Daily Thoughts 5/9/2010

Public Library Muses, Boston, MA, Early Postcard

Daily Thoughts 5/9/2010

Ebooks and Print On Demand

Happy Mother's Day. Sometimes, you read a blog post which catches your attention.
http://carriagereturn.typepad.com/carriage-return/2010/03/365207-my-digital-manifestothe-future-of-our-publishing-world.html . This post caught my attention because it talks about two trends which are affecting libraries tremendously; the first is print on demand, the second is ebooks.

My understanding is that 30% of books sent to bookstores are returned. I think this changed with print on demand. We are getting a lot more cancellations lately for books which we order. I think this is due to print on demand. Publishers have much tighter control of how many books can get printed with print on demand, they can track the number of books ordered and more closely match print runs with what is being ordered in a more timely manner. This means there can be a much quicker decision about canceling titles and inventory. If there are not enough orders for a book it will be cancelled much quicker than before.

This means a lot less books are kept in inventory. Machines like the Espresso Book Machine can print a trade paperback in four minutes from a digital file. Google Books is partnering with the Espresso Book machine to be able to print and sell books quickly. This includes a huge number of public domain books at a very reasonable price. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/google-books-publish-on-demand/

There is a second thing which is happening, one of the largest distributors for books, Ingram, owns Lightning Source which is the largest print on demand publishing source. Lightning Source has also partnered with Baker and Taylor for distribution. They are now printing to order as people buy the books, the warehouse prints then sends them. It is called Print to Order. This eliminates lots of inventory and saves money for the publisher. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Baker-Taylor-and-Wiley-Ink-prnews-579997220.html?x=0

Print to Order is not just for publishers, libraries and bookstores are putting print on demand stations inside their buildings as well. This is a short article on the growth of print on demand which shows its growth in the last five years 2005-2010 http://www.infotrends-rgi.com/public/Content/INFOSTATS/Articles/2006/09.05.2006.html

The other area which is growing is ebooks. In a way ebooks obscure the growth of print on demand. People are adapting ebooks very rapidly. There was a 307% increase in sales this January over January of last year. http://ereads.com/2010/03/january-10-e-book-sales-almost.html

Just as important is the incredible proliferation of free ebooks and material online. I find myself looking for material on the Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/ for people a lot of time, recommending readers like the Stanza ereader, or Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page, I also sometimes recommend Creative Commons books to read. There are a few titles worth reading in the mix of grand and terrible. http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Books. I don't think the industry is tracking the use of free ebooks. It probably is even more than the books being purchased. I have read a lot of books which I never had to pay for. Groups are making entire free libraries available online like the Baen free library which is a nice sampling of free science fiction books. http://www.baen.com/library/

Both of these technologies are digital, they are not mutually exclusive. I can imagine a world where you can choose whether you want a hardcopy book or an ebook. Books will be born digital much like television is now. This is a Library Journal article which covers the subject. http://ereads.com/2010/03/january-10-e-book-sales-almost.html . I can easily imagine a world where you can walk into a bookstore and have a choice of whether you want your book to be digital or hardcopy. The paperback will not be that much more expensive to buy than the digital download. An example of ths would be a science fiction book I bought recently from Baen Books, Live Free or Die, $6.00 for the ebook, $7.99 for the mass market paperback, or $26.00 for the hardcover.

There still we be hardcovers, but the hardcovers will have features which the cheaper ebooks and paperbacks can't match, very nice pictures, lots of photographs, artwork, quality paper, excellent layout, quality indexing, glossy finishes, and other features which appeal to having and holding a book. They also might be in larger formats, coffee table books still will probably be printed the old way. There will be a lot more specialty books. I haven't found anything which supports this trend other than watching as books come out. The kind of book which I am thinking is books like Teach Yourself Visually series. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-305624.html

There are other changes as well, the world of reference works is changing completely as well, but this is something for a later collection of thoughts.

Other Thoughts

I finished reading Soulless An Alexia Tarabotti Novel at the laundromat. You can add romance to Victorian steampunk, werewolf, vampire, supernatural thriller. It was good enough for me to want to read the Second book in the series, Changeless.

I went to Barnes and Nobles today in the shopping mall near my house. I did not buy anything. I did look at a few manga, VIZ media has a series called VIZBIGBOOKS which are compilations of three volumes in one for manga at a discount price. I was looking at Vagabond and Ruruoni Kenshin which are interesting series. There were also a few titles that I noted for future reading.

Daily Thoughts 1/13/2010

Poster promoting reading by Charles Dickens in Nottingham1869

Daily Thoughts 1/13/2010

Based on my wanderings through the interweb, I found out that China Mieville has a new book coming out in June 2010 called Kraken. An urban fantasy about a giant squid. I wonder what he is going to do next.

Every single day I read about how ebooks are going to change the publishing world. There is an obsession with ebooks. The real game changer has not been ebooks. It is print on demand combined with self publishing. The only sector of the publishing world which has grown continuously has been the print on demand sector. It is easier and easier to get print on demand books from distributors like Baker and Taylor or Ingram. Ingram owns Lightning Source which is the largest print on demand service for books.

