Publishift Magazine - Issue 1 by Publishift

publishift The Transition from Traditional to Digital Reading

magazine

issue 1

THINKING

Augmented

An Interview with

NATHAN

DIFFERENT

REALITY MAHARAJ

How Steve Jobs and the iPad changed digital publishing

How digital technology can be used to bring books to life

Director of Merchandishing at Kobo shares his thoughts

publishift c s

than wo a on

ndon hers a r

er j o h

jana mi i r a r

crawf e k or oo

m m o

da chau n i l

2 | publishift

r albaz

n ic a s u e o r ve

d an v a n o r jo

a am

n so

• Visit our blog • Follow us on Twitter • Email us

From Vogue to GQ, Austen to King, the way we read is changing. We're suddenly faced with the decision: press or pixels? Publishift is a presentation set to prove that it doesn't have to be one way or the other.

ette nguye z o

The Transition from Traditional to Digital Reading

table of

contents THINKING DIFFERENT: How Steve Jobs - and the iPad - Changed Digital Publishing

AUGMENTED REALITY: How digital technology is bringing Books to Life

AN INTERVIEW WITH Nathan Maharaj, Koboâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Director of Merchandising FOR THE LOVE OF READING: eReaders and Literacy

4 6 8 12 publishift | 3

THINKING DIFFERENT: How Steve Jobs - and the iPad - Changed Digital Publishing Forever by Jordan Van Os

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes – the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world… are the ones who do.

- Steve Jobs

4 | publishift

hink Different. This was Apple’s slogan in 1997, but more importantly they were words that Steve Jobs lived by. In his 30-plus years at Apple, he helped bring computer technology from the labs, to the desktop, and even into the palm of your hand. He contributed to the digital revolution that helped advance our learning and made the consumption of information easier and faster than ever. He never looked back. Again and again, he looked at how he could change the way that we live our day to day lives. In the wake of his death, we at Publishift think that it is an appropriate time to reflect on his contributions to the publishing world, and how he fueled its move into the digital landscape. If there was anything in which Steve Jobs prided himself, it was bringing customers what they wanted before they even knew what “it” was. First the iPod took over the market, then the iPhone became the smart

phone to beat, and finally, in April 2010, Apple released the iPad – a tablet computer. When it was announced, the public knew that it was going to create a market the likes of which digital media had never seen before and publishers were right there to take advantage of the opportunity. At this point in time, publishers were suffering from customers migrating to the web to consume media, especially tabloid news. Finding a way to make online advertising as profitable as the print sector was a challenge for the industry. Technological advances had hurt them, but the iPad brought new hope: a digital device that made it possible for people to consume publishers’ content anywhere. People who purchased the Kindle were buying more books than they ever had before, so it only made sense that the iPad would do the same for magazine sales. Then April arrived and the iPad was released with a bang! Sales for the first month exceeded one million units and ignited the need for tablets in the marketplace. Magazine sales were exceptional during the first month as well, with first editions of popular editorials selling over 100,000 copies. Hopes were high, but soon publishers realized that these sales were a novelty – owning the first ever digital copy of Wired or Vanity Fair was a milestone, not a habit. By the end of the year, sales had averaged out and, while modest, they were not what advertisers wanted to see for their money.

iOS 5 update, released this past Wednesday, features exactly that: the ability to browse through magazines, select the ones you want to subscribe to, and have them delivered directly to your device. In time, we might see that this was exactly what the market needed – but we hold out reservations, as the iPad might still prove to lean towards multimedia activities and not reading. One thing we can be sure of is that the market hasn’t peaked yet. The problem is that people aren’t using their iPad’s as readers, but as multimedia devices for music, movies, games, and web surfing. It is through this crack that the Kindle Fire is piercing the market. Amazon’s new tablet has the capabilities of displaying magazine advertising content, unlike the brand’s predecessors, as well as the web and multimedia features that are likely to attract a wider market. So what do we think? Is the iPad just a newsstand away from becoming more magazine friendly or is the Kindle Fire going to be the publishing industry’s angel in disguise? Either way, Apple led us to this point, and it is thanks to Steve Jobs and company that digital publishing escaped the death grip of online advertising and has a chance to flourish once again. In honor of Steve Jobs. 1955-2011. [p]

