I wasn’t able to go to BEA this year, so my online stalking of every attendee and panel confernce has been relentless. So far lots of slides and podcasts and enough video to keep me from running down the street mad. But one trend I started noticing a few weeks ago were the lack of publishers sitting in on all the great panel discussions. With panels titled: The Concierge and the Bouncer: The End of the Supply Chain and the Beginning of the True Book Culture and even Jumping Off a Cliff: How Publishers Can Succeed Online, one would think a publisher would be on stage… but no. Lots of authors and technology commentary, but not a lot about workflows and editorial processes that actually get a finished product in front of customers.
Someone on Twitter also said that they left BEA more pumped than ever, which is great news. Publishers need to adapt quickly if want to be able to continue adding value to an author’s work. And industry events like BEA and TOC are just the places to hear how… if the right people get to speak.
I have just finished reading Clive Thomspson’s WIRED artcile on the Future of Reading. The notion of unleashing the book online to prod readers into interacting with text sounds like fun and I like the idea of focusing on the reader. I look forward to all the variations and trials that publishers put forward in the coming months, but there is one aspect of books that I hope they maintain in all their experimentation…
In the vein of “if it’s on the internet it must be true”, here is a private schooler running a blackmarket lending librray from their locker. Basically, the school banned and pulled a bunch of books. Many are titles on everyone’s banned lists The Catcher in the Rye, Catch 22, The Evolution of Man, etc. So the student has been sneaking the books into the locker and lending them out.
I am heartened at the idea that books could mean so much to the younger kids running around, though I became suspect when the student claims that the Twilight series is banned, but won’t be in the secret library as
“…I don’t want that polluting my library.”
I thought all kids were required to worship at the alter of Stephenie Myer?
