the future” is something nobody can define. Unless, ahem, you happened to spend a very long weekend with a 19-month old and her iPad. Then you have a clear picture of where the world of story is going, and the expectations that generation will have.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today. I am very excited to once again attend TOC (and the If Book Then conference in Milan in March). I am thrilled about participating in Kevin Smokler’s Books at the Block Party: The Economics and Outcomes of a Local Literary Economy panel, a panel that also features Dan Blank, Stephanie Anderson, and Rachel Fershleiser. We’ll be talking about the physical, face-to-face aspect of our bookish culture.

What excites me even more is the Startup Showcase on Wednesday, February 13, 2013. Every year, Kat Meyer and the rest of the TOC team bring us cutting edge companies doing amazing things in the world of publishing. These companies are the future.

And I’d like to highlight one company in particular: Paperight. I’ve spoken and written about Paperight more than a few times in the past couple of years because it still blows my mind.

We talk about publishing, particularly here in the United States, as if it is something we can take for granted. As Arthur Atwell, the brains behind Paperight demonstrated, in places like sub-Saharan Africa, there is a serious challenge in getting reading material to people who desperately want it. Local bookstores, much less Amazon, aren’t even potential solutions.

Atwell and his team instead utilize existing infrastructure to deliver reading material to readers. And by “existing infrastructure”, I mean telephone lines and copy shops. Customers purchase legal, low-cost books. Publishers and authors get paid. Information is shared. Goals are accomplished.

This is genius. This is important. This is innovation in publishing. I applaud every publisher and author who participates in Paperight. Nothing excites me more than the possibility to spread the joy of reading to people!

I know the TOC schedule is jam-packed with amazing sessions, but I hope you make the time to attend the Startup Showcase. More than a few friends are presenting their innovations (The Holocene and Valobox are two other standouts) and I think you’ll be as inspired as I am by their work.

And…I think you’ll have your entire perspective changed by what Paperight is doing.

The post Tools of Change 2013: What Excites Me Right Now appeared first on Booksquare.

I kid. Sort of. I have the conference dates circled with a big red heart on my calendar (what is better than spending Valentine’s Day with approximately 1500 of your closest friends? Nothing, I tell, you nothing.). More importantly, I’ve been preparing for the two panels I’m moderating (more at the end of this post). I am so lucky. I get to stand back while four (count ’em, four!) of the most innovative people in publishing do their thing.

I am nothing if not an awesome moderator.

I’ve also been brushing up on the most current publishing news, a bit of struggle for me as it seems like so much of the industry is on round three or four of the same conversation while I am looking for something new. I don’t know if the conversations most of us have been having for the past, oh, six years were light years ahead, or, more likely, if there are so many basic questions the publishing (entire) industry needs to answer, we have to recycle them time and again.

For example, a recent Publisher’s Weekly article asking “Is the Time Right for Bundling?”

Let me answer the question succinctly: yes. And no.

I am not convinced the book-buying public is clamoring for print/ebook bundles, just as they weren’t clamoring for “enhanced ebooks” — you know, those higher-priced books with marketing material appended to them. However, I am convinced there are instances where a print/digital combo makes perfect sense. And I think the public does want these sensible combos, even if they cannot articulate their desires.

Then again, I am convinced there are instances where the print book makes no sense at all. I recently purchased a book as part of market research for a project I’m doing. The content is only available in print, and this is something the authors are proud of. I do not have to worry about connectivity when it comes to finding the information I need.

Oy.

Nope, I just need to worry about hauling one more heavy item in my purse, and hoping the information in that print book is up-to-date. And if it isn’t, well, I can wait until the 6th (print) edition is available to see the corrections. If ever a book should be available as an app, this is it. Within seconds of ordering the print book, I regretted it. Moments after cracking the spine, I knew it was the last thing I wanted or needed.

Personally, the chances of me getting excited about a print/digital bundles for fiction are pretty slim. There is the rare, rare, rare book I love so much I want to display it on my shelves. When that book enters my universe, the joy cannot be described. Usualy, by the time I discover my love for this book, the opportunity to get in on the bundling deal will be lost (hey, make this a retroactive thing…then you’ve got something).

Non-fiction, as in the case I described above, is a different story. But it has to be the right kind of content to make sense. I like that Rachel Deahl, the author of the article, noted the logistical issues involved with bundling — how will those royalties be determined? She also notes the challenges due to the Agency Model (see: Brian O’Leary’s post on Ripple Effects).

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: locking your entire business into a specific model during a time of rapid change is a bad idea.

What does this have to do with the Tools of Change conference? Quite a bit. The theme speaks to my soul: change/forward/fast. While publishers work hard to figure out the right now, they need to keep a close eye on possibilities for the future. The basics are still far from being, well, basic, but we can’t deny the world is changing at (publishing) light speed. This is why I love TOC.

Want to see an open source, WordPress-based digital publishing tool (full disclosure and all that)? Done. Curious to discover what is really meant by “Agile Publishing“? Thinking you want to get into the business of building strong, enduring communities around your content? Ready to discover some amazing (and I mean freaking amazing!) publishing related start-ups?

Done, done, and done!

(Oh, and there is so much more).

Yeah, I’m looking forward to next week, and I hope you are too. If you haven’t registered yet, it’s not too late.

A note about my awesome panels:

“Leveraging Existing Assets for New Markets“, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 8:30 a.m. Greg Merkle of the Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group and Stephen Stesney of CQ Press/First Street will be offering details peeks inside their systems, then answering a few insightful questions from moi (not to mention questions from the audience).

“Why Context is Everything“, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 10:35 a.m. Erin McKean of Wordnik and Valla Vakili of Small Demons promise to amaze and excite as they show off their projects. They, too, will be subject to insightful questions from me and probing questions from the audience.

The post Tools of Change 2012: Today. Tomorrow. appeared first on Booksquare.

I have been very much focused on Moving Forward. Which means thinking about how publishing can position itself for the next year, the next five years, the next ten years, heck, the next century. One thing I know for sure is that nobody knows for sure how things will look at any one of those points in time. The best publishers can do is to figure out what they do (not as easy as you’d imagine!), and, more importantly, how they can best position themselves to take advantage of the inevitable shifts in the business.

So, today, a small discussion about a small aspect of this change. I say small because I am addressing an isolated incident. I think it’s worthy of attention because it covers so many of the big issues facing publishing right now.

Neal Stephenson, a favorite author of mine (gotta love a guy who can make every single page of a 900-page book compelling), recently released Reamde in hardcover and ebook. This was an anticipated book from a highly-regarded author. Which means, you know, there was a devoted audience ready to buy the book — in the appropriate format — on day one. Also, the audience has a geeky element, which may play into this story.

The husband reads a bit slower than I do, so I gave him a head start on the book. One night, he said to me (and I paraphrase), “Have you noticed anything weird about the Kindle edition?” I had not because I hadn’t started the book (I did not want to mention the head start thing to protect his ego and all that).

So I started the book. And I noticed. Oh, I noticed. Conversion errors galore! Okay, maybe five conversion errors in my first half-hour of reading. Anything that jerks me out of the flow of a story — and, boy, do conversion errors do that! — is a Bad Thing.

We weren’t alone. Lots of people noticed the problems. Amazon pulled the book from the Kindle store. HarperCollins staff did amazing work to fix the errors. The turnaround in getting a new version was a few days. Amazon politely communicated that the new version was available rather than switching it out willy nilly (I am not sure that means what I think it means, but there you have it.).

However, the reason given by Amazon for the new edition was “missing content”. Which bothered more than a few readers. What, they asked, was missing? It made readers wonder if they had to reread the book. Yeah, those who’d finished the book, errors and all, were not happy campers.

A reader had to create a Diff File — a file that details the differences between the original file and the new file. In the end, there wasn’t much missing content, and nothing major was omitted (trust me when I say omission of major content happens more often than it should).

Lesson: The publisher should have been all over this. As soon as possible. If only because it is great customer service to let readers know if that 900-page book they just read was missing major elements.