The problem? Each magazine has to be downloaded separately as its own app, even if all you want is a single issue. There are also no browsing features like there are for music, movies, television, and books. Apple’s

publishift | 5

A U G M E N T E D R E A L I T Y : B R I N G I N G B O O K S T O L I F E

orth and South. Light and dark. Stop and go. These are all binary opposites, and in the publishing world we have a similar separation – print and digital. As opposites, they naturally don’t belong together. However, just as land connects north and south, dawn connects light and dark, and an amber light connects stop and go – augmented reality (AR) is a way to connect the print world with the digital. This past Friday, October 14, Publishift team members Marijana Miric and Brooke Crawford attended the Fall Tour Interactive an educational networking event showcasing the world of interactive digital media. For the past six years, Tim Willison, the owner of Oddly Studios, located in the heart of one of Toronto’s two major digital media districts, has hosted this event which provides individuals preparing to enter the industry with an exclusive, inside look at the world of interactive design and creative production. There, AR showcased exactly what we at Publishift believe – that digital media is not here to destroy print, but push it to new heights. Why do printed books remain so popular when eBooks are cheaper, less wasteful, and more accessible? Because they are physical. With AR technology it is possible to make accessing, exploring, and understanding digital media a more natural experience. It is a paradigm shift in how we perceive what’s real and what’s computer-generated by enhancing what we are able to see, hear, smell and touch. It does this using a variety of camera recognition techniques that when triggered, interact with the product in various ways. There are a multitude of ways that people are taking advantage of the technology, as the possibilities for utilization are nearly endless for publishers. German based company Metaio is using AR to create 3D interactive pop ups, so when the book is opened in front of a camera, the story is quite literally pulled off the page and represented in the same three-dimensional space we occupy. Meanwhile, Publisher DK is using the technology to expand a reader’s knowledge of a subject: for example, instead of a reader simply viewing the human body two dimensionally, they can now see it 360 degrees around, and even watch how the muscles react to movement.

Another way publishers are taking advantage of AR is with marketing. There is only so much information that can be packed into a physical printed advertisement. Quick Response (QR) codes take advantage of this limit by allowing people to explore the product or service further on their smartphones or tablet computers. On the other hand, AR interacts with the physical advertisement itself, keeping the focus on the printed product and not leading the consumer to get lost on the web. A great example is the recent marketing campaign for Kenneth Oppel’s new book The Dark Endeavor. By passing out a simple book mark, customers now have the opportunity to explore further online, by capturing the keyhole and unlocking exclusive content.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE. AR ties into the publishing industry by enhancing the sensory experience one gets from reading a novel or flipping through a magazine. It could easily revitalize the way we read by creating a universal connection between the print and digital world. Novelists have been writing speculative fiction regarding the possibilities of completely immersed gaming, the ability to enter a fantasy world by using a headset, clunky equipment, and a network connection. Who’s to say this technology won’t soon be the norm within publishing? With the capability to enhance advertisements in magazines and bring reader interaction to a new high in books, AR is going to change the way we view reading, just as eReaders and tablets have changed the way we read. We are so lucky to be a part of the industry during this change, because we have the unique opportunity to witness and explore all of the ways in which digital media can enhance our physical world. Who knows? Maybe one day we will get to witness a full integration that will completely blur the lines of reality. Think about that one, Publishifters. [p]

publishift | 7

“

I don’t think we’re in competition with print. What we’re really in competition with, is other eBook sellers.

AN INTERVIEW WITH:

NATHAN MAHARAJ

KOBO’S DIRECTOR OF MERCHANDISING

he words from Nathan Maharaj, Samar: Hi! Thank you for tuning into Publishift’s the Director of Merchandising for first podcast. My name is Samar Albazz and today we’re going to be interviewing Nathan Maharaj Kobo. He’s been with the company from Kobo. since its launch in September 2009, beginning his career with Indigo Before we start with the questions we sent you, do you want to give a brief introduction of as an employee of ‘Short Covers’, yourself? the pilot project meant to launch their eReader software. He is a real Nathan: Sure. My name is Nathan Maharaj. I am the director of merchandising for Kobo. And I’ve authority on what’s happening in the been here just before the launch of Kobo. Canadian book publishing industry. We had the opportunity to interview Nathan recently, where we discussed the current debate between the print and digital print industries. As a representative from Kobo, Nathan believes that although the digital publishing industry is gaining a rise in popularity, print is still here to stay. On the shift to eBooks and eReaders, he says that it is simply a matter of preference, and there will always be a demand for the physical copy.

