Michael Tamblyn - 6 Projects That Could Change Publishing for the Better

1. 6 projects that could change publishing for the better Michael Tamblyn, CEO BookNet Canada BookNet Canada TechForum 09 Thursday, March 19, 2009
2. *for SlideShare users click on the “Notes” tab below to see the accompanying speakers notes for each slide Thursday, March 19, 2009
3. *Don’t want to click through 262 slides? go to: booknetcanada.blip.tv for the BNC Tech Forum video Thursday, March 19, 2009
4. Thursday, March 19, 2009
6. US Department of Labor Thursday, March 19, 2009
7. US Department of Labor Thursday, March 19, 2009
8. Commodore 64 Lotus 1-2-3 Macintosh Apple founded Whole Internet User’s Guide & Catalog Linux released First mouse-based computer, Xerox PARC HTML invented iPod launches US Department of Labor Thursday, March 19, 2009
9. J.Crew founded Costco founded Waterstone’s Target founded Wal-Mart founded Len Riggio buys B&N Starbucks founded Thursday, March 19, 2009
11. new beginnings Thursday, March 19, 2009
12. development is cheaper Thursday, March 19, 2009
13. infrastructure is cheaper Thursday, March 19, 2009
14. Deals! Deals! Deals! Thursday, March 19, 2009
15. Competition is busy Thursday, March 19, 2009
16. digital music Internet business software & ﬁnance personal computers retail Thursday, March 19, 2009
17. what do you want your revolution to be? Thursday, March 19, 2009
18. 6 things Thursday, March 19, 2009
19. big Thursday, March 19, 2009
20. little Thursday, March 19, 2009
21. do-able Thursday, March 19, 2009
22. right now. Thursday, March 19, 2009
23. <1> Thursday, March 19, 2009
24. bibliographic data in The Cloud Thursday, March 19, 2009
25. covers onix quot;9780005991282quot;,quot; quot;,quot;Z quot;,quot;51.95 quot;,quot;SHquot;,quot; quot;,quot;19881101quot;,quot; quot;,quot;1 quot; quot;9780005992760quot;,quot; quot;,quot;Z quot;,quot;51.95 quot;,quot;SHquot;,quot; quot;,quot;20010108quot;,quot; quot;,quot;1 quot; quot;9780005993200quot;,quot; quot;,quot;Z quot;,quot;36.95 quot;,quot;SHquot;,quot; quot;,quot;20001103quot;,quot; quot;,quot;1 quot; price/availability ﬁles quot;9780029776308quot;,quot; quot;,quot;Z quot;,quot;47.95 quot;,quot;SHquot;,quot; quot;,quot;19760101quot;,quot; quot;,quot;1 quot; quot;9780060662349quot;,quot; quot;,quot;Z quot;,quot;87.00 quot;,quot;SHquot;,quot; quot;,quot;20010125quot;,quot; quot;,quot;1 quot; quot;9780060664695quot;,quot; quot;,quot;Z quot;,quot;49.95 quot;,quot;SHquot;,quot; quot;,quot;20010115quot;,quot; quot;,quot;1 quot; quot;9780060688233quot;,quot; quot;,quot;Z quot;,quot;32.95 quot;,quot;SHquot;,quot; quot;,quot;20001114quot;,quot; quot;,quot;1 quot; Thursday, March 19, 2009
26. hard to get Thursday, March 19, 2009
31. It should be easy... Thursday, March 19, 2009
32. to ﬁnd Thursday, March 19, 2009
33. to use Thursday, March 19, 2009
34. to experiment with Thursday, March 19, 2009
35. to play with Thursday, March 19, 2009
43. No more cut-and-paste. Thursday, March 19, 2009
44. web service Thursday, March 19, 2009
45. a cover a full bibliographic record up-to-date pricing availability Thursday, March 19, 2009
46. corrections Thursday, March 19, 2009
47. dirt cheap* *free for bloggers, hobbyists, experimenters (depending on size & volume) Thursday, March 19, 2009
48. Let’s make it easy to talk about books online. Thursday, March 19, 2009
49. biblioshare.org Thursday, March 19, 2009
50. collecting publisher ONIX, covers, price/ availability ﬁles starting now Thursday, March 19, 2009
51. BNC SalesData, Prospector Thursday, March 19, 2009
52. libraries library wholesalers Thursday, March 19, 2009
53. biblioshare@booknetcanada.ca www.biblioshare.org Thursday, March 19, 2009
54. </> Thursday, March 19, 2009
56. an XML publishing workﬂow that doesn’t suck Thursday, March 19, 2009
57. an XML workﬂow that won’t kill editors Thursday, March 19, 2009
58. an XML workﬂow that won’t kill production managers Thursday, March 19, 2009
59. XML beneﬁts Thursday, March 19, 2009
60. reusability Thursday, March 19, 2009
61. segmenting Thursday, March 19, 2009
62. format conversion (ePub, etc.) Thursday, March 19, 2009
63. portability Thursday, March 19, 2009
