Time and tide wait for no-one ...

After a solid year, I've decided to put the blog e-publishing, etc. to sleep. No time. Just no time at all. Like so many other dead blogs, it'll stay here, floating in the cloud. Take it easy.

UK trade bookstore results worst March since 2005

The Bookseller: "Spending in March has hit a six-year low, with sales slumping by 8.7% year on year."

Readum Combines Google, Facebook for Reader Comments

PW: "In an unusual social media venture that brings together Google and Facebook, BookGlutton.com founder Travis Alber is releasing Readum, a new social media application that allows readers to add comments and notes to books in their Google eBooks library and easily post them on Facebook for the general public or to specific groups. ... "

Google Books for iDevices gets landscape view for iPad and other features

mobiputing: "There’s a new version of Google Books for iOS, which is optimized for the Apple iPad thanks to a new landscape mode that lets you view two pages at a time and browse through the 2 million books in the Google Books library in landscape. I’m really not sure why it took this long before Google decided to enable this feature. ... "

Fact ...

The more "Big [though shrinking] Six" publishers artificially and absurdly inflate eBook prices, as they've been doing, the more they encourage piracy. And DRM won't save them.

Continuum Opens E-bookstore

PW: "The academic publisher Continuum has launched its own e-bookstore, Continuum eBooks. Continuum expects to have 2,000 titles in the store by the end of April with prices set at that of the lowest print edition. The company hopes to have 3,500 titles by June and while the store will initially be opened to individuals, Continuum expects to offer packages aimed at academic institutions starting at the end of June. ... "

Dumping print, NY publisher bets the ranch on apps

Reuters: "Since 1980, Nicholas Callaway has made the finest of design-driven books, building a publishing house and his fortune on memorable children's stories and on volumes known for the fidelity of their reproductions of great art. But the quality of paper, ink and binding mean nothing to him now. ... "

Digital Reading: On the Way to the Webcast, a Funny Thing Happened

Digital Book World: "Gather a group of digital publishing pros and usability experts in the same (virtual) room, and the discussion gets deep, detailed, and far-seeing. ... "

The end of [paper] books is good for writers and readers

Tom Keane, The Boston Globe:

... There are a great many business ideas where some entrepreneur can strike it rich; [brick-and-mortar] bookselling is no longer one of them. ... 

The book is dead. Books (and by “books’’ I mean words printed on paper with a hard- or softcover binding)" ... 

Two weeks ago, the American Association of Publishers reported that January sales for adult hardcovers were down 11.3 percent, adult paperbacks were down 19.7 percent, and adult mass market books down 30.0 percent. Expect to see those kinds of numbers repeated.

Not all kinds of books will suffer as badly, of course. Children’s books and art books — where layout and graphics are paramount — will persist. Paper is still (for a time) a better medium than digital screens for complex layouts and — especially relevant for kids — far better at absorbing spills and accidental drops. But when it comes to long-form, picture-free books such as novels, paper no longer makes sense. Electronic readers are this year’s hot-selling items because they really are a better way to read. ...

The end of [paper] books may be to the betterment of both writers and readers. The expense of publishing and distribution necessarily meant the imposition of middlemen — agents, editors, printers — who picked and chose what would get published. Now anyone can write a novel, for example, and make it available for sale. The industry seems to be figuring out the issue of digital rights management (something the music industry still hasn’t solved), meaning that authors get paid for their creativity. And even though e-books are less expensive than books, arguably more of that will get back to the people involved in their creation.

Marshall McLuhan famously wrote that “the medium is the message.’’ I’ve never understood why. It is the message — “the information,’’ as journalist James Gleick calls it — that matters. [Paper] Books die. Digital rises. The medium changes; the message remains.

MoMA Launches eBook App for iPad

DesignTAXI.com: "The Museum of Modern Art has launched a free iPad app that allows users to download and read eBooks published by the museum. The app, called MoMA Books [iTunes link] will include current and out-of-print titles, as well as exhibition catalogs, scholarly texts and anthologies of art-historical texts from around the world, MoMA said in a statement."

Memo from Hachette to brick-and-mortar stores: You ARE the Weakest Link

CS Monitor: "In an Amazon era when many readers browse bookstores at leisure, then log into Amazon to place their order, bricks and mortar booksellers rarely catch a break. Now, with the posthumous release of David Foster Wallace’s 'The Pale King,' it seems the Hachette Book Group has eliminated the initial bookstore browse and buzz, dealing another blow to booksellers. ... "