So when I joined, I joined Short Covers, which was a pilot project that operated under Indigo. And on September 15th, 2009, it spun off and became Kobo. I was with the company only a couple of weeks prior to that. Prior to that, I was with Indigo as a category manager buying books. I come from the side of bookstores. And yes, I’ve been with Kobo ever since, directing the merchandising team, which really amounts to the team within Kobo whose job it is to know all about books. And my core deliverables are pricing and selection. And as far as business contribution—it’s margin, that’s the key number that comes out of my team.

”

is making huge inroads—it’s swallowing some categories whole. Certainly, the industry reports that you see now are showing that the format that’s most under threat from digital—if you can call it a threat because it’s still selling books, it’s just printers aren’t getting paid for paper. I guess at this point—it’s mass market paperbacks; stuff that comes from the wire racks at the drug store. That’s the stuff that’s instantly moved to digital. I think it’s about instantaneous fulfillment, I think that’s what drives that, it’s the reader who’s highly engaged with a genre and that’s what they want and that’s what they want to read and they want to read a lot of it and digital makes that—it solves a problem for that reader. But more readers are coming onboard, so we’re seeing a broadening. But I don’t see—books aren’t going to disappear. I expect that my son would be buying books for his kids. Maybe not as many as I bought for him—maybe more apps for whatever magical pad device we’ve all had implanted in our hands and retinas. But no, I don’t see books going away. I certainly see the industry reorganizing around a different way to deliver content to consumers.

Samar: That’s perfect. Okay, cool, thank you. For question 2 then: Do you have any advice for publishers? Do you think that all publishers should now invest in having their books published both digitally and on paper?

He also gives us some keen insight into how Kobo’s marketing strategy is heavily focusing on the social Samar: I see. That’s pretty cool. Nathan: You know what, I wouldn’t tell aspect of reading. Through using So, what is your stance on digital vs. printed publishers how to do their jobs. And what I’m materials? Do you think that there is a chance seeing is a lot of publishers make these really networking sites like Facebook and that printing will become obsolete in the future? smart decisions about digital publishing. The Twitter to share snippets of text, question of whether to publish an eBook or not, they are bringing the discussion of Nathan: I don’t think that printing will ever is gone—everyone is doing it. It’s not something become obsolete—I just don’t. I think digital anybody’s on the fence about anymore. Where I books back into the fold.

8 | publishift

remember the Christmas of 2009, on Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and Boxing Day, what we saw were the release of the latest books by Stephen King, Ted Kennedy, and Sarah Palin. And those books actually didn’t get released on the 24th, 25th, and 26th, those were the eBooks. The books had been out in stores for months prior to that. That didn’t happen in 2010. And it’s not going to happen in 2011. Simultaneous releases are just the way everyone’s going. Publishers don’t need me to help them with this. I can help them with other things in terms of what’s actually selling. But as far as making digital products, we’re seeing great innovation and it’s wonderful to watch, to be the frontier of this remaking of book selling and publishing.

Samar: Yea, that’s pretty cool. So, what has

Kobo done to differentiate itself in a saturated market? And how is it different from other eReaders?

Nathan: So, you think it’s saturated? Really? Samar: Uh…pretty saturated, I would say. I

mean there’s only a few products out there that are eReaders, that I could think of at least.

Nathan: Okay, so I would say that’s a sign of not saturation.

Samar: Sorry. (laughs) Clearly I… Nathan: It sounds like… That’s okay. But it also depends on what market you’re talking about. In fairness, I think one could say that the U.S. is a saturated market, in some respects. In other respects, it’s still wide open. Most people are still reading paper books. And they’re reading the paper books that were the first books that digital customers—that they took off—these were the books that got people to jump the digital divide and those books are still selling in print. So, digital is still a minority activity. It’s growing—it’s growing crazy—but it’s not the mainstream yet. We can forget that when we see it growing rapidly and living day to day. So is your question what has Kobo the organization done or do you want me to talk to [about] what the latest device is specifically?

