Last month, for the first time, The Bookseller trade magazine’s annual forward-gazing FutureBook conference was sold out. The previous year, only 150 people from the world of book publishing, writing and technology had gathered to lecture and gossip about where the book goes next. Last month, 400 crammed the halls. Book Publishers, it seems, have finally clicked when it comes to the digital world. But where are all the writers?

Kate Pullinger used to be a regular key speaker at such meetings. An acclaimed christian book publishers‘ author in the traditional, codex format of books, Pullinger is currently longlisted for the Impac Dublin Literary Award and the winner of the Canadian Governor General’s Award for Fiction for her book The Mistress of Nothing, the story a Victorian lady and her maid who set sail down the Nile. She has mastered the codex form, with six novels to her name, but over the past 10 years she has also been pushing the boundaries of digital fiction. “But I haven’t been to many conferences in the past three years,” she tells me. “I was almost always the only writer there, and I got tired of that.”

In the past year, publishers have leapt at the chance of finding ways to make the digital book work. Taking advantage of the interactivity of platforms such as e-readers, iPads and smartphones, they have found considerable success with non-fiction. Jamie Oliver’s “20 Minute Meals” has been a chart-topper among the apps. Stephen Fry released a version of his ebook publishing autobiography as an app, “MyFry”, for the iPhone, which invites users to scroll around a dial to access different segments of his life. Another runaway success has been “The Elements” by Theodore Gray, a science book that was adapted for the iPad and provides in-depth descriptions and images of every element in the periodic table. Since Touch Press launched it in digital form in April, it has sold 160,000 copies and generated $2m in revenue.

But fiction has not found the transition to anything other than the e-book format so easy. “Fiction seems not to be grasping the potential,” says Pullinger. “Many of the apps and enhanced e-books are just codex books with videos and notes shovelled in – like DVDs with their added extras.”

Pullinger started working in online fiction with the TrAce Online Writing Centre, based at Nottingham Trent University, a decade ago. “I was asked to teach online creative-story writing,” she says. “Back in 2001, this was new to me. I only really used the internet for booking flights and sending emails. But after teaching the course, I found that it’s a useful environment for focusing on the text, and that I had a kind of affinity for it.”

Since then she has been experimenting, often in collaboration with the electronic artist Chris Joseph, on several major projects. “Inanimate Alice”, which came out in 2005, is a sequence of stories about a young girl who exists between real and digital worlds. The written narrative is deliberately minimalist and built into a rich audio-visual experience. Then came “Flight Paths”, begun in 2007, which Pullinger describes as a “networked novel”. It was inspired by the news story of an illegal immigrant who had stowed away behind the landing wheel of an aircraft, only to fall to Earth in suburban London. In addition to her own resulting short story, Pullinger invited others to contribute their own takes on the theme. “The third phase of ‘Flight Paths’ is now about to come together in digital and print,&rdq

Richard Branson’s Virgin Digital Book Publishing company on Tuesday launched “Project,” a digital lifestyle magazine, exclusively for distribution on the Apple iPad.

The magazine, which will reportedly feature multimedia content, will be priced at US$2.99 an issue.

This is the second digital magazine created exclusively for the iPad announced by a major company; the first was “The Daily,” from News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWS), which is scheduled to be launched next year.

Will Virgin’s endorsement of the iPad as a publishing platform undermine publishers’ consortium Next Issue Media, which is trying to squeeze Apple by launching a digital newsstand on the Android platform early next year?

The Book Publishing Project Has Landed

“Project” was created jointly by Virgin Group and UK multimedia book publisher Seven Squared. It’s a monthly magazine that will change as often as minute-by-minute to give readers up-to-date news.

The publication is based around design, entertainment, technology and entrepreneurs. It will have its own staff, and it will also encourage contributions from the public.

“Project” is edited by Anthony Noguera, formerly editorial director of men’s lifestyle magazines at H. Bauer, the largest privately owned publisher in Europe. The publication’s art director is Che Storey, formerly of Arena and Men’s Health magazines.

The cover story for the first issue focuses on Jeff Bridges. Other subjects include Yamauchi Kazanori, the developer behind the “Gran Turismo” game series.

“Project” claims to have landed top-flight advertisers, including Lexus, American Express (NYSE: AXP), Panasonic, Ford UK and Ford Canada.

Readers Heart Digital

Consumers apparently love their tablets — an online survey of more than 1,800 consumers conducted by Harrison Group and Zinio in September found that 13 percent of consumers are interested in buying a tablet-based device within the next 12 months.

