A Day of Bookish Experimentation

It's been an exciting and stressful couple of weeks in the world of books and frankly, I'm suffering from information overload. Last week three big US publishing companies announced redundancies or restructurings causing one commentator to ask whether book publishers should be compared with car companies or banks. Makes a change from us being compared to record companies, I suppose.

Despite, or perhaps because of The Fear, the last week has also seen a spate of interesting digital announcements from the big publishers. Our sister company in the US have announced the launch of Penguin2.0, a suite of forward-looking applications. Over here HarperCollins have announced that they are putting ebooks on the Nintendo DS and Macmillan are doing the same on the iPhone via the Stanza reader. All nice interesting work with the general concept of giving the customers as much choice as possible in how and when they access books, and on what devices.

So rather than announce any bookish experimentation of our own (for now!), we're going to sponsor a day of bookish experimentation instead and host what we are calling Bookcamp in the middle of January. Our plan is for this to be a day of talking and doing - examining the role of the book as an object and as a delivery mechanism for content.  We're inviting authors, typographers, cover designers, printers, technologists, retailers, literary agents, publishers and geeks to come along and consider if and how technology can transform and perhaps improve on The Book. Will print on demand mean the end of the bookshop? Will ebook technology allow everyone to be their own publisher? Will printed books go the way of vinyl and become collectors objects? Are games the new novels? And, most importantly, what is the use of a book without pictures and conversations?

To help us make this a day of making and building as well as talking, we've roped in Russell Davies and James Bridle to help plan and execute and we've invited a bunch of excellent people who we hope will have fun taking apart and rebuilding the book - and perhaps the book business - for the 21st century. There are still a few spaces spare, so if you think that you might have something to contribute, share or show send us an email and let us know what you've got in mind.

We'll cover the event on this blog and on twitter in the new year - now at least we've got something to look forward to after the winter break!

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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Comments

[Gordon Barr]

"We're inviting authors, typographers, cover designers, printers, technologists, retailers, literary agents, publishers and geeks to come along and consider if and how technology can transform and perhaps improve on The Book"

Have you perhaps considered inviting some *readers* as well ??

:)

[Adam Maxwell's Short Stories]

This sounds like a really interesting event and one I'm looking forward to hearing about. I think Penguin are one of the few publishers who could come out of the changes in technology well and it's events like Bookcamp that will ensure this.

I think that too companies (whether in the publishing industry or elsewhere) when faced with the threat of technology go the way of the music industry and effectively turn their backs on the public.

Keep the mometum going Penguin :)

[Aleksander]

Maybe now Penguin will learn a thing or two about how to actually produce and sell ebooks. I've bought several and I can say that Penguin hasn't done a very good job so far. Currently I can buy paperback versions cheaper at Waterstones than I can in ebook format online (surely 600 pages of dead tree is more expensive to produce than a 400kb file).

There are several publishers in the UK who are doing an excellent job of producing good quality ebooks and reasonable prices. The stupid thing is that I can legally get better formated versions of classics like Crime and Punishment for free wheras Penguin charge several pounds and hardly give anything extra. Either give us more for our money, or charge less and you'll get a better reception among consumers.

[Kevin]

Ebooks vs. quality books is an interesting question - experientally the physical book is still the preference of most readers I think, but publishers have to offer more (or less cost, you're right) for the reader to want to buy it. But then is this cost-effective? Should some classics be put out of print, to make way for new literature? How much do classics make for Penguin? Interesting questions.

The role of the internet in getting previews of new books to readers is very important, too, as a low-cost tactic. But I think there needs to be a shift in how readers think about books and literature. (Getting them to read more would be a start!)

Has anyone seen any bookstores marketing reading as a low-cost, environmentally-friendly pursuit? I know from my time working there Oxfam bookshops have been trying this in some of their marketing, but what about new books?