BayNewser is reporting today from the Mediabistro eBook Summit at New World Stages in New York.

Publishers feel like e-books are turning their world upside down, but having his world upside down is old hat to Steve Haber, president of Sony Digital Reading, who's seen LPs get upturned by CDs and film photography get upturned by digital cameras.

The key, he said, is not to fight the new formats, but to dive into them, even if it means you feel like you're cannibalizing your own business in doing so:

If you were a turntable manufacturer, when CDs came out, you weren't very happy. But if you’re a music label, or an artist, all of a sudden, all of the back catalog starts selling again, and people's interest [grew] because it was easy, no skipping, no popping. And the same thing with mp3s: All of a sudden you have all of your music in the same location. And sales took off.

That cannibalization can be a very good thing if you take advantage of it.... And when I fought it I couldn't stop it anyway.

After the jump: How to cannibalize your own business

In the Q&A part of Haber's talk, BayNewser asked him how exactly companies should go about cannibalizing their own businesses.

"Put yourself in the place of someone who wants to attack your business and what would they do to take over your business," he said. "And then think about that, and say, OK, if that's what they'd do to take over my business, then I should do that myself."