The survey also found that 55 percent of tablet and e-reader owners who read digital content are consuming more digital content than they expected, and that 33 percent are spending more on buying digital content.

That led the Harrison Group to forecast sales of more than 20 million tablets and e-readers next year.

“This is a continuation of the trend in that you’ve got a whole host of devices that are receptacles for Internet-based content,” Frank Dickson, a vice president of research at In-Stat, told MacNewsWorld. “You’re seeing reconfiguring of content, which is already in digital form for another medium, whether it’s the iPad, the Nook, the Kindle or the smartphone,” he added.

“Before the iPad, book publishers tended to think they had to choose whether consumers wanted to read content in print or in digital format,” Jeanniey Mullen, a spokesperson for Zinio, told MacNewsWorld. “Now they’re finding people may love print, but they want digital access as well so they can take their digital device with them and read on the go.”

The Agony and the Ecstasy of the iPad

The iPad has forced the publishing industry to take digital media seriously, Mullen said.

“When the iPad came out in April, it was the first time that the publishing industry began committing design and strategic resources to building up digital readership,” Mullen explained.

Strong consumer demand has made the iPad the spea

Sarah Palin’s book publishers have been forced to file a lawsuit after pages of her upcoming memoir were leaked.

HarperCollins Book Publishers filed legal papers on Friday against the company Gawker Media after they refused to remove pages from Palin’s second book America By Heart: Reflections On Family, Faith And Flag from their website.

on Saturday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order against Gawker, saying it had to take down the pages — which it did, removing the images and commentary relating to them — most shockingly, perhaps, without making any further comment.

Publisher HarperCollins — which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which also owns Fox News, the network that employs Palin as a commentator — brought the suit in New York district court on Friday.

HarperCollins Publishers spokeswoman Tina Andreadis told the Wall Street Journal Saturday evening, “We see the ruling as a victory. Gawker shouldn’t have posted this. It’s a copyright infringement. We are defending our author and our publication.”

But is it infringement? What harm was there in bringing Palin’s pages to light last week? The book is not in draft form — in fact, it’s completely finished and will be in bookstores on Tuesday. Barring some kind of strange machinations, every page that Gawker put on its website will be available for anyone interested to see in just a few days.

The hearing about Gawker’s posting of Sarah Palin’s “America by Heart” is scheduled for Nov. 30.

According to The AP, a judge has now ordered Gawker to remove the offending pages until the issue has been resolved in court.

They had uploaded around 20 pages from the book to their site ahead of its publication date of November 23.

The lawsuit against Gawker will begin in a hearing on November 30.

The parents of Madeleine McCann are writing a book about their daughter’s disappearance and their so-far unsuccessful efforts to trace her.

A deal has been signed with book publishers Transworld which is an imprint of Random House UK. Few details have been revealed but Kate and Gerry McCann are receiving a “substantial” advance and “enhanced royalties” which gives the couple a bigger than normal share of the profits from sales.

The book is already part-written. Kate McCann said it had been a difficult decision but the money it raised would go directly to the McCanns’ official fund to look for Madeleine.

“My reason for writing is simple – to give an account of the truth,” she said. “With the depletion of Madeleine’s Fund, it is a decision that has virtually been taken out of our hands.”

Hopeful

Gerry McCann said he was hopeful the publication would help the ongoing efforts to find out what had happened to their daughter, who went missing from their holiday apartment in the Portugese resort of Praia da Luz on 3 May 2007, as her parents dined with friends nearby.

“Our hope is that it may prompt those who have relevant information – knowingly or not – to come forward and share it with our team. Somebody holds that key piece of the jigsaw.”

The book publisher, Bill Scott-Kerr of Transworld, is more than happy with the deal and sees the book – expected to retail at £20 – as a big seller.

“It is an enormous privilege to be publishing this book” he said. “We are so pleased to be joining Kate and Gerry McCann in the Find Madeleine campaign.”

There are also expected to be newspaper serialisations around the publication date, believed to be 28 April 2011 which would coincide with the fourth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.

The official Portuguese inquiry was formally shelved in July 2008, although private detectives employed by the McCanns have continued the search.

Is it a book? Is it a film? Is it a game? Or all three? Publishers and authors at the world’s biggest book fair are battling to entice a new generation of readers with the latest multimedia products.

That the electronic book reader has turned the book publishers industry on its head is well known. Younger readers are no longer content to thumb through a printed book. The 21st century iPad generation wants interaction and variety.