But wait, there’s more!

There is much talk in the industry about making direct connection with readers. Opening the lines of communication is, from what I understand, a major goal. Granted, HarperCollins had to communicate with readers via Amazon (since they don’t, sigh, have that direct relationship with readers; see: where I’ve talked about this before). But every opportunity to make a connection is important.

Good will is important. Critical. Essential.

HarperCollins did amazing work in fixing the problem. As someone who paid $16.99 for the book, I am happy they did this. However (you knew there was a however, right?), what happened next just killed my feelings of goodwill.

Within days of notifying me there was a fixed edition of Reamde available, HarperCollins lowered the price of the ebook to $14.99. Yeah, the book I bought, couldn’t read due to annoying problems, had to redownload, wondered if the missing content impacted what I’d read…was now cheaper for everyone who hadn’t already gone through that rigamarole.

I waited for a notice telling me I’d been credited two dollars — not, I admit, a lot of money, but it’s the principle, not the amount. I waited in vain. I feel this is a serious missed opportunity. Why do this to your best readers? The people who worked hardest to buy and read a book you produced?

So, yeah, it’s a really good book. Really good. But today, as I learn that Stephenson and Greg Bear are publishing The Mongoliad: Book One with 47North, Amazon’s new sci fi/fantasy/horror imprint, I have questions.

Lesson Two? Respect your readers. Please.

* – It turns out I have less tolerance for headlines that read “Will The Kindle Fire be An Eternal Flame?” than I thought. If you have to ask a silly question in your headline, you are doing it wrong. So says the ghost of Mary Beth Lucas, journalism teacher, Cabrillo Senior High School.

The post That Customer Service Thing appeared first on Booksquare.

Needless to say, the ensuing discussion has been awesomely full of punditry and speculation. Thus, me! If I do not offer my two cents, then I will surely be kicked out of future publishing cocktail parties. After all, I must have thoughts on this madness.

So where to begin? I am presuming Eisler made a calculated decision, one that factored in the very real loss of worldwide print sales (wherein I completely agree with Mike Shatzkin on this point). Oh sure, there are ways to compensate, but this is not a trivial business choice.

On the other hand, Hocking is likely looking at those same worldwide print sales and realizing there’s money in them there books. The two authors are looking at the same worldwide market and taking different approaches. One is a seasoned author, the other is just now realizing her potential.

So who is making the right decision?

Both.

Yeah, that’s a helpful answer. Bear with me.

Eisler has an established fan base, and he can tap into a growing network of indie authors who are, for lack of a better concept, forming their indie marketing circle. This is not a new concept. It’s the way indie romance authors — those digital-first (or digital-only) authors — have built careers for the past decade. History has shown this works for some authors.

I think of it as a numbers and talent game. Only a few authors truly rise above the pack. It’s like real publishing, only with more control. However. Any author who goes indie has to become an end-to-end business. Writing, editing, production, distribution, marketing. Oh sure, some of these can be outsourced, but the author must be on top of all these function. Cannot let any one of them slip.

Just as few employees in corporate jobs have the ability to be management and worker bee, few authors have the skills to be everything and more. The authors who seem to do best have what can only be called an entrepreneurial spirit. My belief is that writing is a creative process; being an author is a job.

And it’s not an easy job. This is why I believe Eisler calculated more than a few odds. One does not walk away from a purported $500,000 easily. As many smart people have noted, you don’t go into publishing to get rich.

What Barry Eisler has going for him is control (not to be underestimated), speed to market, the ability to experiment, and instantaneous worldwide digital distribution. This comes into play in our next section.

Now back to that other hand.

Hocking has, and I think you’ll know what I mean, tapped into the Twilight zeitgeist. Something I’d note no major publisher (or minor) has managed to do. I have not read her work, but know more than a few people who have. Clearly she can tell a story that engages readers (not an easy skill!), but there is a consensus that she needs more editorial oversight. I believe in editors in a big way, and know that good editors make a story so much better.

Hocking has also, conservatively and based on news reports, netted well over a million dollars (before taxes, those pesky things!). That is serious money in publishing. I know people who’d sell their souls for that kind of publishing money.

It’s also hard money for publishers to meet. This is an author who is accustomed to making seventy cents on every dollar. Used to getting paid monthly. Used to freedom.

Yes, she’s only reaching a fraction of her audience. Print remains the dominant worldwide format, and, while digital is growing like crazy (a key component of Eisler’s calculations), ignoring any part of the publishing marketplace is something one must do with extreme intelligence and caution.

Can print publishers offer her at least as much as she’s making as an indie author? It’s easy to throw money at the problem. But is it as easy to throw money at the success?

I said I think both Eisler and Hocking are making the right choices, but, if you were to corner me in a bar and ask me which author is following the right path right now, I’d say Eisler.

He’s taking a riskier path, for sure, and there is no guarantee. His history suggests he has some talent when comes to calculated risks. And while he’s burned some publishing bridges, he also has a track record in the industry.

Hocking, however, is more of a publishing dark horse. She’s done the indie thing amazingly well. I cannot over-emphasize how critical this is, and how well she’s done it. But there is a gap between indie publishing (especially self-publishing, without a lot of professional editorial input) and corporate publishing.

The biggest challenge, and the reason I’m putting my money (virtual because the husband hates it when I bet cat food dollars) on Eisler is that the publisher who signs Amanda Hocking today will likely not have a book on the shelf before 2012, more likely 2013. Note my nouns.

The Hocking zeitgeist is right now. Her audience is right now. Her moment is right now. Can this buzz be sustained a year or more? Can her audience be engaged for that long? Yes, if she’s continually giving them the books they want…at the price point they want.

Will the Amanda Hocking audience pay $9.99 for her books? This is not an idle question.

Can publishing capitalize on an Amanda Hocking? This is a serious question.

Note: Sarah Weinman, wisely, questions my belief that Amanda Hocking will lose momentum. I did consider Sarah’s arguments while writing this, but felt then (and sorta feel now) that two things will slow this phenomenon down. The first is the competing works clause in an author agreement. The publisher Hocking presumably will eventually sign with (how’s that for confidence?) will surely balk at any works they deem “competition” for their own release. How Hocking works around that and pleases her audience becomes a challenge.

The second hesitation I have is that publishing a book is a lot of work, and even the most seasoned writer finds challenges in undergoing the full editorial process on one book while creating new works. Once Hocking is assimilated into the traditional publishing machine, there will be a constant flow of work for the series she’s creating for that publisher, and I worry it will come at the expense of her indie work.

The post A Tale of Two Authors appeared first on Booksquare.

The container limits our imagination.

TOC 2011, like the previous iterations of the conference (oh, can we return to San Jose, where the weather is delightfully mild?), was jam-packed with people, enthusiasm, and ideas**. You gotta love an event where the hallway and lunch table conversations are as stimulating, creative, and informative as the planned sessions and workshops.

As with many conferences — intentional or not — themes emerged. The largest, and I’d posit most important, was best articulated by Brian O’Leary in his Context First keynote (link includes text and link to video, which cannot be missed). Brian (full disclosure and all that) posits that publishing is “…unduly governed by the physical containers we have used for centuries to transmit information.”

Or, the container limits our imagination.

This two-dimensional limitation is what led keynoter Theodore Gray to take advantage of the multi-media functionality of the iPad to produce his bestselling The Elements: A Visual Exploration. Gray had already displayed the elements in true periodic table (and by table, I mean a wooden thing with legs), and had already published a print book featuring his collection of objects demonstrating the various elements.

Had he limited his vision to a container — a table with cubbies for items, or a book — his life would be okay. But Gray’s vision exceeded the container. And, let me tell you, if this app had been around when I was a kid, my relationship with chemistry would be very different. Already, I am looking forward to Gray’s book on the solar system, not to mention his version of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, featuring a dramatic reading by Fiona Shaw (among others).

