Who makes a book? (Idealist version)

Yesterday I was a bit harsh in my evaluation of a couple of new models for writing, authoring, and publishing books. Today several other new ideas caught my attention that don't push my "bullshit" button.

Foreword This Week reported that The Wall Street Journal reported that HarperCollins has announced an as-yet-unnamed imprint that will not accept returns from buyers, nor will they pay authors advances. Okay, so this is just a bit late for rumor that smacks of a late April Fool's Day joke. Maybe the new imprint will be graphic novels, and will be eased by the existing no-returns, no-exchanges comic book sales model.

Forward also announced "Digital Book 2008." Wow, standards for digital books. One of the sponsors listed is Adobe, so maybe they can actually make this work. DRM in music is failing, and books cannot be performed live (most, anyway). What is the future of a true digital book? A DRM-based Kindle, or the ubiquitous PDF? Given the disposable nature of mass market paperbacks, an advertising-based model could work (chapter headers, rather than embedded, I hope). Long disquisitions won't be such an easy sell. But those might be worth paper, outside class use.

Boing Boing reports on We Tell Stories: web-native storytelling from Penguin. These look pretty good, and, if not exactly innovative, it is certainly innovative for a mainstream "classics" imprint to be making these available. I read the first "chapter" of "The 21 Steps" and will probably read the next. Slick.

And, Todd Bryant at Academic Commons announced Sophie 1.0, a "multimedia authoring tool released under a creative commons license." The comments indicate that the tool is definately a 1.0 version. Looks like something I might check out at 1.5 or 2.0. I hope it will last that long.

Goodnight

Cool looks, needs more substance

--Today the email experience council's [no link because the newsletter's link was broken] newsletter featured a link to Zinio's Digital Classics. I would love to sign up to use them, except I already have tons of email that I never get through. Plus, who needs another Publisher's Clearing House (without the Sweepstakes)? Looks great--much more visually appealing than Project Gutenberg, but not as big, or as *gack* noble.

--Mediapostpublications.com announced the launch of Prime Time Rewind. Again, a visually interesting, if clunky, interface with less? content, and much of the same content, as is already available on Hulu.com. Maybe it's the dorky librarian in me, but alphabetical by title is still a pretty easy way to find shows. Mediaposts's Wayne Friedman says the appeal of the new site is that it "uses the free video links of every available full-length network program and presents those shows in an easier format for consumers to access." Well, the link in their article was wrong, so maybe he was looking at a different site than I.

[--I found it a bit ironic that both of these email newsletters, from big-time professionals in the business, featured broken or incorrect links. If they only followed their own, very good, advice.]