64. content: <recipe> <brownies> <hotelReview> <venice> structure: <chapter> <sub-head> <callout> <footnote> Thursday, March 19, 2009
65. Production Author Editor Designer Manager structure <chapter> <heading> <footnote> Thursday, March 19, 2009
66. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure <hotelReview> <chapter> <Venice> <heading> <footnote> Thursday, March 19, 2009
67. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure Word Thursday, March 19, 2009
68. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure Word Word Thursday, March 19, 2009
69. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure red Word Word Thursday, March 19, 2009
70. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure red Word Word Thursday, March 19, 2009
71. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure red Word Word Quark/ Adobe Thursday, March 19, 2009
72. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure DocBook XML red Word Word Quark/ Adobe PDF 3B2 Thursday, March 19, 2009
73. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure DocBook XML red Word Word Quark/ Adobe PDF 3B2 Galleys Books ePub etc. Thursday, March 19, 2009
74. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure DocBook XML red Word Word Quark/ Adobe PDF <hotelReview> 3B2 <Venice> Galleys Books ePub etc. Thursday, March 19, 2009
75. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure XSL oXygen XML editor XSLT Stylesheet ePub .Mobi ﬁles XSL-FO Web PDFs Print PDFs HTML Thursday, March 19, 2009
76. Production Author Editor Designer Manager content structure XSL oXygen XML editor XSLT Stylesheet ePub .Mobi ﬁles XSL-FO Web PDFs Print PDFs “The Spartan” HTML Thursday, March 19, 2009
77. it will kill almost anyone Thursday, March 19, 2009
79. Author Editor Designer Compositor content structure Word + styles XML Stylesheet custom custom converter converter ePub “The Wiley” WileyML Web PDFs Print PDFs Thursday, March 19, 2009
80. StartWithXML Thursday, March 19, 2009
81. XML - it can be easier Thursday, March 19, 2009
82. Editor-friendly XML Thursday, March 19, 2009
83. less torturous production workﬂows Thursday, March 19, 2009
84. </> Thursday, March 19, 2009
86. a DRM-free* eReader Thursday, March 19, 2009
87. the state of things: Thursday, March 19, 2009
97. DRM Thursday, March 19, 2009
98. Date Repulsion Mode Thursday, March 19, 2009
100. Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
101. Trek Jewelry Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
102. Bluetooth Headsets Trek Jewelry Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
103. Speak & Spell Bluetooth Headsets Trek Jewelry Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
104. Speak & Spell Readers Bluetooth Headsets Trek Jewelry Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
105. Zune Speak & Spell Bluetooth Headsets Trek Jewelry Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
106. iPods & iPhones Zune Speak & Spell Bluetooth Headsets Trek Jewelry Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
107. Cool books iPods & iPhones Zune Speak & Spell Bluetooth Headsets Trek Jewelry Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
108. Labrador Puppies Cool books iPods & iPhones Zune Speak & Spell Bluetooth Headsets Trek Jewelry Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
109. Labrador Puppies Cool books iPods & iPhones Zune Speak & Spell Bluetooth Headsets Trek Jewelry Renaissance Faire Costumes Thursday, March 19, 2009
119. </> Thursday, March 19, 2009
120. <4> Thursday, March 19, 2009
121. a better front-list buy Thursday, March 19, 2009
122. toughest job in books Thursday, March 19, 2009
123. predicting new title sales Thursday, March 19, 2009
124. how many people want it? Thursday, March 19, 2009
125. books that sold 50+ Thursday, March 19, 2009
126. green = books that sold 500+ Thursday, March 19, 2009
127. green = 1,000+ Thursday, March 19, 2009
130. 25,000+ Thursday, March 19, 2009
131. 50,000+ Thursday, March 19, 2009
132. 100,000+ Thursday, March 19, 2009
133. 99.5% Thursday, March 19, 2009
134. the sales rep Thursday, March 19, 2009
135. their own experience Thursday, March 19, 2009
136. their own historical sales* Thursday, March 19, 2009