Ignoring containers and considering context was an underlying theme of the presentation given by Hugh McGuire, John Maxwell, and Kirk Biglione (double triple full disclosure). Each speaker introduced approaches that allow publishers to determine containers as context requires. It’s all about managing content in a way that allows it to be exploited (not a bad word) in the proper way.

As Kirk noted, current publisher processes resemble the duckbill platypus (duckbeaver, if you’re Canadian) — something that looks unwieldy but works. It makes sense: to accommodate digital media, publishers have grafted new tasks onto their current workflow. These workarounds allow staff to keep on keeping on while taking advantage of new markets. We’ll talk more about workflow in a moment.

At the end of the presentation, Hugh introduced PressBooks, an open source digital workflow/publishing tool (still in alpha or beta or one of those Greek situations). PressBooks allows a publisher to take a manuscript from author’s submission to file ready for output to EPUB, print-ready PDF, or InDesign. Your choice.

Awe. Some. Sauce.

This panel cemented the idea of the Sunday Afternoon Project — projects that move from “Hey, what if?” to “That’s done” (or done-esque) in the space of a few weekend hours. Imagine what you could accomplish if ideas could be executed without meetings and meetings about meetings and status reports and, oh yes, budgets. Imagine what you could accomplish if a passionate person or three sat down and hacked out a prototype? Or a working application?

Another theme bubbling under the surface was the importance of a true digital workflow (I told you I’d get back to this). It’s happening in various ways, and I was both thrilled and “c’mon guys” about Simon & Schuster’s digital workflow. The thrilled part was excited to hear that S&S had developed a workflow around their cover art process. Very impressive. The c’mon guys me wanted to hear that they’d implemented an end-to-end digital workflow.

Oh, I get that it’s hard. I get that it’s pricey. I get that day-to-day work needs to be accomplished. Let’s be honest: making the switch will not be easier next year. Or the year after. Or, frankly, five years from now. This is not something that is tied to the rise of ebook sales; it’s truly about making processes more cost-efficient.

To tie this back to containers (and platypuses), current workflow assumes a print book. As Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks noted this week, her house’s ebook dollars equal 35% of total dollars sold. For O’Reilly Media, they’re 79% of dollar sales via their website (Note: corrected sentence to say “via their website”, this number does not include all sales channels. While I do not have intimate knowledge of her workflow — and assume it is similar to most publishers — I presume this means she is spending quite a bit to get what should be higher margin content into that higher margin format.

(Dominique — I am not singling you out, I swear! I know you’ll slap me upside the head if I’m getting this wrong.)

Or, assuming Sourcebooks has the traditional workflow that leads to an InDesign output (I don’t know for sure, but we can substitute just about any publisher here, and I love Sourcebooks because they are so clearly focused on the future of their company. Dominique has posted her slides from her Building the Future from Within: A Practical Approach to the Day-by-Day Process of Reinventing Your Book Publishing Company presentation, and she hits on so many of the points I find critical for today’s publisher thinking.), a lot of time and energy is spent on creating the EPUB and other files. At what point do publishers realize how much of that higher margin is being lost to inefficient processes? At what point do publishers realize change is an essential budget buster?

Mike Shatzkin picked up on this as well (as I’d expect). I’ve been, ahem, beating the drum about reevaluating financial models for years now. I realize I’ve bored a lot of you. After all, why change everything for a line of business that constitutes a single-digit percentage of your market?

But what happens when that line of business accelerates to 35% of all dollars? When it’s 25%, 45% of total unit sales? When you are spending more to create the print product first, then the (hopefully-if-you’re-doing-it-right higher margin) digital product? At what point do you change your workflow?

I’d say two, maybe three, years ago.

I am not joking. For some publishers, maintaining the print-output workflow, with a digital-maybe approach, makes sense. Those publishers are the exception. Again, it’s not going to get cheaper to convert your workflow. It’s not going to get easier. And it’s not going to be cost effective to outsource this process.

Trust me. Cheap conversion leads to cheap ebooks, and if you are serious about quality, you need to take control of your product. Yeah, Houghton Mifflin, sending you a stink-eye. And an email that details why I am pissed off about the quality of one of your books. There is no excuse.

Which leads to my final theme: metadata. Metadata is the sexy of publishing conferences. This would embarrass metadata, metadata being the type who prefers to remain in the background. It also reveals too much about publishing conferences. Metadata is useful, efficient, precise. Metadata doesn’t grace the cover of Vogue. It’s the girl next door. The really smart girl next door. The really smart, really successful girl next door.

Metadata is data that describes data. That’s meta, I know. It is the information that feeds search. Enables discovery. The better your metadata, the better your chances of discovery. Consider your book’s metadata: title, ISBN, author, editor, year of publication, format, index, table of contents, keywords, tags, reviews, so much more. The more you can describe your (collective your) book, the greater the chances of discovery.

Because, as we all know, there is no BISAC for “Steampunk”.

And, oh my, ask anyone who uses your metadata, and they’ll say it’s bad. Ask me, and I’ll be a bit more eloquent. My solution? Hire a librarian for your digital (and print — metadata matters there) team. Use this librarian’s knowledge. Speaking of which, these awesome experts were out in force at TOC.

Which leads me to my final theme (and, Kat Meyer, goddess of TOC programming, you know what I mean when I say this): the conversations between conference attendees may be more important than the sessions. I know John Maxwell and Kirk Biglione started down the path to their presentation after discovering their common interests when they did back-to-back presentations at the PubWest Conference. All it takes is the right conversation with the right person.

Those conversations happen because we come together in person. Email is awesome. Twitter, many of us cannot imagine how we lived without it. Facebook is our necessary evil. But face-to-face? Essential for that weird serendipity. Oh yes, it happens online, but we are human, and that conversation in the hallway is part of our creative DNA. Go with it.

I am now imagining a conference that consists entirely of hallway conversations. I am also trying to differentiate this conference from a cocktail party. I’ll get back to y’all.

A final note. I am thrilled that TOC included a session and a keynote focused on accessibility. Jim Fruchterman of Benetech spoke on making the book truly accessible (swallowing my guilt for missing this, but I saw Jim speak at Books in Browsers, and cheered loudly). Dave Gunn of the Royal National Institute of Blind People lead a session on Can You Afford Not to Consider Accessible Publishing Practices?.

If you answer anything other than “No” to that question, then you do not understand the importance of accessibility to your business. You do not understand the importance to readers. You do not begin to understand how critical accessibility is to your future success. At the risk of being crass (hey, we’re all friends here!), the benefits of accessible content extend far beyond the obvious.

No, I’m not going to test you by asking who the most influential blind user of the Internet is. The brilliant among you already know the answer to this question, and have implemented practices that ensure this user is very happy. The, oh, I must say it, clueless among you are losing customers and readers.

I cannot overstate the importance of accessibility in ebooks. Have I ever lead you astray? Learn about this. You will thank yourself.

It’s that simple.

* – Conference world is not real. All conferences create a magic bubble that bursts painfully, especially if airports are involved.

** – Prior to TOC’s official start, a bunch of us got together at Book2Camp, which, disconcertingly, is pronounced Booksquared Camp. All day long, I thought people were yelling at me. Thank you Ami Greko, Chris Kubica, and Kat Meyer (two mentions in one post) for bringing together some seriously awesome minds.

The post I Went to TOC, and All You Got Was This Wrap-Up appeared first on Booksquare.

My panel features Jenn Northrington of WORD Brooklyn, Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo of Greenlight Bookstore, Lori James of All Romance eBooks, Kevin Smokler of Booktour.com, and Malle Vallik of Harlequin. I’m excited about moderating this panel, particularly because it contains a mix of innovative and enthusiastic booksellers, forward-thinking publishers (yes, Kevin, you are a publisher), and, most importantly, readers who truly love reading.

Nothing I say here reflects their thoughts and opinions. They may, in fact, disagree with what I say. You’ll have to attend our panel to find out!

Predictions about the future are difficult, mostly because it hasn’t happened yet. Darn future! There is no doubt that the bookselling landscape will change. Some, most notably Mike Shatzkin, are wondering what the physical bookselling landscape will look like in five years. I agree with Mike that it will be vastly different.

