Writing is easy, and any monkey can be a publisher because that’s what the little button tells every WordPress blogger they’re doing when they click it and their latest post goes live. (You’re soaking in it!)

Also, eBooks are the magic beans that will lead to the storming of the gates, destruction of the ivory tower, and theft of the publishing industry’s golden goose. They might even slay the dragon, rescue the Princess, and completely redefine the American Dream, too!

Or something like that.

Of course, most commentary on the transition the publishing industry is currently going through tends to fall at the “outright hostile” extreme; sensational nonsense offered up by technophiles selling virtual bridges, or even worse, authors with axes to grind and speaking calendars to fill.  While the effects of “the digital transition” (drink!) on the value of newspapers and magazines has been pretty clear, and the broad acceptance of e-commerce has had an undeniable effect on brick-and-mortar booksellers (long may they live!), I firmly believe that the changes occurring in book publishing are much less dramatic than they seem.

Also, far less traumatic because, contrary to popular belief, the majority of publishing companies aren’t dumb ostriches with their heads in the sands. Many are actively examining their options, understandably reluctant to jump too fast at the latest new shiny lest it turn out to be a mirage.

Remember the Skiff? QUE?

The reality is, once the eBook market shakes out in the next year or two and becomes more efficient, the publishing industry will still be the dominant supplier of books people actually pay for.

Will the players change?  Maybe, maybe not.

Will the business model have to change? (drink!) Sure, for some publishers. Same for agents and authors, too.

Simon & Schuster just announced a pretty clear step in a new direction, but there’s a ton of different working models already in place, especially out there in the vast, diverse world beyond The Big Six. It’s worth noting that Richard Curtis launched eReads back in 1999, long before Andrew Wylie decided to play soft ball with Odyssey Editions, and Diversion Books is Scott Waxman’s second go-round with eBook publishing.

And Theo Gray, author of the The Elements? He’s not your average author; he’s also the co-founder of Wolfram Research, Inc., makers of Mathematica, among other things.

Niche, vertical, digital-first, transmedia… none of these are new concepts in the publishing industry; there are examples of each within the “major” publishers, and even more beyond them. Of course, facts and nuance are anathema to punditry and page views, and don’t often fit in 140 characters sound bytes or, sadly, even in articles published by mainstream media outlets.

(What’s Apple’s eBook market share again? And Amazon sells more Kindle Books than razors, right?)

How about instead of yet another “Death of…!” and “[Whatever] Killer?” and “Ebook Sales Up [whatever]%” linkbait article or tweet, we start focusing more on the important stuff?

Where are our initiatives to reach and engage new readers, of both print AND eBooks?

What are the kids who loved Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson and Twilight going to read next, and how are they going to find about them?

What about the vast majority of kids to whom none of those franchises were appealing? What are we publishing for them?

And finally, how do we empower avid readers of all kinds to champion their favorite authors, books and publishers the way sports fanatics do their favorite players and teams?

Where’s my Penguin football jersey?

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As I sit at the airport waiting to fly back after the conference—and a successful panel, something which was not necessarily a given—I’m thinking back to the things that pop out at me as highlights of the past few days. So here, in no particular order and through the haze of a gnarly head cold which will be made oh-so-much-better by my impending plane ride, are my highlights. I reserve the right to add or subtract to this list as time goes by and I can further digest all of the stimuli of the past few days:

New people: meeting with, knocking heads with, drinking with. I got the chance to meet a few people IRL whom I follow on Twitter or otherwise have my eye on, most notably Jeff Newelt, editor, PR consultant, and reggae promoter; Rick Klaw, editor, writer, friend of Michael Moorcock, and geek curmudgeon; and Molly Crabapple, webcomics creator extraordinaire, and one of the nicest ladies I’ve ever met (also, more humble than she needs to be. Because she kicks ass).

Same people: It was wonderful to hang out with and brainstorm with people like Richard Nash, Kassia Krozser, Brian O’Leary, and Kirk Biglione. I’ve met all of them before, and have hung out with them previously or correspond continually, but being away from the day-to-day bustle and being able to stretch out over a beer or three and spitball concepts, ideas, feedback and takeaways from panels, as well as engage in general foolishness was amazing.

The panels: Publishing was in fair force at SXSWi this year, but aside from the panel I was on along with Kassia, Debbie Stier, Matt Cavnar, and Kevin (a nice, straightforward recap of which can be found here), I de-prioritized attending some of them in favour of panels outside of my comfort zone (new horizons, remember?). The ones I did attend were interesting as hell, including a panel featuring presentations by Matt Migursky, Chris Heathcote and James Bridle (who I unfairly maligned in my tweeting during the panel—I call fuzzy head on account of cold as an excuse), and a fantastic, balanced, nuanced and collegial panel on corporate participation in subcultures, which featured Richard Nash, Raymond Roker from URB, Gala Darling, Jeff Newelt, and Molly, who brought up one of my pet peeves, corporate-sponsored creative contests (to find out why they are Evil, go here). Of the publishing panels I missed, I could count on my cohorts from this blog and DBW, Kate Rados and Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, respectively, to fill me in over drinks after the day was done.

