Solid exploration of the challenges facing authors and publishers.

"Yet we are terrified that in the digital age, people are constantly distracted. That they’re shallower, lazier, more dazzled. If they are, then the text is not speaking clearly enough. We are not speaking clearly enough. Like over-stuffed attendees at a dull banquet, the mind wanders. We are terrified that people are dumbing down, and so we provide them with ever dumber entertainment. We sell them ever greater distractions, hoping to dazzle them further."

"I’m not against having a touchscreen on an ebook reader. Tapping on a book to open it makes perfect sense, even if it does mean that the screen gets dirty. But having a touchscreen doesn’t preclude you from also adding a hardware button that makes the one single thing people do the most often with your device as easy and seamless as possible."

"I tell myself that it’s not possible, anyway, to shelve the advance of technology, and that history is filled with examples of beautiful things being supplanted by more efficient versions of those things. Ultimately, you’re never going to win an argument against convenience, no matter how much you love the anachronistic, heavy, unwieldy, and beautiful thing you want to save."

"The current surface forms for digital books are far from perfect, but they work and are getting better with each device and software iteration. So, in my opinion, many of the critical future questions digital books designers will have to address don’t directly involve pure content layout. Future-book design is not merely about font sizes and leading. Instead, our hardest (and possibly most rewarding) problems will involve the intermingling of content and data."

"So, even if they now seem natural, the lengths and formats of books are but cultural accidents. If this all goes, there will be consequences for the shape, size and format of prose narrative. How far is up for debate."

Brilliance, really well thought out piece.

"Some of the qualms about digital research reflect a feeling that anything obtained too easily loses its value. What we work for, we better appreciate. If an amateur can be beamed to the top of Mount Everest, will the view be as magnificent as for someone who has accomplished the climb? Maybe not, because magnificence is subjective. But it’s the same view."

Society ought to keep a physical specimen that typifies each thing they produce.

Beautiful essay about libraries and the future that is ripe for the taking.

Totally fascinating article fro Kevin Kelly about the future of books.

"So why was this different than getting lost in Google Books, or the web itself?

In some ways it is very similar and offers a similar serendipity. But stacks of paper offer several user experiences that are superior to online browsing."

Simultanology will become the standard mode of operation for the future. Things will all be "just in time."

"By June 2010, the rate was so unwavering that he could easily forecast the date at which the Kindle would be free: November 2011."

Craig Mod talks about how book design can adapt to a digital age.

"...when good writing is in abundance, I only want to read the very best of it. If you care about your craft, then write me a short letter—I’ll pay more for it."

"If you were to ask me what I thought I was doing in checking news sites on the internet as many as eight to 10 times per day, starting with the election in 2004, I would tell you I thought I was keeping myself safe. Especially late at night, I felt like I was on night watch for the forces that would eventually put George Bush back in power one more time. It felt like a vigil."

"The book, that fusty old technology, seems rigid and passé as we daily consume a diet of information bytes and digital images. The fault, dear reader, lies not in our books but in ourselves."

"Many of these metrics are accessibility related. It's scary that most of the highly-praised ereaders (such as Wired / New Yorker / Time magazine's apps) eliminate the inherent accessibility of digital text. Of course, this is a transition period, but why not start off on the right foot? Digital text isn't the same artifact that printed text is. Let's not treat it like it is."

Seth Godin moves on from traditional publishing.

Rands has a new book out. Sounds like a good one.

Short interview with Jeff Bezos about Amazon and their efforts for the future of publishing.

An interesting project to adapt WordPress to a book publishing platform.

One of the many reasons why we need free, publicly linkable books online. The example from Kottke.org is a illustrative as well.

Eric Rosenfield explains why Robin Sloan's brilliance in publishing models is an important model for the future.

The New Yorker looks at the details behind ebooks, the Kindle, and the iPad.

"Said before (I think), & saying again: individual devices are far less interesting than the spaces & interactions between them."

Frustrations with the current systems of tracking reading habits. I would love to have a system that allows me to track information in a non-proprietary standard.

Elliot Jay Stocks discusses why he believes the future of physical books will still be long. There is a special role for physical copies of unique books.

"If you care about the future of books, you need to understand the Google Book Settlement. It's a complicated legal document, but we've talked to some of its architects, detractors, and defenders - and break it all down for you."

"The struggles of booksellers can be explained in part by a surge in competition. More than half of book sales in America take place not in bookshops but at big retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target, which compete to peddle bestsellers at ever steeper discounts."

The traditional publishing industry is struggling and there is growing pressure to publish in electronic media, and to do it well.