But do I think (physical) bookstores will go the way of dinosaurs? Absolutely not. We are human. We are social animals. We need someone to wait patiently while we painstakingly describe the book we want, finding it for us despite the fact we a) got the author wrong, b) described the cover art wrong, and c) described the entire plot wrong. We want someone to talk to us about books and guide us.

My philosophy is for some books, online is awesome. For other books, I need a human, in-front-of-me professional to challenge me. I am going to be an either/and shopper for a long time. Heck, I’ve made peace with the fact that I need both Zappos and Macys in my life. Same for bookstores.

Obviously, I have a vested interest in making sure the publishing ecosystem remains vibrant. If readers are, ultimately, the most critical part of publishing, then booksellers, the people with the intimate, personal relationships with consumers, are publishers’ best friends. In preparing for this panel, I was struck, at various times, by statements from various publishers about the importance of booksellers. Most recently, Carolyn Reidy, chief executive of Simon & Schuster said:

“My No. 1 concern is the survival of the physical bookstore,” said Carolyn Reidy, the chief executive of Simon & Schuster. “We need that physical environment, because it’s still the place of discovery. People need to see books that they didn’t know they wanted.

Her comment gave me pause for a few reasons. First, of course, I wondered what publishers were doing to ensure the survival of the physical bookstore. Setting aside the problems faced by the Borders chain, the truth is that most independent booksellers cannot compete on price, a key component of the shopping equation. Co-op dollars can be challenging to acquire. Even processing incoming shipments can be overhead-intensive due to less-than-robust packing slip and invoicing processes.

I truly wonder what publishers are doing for the booksellers they understand are their best marketing asset. I cannot stop thinking about this, particularly in light of what is happening with Borders. I keep questioning whether the past few decades have created an environment where independent booksellers have a seat at the grown-ups table…a seat where they are heard in a serious manner.

Then I thought about the fact that the bookseller of tomorrow — nay, today! — is not necessarily located in a physical location. In theory, we have an ecosystem that allows anyone to become a bookseller (my panel will address this notion, and they do have great thoughts on this topic). But not every bookseller occupies a bricks-and-mortar, or, heck, concrete and wood, space. That does not mean the bookseller cannot fulfill, beautifully, the same functions someone in a bricks-and-mortar store does. It’s a matter of using the medium, store or website, to serve customers best.

So, for me, the question becomes one of helping independent bookstores thrive. In the mega-store, if you like, category we have Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders (yeah, but until that TKO happens), Costco, Target, Apple (in theory), and Google. Two of the above offer a highly curated, limited selection. One hasn’t demonstrated a serious interest in selling books. The others dominate the marketplace, but don’t always meet the needs of today’s consumers.

The lessons of Borders, and to some extent Barnes & Noble, are not that people don’t buy and read books. Evidence suggests book sales are strong, especially when you consider the economy. And print book sales remain strong, but only a fool would underestimate rising digital sales. Any bookseller that cannot serve the digital reader is a bookseller playing catch-up.

The lessons of megastores are more complex. High rents, lack of responsiveness to the community, economic blahs. The middle one, I believe, is the biggest issue. As more of our lives move online, we crave the intimacy of local business, the warmth of personal service. It seems like a paradox, but, as I talk to friend and family, makes perfect sense. We are human.

I have a story. It’s personal. Recently, I received a very lovely cookbook from a friend. Gorgeous, but not a style I like to cook. So I trekked to my local Barnes & Noble to exchange it for a cookbook that better reflected my passions. I appreciated the gift receipt. Not everyone loves Italian food.

I know, I know.

So, time passes. I let the husband roam the geek book section while I wonder when all cookbooks settled on the $35 price point. I pondered. I compared. I thought. Then — and this is where it gets into the too much information realm — I realized I needed to take what team-building leaders call a “bio-break”. This particular store used to have public restrooms, but, alas, changed their policy. Who knew?

What Barnes & Noble wanted me to do was, I do not kid, leave the store, walk a block and a half away…then, nature satisfied, return to do my shopping. Trust me when I say that once I left the store, there was no way in hell I would have come back.

Still, I wanted to accomplish my exchange and head out to lunch. I pleaded an emergency (one must tell social lies for the greater good). I was grudgingly allowed access to the restroom. When I emerged, an employee was hovering in a way that made it clear I was being watched. ‘Cause I might want to lift some merchandise. Seriously, if the dude only knew how many books I get in the mail…I am not trying to add more stuff to my household.

Still, I didn’t appreciate being treated like a potential criminal (be more subtle, dude!). I didn’t love the idea that a customer, someone who might browse for an hour or more, was being forced to leave the store. And I realized how much I love Vromans, my local independent. In fact, the husband and I agreed we had no need to return to that particular B&N again. When we want print books, it’s Vromans or the comic book store. We always feel welcome there.

Barnes & Noble didn’t care about my business. When I went to the counter, an employee, who was on the phone, looked at me and said, “I’m not working.” It took a few minutes to find an actual employee. The results have been recounted above. The cashier pushed me too hard on joining the loyalty program. Seriously, when I say “no thank you”, I mean it the first time. Pushing me doesn’t change my mind. It pisses me off.

What I believe about independents is the ones who survive and thrive — I am not naive, and I realize many indie booksellers will not be able to weather the digital transition (and that’s what we are facing) — are the booksellers who understand customer service, customer experience, customer needs.

Or, put another way, booksellers who understand the community they serve.

As big box stores, Costco probably excluded, shrink in book market share, indies have the opportunity to fill the space. The competition becomes Apple, Amazon, and Google, and the challenge becomes competing with these technological giants. Giants who sell books, but do not consider books a primary business (though I remain convinced that books are very important to Jeff Bezos personally).

This means independents like WORD, Greenlight, and All Romance need to compete with these giants. Price is difficult, but not impossible. Format lock-in due to DRM ties customers to larger retailers. Consumer confusion abounds.

What gives indies leverage? Customer service. Community. When it comes to a physical store, I go there because I want a certain level of interaction. I want human contact. I want tactile. I want readings. Events. Original content. Something unique that I can’t get anywhere else. I want to be seduced by a cover with a striking image, and, honestly, I think booksellers have a better idea of what attracts readers than publishers (especially those publishers who don’t leave New York very often). Extra points if there’s a clever shelf talker. I am a sucker for a good shelf talker.

When I shop digital, I want data. I want details about the book. I want ratings, reviews, suggestions. I want to interact with like-minded readers. I want to know what they bought. I want curation. Oh, I wouldn’t mind shelf talkers. A personal review from someone who loves a book is like potato chips for me. Sincerity, authenticity, passion, these are the enemies of my credit card.

(Oh, I would not mind the ability to purchase Kindle-compatible ebooks from my indie booksellers. I can already do this for some of the publishers All Romance sells, but it would be lovely if all the Kindle owners out there — the ones who, you know, don’t have a friggin’ clue about formats and DRM and compatibility — could shop at your store. Seriously, you want to focus on a problem? Focus. On. This. Now. Please. Thank. You. Especially if you believe these booksellers are all that and more.)

As I wrote this, I learned that Powell’s, a major Portland bookseller, is laying off 31 employees. They cite ebooks, the economy, rising healthcare costs as reasons. It’s a mix of retail personnel and web personnel. It’s hard to parse how these elements contributed to the decision (Powell’s has been an ebook leader, though, frankly not competitive with today’s marketplace), but they didn’t close stores. That probably doesn’t offer the employees let go much comfort.

Yet, despite this, and other similar news, I remain optimistic about independent booksellers, far more than I do about major chains. The latter are too big, too encumbered, too corporate (this can change, but please do not put me on the change management team. Been there, done that, realized I would prefer a root canal!). The former are able to see the market, understand the market, adapt to the market. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Result: beautiful sales.

People are reading. People are buying books. They are buying books in the format that best suits their needs. They are buying from the locations (physical and virtual) that best suit their lifestyles. The booksellers who will thrive — competing with Apple, Amazon, and Google — are the booksellers who get this about their customers.