Nathan: Well, I’m going to leave the device

alone, because hardware is—I don’t work in hardware development. They use me as a very cranky and difficult tester but I don’t make any contribution than that. And now of course, I become one of their biggest fans because I love my Kobo Touch and cannot be separated from it. But in terms of what Kobo doing to differentiating itself—the space that we don’t see our competitors occupying is the social space. And we’re investing heavily in building out, in keeping the conversation about books, keeping it going in the digital space. As these private spheres pop up around people when they’re reading digitally—you could read in a public place on your eReader and nobody knows what you’re reading; nobody could walk up to you and say, “Oh my god, I read that! Oh, you’re halfway through. Oh, I’m not going to spoil it—ugh, it’s so good!” Nobody could do that because they just don’t know what you’re reading, which is great if you’re reading things that you’re embarrassed about reading—to be caught reading. And we saw a lot of that. But we’re working on a number of things. Reading Life is one of them, which is a set of functions that we’ve built into our latest device; it’s built into all of our apps. And it’s to facilitate the sharing of reading activity to Facebook. So, I do this all the time: I stumble across a passage that is superb or terrible—and my wife has had enough of me (laughs) —so, instead of looking up from a book and reading it to her—sharing with her what I think of this—because like I said, she’s heard plenty of that already and she’s going to be hearing plenty more—I share it to Facebook. And then my friends could see it and my friends could see I’m reading this book and this passage is fantastic. And what they do with that—you know, clearly there are commercial upsides to that kind of thing. But the real—the thing we love is it’s just cool. Just cool to find new ways to talk about books and new dimensions in which to share what you’re reading.

Samar: Okay, that’s pretty cool. That sounds really neat.

Nathan: It is. And I want to tell you what we’re

about to launch at the end of this week and I am not allowed to. But oh my god, it’s cool.

Samar: Whichever one you’re more comfortable Samar: Aww, ok. Well, guess I’ll have to wait, with, I guess.

Nathan: Do you have iOS devices? An iPad or iPod touch or anything?

Samar: No, not just yet. But I’m really

considering it. Just doing this project—it’s kind of opened up to the entire market. It’s like “oh wow, I should really invest in one of these”.

Nathan: Yeah, the iPod touch is a good way to keep track of what’s going on in the app space without having to sign onto a cellular plan or anything like that.

We got some functionality coming in iOS that’s really fantastic. It’s kind of addicting and crazy— and I can’t wait.

Samar: Okay, I’m glad I haven’t gotten anything yet.

Alright then, question 4: Are there any books that Kobo distributes that only came in eBook form? If so, about how many?

Nathan: Well, I can’t tell you how many. Partly

because I can’t and partly because I can’t. Just to say. I can’t share the number and I don’t know the number off hand anyway. Nor do I know exactly how I would go about counting it up definitively. But yeah, when I said earlier that I don’t have a lot of advice for publishers— because we’re seeing a lot of great stuff happening with publishers, even big ones. Publishers, whose bread and butter is selling massive quantities of printed books, they’re using the digital space to get out more stuff— stuff that never would have been printed—they would have never been cost effective for them to make a book of this material. But they’re making eBooks.

LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE

then. I’m excited now.

publishift | 9

And a great example is—I’ll call it Random house. They don’t need my help to promote anything. I think they’re the biggest trade book publisher in the world, if you count up all their divisions in different languages. But their U.S. division has done some really clever things. Lee Child, popular thriller writer who they publish in U.S. and Canada, a couple of months ago, they published a short story from him. They sold it for $1.99. It was available only digitally. In the past, I don’t know how they would’ve—they couldn’t have monetized that. They would’ve had to…what, pack it into the back of a paperback? Or tuck it into the hardcover? And that would’ve done what? It wouldn’t have kept the market warm for Lee Child when his new book came along. Whereas with digital, you could do something like that. You could just drop something into the market when you need it to warm up for the big new release you got coming in print and digital. And you could do that using just a digital asset.

in Washington; various people that you want to weigh in on the subject, talking about the future of Pakistan, the future of counter-terrorism, the future of Islam—quick essays, nothing profound, nothing’s going to win anyone a Pulitzer Prize. But it’s really good content to have then. And it was $1.99 as an eBook.

Nathan: Well, that’s easy. Readers! (laughs)

selection of newspapers and magazines. It hasn’t grown, perhaps, as much as we would’ve liked. And the reasons for that is it’s just another standards, another business, and operationally, it’s another frontier to fight. So, we got a pretty good selection for North America. We’re thinking about various ways to grow that and some of that is through direct partnerships. There are many ways to solve for the problem of expanding selection. Yes, to answer the question, we sell newspapers and magazines digitally.

