Books to become immersive multimedia experience

At PW-Moderated E-Book Session, Questions Rise for One Panelist, Revenues Rise for Another

by Andrew Richard Albanese -- Publishers Weekly, 12/17/2009 11:47:00 AM "You have to hand it to NYU journalism professor, Viral Loop author and Fast Company contributing writer Adam L. Penenberg—he tells it like it is. While most of the sessions during the first day of the Mediabistro eBook Summit focused on where book publishers will fit in an increasingly digital world, on day two, Penenberg, a self-proclaimed “midlist author,” told the audience that after his experience writing three books, he’s considering whether to even use a publisher for his next project, which, he said, would seek to redefine the book— from “stagnant text” into a more immersive multimedia experience.

"Penenberg stressed that his current publisher, Hyperion, was the best he’s worked with so far. Yet after bidding in the high six figures for Viral Loop, the company budgeted little in the way of marketing: modest co-op purchases in Barnes & Noble, an outside publicist for a limited time, no book tour. While the book received very positive reviews and lots of media attention, much of it was generated by the author and focused on a Facebook application that Penenberg paid for himself—an app that had an astonishing 13% conversion rate (that is, the number of downloaders who clicked on the ad actually went through to buy the book).

"While publishers may be interested in how to better deploy virality and social media like apps to sell books, Penenberg suggested that most publishers are simply passing that burden directly on to authors and he questioned whether the big houses had the institutional desire to do what was really necessary “to completely reimagine the book.” Converting print pages to web pages will not capture the attention of future generations (characterized by his “six year-old ‘on-demand’ child," he told the audience.) Penenberg saw current e-book efforts as little more than stopgaps, stressing that book must become multimedia, and offer future readers far richer experiences than mere text on a page or screen.

"Penenberg was joined by Oxford University Press’ Evan Scnhittman, who shared with audience members how some publishers are doing just that. He detailed his work with one of the world’s most venerable brands— Oxford Dictionaries —and a savvy non-exclusive “viral” licensing scheme it pioneered in Japan. Rather than work with one exclusive distributor, Schnittman noted, OUP uses a “non-exclusive and open approach” in offering the content in the Japanese market. Any party can license an embed OUP content. The result? Total market dominance for OUP dictionaries in Japan, and a steady income stream for the publisher.

"Indeed, Oxford has been one of the most innovative and aggressive publishing companies in the digital realm, and its experience stood as a prime example of how breaking content from between book covers and serving it to an ever-growing digital market translates into growth. In the Q&A period, one questioner noted how nonfiction and scholarly materials were suited to this kind of use, but questioned how this would extend to fiction. Schnittman said there were possibilities, but acknowledged he was unclear about the underlying premise of the question: the future of "immersive" reading.

"Certainly, the second day of the Mediabistro E-Book summit seemed more challenging than the first. After his talk, Penenberg, for example, was shouted down by a freelance publicist in the back of the theater who claimed that publishers were still putting authors on the road for book tours—with great results. “I know a lot of authors,” Penenberg responded, as the panel broke up. “None of them have done authors tours.” At the following session, meanwhile, moderator Dan Costa from PC Magazine asked Random House’s Matt Shatz what writers must do to survive: “Write Code,” Shatz replied. And ending the event, New School professor Douglas Rushkoff, author of Life, Inc. captured the uneasy essence of the two days of discussions: “It’s not all over,” he said. “But it’s all over for some of us.”