137. and the catalogue Thursday, March 19, 2009
138. the catalog Thursday, March 19, 2009
139. a lot of them Thursday, March 19, 2009
140. the talisman Thursday, March 19, 2009
141. shipped across the country Thursday, March 19, 2009
142. immediately out of date Thursday, March 19, 2009
143. half doesn’t get read Thursday, March 19, 2009
144. “Let’s skip that - it’s not for you” Thursday, March 19, 2009
145. used once Thursday, March 19, 2009
146. thrown away Thursday, March 19, 2009
147. Could put them online. Thursday, March 19, 2009
148. consolidate Thursday, March 19, 2009
149. Catalogues could do a lot more. Thursday, March 19, 2009
151. Catalogues could do a lot more. Thursday, March 19, 2009
152. io e is b a r p n io t ip r s c s d e e v. d e r g p in t e k r a m Thursday, March 19, 2009
153. Alligator - September 15, 2005 hardcover $29.95 978-0887841958 Thursday, March 19, 2009
157. Notes to buyer From: Matt To: Chuck Erion Chuck -- we would love for Lisa to do another reading in Waterloo. The last one turned out really well. June 18th? From: Chuck Erion To: Matt Great, but the Anansi rep has to cover his own bar tab this time ;-) send Thursday, March 19, 2009
158. More author proﬁles Two faces of the Rock Lisa Moore and Michael Crummey showcase different visions of their shared corner of the world by Alison Dyer We’re sitting in Lisa’s yellow and pink kitchen at the back of her old St. John’s townhouse, which shoulders up to its neighbours on a steep hill. She shakes blond curls from her face and with a wide, open smile offers me a tea. Michael is already sitting at the table, back propped against the wall. Sloping eyebrows and soft eyes like he’s absorbed some tenderness, some ache of the landscape. Michael Crummey and Lisa Moore are undoubtedly two of the hottest writers on the Rock, and both have much-anticipated new novels coming out this fall: Moore’s first, Alligator (House of Anansi Press), in September, more Thursday, March 19, 2009
159. Sample chapter Chapter One Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer eget urna. Quisque rhoncus condimentum risus. Sed eu velit ac enim lacinia dapibus. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed pharetra convallis tortor. Aenean sodales tortor ut mi. Fusce quis purus. Pellentesque malesuada porttitor risus. Pellentesque arcu. Nullam rhoncus enim vitae lacus. Mauris aliquet elit a est. Aenean a leo non diam eleifend congue. Mauris purus elit, vehicula non, interdum ut, pulvinar non, nisl. Etiam sed libero. Etiam tincidunt enim at justo. Vivamus vitae erat sit amet quam iaculis iaculis. Cras bibendum nunc hendrerit libero blandit faucibus. Nulla libero lectus, lacinia quis, dapibus vitae, varius sit amet, quam. Curabitur vestibulum sem et est. Nunc sit amet sapien in eros vestibulum commodo. Etiam porta ante quis lacus. Pellentesque purus augue, gravida ac, mollis vel, rhoncus sed, elit. Fusce congue pulvinar massa. Donec facilisis, mauris id ultricies euismod, nunc mi dictum ante, sed euismod ligula eros quis lacus. In imperdiet pharetra tortor. Morbi vitae lectus. Sed dignissim, magna eu commodo fermentum, enim risus cursus ante, sit amet ultricies est tellus in nulla. Suspendisse potenti. Vestibulum metus mi, aliquet eget, molestie id, tincidunt vitae, diam. Nulla purus nulla, feugiat sit amet, venenatis sed, rutrum sit amet, erat. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Maecenas augue sem, accumsan non, sagittis at, elementum sed, odio. Nulla ligula metus, fermentum commodo, mattis eget, tempor nec, massa. Donec mollis. Nullam sapien libero, suscipit ac, semper sed, tincidunt id, arcu. Nulla facilisi. Mauris metus. Cras pharetra interdum eros. Maecenas vel est ut erat congue iaculis. Phasellus id odio nec enim vulputate hendrerit. Integer id elit vitae tellus dignissim faucibus. Morbi risus. Vestibulum condimentum nunc quis nisi. Nullam interdum. Suspendisse id velit. Sed nec diam ac lectus venenatis blandit. Donec eget augue nec neque sodales tristique. Etiam nunc nisi, hendrerit at, tempus vel, dapibus quis, elit. Proin vitae erat id quam vulputate suscipit. Cras sit amet orci. Vestibulum justo ante, lobortis