Sometimes it can be fun to watch expert prognosticators go back and recount the mistakes they have made. Mike Shatzkin has a post like that, focusing on two predictions he made that, in retrospect, turned out not to be valid. Shatzkin got into e-books at about the same time and in the same way I did: reading them on his Palm Pilot back in the late 1990s. He watched the first few waves of dedicated e-readers fail miserably, and concluded that people simply wouldn’t be interested in reading on a device too large to fit in a hip pocket....

O'Reilly Media is experimenting with a new publishing model for Todd Sattersten's book "Every Book Is a Startup," releasing it now as an ebook even though it's not complete. Right now the book is $5 for the first two chapters, with all future chapters promised as free updates, and as the book grows in length the price will go up. When finished, it will also be released in print for $25. The idea, writes Joe Wilkert on his blog, is to use the agile model of software startups—"release early and release often"—both to encourage purchases and to collect useful feedback on...

From the O'Reilly site: Presented by: Mark Coker, Chad Jennings, Pete Nikolai, Bob Young Duration: Approximately 60 minutes. Cost: Free The lines between traditional and self-publishing is blurring. In fact, some traditional publishers are launching their own self-publishing imprints. We've lined up four leaders of the self-publishing world to share lessons learned and how we can all work together. The webcast features insights from Eileen Gittins (CEO of Blurb), Bob Young (CEO of Lulu), Mark Coker (Smashwords Founder) and Pete Nikolai (Director at Westbow Press, the self-publishing imprint of Thomas Nelson). You can register here....

From the press release: OverDrive announced today that booksellers, libraries, and schools in its global network will soon have access to DRM-free eBook titles from O’Reilly Media. The publisher’s entire eBook catalog will be available to OverDrive’s channel partners, including those in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and dozens of other territories worldwide. Bestselling eBooks on computer technologies available through the distribution agreement will include: “iPad 2: The Missing Manual, Second Edition,” “Head First Java, Second Edition,” and “Windows 7:Up & Running,” as well as O’Reilly’s legendary ‘animal books’ like "Learning...

Received the following email from O'Reilly and thought it would be of interest: We're starting a series of TOC webcasts that I hope you'll share with your readers. They start next week, andJoe wikert just announced them at http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/toc-webcasts-sneakpeek-tamblyn.htmlWe're calling this new TOC webcast series SneakPeeks, and they'll offer a pre-release look at some of the best publishing tools, platforms and technologies that are about to hit the market.Our first SneakPeek takes place next Tuesday, May 31st at 1PM ET / 10AM PT and features segments from the following startups: 24symbols, Valobox, Appitude, Active Reader and OnSwipe. Space is limited, so be sure to register now at http://oreillynet.com/pub/e/1935?cmp=il-radar-webcast-toc-sneak-peek-052511 to take part...

From the Digital Book World site (blockquotes omitted): This Wednesday, F+W Media will join the efforts of the international publishing community providing assistance to Japan in the wake of the tsunami. Pledging a donation through the American Red Cross, the company will donate 50% of all profits received from the sale of products and services via the company’s 23 ecommerce stores. The campaign will run for a 24-hour period, beginning at 12:01am (EST) on March 30th. “Just one month ago none of us could have envisioned the tragedy and devastation now impacting the people of Japan,”...

Technical publisher O’Reilly is having an e-book sale today to benefit Japan. All of the publisher’s books are on sale for 50% off, and O’Reilly will be donating all revenues, less author royalties, to the Japanese Red Cross Society. If you’re actually donating money directly, I’ve been told that Japan’s disaster relief now has just about all the money it needs, and it’s better to make a donation to places that can make a difference in more parts of the world, like Doctors Without Borders. But on the other hand, 50% off DRM-free O’Reilly e-books would be a great...

From O'Reilly's 2010 State of the Computer Book Market: This shows the percentage of sales on oreilly.com during 2010 for Books, Ebooks, and Video. These are big three content types with much of the same content. The ebooks are just digital versions of our print products. So the big, and more likely HUGE, news is that ebooks represent about 88% of our unit sales, and 79% of our dollar sales on oreilly.com. What is really impressive is that the growth of our digital products is moving faster than the decline of our print products. This suggests to me that we are...

Tools of Change: Workship – designing iPad apps Tools of Change: Workshop – Financial Modeling for Digital Products Tools of Change: Plenary – Context first: A unified field theory of publishing Tools of Change: Plenary – the cloud makes global local Tools of Change: Ereading survey findings and research Tools of Change: Bookselling in the 21st Century Tools of Change: Value-added apps – a conversation with top app makers Tools of Change: Publisher CTO panel – the future of ebook technology Tools of Change: Keynote – The publishing pie: an author’s view, by Margaret Atwood Tools of Change: Keynote – The Elements, how we did it and where we’re...

Jennifer Brook (The New York Times), William Couch (USA TODAY), Craig Mod (PREPOST / Flipboard) Brook: designs mobile apps for the Times. Bad things happen when past and future collide. Gadgets often stop working. Did an initial design which they liked, but realized that didn't fully understand the platform and scrapped it and started it all over again. Needed to understand how people would use the device and what they wanted. Decided that the Apple ad was right and people wanted a "lean back" reading experience. Primary challenge: how...

Monday through Wednesday is O’Reilly’s Tools of Change. I’ll be there and covering it for you. According to a press release I got today, the event is sold out and has over 1,300 registrants. That means that, from what I saw at Digital Book World which was at the same venue, the space is going to be extremely crowded. All the keynotes will be live streamed by O' Reilly and I’ll post a live stream link on Tuesday. This is something new and we’ll see if it works. Monday is devoted to workshops and I'll be covering: Designing iPad Apps: Jennifer Brook (The...

Monday through Wednesday is O'Reilly's Tools of Change. I'll be there and covering it for you. According to a press release I got today, the event is sold out and has over 1,300 registrants. That means that, from what I saw at Digital Book World, which was at the same venue, the space is going to be extremely crowded. All the keynotes will be live streamed and I'll post a live stream link on Tuesday. This is something new and we'll see if it works....