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‘You’ve read the headlines. Now, quick, read the book’
March 30, 2009 | 2:29 am
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By David Rothman
"…pockets of the publishing industry are prodding themselves out of their Paleolithic ways and joining the rush, with more books on current events coming out faster than ever before." – New York Times.
The TeleRead take: Yep, the Times mentions such e-books as Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama campaign. So when will it and the rest of the MSM understand the possibilities of linking books to newspapers and vice versa? Yet another reason for standards, as well as stable archives!
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Comments:
Book publishers have a huge opportunity to step into the void with e-books that contain the kind of timely, but in-depth reporting and analysis that the best newspapers used to print, but can no longer afford to offer (even the ones that have managed to stay in business).
Yesterday’s six-part front page investigative feature could be tomorrow’s ebook.
I sure don’t see a gaping hole waiting to be filed. I think that there are a bunch of weekly magazines out there that offer the kind of timely coverage that breaking events merit. Books – and the article includes Ann Godoff’s comment to this effect – offer a comprehensive and contextualized retrospective. Beside – I don’t see any evidence that speed to market is relevant to driving unit sales in books. Accelerating schedules of books means less time for the author to engage their fans and motivate them to become advocates. I’m no luddite – I think that digital platforms are powerful delivery mechanisms. But I think that we’re missing a big piece of the puzzle in this headlong rush to digitization and speed to market. A book is a physical manifestation of a deep metaphor – the container. The vessel of knowledge. They are powerful and permanent. They are the way people affiliate with the author and communicate to their friends about who they are. And that is why books (real ones you can hold) will remain part of our lives for a long time.