And deliver.

And hey, if you’re at TOC, please grab me and say hello. I’m the short one talking a mile a minute with everyone I can find. Also, if the situation should arise, politely decline to have me on your bowling team. I rarely bowl over my height in inches.

The post Bookstores Now, More than Ever appeared first on Booksquare.

To give you a hint of what’s in store for you, I forced Kat Meyer, Conference Co-Chair to answer a few deeply important questions. And — if you haven’t already registered for the conference — at the end of this post, you can learn how to enter a drawing for a free conference pass.

(If you don’t win, don’t despair! You can still register using the discount code TOC11BSQ.)

1. So, Kat, with Tools of Change 2011 is just around the corner — February 14 – 16, 2011 — I figure you have plenty of free time to answer questions about this year’s program. Let’s start with the theme: Publishing Without Boundaries. What does that mean to you?

   The phrase “Publishing without boundaries” was actually coined by my co-chair, Andrew Savikas during one of our preliminary conference meetings. He didn’t suggest it as the theme, but all of us at O’Reilly loved it and agreed it fit perfectly with where the world of publishing is right now. Boundaries are disappearing. The rules that many in the industry have relied upon to make business run smoothly (for the most part), no longer apply – which is either a terrifying wakeup call or an exhilarating opportunity depending on one’s point of view. The one thing most seem to agree upon – as the old walls/boundaries come down — there’s no going back. Boundaries of who is a publisher, and who is a reader – they’re disappearing as digital production and distribution tools are more and more accessible to pretty much everyone. Boundaries of what content is available where and to whom — those boundaries are disappearing as digital content refuses to be easily confined by territorial rights restrictions…An industry that was once a rigidly defined landscape is being transformed into unchartered territory. So, the next question to consider is: as this territory is explored and claimed, what will the new boundaries look like? How will they be defined? That’s where it gets interesting, and that’s what a lot of the discussion at TOC 2011 will revolve around.

2. I know you’re excited about every session and speaker on the panel, but can you give us some highlights from the schedule?

   Wow. Yes, I am excited about every session and every speaker…I’ve spent the last many months talking at length with the speakers, learning about their backgrounds, and hearing what they plan to talk about. This is a stellar group of people we’ve gathered together. It’d be intimidating to have that many brilliant people in one space, if it weren’t for the fact that they’re all incredibly nice people as well. And each thoroughly entertaining in their own way. Every speaker on this program is a highlight. I can tell you that some of the speakers have really surprised me – and I’m happy to share a few of the names that may not yet be as known as others, but who are rising stars in this community:

   Gus Balbontin is one person I am pretty sure everyone will learn a lot from, and also want to get to know. He’s passionate not just about the work that Lonely Planet does, but about life, and about how the two connect. His keynote is funny, and real, and the lessons he shares apply equally to publishers in transition and anyone facing tough changes in life.

   Keynoters Britt Iversen and Anna Gerber, co-founders of gorgeous art object/booky-book publisher Visual Editions will blow everyone away with their pure enthusiasm for creating beautiful paper books that make readers happy. They take on seemingly impossible projects because they want to see them come to life – and they make them happen. But at the same time, they’re smart business women. They’re going to make a real impression and inspire a lot of people.

   Marcin Wichary of Google, who is leading a workshop on HTML5 for publishers is brilliant, funny, and excited about sharing what he knows. He is one of many workshop leaders who have been spending hours and hours preparing for TOC, and I am so proud of what he, and every one of our workshop speakers has put together for the participants. Marcin and others are just bending over backwards to make sure they can answer questions and really deliver what the attendees are hoping to learn. I mention this because all of our workshop leaders (and a good number of our speakers) have indicated they’d really like to hear from TOC attendees ahead of time — so we’re encouraging TOC attendees to reach out using the “comments/questions” window located at the bottom of each session description page on the website.

   Neal Hoskins’ panel of app developers has morphed from being an overview of features that successful apps have incorporated into an in depth discussion of the craft, care and polish that go into well-thought out content apps. The panel is another one (we have so many) that is packed with a veritable who’s who of leaders in their field.

   And another really awesome panel people may not have noticed quietly take a place on the program — one on subscription models and case studies which is being moderated by Andrew Savikas, and includes Jeremy Bornstein of Subutai (creators of The Mongoliad project) and of Rich Ziade of Readability (who has a major announcement he’ll be making soon).

   I’m also really excited about meeting readers — it’s one of my favorite things about TOC.

   If I keep going, I’ll end up recreating the entire program here. We’ve got keynotes that are just insanely impressive, we’ve got speakers from around the globe, we’ve got speakers from every conceivable part of not only the publishing ecosystem, but from the academic world and from other industries. This program represents an incredible assembly of relevant and meaningful perspectives that most of us just don’t get to hear from every day. And what’s really cool? We’ll all get to be part of the conversation. Each speaker is really interested in making each session as interactive as possible. One gigantic ball of highlights, Kassia. That’s what we’ve got going on at TOC this year.

   [Note: Kat’s comment about hearing from attendees in advance goes for my panel, Bookselling in the 21st Century as well. Please share what you’d like to hear from this awesome group of people.]

3. Every year, it seems certain themes, intentional or not, emerge from proposed and accepted sessions. Anything pop this year? (Yes, I’m asking so I can be on the cutting edge of cool thinking)

   Hmm. Now that you ask, yes – there are a few. The most prominent is directly related to the “publishing without borders” concept. It’s the theme of collaboration – collaboration within organizations, collaboration between organizations, and collaboration across industries. It’s a theme, and it’s one that is echoed in the more “big concept” keynotes, as well as in many of the more technically-focused sessions.

   Another theme I’m hearing from speakers is – we don’t have “the” answer. We have answers, but they may not fit your questions, and there is no solution that’s going to work for everyone. Oh, and the solutions we do have, they may work great today, but they probably won’t work forever. To put it another way – there’s a very common theme that being nimble and agile is a prerequisite for any company that wants to keep moving forward.

   I’d add to that there have been many speakers who are emphasizing the importance of knowing what your core strength as a business is, and not losing sight of that.

4. I’ve heard rumors of big surprises for TOC attendees. Can you give us a hint?

   There are at least a few business announcements/launches taking place at TOC. For people like you and me, Kassia (and for many at TOC) at least a few of these announcements are the stuff geek girl “squees” are made of. Oh, and the speaker list (though I am receiving big sighs of exasperation from the speaker manager) may continue to grow… just a bit. So keep checking that speaker roster!

5. Is it true Margaret Atwood is going to be on my bowling team?

   Well, the bowling event has gone back to the drawing board. No matter how much I tell the event team that TOC people are bowling people, they seem to think we are much more sophisticated (I have no idea where this impression was made, or by whom — clearly not at last year’s TOC karaoke Tweetup), but regardless of that happens with TOC, having met Ms. Atwood, I believe she’d join your bowling team if she thought it would make you happy. She’s maybe as kind as she is funny. And, that’s a whole lot of kindness!

Now for the fun stuff! We here at Booksquare are thrilled to announce we’re giving away a free pass for this year’s Tools of Change for Publishing Conference. This pass covers the two-day conference only (Tuesday and Wednesday, February 15 and 16, 2011), workshops are not included. You are also responsible for your own airfare, hotel, and travel expenses.

To enter for a chance to win this awesome prize, just tell us in the comments what you’re looking forward to most at this year’s TOC. Or, tweet a link to this post with the hashtag #BSTOC. The most random creature on the plan — Wiki Gonzalez (tabby and paper lover) — will chose a winner from all entries. Winner will be announced on Friday, January 21, 2011.

The post Interview with Kat Meyer, Conference Co-Chair, Tools of Change for Publishing, Plus Contest! Win a Free Pass to TOC appeared first on Booksquare.

Yet, this is the season of giving (and, yes, tax deductions). Every year, we here at Booksquare make a pitch for our favorite causes, hoping some of you, like us, will find a little something extra to give this now and in the future. If you have a favorite cause that relates to literacy, reading, or education, let us know in the comments.