We’ve also seen, Random House again—actually Random House Canada just last week, in the last 2 weeks, they published a collection of writing on Jack Layton, which they gathered together very quickly following his passing and the public pouring of emotion. And they put together a little eBook, I think called “Hope is better than fear”. It’s a cute little package, it’s priced attractively, and it’s digital only. Because it really only works digitally, if they’re trying to do it in print, they wouldn’t have it out until December, at best maybe. And at that point, is it too late? Probably.

Samar: (laughs) What kind of readers

Samar: But not as many—

Samar: The emotional aspect isn’t there anymore.

Nathan: Yeah, exactly. The opportunity has

kind of passed. But with digital, publishers are looking at their assets and they stick their head out the window, you know, have a listen, check the weather, and then take another look at their assets and see new opportunities. And there’s even original stuff… I’m selling a Random House here. (laughs?) And I do love them but they’re not my favourite publisher. But they’re doing really great stuff in digital. The other this is 7 days after the U.S. forces killed Osama Bin Laden, they had a book called “After Bin Laden”, an eBook. And it came out one week later. May 1st was the U.S. operation in Pakistan and then the next week, May 10th , May 8th. They had this eBook out and it was a collection of writing from former secretaries of state, defence secretaries, leaders of think-tanks

10 | publishift

Samar: Yeah, it’s smart. It’s really smart. Nathan: It’s brilliant. It’s amazing. It’s just

so exciting to see this stuff being engaged with—already; it’s only 2011. eBooks are still kind of new and we’re already seeing this kind of innovation in publishing.

Samar: That’s pretty cool. Okay, so for question 5, who would you say is Kobo’s target audience?

specifically?

Nathan: Good ones. (laughs) Our target is—we want the same readers that made the book industry possible. Because we think it’s still possible. You know, people talk about the death of books and everything—we don’t see that at all. We want the customers who have irewards cards and have the WHSmith frequent reader program enrollments. They’re the ones that go to the bookstore every week. They’re buying 2-3 books a month. Reading is just a thing they do; they eat, they sleep, they read, they go to work, they spend time with their families, and they read. And reading is just part of that. Those are the types of customers we’re pursuing. And that’s why we partner with bookstores when we go into territories. So, obviously, we are partnered with Indigo in Canada. Indigo spawned Kobo and remains a slight majority owner. And we partnered with WHSmith in the U.K., we just announced that last week. And we’ll partner with a company called FNAC in France, who’s a dominant bookseller there. And that’s where you find the best customers. Those are the ones you could really build business around, those are the ones we love having. They’re valuable, they’re into what we do, they tell us when we’re screwing up, and they respond really favourably when we deliver something that’s of real value to them.

Samar: That’s really cool. I like that it’s growing

and keeping books there at the same time. That’s kind of good news for us.

Nathan: Yeah. Samar: So, for question 6, does Kobo offer

digitized magazines as well as books, or just books?

Nathan: We have a newsstand. We offer a

Nathan: The dominant thing is eBooks. Samar: Okay, I see, that’s cool. Question 7: You mentioned that you work alongside Kobo’s marketing and product development teams. Do you know what features and strategies they use to draw in customers? And would you say that Kobo competes with printed book sales in this way, or works alongside them?

Nathan: That’s an interesting way to phrase

a question. I don’t think we’re in competition with print—I don’t. I know it feels that way, and certainly bookstores feel that digital is in competition with them. But competition would mean that consumers can pick one way or the other, and sort of be happy with their choice and kind of commit to it. I don’t think that’s happening here. I don’t think that paid mp3s were ever in competition with CDs. The consumer was just presented with a new way to consume the media they were consuming and that’s where they’ve gone. And that’s what I’m seeing with books. I wouldn’t say that we’re in competition with print. That would be weird given our partnerships with retailers who rely on selling print. What we’re in competition with is, other eBook sellers. We think we got a really good

catalogue, we think we got a really good product in our apps and devices. That’s who we’re competing against and our partners help us do that.

other, printed reading material and eReaders can coexist. And you kind of mentioned this before but just to say it again. Do you think that this is possible?

