Liza Daly, ThreePress Consulting, discussed problems often found with current ebook production. Typical problems with current ebooks: plain text cover as opposed to photo; often have to step through blank pages, irrelevant copyright info, wrong ISBNs, table of contents with chapter numbers that are irrelevant content and readers hate this (if use samples then up to half of sample is often irrelevant pages), misspellings, bad line breaks (in some cases the pirated version is actually better than the professionally better one)....

Angela Bole, Book Industry Study Group; Kelly Gallagher, Bowker. First presentation of data from a major industry survey ofebook consumers. 95% confidence level Demographics: male 51%, female 49%; income over 75K 37%, 35K to 75K, 38%, under 35K, 25%; 23% RURAL, 24% URBAN, 43% suburban Whey e instead of P?: in order 1. affordability, 2. easy to download, 3. readability, 4. instant access, 5. portability 34% decreased their purchase of hardcover books What extras would you pay for: in order 1. connect with other readers, 2. color photos graphics, 3. give/lend 4. wireless access 19% now purchase ebooks exclusively and 25% now purchase...

Richard Nash, Cursor; Eoin Purcell, Green Lamp Media; Chris Morrow, Northshire Books; Angela James, Carina Press discussed this at Digital Book World. Notes: Northshire Books: physical bookstores still exist. Print on demand at the retail level. Installed an Espresso 2 years ago (similar machine in photo). Print 3 categories: self published, public domain, copyrighted books. With state of software, have been doing self published books and they make up 2% of his sales. Partnered with Google to download and print. For copyrighted books software is now available to get book where publishers make content available....

How to optimize ebooks so they look spiffy and are as fun and easy to use as possible? Is E Ink really the ultimate? Are today’s e-readers good enough? Chewing this over at Digital Book World were Josh Koppel of ScrollMotion (product in photo), Andrew Malkin of Zinio, Brad Inman of  Vook, Maja Thomas of the Hachette Book Group, Eric Freese of Aptara and Laura Dawson of LJNDawson, the moderator. Some notes on the various panelists: ScrollMotion: Joseh Koppel founded the company because he was disappointed that a digital book was defined as just high...

Dedicated e-book readers won't be the easiest sell if you go by Verso's 2009 Survey of Book Buying Behavior---presented at DigitalBookWorld.  On the positive, the overwhelming majority of owners say they do not pirate e-books. Participating were 5,640 respondents, 48% male and 51% female. Here are Verso's questions and findings, with a 1.6% margin of error and a 95% confidence level. Are you likely to buy an e-reader (survey conducted in November/December of last year): 49% not at all likely; 23% not sure. In the 65+ year old category over 60 % say not at all likely....

 --Janet Evanovich can get a CD of all of her books on eBay for $11. --Sherrilyn Kenyon shows 29 hits on VUZE. --All five of top fiction and non-fiction books available as pirated editions. Some of the hits have all of her books. --28% of e-reader owners have used file sharing sites to download free e-books, according to a Verso study. Piracy is the most important issue facing digital publishers, says Brian Napack, Macmillan president, and he cited the above examples at Digital Book World. Agree or disagree? Speak up in our comments area....

The biggest opportunities are in smartphones and netbooks and notebooks, not dedicated e-readers with E Ink, says Amanda Edmonds, Google’s director of strategic partnerships. Her points at DigitalBookWorld: Google wants a model that simplifies life for consumers and publishers. Consumers will be searching for a lot of backlist books. Google Editions wants to monetize book searching and buying. Can purchase print and digital editions. Search traffic from smartphones increasing faster than search rate for PCs. Has ability to share notes; 39% of people who access cloud computing say that they do so...

Editor's Note: these posts are my notes taken during the presentation, so they will not be of great literary quality. PB How to take brands into digital world. Social media is exploding in last 5 years. Publishers have to reinvent themselves to survive. 5 ideas to think about how to change: 1. Build consumer brands. Public needs to identify with publisher and not just author and retailer. Branding today is much different than traditional branding methods. B to B companies are fading away and need to become business to consumer companies. Authors are now connecting with customers and authors...

I'm at Digital Book World in New York. The program begins at 8:30 EST and WiFi seems to work, so I'll probably be able to post during the day. Here's a shot of the main venue....

I'll be at DBW on Tuesday and Wednesday covering the program for TeleRead. Given the vagaries of free time and WiFi, it may be that regular news postings will be a bit thin for those two days. Normal news should resume on Thursday. Meanwhile the conference looks quite exciting with a lot of targeted presentations that should be of interest to all our readers. Technorati Tags: Paul Biba, Digital Book World ...

Edited and combined, here are two news releases from Digital Book World. – D.R. Marketing costs are rising. Sales channels are shrinking. Google is looming. And now, politicians are entering the debate about book pricing. Are publishers ready for the future?  And how about independent booksellers? Digital Book World---with speakers from such companies as Razorfish, HarperCollins, Hachette, Random House, and even Google itself---will discuss new business models and other strategies that publishers and others can use to survive the book world’s transition to digital. The conference will take place January 26-27, 2010, in New York City....