• ProLiteracy — As always, our list is topped by Proliteracy.org. You can contribute either financially or by volunteering as a literacy tutor. When you are a reader, a to-your-soul reader, it’s almost impossible to imagine a world where people can’t read. The reasons vary, and the solution is not simple. Helping others learn to read should be the primary goal of the publishing industry — any way we can.

  If you can’t donate money, can you donate time?

• First Book — Just as teaching the world to read is important, getting books to children is essential. First Book gets books to children who need them. You remember your first book, you remember reading as a child. Help share that joy. Bonus! through December 31, your donation will be matched book-for-book by Random House.
• Girls Write Now: Girls Write Now is a non-profit organization devoted to mentoring the next generation of women writers. Focused on New York’s underserved and at-risk high school girls, this program helps them find their voices through creative writing.
• Donors Choose — The problem with growing up the child of a public school librarian is that you know how completely screwed up our public school financing priorities are. It is appalling that teachers and librarians are forced to finance so many projects (and supplies, essential supplies) out of their own pockets. It’s not like teachers make huge salaries. DonorsChoose.org was founded to bring educators together with people who have money to contribute to specific projects. Look at the list of projects — is there something you can help transform from wish to reality?
• Buy Books — You want to make a serious statement about your commitment to books? Buy everyone on your shopping list a book. Or two. Or three. No need to limit yourself. This isn’t going to turn the industry around, but, c’mon people who get free books, put some money back into the industry that’s been good to you.

Here’s hoping you have a little extra to give to one or more of these causes, be it money, time, or energy. And thank you, so much, for reading BS!

The post The Most Wonderful Post of the Year, 2010 appeared first on Booksquare.

• Random House Hires Ruth Reichl
  Good move for Random House.
• TOC Frankfurt Preview: “Customer Experience” is What Matters Most
  While we put about missing this year’s Tools of Change Frankfurt, this article about a session focusing on customer experience tells us this year’s event will be awesome!
• Federal appeals court tosses out method for calculating music streaming royalties
  Nearly missed this one. Appeals court sides with Yahoo (and, essentially, other music streaming services), indicating the formulae used to determine royalties was not proper.
• Time Warner CEO not a fan of 99-cent TV rentals, either
  Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
• Reversal of Royalties: A Modest Proposal
  Author Bob Mayer offers up an interesting idea, one we suspect most will dismiss. Don’t. Give it some thought, make it better.
• Amazon Launches Facebook e-Commerce Store
  This is bigger news than it seems.
• Alyson Books Will Restructure as E-book Only House; Weise Leaves
  Sad news with a positive angle. The hard part, as noted, is finding an experience digital publisher.
• Booksellers Hear Details of the Much-Delayed Google Editions
  More details emerge. Like, it’s likely to be six months before launch. Google Editions will be the ebook engine for ABA sites, but will also sell through Google and possibly other vendors. All interesting.
• Macomber Moves to Random
  After a long and prosperous career at Harlequin, Debbie Macomber moves to a new publisher. Wow.
• Publishers’ Agency Model Punishes Mid-List Authors
  Is it us, or is there a lot of confusion going on in this article? All sort of ideas being conflated, which obscures a potentially valid argument.
• When is E-Royalty Not a Royalty? When 9th Circuit Court Says It Isn’t
  Finally! We’ve been wondering when more people were going to mention this.
• Frankfurt 2010: Will Frankfurt Soon Be an E-Book Fair?
  Continuing the trend wherein all book events are now digital book events, the big focus at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair is ebooks. Not comments from Brian Murray in particular.
• Counterpoint to Close New York Office
  Basically, the Soft Skull office is closing, and it looks like the editorial team is departing (though they are staying on in a freelance capacity to fulfill contracted obligations).
• Coding Poetry for Digital Publication
  The HTML is hard excuse was perfectly fine in 1995. In 2010 (nearly 2011!), it’s ridiculous.
• New Attributor Study Tracks Demand for Pirated E-Books
  Publishers Weekly essentially reprints a press release from a company looking to drum up money from publishers. Of course the study will show what they want it to show…and can someone please explain the “badge” thing?
• Microsoft and Adobe Chiefs Meet to Discuss Apple
  This one is for Kirk.
• Is NPR Trying to Sell Michele Norris’ New Book?
  Interesting examination of how Michele Norris’s book received much coverage on NPR. Yes, she plays for the home team, but did they go overboard?
• The iBookstore six months after launch: One big failure
  We don’t necessarily agree, but have found the iBookstore is a holy mess of shopping experience whereas Amazon really gets how to sell books. As for reading on the iPad? Chez BS is split 50/50, though the heavier reader prefers the Kindle device.
• Second Biggest E-Book Sales Month Restores Confidence
  And your monthly ebooks sales chart, courtesy of our friends at eReads.
• Convergences, Real and Imagined: A Conclusion
  Great thinking and pondering and analysis from Richard Nash.
• Opportunity Virtually Knocks
  Many good ideas here, but the seeming dismal of ebooks as a revenue stream/opportunity for traditional booksellers is shortsighted.
• The Finkler Answer
  Excellent thinking about global language rights and how the acquisition thereof (or not) impacts a title.
• Penguin to launch a social network for bookworms
  Just the other day, we were wondering what was going on with Spinebreakers. Glad to see it’s still being used and is growing.
• James Patterson Joins the Kindle 1,000,000 Books Club
  As we all try to tease out real numbers from the various sources, we finally have one reliable data point: authors who have exceeded one million Kindle units. Get enough of those…
• ‘Adderall Diaries’ Blurs Books-Apps Line
  Quite a bit about this NYT piece on Stephen Elliott’s “Adderall Diaries” app and the involvement of the great folk from Electric Literature is worth noting. Such as: 1) the fact that Graywolf Press let the author do this, and 2) that Electric Lit is diversifying its core business.
• Lagardere Feels Full Impact of Meyer; HBG Digital Sales at 9%
  Ah, the lack of Stephenie Meyer sales is being felt.
• eBooks Ready To Climb Past $1 Billion
  Forrester predicts big growth in the market over the next four or so years.
• E-Books Bright Spot in Bleak September
  Interesting numbers. Adult trade is down. Ebooks up.
• Borders Announces New Web Site – Discounts More Than 100,000 Bestselling Books
  Another new website from Borders. Is it me, or does this happen with alarming regularity? (and is it new or just redesigned?)
• E-Book Growth Slows, Still Up 112% in October
  Sparse information, meaning no reason given for slow growth. Other markets are slow as well.
• E-books Entice as New Frontier for Ads
  Not loving this idea, and wondering how the rule of author approval is going to work. For some authors, it would have to be on an ad-by-ad basis in order to prevent the wrong kinds of ads populating some books.
• The Last Country House Party? E-Books and Publishing’s Phony War
  Interesting piece from Peter Ginna of Bloomsbury. We’ve been wondering about the budgeting issue for some time. Consider: most of the books being released over the next year or so were acquired under very different budget scenarios.
• Amazon Sold ‘Millions’ of Kindles in the Last 73 Days
  Looks like this will be a huge year for ebook readers. Which will likely be followed by a huge jump in ebook sales. Hope everyone’s prepared.
• Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate
  Yes, piracy costs money, but when you’re complaining about how it impacts you, don’t get caught with your pants down.
• International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) Announces New Executive Director
  Bill McCoy takes over for the departing Michael Smith.

The post The Daily Square – The Kids Are Alright Edition appeared first on Booksquare.

And with the reading comes the book discussion.

Social reading is normal reading. It’s how we already read in an offline world, and, yes, how we read in an online world. First, some historical context, all stuff that is well known. In the beginning, humans told stories around campfires*. The storytelling happened in group situations, with some stories passed from campfire to campfire, and eventually the woolly mammoth the hunter felled was a large as the Titanic. Some stories became institutionalized — myths, biblical stories, parables. Others, well, they never really gained market share.