Samar: Alright, question 8: In terms of

Nathan: Um..no, I was kidding about all the

think anything would be gained by destroying the printed book industry. It’s just so easy to share print books—secondhand stores. It’s just the way the medium spreads. It’ll be like banning the playing of music open air. The only way you could get music would be buying mp3s and listening to them on headphones. That’ll just be awful. So no, I think that would kill—that will hurt reading. And if it hurts reading, then it hurts the customer.

So, yes. This is only good for reading. More books faster to more people, that’s a good thing.

Samar: Okay, that’s all the questions we had.

Was there any other thoughts that you wanted to include?

Nathan: I don’t think so. These are good

questions. You really turned my crank here.

INDUSTRY

READ COEXIST

Now, they’re releasing at least 2: the hardcover book and the eBook. And the audiobook is still there. So, nothing’s gone away, they just gotten now this extra product that they got to release. And that’s tough, but I think it’s paying off and it’s trending in a way that if it’s not paying off yet for everybody, it’s going to. So, they’re definitely complimentary. It would be terrible if someone decided that they prefer eBooks, and then they couldn’t get a bunch of great things that they would love and share. Share with people who buy print books, who would buy print books.

SHIFT

MARKET

Nathan: No, I think it would be terrible. I don’t

So, I think it’s only advantageous. The only hard thing is publishers right now are in a tough place managing the transition between these multiple formats. Where they only had to do one format at a time, that week I’m releasing a book and it’s a hardcover book, and that’s what I’m releasing, that’s my product.

KOBO FUTURE

ever eliminated, and books were only ever made exclusively digital, do you think that it’ll be better for the market in terms of digital readers?

almost see it as—mass market paperbacks at $8 are not better than $30 hardcovers. There’s a customer for each of those. And by cutting out one or the other, the industry would be less, there would be less incentives for authors to write great books; it’ll be hard to be a bookseller, trying to sell great books to customers who are looking for them.

PUBLISHING

TRANSITION

Samar: I see. Do you think that if print was

Nathan: Obviously, yeah. The only way—I

DIGITAL

or the other. What we try to do—the sensible thing to do when entering a market, to target publishers who are dominant in that market. You look at the bestsellers list in that market and you talk to the publishers you need to talk to, to be able to get those titles as eBooks. What that tends to wind up meaning—not because it’s our selection criteria, but a reality of the business— is that you wind up talking to publishers who do print as well. That’s just what the bestsellers list is, in most cases. Only The New York Times and USA Today track eBook sales separately. So, it’s not that we’re pursuing these publishers who do print and digital, but it happens that the biggest publishers, who are the ones if you need to grow a business—if you need to establish a business—those are the ones you kind of start with and then, you could add on. You tend to draw the attention of publishers that are maybe digital only. And once you got their attention, then you would hunt them as well. But it’s harder to hunt them out a little bit, and sometimes you just need to get the attention, and it’s by working with the big players.

Samar: I thought so! (laughs)

BOOKS

Nathan: No, I wouldn’t say we pick one way

other stuff before. (laughs)

EREADERS

Kobo’s content acquisition team, do you look specifically for publishers that have a printed edition as well as a digital edition, or for publishers aiming only for a digital version?

WEIGH IN • EMAIL US • TWEET US • BLOG COMMENT

Samar: (laughs) Thanks. That’s all we ask for.

Samar: That’s good to know, too. (laughs)

Anyways, thank you very, very much for your time. We really appreciate it.

Alright, last question: Our project is meant to show that instead of one being better than the

Nathan: You’re welcome. [p]

publishift | 11

by Brandon Hersey

or a moment, lets all consider the Internet. Odds are it’s how you’re viewing this blog post (unless you printed it off), how you’re checking your email in the morning (unless you have them faxed to you), and how you do most of your reading. If you’re a Canadian, this is even more likely — according to a 2010 Statistics Canada report, 80% of Canadians use the Internet, and 68% of them read the news online. That’s 18 million people. Now let’s look at the results of a Canwest/Global poll from 2008, showing that 30% of Canadians didn’t read a single book for pleasure that year. Of those who did read books, a whopping 50% of them read an average of twenty per year, but that still accounts for a final 20% who read one or two books only. That’s half of Canada’s population either not reading, or not reading much. Universities are saying that a quarter of their applicants are functionally illiterate. A StatsCan survey early on in the new millennium demonstrated that 42% of Canadians cannot meet everyday reading requirements to perform their jobs. And this was before the Internet consumed our lives, changing the way we think and read. We live in a world of 140 characters, at-a-glance news services, and a collective attention span that is getting shorter and sho— Really, who has the time to read a novel anymore? Your average book weighs about a pound, but this number is quickly rising as readership goes down, but book lengths go up. People watch on a subway, and you’ll see Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy or George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, both of which average 900 pages