There are also many self publishing options that allow people to easily cut out the middle man. Companies like http://www.lulu.com/ and http://www.smashwords.com/ are growing in popularity. On our end we are getting many more local authors coming into our library wanting to have their books added or do readings. Big publishers are less and less willing to support author tours. It has become easier for us to look for authors websites on the internet and ask them to come to our library than for us to go to publishers.

Many of these authors are self published. It is kind of exciting to have a local poet come in and read from their book. Some of the work is better than expected because a lot of people who might have been previously published by the big houses are finding it hard to get there.

In addition, there are experiments with print on demand at the bookstore level. Some bookstores have even used The Espresso Book Machine as a tool for print on demand for local authors. I see print on demand continuing to expand and create new opportunities for authors much quicker than ebooks.

This morning we had our reference sharing meeting where we discussed different reference books. I discussed Writers Market 2010 which is a good basic tool on where to submit material to get published. Another person discussed the Library of Congress Subject Headings for religion.

We also looked at several internet sites. The head of reference discussed the Internet Archive first going to the wayback machine, then looking at several different things in the archive including a recording of PT Barnum's voice, a Libri Vox recording of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, a song from a Grateful Dead Concert, and the short cartoon Sergeant Snafu.

Another site discussed was http://511ny.org/ which monitors traffic and public transportation around New York. If you know how to look, it can help spot speed traps and traffic cameras. There was also a mention of http://thomasnet.com/ which is the Thomas Directory of manufacturers online. Thomas now has cad drawings online. Finally, if you are looking for a genealogy expert, you can go to Ancestry.com and get experts for a fee through their website. http://expertconnect.ancestry.com/Home.aspx .

I spent a little time this afternoon weeding the literary criticism section. I also worked on designing a flyer for a movie which we are showing for the graphic novel club on January 25, 2009 as well as an update of the flyer for the 2nd meeting of the graphic novel club. Hopefully this will go well.

On the way to work I read some of Choosing Civility by P.M. Forni. The first maxim of the book is to pay attention, and the third maxim is to listen. These always seemed to be two of the most important things to do in life. Without attention you can't learn anything and not listening leads to lots of mistakes.

I am looking at a rather silly book, Boilerplate, History's Mechanical Marvel by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett. They built a man sized robot model of a clockwork robot and took pictures of it. It is a rather silly looking thing. It is very much like Frank Reade's Steam Man of the prairies in a more modern version. There is a website with images. http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate/index.html

The clockwork robot has been photoshopped into a variety of historical images from all over the world. These are mostly from the late 19th century to the beginnings of World War I. There are pictures of the robot with Pancho Villa, Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill and other famous persons. Also, there are images from historical events; The Boxer Rebellion and the Russo Japanese war.

It is a mashup with pictures taking old images and adding new technology to create a different kind of book.

Daily Thoughts 5/25/2009

Daguerrotype of Emily Dickinson.

Daily Thoughts 5/25/2009

I just finished reading Escape From Hell by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It is a sequel to Inferno. After finding the exit to hell in the last novel, Inferno, Allen Carpenter, a science fiction writer returns to hell to try and help some people escape. He believes that some people are redeemable.

This hell is the hell of Dante's Inferno. The whole novel is one of poetic justice. The authors, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle throw various modern day villains into hell, including Kenneth Lay, the people who watched the levees in hurricane Katrina, Anna Nicole Smith, and other sundry characters. I especially like the motorcycle riding preacher, Aimee in this story.

The novel is not scatological or prurient. It is primarily philosophical, ironic, and sometimes darkly funny. Allen Carpenter visits the different places in Dante's Inferno and attempts to rescue people. The best part of the novel is when he rescues Sylvia Plath from her eternal state as a tree. Sylvia Plath travels with him through the whole novel. There may be some philosophical points of contention, the novel will not be agreeable with everyone. I did enjoy reading it very much. It is clearly a fantasy novel. I hope they write another sequel featuring Allen Carpenter, Dante did write Purgatorio.

Happy Memorial Day. Today is Memorial Day in the United States. I watched the parade go by my house. They had the usual groups, the veterans associations, the fire, police, ambulance, boy scouts, girl scouts, the sports leagues, the mayor, and the local car club. The car club had a number of old Chevrolet Impala's, Fords, a few army trucks, and some sports cars. Remember those who fought for your country.

I read some more of Fool's Gold by Mark Y. Herring. In the last chapter, he was railing against the Paperless Society. I don't think paper will ever completely disappear. What I think is happening is that people are getting much greater control over what they will put on paper. It is very easy with all the reviews of books all over the web and in print magazines to get reviews of books. There is also another phenomenon that is happening; the ability to look inside the book or sample a book. Many publishers are giving away the first set of chapters for a book. Amazon has their look inside the book program, and Baen gives away the first several of their science fiction books.

I think this selectivity is fueling print on demand which is the fastest growing segment of the book publishing industry. This is an article from Library Journal on On Demand Books. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6659232.html?industryid=47175