Hmm, publishing, the early days.

Time passed. We developed alphabets, we coalesced around local language standards, we wrote stuff down, but the process was laborious (think rocks) or fragile (think parchment) or valuable (think illuminated manuscripts). These printed stories (using both words broadly), fiction and non-fiction, were not possessed in great numbers by common folk. Reading, or sharing of stories, was done in groups, except for those ancient-times-us who wrote stories in their heads (go ancient-times-us!).

Even after the invention of the Gutenberg press, the possession of books was outside the reach of most people. We moved from campfires to candlelight, while the act of reading remained a social activity. The tradition of people reading to each other remains alive and well. I cannot think of the stories of the knights of the Round Table without remembering my mother reading them aloud to four impressionable minds. Likewise, when I remember “reading” The Island of the Blue Dolphins for the first time, I remember my third grade teacher’s voice as she read it to us.

And with the reading, of course, comes the book discussion.

It wasn’t until mass market books became available that reading, as we know it, was identified as a (almost-solely) solitary activity (overall literacy rates had to catch up as well, but that’s another issue). By reading as we know it, I mean selfish reading: alone in the bathtub, alone under the covers, alone on the couch, alone in a restaurant, alone in a park, alone in the bathroom while the family argues about football. Solitary reading is my preferred style, but I also make my book club’s monthly meetings for literary discussion**.

(At this point, I really want to thank my dearest friends who, in all innocence, asked me “What? Social huh?”, thus leading to me writing them a very long email that ended up being the first draft of this crazy post.)

Transforming the Text: An Essential Part of the Reading Experience

Throughout all this, and focusing particularly on booky-books because they consist of ink and paper (which, for centuries, was a really important part of this whole phenomenon, or maybe behavior is a better word), marginalia or annotations or comments or whatever you want to call them flourished. People love making notes about what they’re reading, and, let’s be honest, they love writing in books, even though generations of librarians have discouraged this behavior.

For example, my notes, if I am reviewing a book, sometimes consistent of comments like, “You have got to be kidding me!” or “Seriously? She’s practically commuting to London from the north of England. In the winter. By carriage.” Since I mostly read digital these days, my Kindle notes are similar, though sometimes it takes some re-reading to understand what I meant when I typed “!!!”. Excitement or disbelief…that is always the question.

This kind annotation becomes part of the book, and is generally private unless the book is sold or shared. I once bought a used book with mini-reviews written in the covers. It was clear this was a book passed among friends, all of whom shared their thoughts. Amazingly sweet.

But we do not only engage in marginalia. We write reviews about the book. We write extended analyses about the book. Speeches are given about the words written by an author. Movies are made. Plays presented in the park. As people interact with the text, many transform the text.

For many of us, transforming the book is as important as reading the book.

As we have developed online tools, we’ve moved our natural tendency to comment and extend text online. Someone will correct me, I’m sure, but this has been happening with increasing regularity since 1992. We annotate, review, discuss, write letters, emails, blog posts, tweets, and more. What makes this interesting to me is, with an exception of actual notations in physical books (or, ahem, some digital editions), very little of this activity is actually attached to the book.

Social Reading, Social Publishing

Think about that for a moment. In the analog world, it made perfect sense that publishers, authors, readers, and aggregators were unable to collect the discussion around a particular work. It is somewhat mind-boggling that we are in 2010 and the nitty gritty serious discussions around social reading are just beginning to happen — and there are many nitty gritty discussions to be had. You’d think this was the kind of control publishers would have grabbed early and often (it would be a wrong-headed attempt, as we’ll discuss in a few paragraphs).

So the discussion around social reading is really a discussion about how to bring an ages-old activity into the digital age, and how to do it a way that makes sense. Though, as Aaron Miller of Bookglutton — a company that is leading the way when it comes to social reading — noted, the starting point for the discussion may more properly be the idea of “social publishing“. I like his definition:

Social publishing is the natural evolution of publishing as a business. It encompasses the Web and all new digital distribution platforms, including the way people read and discover on them. It includes social reading, which is really just reading, an act that has always been social. Social publishing requires a deep interest and study of what happens to a text after it is disseminated — how readers interact with it, how they share it, how they copy it, how they talk about it — and it requires action arising from that deep study.

There’s a good chance that what I’m talking about here, the idea of social reading, is really the idea of social publishing. The layer that happens after or while people are reading books. It is the user generated content tha surrounds the published work (what we call a book, but what is a book, and are getting to the point where book means many things, much as record or album does?). Are we already shifting our vocabulary? Perhaps, and maybe that’s the right thing to do.

Walled Gardens Won’t Work (Unless You Cede Control to Amazon)

However, I’m going to stick with social reading as my descriptor, for the moment. Mostly because I don’t want to go back and rewrite this mess of a post. I suspect my vocabulary will change soon. Very smart folks are talking about how to capture all the discussions around the book. Problematically — for me — are the walled gardens like Blio and Copia and Kindle. These discussions take place in silos, and if you, the reader, are not part of that silo, you are not part of the conversation.

This is the problem with Facebook as well. It seems like everyone has a Facebook account, but this is simply not true. And while some people seem to live on Facebook, many consider it a necessary evil, interacting on the site with reluctance. The Facebook hate is, I’d say, almost perfectly balanced with the Facebook love. While Facebook has extended the social graph beyond its core site, Facebook is a walled community, albeit a large one. For book people, limiting interaction in any way seems like a dangerous proposition.

In fact, as I think about this more and more, I have great concern for business models built on the expectation that people will come, when the Internet is predicated on the notion that people will aggregate where they feel most comfortable. Look at some of the biggest (U.S.) social networks: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Think about how some people are perfectly happy on Twitter but allergic to Facebook. How others prefer the slightly more formal nature of LinkedIn to Twitter.

One thing I keep hearing from people who are excited about social reading is they already have enough places to go when it comes to managing their online lives. It turns out people don’t need more destinations; they need destinations that work with how they use the internets. All of them.

Perhaps once upon a time, you could build it and they would come. Look at MySpace and Facebook (I’d include Twitter here, but the beauty of Twitter is that you can be part of the conversation from a thousand starting points). There has to be a compelling reason for people to come, and, much as it pains me to say it, talking about books simply isn’t enough. I know, I know. And maybe there is a magic elixir to change all this.

If I get books from Amazon and Barnes & Noble and All Romance eBooks and Kobo and Books on Board and, heck, my library, I certainly want the ability to engage in annotation and commentary, but I don’t necessarily want to maintain my comments and thoughts in individual silos. That would get old in about thirty seconds. I want, oh I want, my library and annotations and thoughts in a single place where I can access them easily.

(I am wondering how we, as an industry, can approach the major retailers to convince them being part of the whole community is to their benefit. Anyone want to do a study documenting how people loathe silos that don’t help them accomplish their goals?)

This means allowing readers to engage in these activities where they live (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, reading applications [in particular]), while feeding the conversation into a more centralized location. This means allowing the social part of reading to reside with the work, which means consolidating editions/versions into a single item.

What we are talking about is the social layer on top of the text, and thinking of the best ways to connect books from any retailer/library/resource to the social layer (and, again, I am stealing somewhat from Aaron Miller; welcome to the thieves den, Aaron!). There will be interesting challenges arising as smart people try to figure out ways to corral the entire book-related diaspora into a single place. Imagine if tweets and Facebook comments and blog mentions were nestled alongside commentary attached to the text (okay, that’s pretty huge, so let’s just add this to the great social reading wishlist).

(I should note that I am engaging in some magical thinking along with my practical thinking. Gah, the mind just boggles at the idea of figuring out how to pull tweets into the social layer of a particular book. Some sort of magic and short hashtag that is unique to the book? How does one discover what that particular work’s hashtag is? Oh, metadata. Surely this problem could be solved by metadata. It seems to be the solution to all our problems.)

