Cliffhanger - Book Manufacturing Advice and Expertise

Did you see this in Newsweek back in early August? http://www.newsweek.com/content/newsweek/2010/08/03/back-story-books-vs-e-books/_jcr_content/par/image.img.jpg/1280849255449.jpg

I absolutely love the message in this summary comparison. We are all seeing more and more e-readers in public but seems my local bookstores are as jammed as they always have been with people buying good old “p-books”. These methods to read are certainly not exclusive and in time will live in harmony. Most importantly, what are we all doing as individual companies to prepare for this new world of reading consumers? Is .XML the new .pdf? Remember when barley anyone knew what .pdf even meant? It took years for it to take a hold in page submission and prepress. Could we merely be repeating history… I think maybe we are….

Not long ago I walked into my neighborhood Borders to look for a new title about a young man who chronicled a life on the Great Lakes. I was really interested in this book and I wanted the case bound book so I could enjoy the read and then… place it on my shelf for future glances at the spine to remember the enjoyment of the content contained therein. I found the source of my search but was so disappointed in the book that I put it back on the shelf. The paper was essentially parchment (not by design) and there was no case bound book ever produced. The soft cover had glue squirts throughout and wasn’t close to being square. Sometimes I think we are hurting ourselves when we minimize the visual and tactile feel of a book especially by choosing the lowest cost papers to carry our stories to all the readers out there waiting to tear into them.

Google Books is such an interesting development. When I talk to colleagues or publishing partners about Google Books, my sense is that few of us really have an understanding for the significance of this program. Sergey Brin, co-founder & president of technology at Google recently said “We love books at Google, and our fondest dream is that Book Search will evolve into a service that ensures that books, along with their authors and publishers, will flourish for many years into the future”

To imagine the vast amounts of book content which will be available at the tip of your finger is inspiring. By 2008 Google had over 7 million books in the program. Current figures show that Google would have well over 12million in the program today. Is this a Monopoly in the making or just the newest form of a dynamic Dewey Decimal system? I suspect a little of both but clearly it will have a historic impact to our industry which we cannot fully comprehend today. Threat or Opportunity …