INDEX // mb Ideas on Publishing Books in Canada (and other attempts to write good)

To Fly and Get High

On Catching | 1 February 2010 with no comments

I am kind of bummed this video hasn’t provoked any reactions. If you didn’t catch the open title card, it is Mick Jone’s library on display.

(via)

A Note To The Trades

On Inhaling | 31 January 2010 with no comments

PaidContent has reposted a comment from a guy that has some opinions about Variety. It is an insightful post especially for anyone interested in the future of trade magazines like Publisher’s Weekly or The Quill and Quire. Here is a choice bit:

You are Variety. A great name. So where is the braintrust to kick everyone’s ass? Where’s the same attitude of the people you cover. The creativity. The work-at-all-hours people. The idea people.

Here Is A Novel Theory

On Inhaling | 30 January 2010 with no comments

DeCloet in the Globe: Apple, Microsoft, and Google carry nearly no debt. They need to regularly reinvent their products  so they keep lots of cash on-hand. Old media companies that are burdened by debt don’t innovate and therefore are at risk in troubled times.

I don’t know if I buy that. It makes sense that high-debt bearing companies like Canwest, Tribune, and Houghton Mifflin would burn first in tough times, but an innovation-to-debt matrix for non-tough times is the only way you could substantiate that correlation. Is there anyway to realistically capture the comparative debt load of the big publishers? Anyone out there on the lazyweb know if debt is reported accurately in annual reports?

My Thoughts On The iPad For Anyone That Cares

On Bookstores and Book Retail | 29 January 2010 with 2 comments

The Device: it is revolutionary, actually. The file system has been abstracted away. The “computerness” is gone. It is better than an ereader and miles beyond the Chumby. It does set the standard for a new device category: the information appliance. It will be the axis around which the rest of the market spins. Ultimately, this is good for bookland.

The Market: the iPad won’t be successful. The market for casual media consumption is not big enough to blow the doors off the way iPhone did. But the A4 chip points to Apple’s possible dominance in mobile processing speed. And the cheaper data plan points to  the eventual ubiquity of Whispernet-like connectivity in every device, everywhere. And the inclusion of mouseless-productivity apps sends that dev area mainstream in a way that can only lead to good things.

The second generation iPad will be great.
An iPhone with an A4 chip will amaze.
iLife for Mac with iPad-influenced UI will be awesome.
An iPad running Google OS would rule.
I won’t be buying one.

iBooks: I don’t have enough info about the ebook story to have a full opinion about what this may mean for publishers, but essentially a new high profile ebook store is a good thing for book lovers. The launch of iBooks does however kill forever Big Content’s chance of  selling direct to consumer. From 2005 until today, publishers had a chance to own the primary interaction with their customer. Because they didn’t want to anger past business partners like B&N, Indigo, and the indies, book publishers ceded control to Amazon and Apple. Stupid.