et, elementum condimentum, pellentesque quis, erat. Phasellus sagittis. Aliquam nisl leo, vehicula a, mattis id, porttitor nec, urna. Fusce nulla massa, porttitor eget, cursus et, vulputate in, ante. Nulla vel diam. Praesent sit amet nunc vel dui ultricies tincidunt. Quisque tellus leo, elementum ut, tincidunt sed, fermentum ut, nibh. Integer vehicula. Maecenas pretium, lectus ac pulvinar consequat, eros lacus fermentum elit, a rhoncus metus ipsum id dui. Quisque nisi lectus, accumsan vel, dictum viverra, eleifend at, lectus. Cras venenatis nunc vel nulla. Aliquam dapibus semper lacus. Curabitur id sapien. Nullam at lacus eu tortor tempor scelerisque. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Morbi vulputate consequat dui. Aenean non dui. Phasellus placerat, nisl a pulvinar congue, elit justo posuere sem, eget eleifend leo erat sit amet dui. Aenean et nisl. Etiam orci. Etiam scelerisque. Duis enim. Quisque id tellus. Vestibulum erat metus, tempus quis, lacinia sed, pretium in, nisi. Mauris porttitor rutrum Thursday, March 19, 2009
160. full-colour blads for children’s books Thursday, March 19, 2009
161. custom-assembled Thursday, March 19, 2009
162. enriched with historical sales data Thursday, March 19, 2009
163. everything a buyer needs for an informed decision Thursday, March 19, 2009
165. BNC SalesData Thursday, March 19, 2009
166. biblioshare Thursday, March 19, 2009
167. returns research Thursday, March 19, 2009
168. Collaborative Commerce Thursday, March 19, 2009
169. Catalogue 2.0 Thursday, March 19, 2009
170. supporting front-list buying Thursday, March 19, 2009
171. backlist opportunities & optimization Thursday, March 19, 2009
172. </> Thursday, March 19, 2009
173. <5> Thursday, March 19, 2009
174. online browsing that makes you want to buy Thursday, March 19, 2009
175. 1995 Thursday, March 19, 2009
181. search online Thursday, March 19, 2009
182. browse in stores Thursday, March 19, 2009
183. be random Thursday, March 19, 2009
184. wander Thursday, March 19, 2009
185. happy accidents Thursday, March 19, 2009
186. Why is browsing so hard online? Thursday, March 19, 2009
195. some people have tried to crack this Thursday, March 19, 2009
203. these are all wicked. Thursday, March 19, 2009
204. none of them make me want to buy. Thursday, March 19, 2009
205. AWS Thursday, March 19, 2009
206. AJAX Thursday, March 19, 2009
207. dynamic image & data management Thursday, March 19, 2009
208. technical exercises Thursday, March 19, 2009
209. curation Thursday, March 19, 2009
211. less Thursday, March 19, 2009
212. (or maybe it’s just me) Thursday, March 19, 2009
213. </> Thursday, March 19, 2009
214. <6> Thursday, March 19, 2009
215. tech innovation culture in publishing Thursday, March 19, 2009
216. plateau industry Thursday, March 19, 2009
217. rules Thursday, March 19, 2009
218. roles Thursday, March 19, 2009
219. specialization Thursday, March 19, 2009
220. How easy is it to leave your industry and join another one? Thursday, March 19, 2009
221. Lots of beneﬁts Thursday, March 19, 2009
222. skill Thursday, March 19, 2009
223. eﬃciency Thursday, March 19, 2009
224. optimization Thursday, March 19, 2009
225. institutional memory Thursday, March 19, 2009
226. change gets harder Thursday, March 19, 2009
227. Am I going to get left out in the cold? Thursday, March 19, 2009
228. Am I going to keep up? Thursday, March 19, 2009
229. Am I going to lose inﬂuence? Thursday, March 19, 2009
230. Am I going to lose staﬀ? Thursday, March 19, 2009
231. Am I going to lose my job to that 24-year old with the lean and hungry look? Thursday, March 19, 2009
232. Makes people resistant to change Thursday, March 19, 2009
234. Is this you? Thursday, March 19, 2009
235. Test: Keep a tally of... Thursday, March 19, 2009
236. “We can’t do that and here’s why...” Thursday, March 19, 2009
237. “I wonder how we could do that?” Thursday, March 19, 2009
238. innovation and technology Thursday, March 19, 2009
239. technology = operations Thursday, March 19, 2009
240. “creative technologists” Thursday, March 19, 2009
241. build new things Thursday, March 19, 2009
242. tool user Thursday, March 19, 2009
243. tool maker Thursday, March 19, 2009
