Your Reading Life, Always With You - Michael Tamblyn, Shortcovers at Tools of Change Frankfurt

This is the presentation I did at Tools of Change Frankfurt or, more accurately, a dramatic recreation of that presentation, recorded in a Frankfurt hotel room and edited on planes and in airport lounges. Generally, it's about what readers want, what's missing from the ebook experience today, and how retailers and publishers can work together to close the gap. Here's a brief outline, if you want to skip around.

0:00 - 10:00 - Deliberate vagueness with conference organizers, reading in the cloud, what is Shortcovers?, why would a billion-dollar bricks-and-mortar retailer jump into the ebook space?

10:00 - 13:20 - Dissecting the brain of a publisher

13:20 - 16:15 - What is in the gap between $9.99 and $14.25?

16:15 - 20:25 - Beauty

20:25 - 25:35 - The Ever-present Threat of Zombies (Orphan Formats)

25:35 - 28:10 - Reading is Social (but...)

28:10 - 30:05 - Bundles

30:05 - 35:05 - Summer Camp (Sharing Means Caring)

35:05 - 38:55 - Moving In Together (Merging Collections / Friends & Family)

38:55 - 40:36 - Wrap-up

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eoinpurcell said: 19 days ago

Excellent speech @ TOC and excellent version now! Thanks for this Michael! Eoin

INDEX // mb said: 19 days ago

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." "Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."Michael -- I understand your position on DRM. I don't understand how you can take that position AND make the argument for the lifetime guarantee that you do. My word man, make up your mind.Meant with kindness. Best ~mb

michaeltamblyn said: 18 days ago

MB -- I'll take the former, skip the latter and take the kindness too. ;-) To mangle a phrase, ebook retail right now is the art of the possible. We're fighting for what we think readers want while wanting to sell them ebooks today. Do I "believe" in DRM? I really like putting books in readers hands. For the time being, that means DRM if we want books on the shelves (O'Reilly and a few others excepted, of course). Would it be easier for me to give readers the "lifetime guarantee" I believe they want without DRM? You bet your autographed copy of "Little Browther" it would. And if recent history is any indication, publishers will get there sooner or later. And in the meantime, we'll be as open and transferrable and device-agnostic as we can be.