The Future

Comparing the rise of eBooks to the early days of television, Thebookdesigner.com has a piece up this week called The E-Book in 2020: What’s On Your Wishlist?.

Comparing the ePub format to a black and white TV with rabbit ears, the piece asks readers what they hope to see in eBooks a decade from now. The author of the piece Joel Friedlander imagines “the ability to merge texts from different ‘publishers’ to create your own mashup” and “beautiful typography.” While we have come a long way from Radio Shack’s 1986 electronic book, we still have a ways to go.

This blogger would love to imagine really high res color-rich screens that work on the brightest beach day and can be toned down so as not to be too harsh in the darkest winter night in Sweden. This Liquavista prototype might be the solution. But who knows this might already be adopted by next year. And by 2020, the stories might just be beamed straight into our brains Philip K. Dick-style.

What would you like to see?

In his New Yorker story this week, “Lenny Hearts Eunice,” comic novelist Gary Shteyngart imagines a world where digital books have replaced print books and teenagers hate the smell of moldy text.

Here’s an excerpt from one character’s blog, in the short story: “What kind of freaked me out was that I saw Len read a book. (No, it didn’t smell. He uses Pine-Sol on them.) He came home from work looking really down, and I guess he didn’t even notice that I caught him reading. And I don’t mean scanning a text like we did in EuroTrash Classics with that ‘Chatterhouse of Parma,’ I mean seriously reading. … I sneaked a peek and it was that Russian guy Tolesoy he was reading (I guess it figures, cause Lenny’s parents are from Russia). I thought Ben was really brain-smart because I saw him streaming ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ in that cafe in Rome, but this Tolesoy was a thousand-page-long book, not a stream, and Lenny was on page 930, almost finished.”

Do you believe this kind of illiterate society is part of our digital future?

With eBooks, remixed works of literature have a whole new toolkit at their disposal. Freelance game designer Sparky remixed some classic literature with a classic video game–the first visual entry in our World’s Longest Literary Remix contest and a gorgeous display of creativity.

Sparky explained her entry: “I’ve remixed my bit in the style of Oregon Trail, the classic Apple II game. Like Joe Mason, your Oregon Trail team has to make their way through a rough-and-tumble land with adversity at every turn. But unlike an Alger tale, the Oregon Trail usually ends with everyone dying of dysentery.” Read her excellent submission below.

She joins 150 pre-registered GalleyCat Reviews readers who have signed up to rewrite one page of Horatio Alger‘s novel, Joe’s Luck: Always Wide Awake. We will publish the remixed text as a free digital book. Each remix contributor will be eligible for a random drawing of special giveaway prizes.

If you want to participate in the next remix contest, email GalleyCat to get on the list. Three excellent sponsors have donated prizes, see them here.

Read more

In the future, there are plenty of fruitful partnerships to be struck between publishers and streaming video companies. Currently thousands of Netflix users enjoy the “Watch Instantly” section of the popular DVD rental website–streaming movies straight to their computers, televisions, and iPads.

To help literary minded movie fans with Netflix accounts surf through the overwhelming selection, GalleyCat picked ten favorite Dramas Based on Contemporary Literature from the “Watch Instantly” section of Netflix. Someday, these links could fit inside digital books, connecting movie fans and lit fans on the same page.

Starting Out in the Evening: This Brian Morton novel adaptation stars the brilliant Frank Langella

Devil in a Blue Dress: Denzel Washington stars in this smoking adaptation of Walter Mosley‘s novel.

Iris: A critically-acclaimed adaptation of John Bayley‘s memoir about author Iris Murdoch.

Continue reading at GalleyCat.

What if a digital book could actually include a an archived copy of your entire editing process–from the first draft to the final copy? Over at Everyday Genius, writer Matt Bell is trying an experiment we’ve never seen before–writing and editing a short story live on the Internet.

Using the text editing platform Meeting Words, readers can actually follow along with Bell (pictured, via) as he writes and edits the story. Read the story-in-progress here. When Bell isn’t writing, you can use the blue sliding bar at the top of the page to go back in time and watch his editing process.

Follow this link to check out Bell’s writing schedule. Here’s more from Bell’s post: “Starting today, I’ll be working on a story that I started during this last ‘writer’s block,’ a story that didn’t take off then but that I still think might be worth writing. Monday and Tuesday, I’ll be attempting to write a full draft of the story, starting with only a single paragraph already written. To make it more interesting, you’ll be able to watch as I write, seeing each of my decisions in real-time. The software we’re using-Etherpad-will allow you to see each word I write and delete and rewrite at the same time I do it, and the built-in chat software will allow you and anyone else watching to chat alongside my writing if you choose to.”

It is with a heavy heart that I sign off today as editor of MediaBistro’s eBookNewser. It’s been an amazing six months since we started the blog, and I’m honored to have been on this beat during such a time of change in the digital publishing world. Covering the leadup to and launch of the iPad was nothing short of a thrill, as was following the first months of the Nook, Amazon‘s reluctant embrace of the Agency Model, and the continued unfolding of the Google settlement.

