The Future of Publishing — A Busy Week

This has been a dizzying week for anyone concerned about the future of publishing.  And, yes, that includes us writers.  The European Union is suddenly joining the parade to digital e-books.  Barnes and Noble is challenging Amazon head-on with its own e-reader.  Hewlett Packard has signed deals to provide on-demand paperbacks out of long-out-of-print hardback books.  Sales data shows users of e-book readers are now buying substantially more books.  And the insider discussion of the future of publishing is growing intense.

Let’s start with the last of these.  Maria Schneider, former editor of Writer’s Digest and now blogger/editor, has just identified the 15 Twitter Users Shaping the Future of Publishing.  Add these people to the list of people you follow, and you’ll suddenly be able to get an insider’s view of the discussion.  You can even add your voice to the discussion.  With the insights you will gain, you will be able to better chart your writing career.

Amazon’s Kindle received lots of attention during the week.  Perhaps most significant was the announcement of Amazon’s 3rd quarter profits, which Publisher’s Weekly observed were driven by soaring sales of both Kindle readers and e-books. To extend the Kindle’s reach even further, Amazon announced early in the week that it was unveiling an international version of the Kindle, which will be able to download books wireless in about 100 countries world-wide.  And at the end of this week, Amazon took many by surprise with its announcement of free downloads of a new Kindle for PC application — now there’s no need to pruchase the expensive hardware in order to read Kindle-formatted e-books.

NOTE TO WRITERS: Do you realize that you can easily get your book — or even novela, short story or long essay — published in Kindle format and have it listed in the Amazon library?  It’s a fairly simple do-it-yourself process.  Read the instructions at Amazon’s website — or take a look at Smashwords.  Or just search this site for a earlier coverage about this new route to publication.

Barnes and Noble this week unveiled its own e-book reader, the Nook.  It has its own pro’s and con’s, which are thoroughly examined in a review on ZDnet.  As you read this review, keep on scrolling.  The reviewer struck through a number of paragraphs and wrote updated information further down.  One of its more interesting features is the ability to share e-books among friends.

Last month, Best Buy announced that it would be more aggressively marketing the iRex, yet another e-reader.  And there are other readers in the wings, with unveilings anticipated in the first half of 2010.

There are signs that the new e-book readers may help turn people back to reading, as Brad Stone reports in the International Herald Tribune earilier this week.

In a new twist, announced this week as well, Hewlett Packard announced that it is teaming up with Amazon in a project that will turn e-books into paperbacks, giving a second life to hardbacks long out of print.  Here are the details, as reported on Yahoo Tech.

Meanwhile, there was a lot of discussion about e-books at the just-concluded Frankfurt Book Fair.  Various roundtable discussions explored the impact of e-books for the future.  There was considerable grumbling about Google’s project to put digital scans of out-of-print books online, an initiative that is currently being debated in the courts.  Still, the European Union announced at the fair that it is launching its own digital library.

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