On the non-publishing-related side, things were even more interesting. Some of the panels I attended:

An amazing panel entitled: Moon 2.0: The Outer Limits of Moon Exploration, which turned out to not be about that at all, but rather a great overview of public and private efforts to revitalize the American manned space program (and in which I proved yet again that I can’t watch footage of the Space Shuttle lifting off with out either getting goosebumps or tearing up).

A party at the Austin Museum of Art sponsored by Effective UI, which featured an amazing show of Hatch Show Print posters from throughout the 2oth century. For a printmaking junkie like me, seeing the history of one of the few old-school printers still alive and thriving was worth the trip alone.

A fascinating keynote by social media academic Danah Boyd on privacy and publicity (transcript here; well worth a read).

A mind blowing workshop by the guys at Opera on the upcoming HTML5 spec, and how it will simplify coding and further semantic approaches to web development (the <video> tag is a thing of beauty, let me tell you; and the forms functionality in HTML5 is AMAZING).

An enlightening look at a custom CMS from the fellas at Spoonfed.co.uk, which tackled a lot of the back-end issues I wrestle with on Tor.com.

A conversation with Gustavo Santaolalla, legendary music producer (often collaborates with one of my favourite bands, Café Tacvba) and film composer (Amores Perros, Babel, Y Tu Mamá También, etc)

And of course, the closing keynote by futuraist, science fiction author and critic Bruce Sterling.

In short, an amazing experience, and I’ll come back next year, by hook or by crook; this is a place I need to be at. For anyone in publishing—or any industry—who wonders whether they’ll find something of value here, I say: Yes. Most of all, as I leave Austin for NYC, I’m filled with a renewed desire to get back to making things: books, websites, posters, design, communications, etc. I find a renewed urge to leave my mark on the world, and to join the wonderfully creative and prolific crowd of people with whom I shared the last four days with.

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What’s the solution? The canonical format of a book should be HTML. Authors should write in HTML, making a manuscript immediately transformable to an E-book. A manuscript could then be imported into that fossil the publishing industry refuses to leave behind, Microsoft Word. (MS Word’s Track Changes feature has become a kind of methadone for an addicted publishing industry.)

To typeset a print book from this source, translating twice (HTML → Word → InDesign) is a proven workflow with the added advantage of outputting tagged PDFs with good semantics.

Go read the entire article, it’s chunky and chock-full of compelling thoughts on ebook production from the point of view of people who have been working with HTML from the early days of the web, and, more importantly, are strident supporters of standards-based web development and the semantic web.

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“Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek – http://bit.ly/aEN3yu“

As a complete and unashamed geek, I immediately clicked on it and saw the author had created a landing page for the book, offered it as a $5 PDF download, as well as a paperback via Lulu, Amazon, and BN.

I immediately Re-Tweeted:

RT @retroist: Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek – http://bit.ly/aEN3yu // $5 for the PDF – I may make that donation!

Within the next couple of hours, I found an email in my Inbox from the author:

Kate -

I just wanted to say thanks for the re-tweet of The Retroist’s note
about my Star Wars book. It’s always a pleasant surprise to see my work
get a boost from unexpected sources. If you decide to get the PDF,
please drop me a note and let me know what you think!

- John Booth

Strange thing is – I wasn’t creeped out by the unsolicited email.  In fact, I was feeling pretty special and pretty damn impressed that he took the time to look me up.  True, my email is on my site and I’m pretty transparent about how to reach me, but I thought it was cool all the same.  So cool, in fact, that I bought the paperback today.  I hate PayPal (a story for another time…), so the PDF option didn’t work for me personally.  After hearing from the author, I had no problem parting with an extra $10 to get the print edition…nor adding tags on Amazon…and ‘liking it’ on Glue.  He’s got me not only as a customer and reader, but an activist.  AND I haven’t even read the damn thing yet!

I’m not saying that every author should Tweet-Stalk their potential readers, but I think the takeaway here is for authors to make a complete investment in reaching out to their community, even through non-traditional methods.  Would I have advised John to follow Retroist, then check out @ replies, then look up email addresses and reach out?  Probably wouldn’t have asked him to go there, but I think this minimally invasive approach hit the right note with me and I applaud his effort.

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Like a passionate call to arms about a mundane pet peeve!!

I’m officially asking for a colon ban.

Don’t be coy.  You know what I mean.

[Punchy Book Title] [COLON] [Incredibly Long Subtitle of What The Book's About, in Case the Reader Doesn't Get Our Pun]

The majority of titles on the NYTimes Non-Fiction Bestseller List follow this format.  Yes, it’s helpful when you’re not sure what the book really covers, but it’s a little out of control and frankly predictable.

Examples:

Game Change:  Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves

Open: An Autobiography

and holy hell:

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

By the way, Non-Fiction isn’t the only group being a little ridiculous.  I’m looking at you [Fiction Title] [COLON] ["A Novel"].

The Burning Land:  A Novel

Under The Dome:  A Novel

The Swan Thieves: A Novel

and my favorite…

I, Sniper: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel (Bob Lee Swagger Novels)

Indeed, Bob has swagger.  I say our book titles need a little linguistic strut as well.

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