I’ve been hired by PW XYZ, the company that bought Publishers Weekly. Starting in June, I’ll be PW’s new Senior Web Editor. For most of the summer, I’ll be focused on getting PW’s new Web site running smoothly, and I’ll resume writing for PW in August, when I look forward to an active dialogue with GalleyCat and eBookNewser.

I want to send a big thank you to everyone who’s been following and commenting on eBookNewser on the blog itself and on Twitter. It’s been wonderful to join this passionate community of eReaders, and I look forward to continuing to contribute in my new capacity at Publishers Weekly.

I hope you’ll keep reading GalleyCat and eBookNewser, where you’ll continue to find up-to-the-minute coverage of publishing and eBooks. eBookNewser Managing Editor Jason Boog, and whoever succeeds me as editor, will do a wonderful job of keeping you informed. More exciting things are on the way in eBook-land, and you’ll be able to read about them here.

Thanks for reading,
Craig Morgan Teicher

It’s one of the eBooks featured in the new Nook TV ad, and it’s on the front page of every eBookstore: Rebecca Skloot‘s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has been a smash hit in both print and electronic formats. Now it will be made into a movie for HBO, produced by Oprah Winfrey and American Beauty co-producer Alan Ball.

Skloot, an avid Twitterer, spent yesterday, when the announcement was made, fielding questions about the adaptation on Twitter. Our sibling blog, GalleyCat rounded up what she said.

Here’s more from GalleyCat:

Skloot revealed that the producers will include both herself and her subject’s family: “I’ll [be] a consultant on film, so will Lacks family. That was important [to] me & HBO. That’s [one] of many reasons HBO was right home [for the book.]” She added: “I’ll be a consultant, and so will Lacks family.”

She also noted: “I’ve known [for] a while, just couldn’t say anything about it until it was public, which happened this AM while I was sleeping.”

The day concluded with casting suggestions from her Twitter followers: “Most popular votes [for] playing me in #HeLa movie: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway & Natalie Portman. For Henrietta: Halle Berry & Viola Davis.”

One more point for Steve Jobs’ anti-Flash team. Scribd, the vast document sharing Web site is in the process of converting all its content from Flash to HTML5. This means that Scribd documents will be viewable on iPad. Rather than appearing in a Flash player, Scribd docs will now be long Web pages coded in HTML5.

Here’s more from TechCrunch: “Scribd co-founder and chief technology officer Jared Friedman tells me: ‘We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any document can become a Web page.’”

The conversion to HTML5 will offer other advantages to Scribd authors and readers, such as richer text display. But the big news is compatibility with Apple’s mobile devices.

Our sibling blog GalleyCat is doing something so odd, crazy, and cool that we just had to share it with you. The blog’s editor Jason Boog is following his own literary passions and creating a literary remix contest, inviting his readers to rewrite one page each of a Horatio Alger novel.

Here are some details from GalleyCat:

We are proud to launch the World’s Longest Literary Remix contest today, as nearly 150 pre-registered GalleyCat readers will rewrite a Horatio Alger novel for fun and prizes. The contest concludes on Monday, June 7th.

These GalleyCat readers signed up to rewrite one page of Joe’s Luck: Always Wide Awake (cover pictured, via). When the contest concludes, we will publish the remixed text as a free digital book–complete with illustrations. Each remix contributor will be eligible for a random drawing of special giveaway prizes.

Check out the full post to see the prizes, and stay tuned for more as the contest unfolds.

For centuries, the technology behind a writer’s career basically stayed the same–the writer wrote on something with a keyboard that could display letters on a page or screen, and the goal was to find a publisher who would print and bind those words in a book and tell people to buy that book. But in the last couple of years, with the introduction of eReaders and the growing popularity of eBooks, the technology is changing pretty fast. Should an aspiring writer compose on an iPad, self-publishing on Kindle, then promote on Twitter? Probably, but it’s a lot to sort through. Jane Friedman of Writer’s Digest wrote a nice post today taking a close look at the various eReading and writing gadgets she uses, which might help make sorting through them a little easier.

Friedman says that she uses a Kindle, laptop, and now an iPad to do most of her reading (that’s her desk above, with her various gadgets)–meaning that she’s largely switched from paper to digital books. She also notes that while she’s buying a lot more eBooks than she used to buy print books–because it’s easier and cheaper–she’s also reading more Web content than ever before.

Here’s an excerpt: “I discover new writers/authors/experts primarily online, and those writers don’t become more valuable to me just because they have or will have a traditional, printed book,” she says. “I just look for compelling stories, superior content, eclectic recommendations of others to follow (or things to read), and opportunities for authentic interaction.”

This is interesting, and while Friedman is probably far more tuned in to the current digital writing landscape than your average reader, it’s probably also representative of a growing trend.

Check out the full post for her specific thoughts on various eReading gadgets.