244. “We’re really excited about your new online browsing idea. All we need is... Thursday, March 19, 2009
245. “full speciﬁcations... Thursday, March 19, 2009
246. “use cases... Thursday, March 19, 2009
247. “fully developed test plan... Thursday, March 19, 2009
248. “a load testing model... Thursday, March 19, 2009
249. “and the cover sheet for your TPS report.” Thursday, March 19, 2009
250. “And if it isn’t successful...” Thursday, March 19, 2009
251. “...you’re ﬁred.” Thursday, March 19, 2009
252. “Now go crazy.” Thursday, March 19, 2009
253. startup culture Thursday, March 19, 2009
254. (beta) Thursday, March 19, 2009
255. encourage experimentation Thursday, March 19, 2009
256. let generalists in Thursday, March 19, 2009
257. place lots of little bets quickly Thursday, March 19, 2009
258. little failures = learning Thursday, March 19, 2009
259. when you get a winner, double down Thursday, March 19, 2009
260. BookNet Canada ♥ BookCampTO Thursday, March 19, 2009
261. what do you want your revolution to be? Thursday, March 19, 2009
262. </presentation> Thursday, March 19, 2009
263. Us: www.booknetcanada.ca Twitter: @BookNet_Canada Get on the email list! Me: mtamblyn@booknetcanada.ca Twitter: @mtamblyn Thursday, March 19, 2009

Notes de l'éditeur

--
It’ll be almost like you’re right there in the room.
It’ll be *exactly* like you’re right there in the room.
times are tough right now. And that creates fear. And fear can lead to paralysis. So rather than hunker down, I thought i’d talk about 6 projects that might change publishing and reading and book selling for the better.
Here is 1960 to 2008
and here is almost 50 years of unemployment data
And in pink is every technical recession we’ve had since 1960.

But here -- and this is the hopeful part
The first mouse-driven computer was designed at Xerox PARC in 1974.
Apple was founded in April of1976
The Commodore 64, still the best selling computer of all time, was launched in 1982, at the same time Lotus 1-2-3 came on the market and revolutionized the business world.
The Macintosh launched just at the end of the recession in 1984,
HTML was invented in 1990, Linux released in 1991
O’Reilly came out with the first book on the Internet at peak unemployment in 1992
and Apple launched the iPod in 2001, 1 month after September 11th.

And that’s just technology -- let’s look at retail...
Target in ‘61
Wal-Mart in ‘62
In 1971, Len Riggio buys Barnes & Noble while 3 guys in Seattle were starting up a little coffee shop.
Waterstones is founded in 1982
Costco introduced wholesale shopping in 83 at the same time J.Crew revolutionizes catalog shopping

Now this is a perfect example of survivor bias -- I haven’t shown you all of the companies that failed during those times, or the ones that were founded at other times.
All I’m trying to show is that interesting stuff can happen in tough times, especially for people that are willing to rethink what their customers want. Notice that just about all of these examples are about a radical rethink of what consumers are interested in.
People are looking for new beginnings
--
--
there are deals to be had -- with partners, companies, vendors
they’ve got other things to worry about
so with that in mind, what is this talk about? Well, if you’re willing to believe that revolutionary things can come out of difficult times, the question really is....
And that got me thinking: what would be some things that you might look back on, 10, 20, 30 years from now and say, that was when it really started to change.

So I gave it some thought, asked some people who were smarter than me, some people who had been in the business longer than me. I came up with (# -- 6 things
6 things that, if someone paid some attention to, dedicated some resources to, might shake things up. Some are
big, industry wide changes that would require a shift in the culture of the book industry, but some are
small, 2 people in a garage kinds of changes.
all are doable. And because there’s nothing worse than having some speaker go on and on about what you should be doing and how you should innovate, we’re going to walk the talk, ‘cause some of these we’re working on...
