INDEX // mb » BNC09

BNC09 Craig Riggs: Collision of Digital and Print

mb — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:31:53 +0000

Craig Riggs makes a great point at the end of this video. If publishers don’t provide content the way readers want it, some other industry will. Riggs was in town for the Booknet Canada Technology Forum 2009 where he delivered a keynote on the current state of book distribution in Canada. His report was simple and obvious — size matters. To ship printed books around a nearly empty country, you need economies of scale.

I asked Riggs to speak about what digital distribution would do to the current supply chain. He was diplomatic as ever, but he did say that people would step around the existing system… if it remained too rigid.

Four days later, Craig’s presentation has me wondering if anything is really different with digital? I mean can a small publisher really beat the system with e? Direct-to-consumer initiatives all have the same problem — they don’t pay the rent. Aggregation. Consolidation. Scale. These are still issues for the small scrappy pubs like BreakWaterBooks. The Kindle and Google Book Search are still US based projects. Digital doesn’t change much. Or does it? Hmm. I may post on this another day. Thanks to Craig for the video and making me think.

To find out more about Craig, check out Turner-Riggs.com

BNC09 Hugh McGuire: Spending Time is as Important as Spending Money

mb — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:12:51 +0000

One of my co-bookcampTO-conspirators — Hugh McGuire — gave a great speech at BookNet Canada’s Technology Forum 2009. He talked about time and love. Book publishers need to enable readers to express how much they love authors and books. Readers love to love books. Publishers need to honour the time readers invest.

I told Hugh afterwards that he should have grounded his presentation in business reality. McGuire is the founder of the opensource, not-for-profit Librivox.org — a repository of public domain audio books. He shot back to the effect that the business reality hasn’t changed; when consumers like your product, you sell more. I asked him to speak to the business model question in the following video.

Hugh McGuire is one of the bloggers at blog.bookoven.com.

BNC09 Susan Danziger: Daily Lit Roles Out New Features Monthly

mb — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:29:19 +0000

I caught up with Susan Danziger of DailyLit.com during cocktail hour at the Booknet Technology Forum 2009. I had first heard of DailyLit way back when Kevin Rose talked about his experience with it on Diggnation episode #79. That was in January 2007. I asked Susan how she managed to introduce an unconventional ereading concept and run with it for the subsequent two years. She spoke to listening to her users then iterating. The DailyLit operation runs using 2.5 people.

Susan’s presentation from BNC09 is embedded below.

Books and Busy Lives: Adapting to Changes in Reading Habits

View more presentations from booknetcanada.

BNC09 Andrew Savikas: It Is a Great Time to Experiment

mb — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:12:20 +0000

I caught-up with O’Reilly Media’s Andrew Savikas at this year’s BookNet Canada Technology Forum 2009. We talked briefly about the importance of “Fail Forward Faster.” Book publishers need to experiment. Andrew was kind enough to let me record his thoughts on experimentation.

The bit from Peter Drucker is pretty good.