12 | publishift

for each book in the series. Books are clunky, books are heavy, books don’t fit our fast-paced lifestyle. This is why eReaders are important. Think back to October, 2001, when Apple managed to revitalize its identity of the ‘other’ computer manufacturer into a marketing force through the release of the iPod. They just celebrated the ten-year anniversary of the product and how it has managed to shape the music industry. Before the MP3 player, you used a discman: one CD, maybe a mix of various artists, but typically no more than 20 songs. Now you can carry 14,000 songs with you in your pocket. eReaders can do for books what iPods did for music: spark a revolution. The first eBook was made in 1971, forty years ago. It was a typed copy of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, coinciding with the launch of Project Gutenberg, an initiative to release public domain copies of documents and books for mass consumption, which still continues to this day. Though the project’s founder passed away in September of this year, there are still 36,000 documents available for download, all of them for free, and their target goal is one million texts. For the past twenty years, eBooks and eReaders have had a rocky emergence in the market. The first true eReader was the ‘SoftBook’. It weighed in at three pounds, could hold 1500 pages, and cost $600. Look at how far we’ve come. The Canadian-based Kobo eReader can hold 1000 books, weighs half a pound, and costs under $200, tax included.

Size and scale weren’t the only problems plaguing the industry, however. Digital Rights Management (DRM), a hot-button issue in the music industry, has revealed itself as a problem to the digital production of books as well. Under DRM, intellectual property — from music to books to television shows — are heavily restricted, limiting the copying, printing, sharing, and downloading of files from the internet to protect the rights and royalties of the artist in question.

42%

Canadians cannot meet everyday reading requirements

30%

Canadians didn’t read a book for pleasure in 2008

With an eReader, you have the option of carrying around dozens, if not hundreds, of books at your fingertips. The upcoming Kindle Fire and Kobo Vox offer services using the Cloud, giving you access to thousands more books provided you’re connected to Wi-Fi. In this day and age, it’s almost impossible to walk a few blocks without finding a wireless hub, free of charge. We live in an era where the briefer the message, the more readily its accepted. eBooks give us the opportunity to change the way we, as a society, read. Short bursts of fiction, supplemented with colour and stylization that increases legibility and readability. Interactive elements, such as being able to press a word on the screen and have a picture come to life before your eyes. An opportunity to impact and influence the narrative of a two-hundred year old story. These are things that digital provides that traditional ink-and-paper books can’t. Once DRM-free downloads, pioneered by groups such as CopyLeft and Creative Commons, give readers the ability to share, edit, and customize the books they’re reading, we can address this literacy issue in a way that makes reading more accessible for everyone, rather than just the bibliophiles. There’s no excuse for a country where one-third of its citizens don’t, or can’t, read. At the end of the day, how you’re reading isn’t the issue — what matters is that you’re reading.

68%

Canadians read news online (18 million)

If you’re interested in the statistics behind some of the facts in this article, please check out the following: 2011 StatsCan Canadian Internet Usage Survey 2008 Canwest/Global Readership Survey

Each individual eReader had its own file extensions, were device-specific, and many couldn’t even be read on computers without pricey legacy software. Why spend so much money on a device if you couldn’t even share what you’re reading with friends? What made an eBook’s copyright different than a book’s? We’re allowed to loan paperbacks to our friends when we’ve finished with them, what is so intrinsically different about borrowing a digital copy of Life of Pi? eBooks have since made great strides in remedying this: there are four primary file extensions, one of which is the universal .pdf, and they have slackened the grip on what you, as the buyer, can do with the downloaded text, but there’s still a long way to go. It is this change that has allowed eReaders to come into their own in today’s marketplace. In a culture of uploading, sharing, and downloading, the more accessible a product, the more likely it is to be noticed.

2003 StatsCan Literacy Survey [p]

photo by Nate Bolt

publishift | 13