--
publishers have data everywhere...
and a whole lot else besides. And that data has all kinds of great stuff in it -- author bios and book descriptions, up-to-date prices and jacket copy. Publishers are making great efforts to create it, keep it up to date, make it standards compliant, and yet, for all that, it is (# -- shockingly hard to get)
--
Not if you’re Amazon
Indigo
Bowker
or Baker & Taylor, All of whom have a lot of resources and infrastructure to collecting data. But then, it tends to stay difficult to get at, or expensive to get at, or has strings attached.
--
--
--
--
--
If you’re a blogger
or media
or a library
or a bookstore
or an aggregator
or a community site
or even a publisher’s site.
--
You should be able to call a web service and get back
--
You should be able to send back corrections, associate other data with it.
--
And we feel so strongly about this, that access to bibliographic data is one of those things that is important to push innovation for books online...
That we’re going to see if we can do something about it.
Response has been tremendous and we want more!
We’ll use it in our own services...
we’re working with libraries and library wholesalers, who want more efficient access to Canadian publisher data.
Publisher support so far has been great. The data is starting to pour in.
It’s going to take some time to get going, but we think this could be a tremendous resource for the industry.
And we want to hear from you -- what would you do with it?
-
-
-
-
-
There has been a lot of talk, understandably, about the benefits of XML...
-
-
-
Now, from the perfect XML workflow, we want 2 things:

We want content: is this a recipe? Is it a short story? Is it a hotel review? Is it about Venice?
We also want structure? When do chapters begin and end, is this text a footnote.
The Production side is all over (#) structure. But they aren’t going to be making calls on what the content is about.
The author and the editor are all about content, but how do they share what they know?
Typically, a publishing house looks something like this:
The author’s working in Word
The editor says they’re working in Word...
but is really working in pen
but you want them to work in Word.
When it’s all done, the designer is working in Indesign or Quark.
Production Manager is creating PDFs, maybe some DocBook, or going to a 3B2 compositing system.
And from there come galleys, books, ePub files and everything else.
And that’s kinda the way things are at a lot of publishing houses right now.
So how do you get that XML goodness in?
So you could do the O’Reilly approach, which doesn’t cost much and is pretty lean and clean.

Editors working right in XML,
Designers work on XSL stylesheets
Production takes XML through an Extensible Stylesheet Transform into
ePub
XSL-FO, which can format XML for PDF
or HTML for the web.
I call it The Spartan.
It’s rigorous, it’s pure and strong and uncompromising. It can adapt to any situation. It’s minimal.
And...
--
Because if you show this to most editors... they’re going to start drinking at their desks. (And that’s a problem at the best of times.)
You can try the approach Wiley has been taking, where they use
MS Word with custom styles, then convert to XML during compositing. But they’ve written a lot of custom software and conversion tools to make that work.
Google “StartWithXML” and check out the O’Reilly site. it’ll show you how a number of different publishers have tackled the problem. But all of them have either a big startup cost or a huge culture change or both.
It can be easier. Maybe it’s working with
--
The person who takes that on and really cracks the code, is not only going to be a hero, but will probably make out like a bandit.
--
--
what do I mean by DRM-free? let me explain...
--
First there was the iRex illiad...
And then the Sony Reader PRS-500
then the Kindle, with free newspaper...
Then the Sony PRS-505, now with disembodied hands
Then the PRS-700. 100% fewer disembodied hands, but grippy ridges
Then Amazon comes back with the Kindle 2 -- one disembodied hand, better manicure and a scary robotic voice!
And finally, the PlasticLogic Reader.
Which is like Jesus -- it is perfect and will save the world, but only 12 people have seen it working and no one knows when it is going to arrive.
And you could look at these and say -- look, they’re getting better all the time. It’s only a matter of time before we have the perfect reading device. But of course, they all have a problem.
I’m going to let Cory Doctorow and those guys deal with the pros-and-cons of Digital Rights Management. The DRM I’m worried about is...
Date Repulsion Mode
You know what I’m talking about -- it is a carefully guarded secret at Amazon headquarters that no one holding a Kindle at a Starbucks has ever been asked for their phone number.
There is a reason they use the disembodied hand.
