I have a Google news feed set up for e-books so I can keep up with the evolving e-book story. Recently there have been a number of interviews with CEOs of major publishing houses in which they dismiss e-books and claim that print will be around for a long time. This makes me wonder what planet they live on and where there strategic focus lies. It seems focused on maintaining the status quo while reality is moving in the other direction.

Ten years ago I co-wrote a book on kitchen design for a mid-size press (Taunton). They just released it as an ‘e-book’. Unfortunately they did not actually do an e-book, they created an enormous PDF file, belying their understanding, from a strategic POV, of what e-books mean. Then they used an ‘other rights’ clause in my pre-Internet contract to set royalties at a rate far below e-book standards. If the book wasn’t outdated I’d be more outraged- instead I can only shake my head at their stupidity and lack of vision. They have an incredible backlist that is perfectly suited to developing interactive books for tablet devices like iPad- home improvement and how-to books that are not outdated.

The point here is that I think that emerging new publishers have an amazing opportunity to out-distance the dinosaurs, if we stay out in front of the technology. Correct xhtml formatting, innovative direct to consumer marketing, flexible pricing, use of digital distribution systems that are highly trusted like Apple/Amazon/B&N, creative application of embedded links, media and interactivity- these things, when combined with vision give even a tiny start-up like ours enough lead time to establish a foothold.

While the dinosaurs fight for turf the tiny mammals take to the trees and start making spears.