We’ve heard plenty from the experts about the future of paper books (or “p-books”) lately. Just last month Deliciously Fictitious asked Australian industry stakeholders – booksellers, publishers, visionaries and authors – how the horizon was looking to them. Now, in the wake of last week’s launch of the Apple iBookstore Down Under (for some lucky publishers, [...]
The digital revolution may be raising publisher and bookseller hackles, but it’s a boon for new authors, says Adrian Deans. Deans, whose debut novel Mr Cleansheets came out in March, said the evolving publishing environment was frustrating at first. “The first thing to say for a person like me, being confronted by the digital age, is [...]
Australian publishers have 12 months to get their digital infrastructure in place or suffer the consequences, publishing veteran Peter Donoughue has warned. Since the Amazon Kindle reinvented e-reading, the low buzz of digital apprehension within the book trade has grown to a dull roar. Now, as bets are being taken on whether the paperback ends [...]
The head of the Australian Institute for the Future of the Book (“if:book”) says the size of major publishers could work against them in the digital age. if:book Australia founder Kate Eltham said large, general trade publishers had a competitive advantage in the print book market due to economies of scale in the production process, but [...]
Australian independent booksellers are powerless to join the e-book revolution, according to Gleebooks co-owner David Gaunt. Booksellers are becoming increasingly frustrated by their inability to enter the e-book market because there is no affordable internet “cloud” available for them to sell from. “It sounds a bit weak [not] to say we should just be dynamic [...]
Against all odds, I have just had the great fortune to return from a little real life globetrotting of my own. I’ve spent a whirlwind two weeks in the territory of none other than Mr Phileas Fogg and took some time to tread the cobbles of Covent Garden – once the motherland of booksellers though sadly lacking these [...]