Ebook publishing – new styles and possibilities?

In surfing the net I came across a couple of things that made sense to me (though whether I’ll be able to act on them is another question).

They’re basically thoughts about how ebook publishing in future might look a lot less like ‘publishing’ and much more like some other things, like running nightclub events or selling software. Or a mix of both.

First: Doug Toft’s Posterous Blog. Headline details: publishers had five main functions: curating (i.e. maintaining and developing a ‘collection’ of authors), editing/publishing, printing, distribution, promotion of their authors’ works. However, 90% of the work involved in publishing disappears with digital versions. OK, so the files need to be edited, put into multiple digital formats, and someone needs to do a lot of SEO work – but even so, the one key issue that digitalisation doesn’t change is the ‘curating’ function.

So what can publishers deliver that makes it worthwhile for an author to do business with them? Answer: readers. He describes the new functions of a publisher, apart from curating, as creating, leading, and connecting together potential members of a ‘tribe’.

Book publishing then comes to look a lot more like – this is my view, I should say, not his – being involved in promoting a band, or running a successful nightclub event.

Second: a thought about the future of ebooks from the NY Times article ‘E-Books Fly Beyond Mere Text’. Headline details: ebooks offer publishers and writers all kinds of new possibilities, such as embedding video, games, music, easter eggs and so forth. For many books the key attraction will remain the story – plot, characters, language style and so forth – but obviously these new possibilities are available and can be exploited, just as they can in Word files, if you want to do it. And savvy writers can build them into the text.

Again my take on this is that few authors will be able to do it by themselves, but within a collective that involves multi-media people (or a multi-media publisher, of course) it will become increasingly common, accepted, even expected. After all, many if not most textbooks are already supported by dedicated websites – with an ebook, the dedicated support can be built into the book – including, perhaps, letting the reader know the support materials have been updated and allowing them (for a payment?) to upload the amended version, in the same way software companies get you to buy a product and then charge for the update/upgrade.

Any thoughts?