Technology: Authors Make It Personal

SOUTHWEST SPIRIT 2011

Authors Make It Personal — Digitally

Biz Idea: The Changing Reader Experience

Two hours have passed and you’ve finally inched to the front of the line at the book signing of your favorite author. You’ve got your Kindle, downloaded with the electronic version of her latest bestseller.

Nervously you smile as you hand across the e-book for her to sign… but how exactly will she be able to do that?

Well, apart from having your Kindle case signed — there’s an app for that. Autography and Kindlegraph are brand new tools that allow a writer to personalize an e-book as easily as they can a print book. Each can embed the author’s note directly into the e-book, while Autography’s can even include a snapshot the user can then share on Facebook and Twitter.

Innovations like these are among the nifty new ideas helping authors and readers connect. That’s welcome news, at a time when the publishing business is reeling from massive change.

“Three years ago, publishers thought e-books were going to be a sinkhole into which the entire industry was going to vanish, only to be taken over by Google, Amazon and Apple,” says Ed Nawotka, editor in chief of Publishing Perspectives. “But today they view it as a portal. It’s taking them to a new place.”

Now slightly more than a decade old, e-books initially lit the fuse for the biggest bang in publishing since moveable type. But the real explosion came only recently, however, with the rise of the devices — Amazon’s market-leading Kindle, Barnes and Noble’s clever Nook, the still-viable ex-Borders e-reader Kobo, and the ubiquitous Apple iPad — that have established a combined print and electronic marketplace. Today, nearly a third of Americans are now making e-books an indispensable part of their reading habits. In May, Amazon reported that for the first time, sales of e-books had exceeded those of print books, with 105 e-books sold for every 100 print. 

Their popularity coincides with the February bankruptcy of Borders, which after 40 years elected to close all 399 of its stores, laying off its entire workforce of 10,700 employees. In a statement, Borders Group president Mike Edwards cited “the rapidly changing book industry, e-reader revolution, and turbulent economy” as factors leading to their shutdown. 

The increasingly interactive nature of reading is bringing the customer more control. Readers may not know it yet, but the design and elements of some e-book categories (e.g., fantasy fiction) are already undergoing serious upgrades that will customize the way narrative storytelling works.

“Publishers are studying what readers want, making it available in as many formats as needed — whether an app, e-book, or whatever the next exciting thing happens to be,” said Jennifer Olsen, Manager, Digital Production at Random House. “The market for enhanced products is still being tested. Beyond that, there are specific ways publishers are looking at the reader experience that many of us are all already embracing.”

Nowadays, not only can you underline and share notes on an e-reader, but you can also connect with book lovers on whole platforms that didn’t exist before. How we’ll discuss books is even changing as well, with the move toward social reading.

Say you’ve just finished “War and Peace.” Sites like Good Reads, LibraryThing, Shelfari and Copia let you find or create discussion groups, forward notes or excerpts to friends, or even read commentary from a Russian lit professor. These web-based social reading platforms offer apps suitable for e-readers and smartphones alike.

In what publishing has termed a “transmedia” story, readers will actually choose what happens next, and customize the overall tale. Illustrations become interactive and offer choices that alter the narrative. Authors and book designers collaborate to incorporate music, video, photos, maps, websites, notes and to elicit mood and embellish plotlines.

Will the traditional print book adapt as well? Independent Brooklyn publisher Melville House has just released its HybridBook project, bringing enhanced features to an inexpensive series of print books.

“The project grew out of our thinking, ‘How can we help brick-and-mortar bookstores?’ We’re seeing enhanced e-books now, so we thought it was time for enhanced print books,” says Dennis Loy Johnson, Melville Publisher.

Melville’s unconventional idea involves five novellas, each titled The Duel, by five different writers including Anton Chekhov and Joseph Conrad. The series’ free ancillary items, which Melville has dubbed “Illuminations,” include additional essays, maps, illustrations, and other primary source material, available to print book buyers via a QR (Quick Response) code printed inside the book. Buyers can simply scan the QR code to receive a download of the material, or obtain them via the web or e-mail. (Purchasers of the digital version automatically receive the appropriate Illuminations as part of the e-book edition.)

“We amassed hundreds of pages of unusual, interesting material,” says Johnson. “A simple idea, yet once people see it they go nuts.”

With more books available in a broader number of ways than at any point in history, there’s never been a better time to be a reader. Yet, as we devour the written word in ever-increasing ways, how are writers and readers connecting?

“In 2011, word of mouth becomes essential to the writer connecting with the audience,” says Jeff Martin, author of The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, and also the co-founder of independent retailer Booksmart Tulsa.  “Look at music. Twenty years ago, artists made their money on album sales, but today the album is a tool for promoting the tour. Authors will be hitting the road more, which in the end, adds more value, genuine connection between writer and reader.”

Held annually on the grounds of the Texas Capitol since 1995, the Texas Book Festival draws 35,000 attendees and more than 200 writers. The fact that the conference is devoting panel discussions and a full display “tent” area to emerging technology speaks volumes.

“We’re placing more emphasis on technology and our industry’s tech-relevant experts, which not only helps readers, but also serves authors who are working hard to adapt to the changes,” said Heidi Marquez Smith, Texas Book Festival Executive Director. Smith says book lovers there will get to play with the newest e-book consumer technologies, attend discussions regarding technology and hear from authors who are both embracing, as well as flat-out resisting, the move to digital publishing.

E-books are never going to replace print, says Publishing Perspectives’ Ed Nawotka. “Right now the technologies are outpacing publishers’ ability to innovate. The operative term is that the ‘container’ of what we think of as a book is changing. Soon, we’ll see more authors producing works which can entail a core novel, short video, characters who Tweet and other enhancements such as alternate plotlines in a mystery novel, that play out as an interactive game online.”

“Everything is in hyper-drive right now,” says Melville House’s Johnson, who’s quick to add he believes print demand exists, but fewer large publishers are willing to stay with print over e-books. “We want to get readers what they truly want, and I’m excited any time the print and digital audiences can intersect.”

For every technological advance, there will always be a subculture — an old-school response, Jeff Martin believes.  “In this case, there’s a renaissance in artisan publishing — look at what McSweeney’s does, or Abrams. Last year, Amanda Hesser wrote The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century. It won awards, yet they didn’t do an e-version. You don’t want to spill gravy on your Kindle.”

At the intersection of the Gutenberg press and the “Kindle for iPad app,” Nawokta says an essential truth remains:

“Story is everything. If the story is compelling enough, you won’t care how you get it.”