Now DRM, like all things, is relative. In fact, there is a scale.
At the bottom, we have Renaissance Faire costumes
Homemade Star Trek Jewelry
And then somewhere between Bluetooth Headsets...
and the Speak&Spell
we have the Readers
followed by the Zune
iPods & iPhones
Books that make us look smart
and Labrador puppies.
So that’s the DRM* continuum.

Michael Serbinis (Shortcovers) and Neelan Choksi (Lexcycle/Stanza) are sitting back there saying “excellent -- I backed the right horse”. But don’t be so sure. After all -- who are you going to walk up to
him?
or him?
her?
or her?
These two are obviously busy.
These two you could definitely be talking to.
Because we know reading is sexy.
As far as I have been able to tell, there are no buttons that say: “mobile electronics are sexy”, but that’s the challenge -- make a device that makes us look look smarter and more attractive than we really are, just like books do.
Michael Serbinis and Neelan Choski are now thinking -- “how do I get eBooks onto Labrador puppies?”
And I have no idea what it should look like. I’m not an industrial designer. But that’s the challenge. If we can make pink digital cameras and 3 pieces of fake vintage luggage for $199, and if we can reimagine the watch and the kitchen knife, we can do this.
--
--
--
--
because it isn’t about whether a book is good, or worthy. It’s about
And if there is one thing we know about people, it’s that they’re bizarre and unpredictable.
Let me try to give a sense of how hard this is.
Last year, there were about 90,000 new titles ordered, stocked or sold in the Canadian supply chain.
Here are the top 30000 of those 90,000. This pretty much represents every book that sold more than 50 copies. The other 60,000 sold less than 50, or had been ordered but not stocked or stocked but not sold or special ordered and so on.
The green ones have sold 500+
1000+
5000+
10,000
25,000 -- again, just the green ones
50,000
Books that sold over 100,000 copies are dark green dots.

Welcome to the Canadian book market. Now if we were in a purely digital world, this wouldn’t matter -- you’d have all the files ready and people could buy what they want.
But since 99.5% of books sales are still paper books, that means there are decisions to make. How much stock, how much store space, does it go on the front page of the website.
And to sift those 90,000 titles down to real buying decisions the buyer has to rely on...
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* Maybe. If they have the time to dig it up. And if they bought the right amount last time and didn’t hurt their own sales.
or, as they say in America,
the “catalog”. As I’ve been thinking about the challenges of the front-list buy, I’ve been very interested in catalogues lately.
First off, there are a lot of them. Thousands of catalogues, tens of thousands of copies.
Inside publishing houses, catalogs are the talisman. They are obsessed over, great care is given to their design. They are obsessively proof-read. And as soon as they are completed...
They are shipped across the country at great expense.
As soon as it hits the printer it’s out of date. prices are changing, marketing plans are changing, titles are dropping out or dropping in.
half of each catalog doesn’t get read. If you’ve ever bought from catalogues, you know that the back half is all backlist you already know about.

and in fact, a good sales reps job is to go through the catalog with you and say...
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That makes sense. Most publishers have downloadable catalogues.
But buyers are driven crazy by going through a thousand different PDFs from a hundred different publishers.
So we could consolidate them -- have publishers presenting catalogues through a single service. That’s a good start, but...
Let’s look at one to see what I’m talking about.
Now first, let me say that House of Anansi Press had no foreknowledge that I was going to showcase their catalog. So first let me say, it looks fabulous.
Second, if there are retailers in the house, you should buy a boatload of this, because it’s going to be a fantastic book. But only as big a boatload as you need, because Sarah does not like returns. So trust that I will treat this with gentle care.
So we’re looking at Lisa Moore’s much anticipated new novel, February. (Coming out in June)
So back to Lisa Moore. there is some great stuff here.
Got a cover
Description
A bio and photo of the author
Previous editions of her critically acclaimed work
voluminous praise
marketing plans
But what else could it do?
What if clicking on a previous title (or a related title or a comp title) brought up the sales history for that title.
And more specifically, the sales history for the retailer where the catalog was being viewed.
And showed their stock position and turn.
And looked at their performance vs. the market as a whole. Was this a title they over-bought, underbought? Did the rest of the market go crazy for this book and they missed out?
A catalog could also enable the conversation between a buyer and a seller and capture the planning that goes into getting the buy solidified.