A few weeks ago, the New York Times discovered a social reading platform called Social Books, which allows commentary to happen via Facebook and Twitter, something that is critical to the success of any social reading platform. However, as I consider the situation, I am more likely to push content from Facebook and Twitter than I am to push content to those destinations. Think about how irritated people get from Foursquare updates! This platform, which has some investment from John Ingram, seems a bit device focused. I’ll be curious to see if there is a well-integrated web component. To me, that’s absolutely essential.

(Aside: I don’t know what it is about the NYT, but the approach of this article was “hey, this has never been done before!”, when, in fact, Bookglutton and GoodReads are engaged in social reading/publishing already, while Blio had just launched, and Copia, launching after the article, was certainly a high-profile start-up.)

User-Generated Content vs. The World

This user-generated content or UGC (marginalia, annotations, reviews, etc) would reside with a service — I believe this has to be the case, because publisher websites are not the right place for this — and the information would be extracted by other services (publishers, marketers) because that’s how life works. The readers have to feel like they have an ownership interest in their contributions, which is why I believe publishers cannot control this data (not to mention the disaster surrounding territorial rights that makes the ownership and associated conversations surrounding a specific work messy).

Seriously, my advice to publishers is this: step back, let the readers do their thing, and figure out how to work with the service provider(s) to get the best possible benefit from social reading. Oh, wait there is one area where publishers can be proactive…

In a recent post on this topic, Joe Wikert said this, and I think it’s important:

What’s missing in the recommendation area though is a fast and easy way to share excerpts. If I come across a terrific sentence or paragraph I want to share from Drew Brees’ ebook, Coming Back Stronger (a terrific read so far, btw), what are my options? The Kindle reader on my iPad doesn’t offer a way for me to even tweet/email from within the app let alone share an excerpt.

Yes, publishers could make the social part of reading and publishing easier by making it easier to share little bits and bites (bytes?) of books. I can imagine the teeth gnashing as the implications of what this means sets in. Get over it. Some people will, likely, try to share too much. But my guess is you’ll see a lot more people sharing a small percentage of the book…most often, even, sharing the same passages.

Get over the fear. Embrace the fact that people love what you publish so much, they want to share it with others. Embrace the fact that people love what you publish so much, they want to talk about it with others. Figure out ways to be part of this conversation, without, you know, stepping on the conversation. Like I said, step back, but be creative.

Some will argue that people don’t want this, but I would argue that a) people have been doing this for centuries and b) the online conversations about specific books, many specific books, are already happening. The next step is to make it happen in a more cohesive manner.

If hand-selling is truly the secret sauce of bookselling, then letting real readers supplement booksellers is critical. The key to achieving critical mass is moving the conversation online, allowing the online big mouths to do their thing (big mouth being a relative term), and letting readers do what is already happening in a disconnected manner. Which is to say, let readers connect with like-minded individuals who will then expand the book’s social graph.

Another key aspect of social reading in the digital context is making accommodation for synchronous and asynchronous discussion. Bob Stein discussed this in his Taxonomy of Social Reading, and I think he’d agree it’s just a beginning. The former would be useful for book clubs, classrooms, and other structured reading environments. The latter…

Asynchronous marginalia reflects the reality of how books are distributed and read around the world. Encounters with books can come days, weeks, months, years — centuries! — after initial release. As a person discovers the notes and comments of readers who have gone before, what sort of thoughts are inspired? This leads to the idea that there needs to be some sort of feedback loop integrated into the social reading level. One that allows readers to opt in and out of the conversation with relative ease.

How to do that as unobtrusively as possible becomes an issue. If we’re talking about a book that reaches Harry Potter level hysteria, real-time updates would be, um, irritating beyond belief. Most books, however, would inspire fewer comments. Some could inspire extended conversations; some, not so much. Do readers subscribe to the commentary on a book level, on a paragraph level, do you get updates in real-time (annoying, I’d imagine) or in daily digest format?

I don’t know, and I think this is where we will see a lot of trial and error before mores develop. That’s the cool part about iterative technology. We don’t have to get it right on day one.

Then there’s the challenge of connecting various versions of the work so the entire spectrum — hardcover, paperbacks, audio, enhanced, international — becomes one “book” in the mind of the social layer. As noted, this is reason one for publishers to facilitate rather than control. Now I have me thinking about supporting local language discussions…and then I wonder about including translation services. Must. Stop. Imagining.

A Quick Word About Business Models

The business model around the centralized location is the most problematic, hence my suggestion that the UGC be licensable to publishers and marketers, suitably anonymized of course (though one could some value in the non-anonymized content, think blurbs). This content could form the basis for book clubs. Or education material. Perhaps charging publishers for including their books in the “catalog” (what do we call this in our post-paper world?). Hosting and maintaining this middle layer will be expensive, various financial models may be required.

It’s in the best interest of the publishing industry to support projects like this, if only because it’s not in the best interest of individual publishers to manage this kind of content and interaction. Imagine the social reading disaster of two publishers owning different rights to the same book. Isolated or segregated discussions are grand, but they only reach a specific audience. They feed the all-important Long Tail sales (and if you are discounting the Long Tail, you are likely relying on incomplete information, and I suggest you read the book or blog).

Imagine if those isolated discussions could feed into the greater discussion. What if we managed a true social layer that integrated all discussion, from everywhere, around a book? Oh, there goes that magical thinking again.

Whatever the business model is, its middle name should be “flexible” (yes, yes, you wouldn’t do that to your kid, why would you do it to your business model? Oh right…because nobody’s figured this stuff out yet.). Much experimentation will happen because it’s technology that is trying to replicate and innovate human behavior, and nobody really knows how people will respond and what features they’ll ultimately want. I’d say start small with a plan to iterate, adding and removing features…but have a master plan. A good one.

Challenges, Especially Privacy

As we begin discussions about creating fantastic social reading environments, challenges become obvious. How do we intersect on- and off-line discussions? What about privacy? Consider the recent North Carolina court decision that said Amazon does not have to turn over customer purchase history due to First Amendment rights. We love to talk about books, but how much of that information do we want made public?

Will the systems allow readers to make their commentary private or only visible to certain people? Can I be anonymous when the need (or mood) suits me? Privacy is, as Jason Schultz from UC Berkeley put it during his “Books in Browsers” presentation, contextual. Obviously, I want to decide the right context.

How will these companies protect my identity and my content? How are publishing companies doing this today? I’m not sure there’s been any extended, serious discussion about privacy issues in the age of digital books. The law certainly hasn’t been updated to cover reading or commenting in the digital realm.

As we’ve learned from Facebook, sometimes technology companies forget about the privacy concerns of end users. Worse, they assume their own belief systems are indicative of popular thinking. Mark Zuckerberg suggested (can’t find link) there was something wrong with people who use pseudonyms or fake names online. He lives in a special bubble. Our reasons for protecting our privacy are varies and important, if only to us. For more thinking on this, check out the ACLU’s report on this, “Digital Books: A New Chapter for Reader Privacy”.

I think about how zealously librarians protect my First Amendment rights. I want to see social reading companies approach my privacy with that same level of seriousness. This circles back to the business model discussion — I have to expect there will be some sort information sharing happening, information being the currency of the 21st century — so how can I gain comfort that my data is being protected as it’s shared?

There is a permanence in digital marginalia that doesn’t exist in the print world. There will be implications. We should talk about this. A lot.

How much public is public? What about potential copyright issues? UGC is copyrighted content, just as the books being discussed are. How can you balance the needs of the copyright owner and reader? How does Fair Use play into all this? And so on.

Seriously, if you’re not getting excited chills thinking about all this stuff, I am going to consign you to a solid year of reading Booksquare 1.0 (the clueless stuff).

The best of these projects will come from companies that focus more on user wants and needs than they do on publisher wants and needs. Creating a consumer-facing product that wholly satisfies the executives at a company is never a good idea. It’s important to talk to publishers, but even more important for publishers to listen to what these innovators have learned from their customers.

I’m sure there are more thoughts to come. In fact, I know there are.

* – or bonfires or roasting pits or whatever
** – Or, ahem, wine. One or the other.

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