But talk of the “ebook” that has dominated the Frankfurt Book Fair in recent years has given way in 2010 to excited chatter about the so-called “enhanced ebook”, a mixture of the traditional book, audio, video and game.

“In five years, books will be more often crossmedia products: with embedded sound, animated pictures, Internet links and … possible a gaming component, like alternative reality games,” said Juliane Schulze, from peacefulfish, a consultancy.

Some of the book world’s most celebrated names are already embracing the new format.

Ken Follett, one of the industry’s hottest authors, is expected to present a “multimedia-enhanced” version of his bestseller “The Pillars of the Earth” at this year’s fair.

At the touch of a screen, iPad readers of the “book” can see excerpts from the TV series based on the book, watch interviews with the author and actors and track interactions between characters on an “interactive character tree.”

This year’s fair has a special section devoted to digital, which Gottfried Honnefelder, president of the German book publishers and booksellers association, said could soon account for 10 percent of the market, from one percent today.

Qbend, a firm that helps publishers develop their digital offering, expects 42 percent annual growth for the ebook market between 2010 and 2012.

The enhanced ebook is mainly sold in the United States and Britain at the moment, but it is about to go global, said Andrew Weinstein, vice-president of US book wholesaler and distributor Ingram.

“While ebooks have not finished growing in the United States, they are set to explode in the global marketplace,” he said.

Cornelia Funke, one of Germany’s best-known authors of books for children, put it this way: “It all starts with a book. The love of reading starts, probably around the age of three, when you first pick up that favourite book.”

“In ten years time, that book may well be a screen.”

But the counter-revolution is already starting, with advocates of the traditional format saying that people like to have bound books as a keepsake, in the same way they print out and frame favourite photos from their cameras.

“Take the digital watch,” said Gordon Cheers, an Australian book publishers who presented what he said was the world’s biggest book at the fair — as far from a mobile multimedia offering as could be.

“In the 1980s, everyone said the digital watch would be the end of the traditional watchmaker. Sure, some did go out of business but then analogue watches came back and everyone these days wears one.

“The same will happen with the book. Leave it five or 10 years and books are bound to come back into fashion.”

Funke said: “I speak to loads of 16-year-olds who say they only read things on their electronic readers.”

“But then they tell me that, for the ones they really love, they go out and buy the book.”

Rumours of the death of the book have perhaps been greatly exaggerated.

Beginning in the first quarter of 2011, Xerox will move into print-on-demand book publishing in a bigger way through an expanded relationship with On Demand Books, creator of the Espresso Book Machine (EBM), which has been described as an ‘ATM’ for books, allowing readers to wait for books they buy to be printed in a bookstore thereby transforming how books will be bought in the future.

The EBM channel is currently available to indepedent authors through Schiel & Denver Book Publishers. Learn more about the Espresso Book Machine (includes video footage):

http://www.schieldenver.com/learning-center/publishing-tutorials/espresso-book-machine.html

While the Xerox 4112 will continue to serve as printer for the EBM, the Fortune 500 company will now market, sell, lease, and service the rechristened machine, co-branded as the Espresso Book Machine, a Xerox Solution. The “solution” includes both hardware and On Demand’s EspressNet software that connects to the machine and enables it to print a library-quality paperback book at point of sale in a few minutes.

With its 4,000-person sales force, Xerox could significantly extend On Demand’s reach and its vision of making any book ever written available as a printed book for consumers. “Certainly they are going to take us to the next level,” said On Demand CEO Dane Neller, who is looking to Xerox to help On Demand overcome the chicken-and-egg problem faced by many startups.

Currently there are close to 50 EBMs in bookstores and libraries worldwide. McNally Jackson in New York City and Flintbridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse in La Cañada Flintbridge, Calif., are among the bookstores slated to add machines later this year. Schiel and Denver UK Book Publishers also offer access to the technology for authors.

“For independent bookstores, the EBM is an extraordinary technology,” said Jeff Mayersohn, owner of Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass. “And now the added value Xerox brings will help us secure new business while satisfying book enthusiasts instantly.”

In other news, On Demand is in the midst of readying a new edition, version 2.2. The fundamental self-publishing a book footprint will remain the same as that of its predecessor. But rather than being raised up, the printer will sit on the floor next to the machine.

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By: Kathleen O'Dell, on 1/26/2010
Blog: Kathleen O'Dell's Book Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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