You should be able to pull up media mentions, press clippings, blog links, RSS searches...
First chapters, full ARCs...
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Only the books that are right for each account, in the order you think they would want to see them.
enriched with historical sales data on previous editions, previous books by the same author, comp titles, marketing calendars.
everything a buyer needs to get the right number of books for their store.
We know that this challenge isn’t going away and it’s only going to get tougher. So let’s look at a front-list buying process that gives every book the best possible shot at it’s little green dot.

And this is another one where we’re going to roll up our sleeves. Starting this year, we’re working on a new set of projects that combine
the sales and inventory data we have through BNC SalesData
the rich bibliographic data we’re collecting through biblioshare
the research that we’ve done on returns
that we’re calling Collaborative Commerce.
Where we’ll be looking at publisher needs around Catalog 2.0
and other ways we can support the front-list buying process
We’re also piloting some very interesting analysis techniques related to backlist. We’re helping publishers and retailers identify titles that are performing well just under the radar.
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For all of the advances in online bookselling, I find it fascinating that the online shopping paradigm for books hasn’t really changed since 1995.
Since then, it’s been: home page
subject page
list page
single book page. And with a few tweaks here and there, that’s pretty much the way it’s been for the last 13 or 14 years. Innovation has pretty much been confined to putting more stuff on this page,
or new ways to make lists of books. And this is obviously very effective, or these guys wouldn’t be doing it. But I think like a lot of people I tend to...
I go with a title in mind -- something I’ve read about or heard about -- run some searches and find it. So I search online, but
but I browse in stores. In a store I can
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both visually and mentally
because bookstores are all about happy accidents.
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We’re clearly pretty visual when it comes to books.
And it’s not just that we keep creating more and more beautiful spaces (#)
so that we can walk around and have our happy accidents, but also because the books themselves
are a profoundly
visual
and often such an achingly beautiful
medium where a huge amount of attention gets paid to
what the book looks like.
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so there are sites like zoomii,
that will let me zoom around
an infinite collection of book covers
or sites like coverpop
or oSkope
or amaztype from japan, where I can type in the word “Canada”
and get a pile of books about Canada arranged in the shape of the word Canada.
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at the end of the day, they’re more about
the developer’s skill at manipulating Amazon Web Services
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It could be that the difference comes down to
curation. Maybe it isn’t about having
everything. Maybe it’s about
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This one is dear to my heart. When you hear people talk about it, publishing is the quintessential
plateau industry, in the sense that the
rules that people play by
and the roles that they have are pretty fixed.
Roles in plateau industries tend towards a high degree of specialization. How can you tell if you’re in a plateau industry?
This isn’t automatically a negative. There are lots of benefits. Specialization brings
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institutional memory. But the downside is that
Because when change comes, specialization brings resistance.
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When you’re in meetings and someone asks about trying something new, how often do you hear
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Or even, I’m not sure if we could do all of that, but could we do 80% or half?
In publishing, the big challenge is around
Specialization means that IT people tend to get shoved in the back office to work on the SAP system, or to configure the warehouse management system, or keep the servers running.
For most publishers today, technology = operations. And yet, with the explosion of the web, there has never been a greater need for publishers (and retailers too!) to bring in
People who can think across technology, a love of books, an understanding of the reader and what she wants, online culture and
It’s about getting past the first stage of...
being a tool user -- facebook, twitter, blogs and so on
and becoming a
tool maker -- making things that other people don’t have. To do this, you need to change a couple of things. When traditional companies bring creative technology people in, they tend to break them on the wheel.
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So glad you’re working on the project.
so to bring creative technology in, companies have to embrace a bit of
startup culture inside their organizations.
When was the last time you saw this on a publisher’s website?
startup culture inside their organizations.
look for people that can do a little of a lot -- hack some PHP, configure a database sure, but look for the other stuff too. At BookNet we have retailers and publishers, but we also have writers and librarians, cooks and composers, software developers who can do propane repair, one theatre technician, one philosopher.
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And again, this is something we believe in. It’s a part of how we do things, but we also want to help other people bring technology and innovation into their companies. One of the ways we’re doing this is that this year we’re the exclusive sponsor of
BookCampTO. We’re taking the money that we would have used for a booth at BookExpo and underwriting all of the expenses for BookCamp so that people can come together and figure out
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Michael Tamblyn - 6 Projects That Could Change Publishing for the Better

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