Opposite Day: Scribd E-Book Writer’s Jump to Mainstream
by Kara Swisher
Posted on September 29, 2009 at 2:34 PM PT
Earlier today, BoomTown posted a video interview with Scribd CEO Trip Adler about the online publishing start-up.
Now, here is a video of a chat I had with Kemble Scott, an author who has made use of the service in an innovative backwards effort at traditional publishing.
While the San Francisco writer published his last novel via a traditional publisher, he did not want to wait as long for his next, titled “The Sower.”
So he published it on Scribd for a few dollars a piece, and it was a modest success, even more so since he also garnered a lot of fans via sampling the book.
But it was enough to attract Numina Press, which then rushed the book into print. Now, it is doing well both online and offline.
Here is my talk with Scott about the experience, one sure to be replicated more and more in the future:
Comments
Hey Kara,
Personally, the real opportunity for book release/re-invention is when the Apple Tablet comes out.
My thesis here is that what Apple has done to drive consumers back to a record-like format with iTunes LP will be meaningfully extended to enable book publishers big and small to create rich, colorful, interactive books that take advantage of the inherent physics of the iPhone/iPod Touch platform (SDK, App Store, touch, tilt, internet, computational logic, etc.), something that I blogged about in:
Check it out, if interested.
Rebooting the Book (One Apple iPad Tablet at a Time)
http://bit.ly/zOoEu
After all, it’s the same approach Apple used to snare a huge chunk of the mobile gaming arena (which has captured both biggie and small gaming cos).
Mark
Posted by Mark Sigal at September 29th, 2009 at 2:44 pmI learned about Scribd last autumn but didn’t know what to make of it and promptly forgot it. When Kemble Scott published “The Sower” as one of the first ebooks for sale on Scribd, however, a whole new publishing paradigm was born. I felt the publishing ground shake a little bit. His success at moving from cheap ebook to hardcover proves the viablility of the model.
Posted by Andrew Dugas at September 29th, 2009 at 3:44 pmHere is the thing, when the Kindle came out I was pretty excited, but I did not buy one as I was in the middle of a heavy project and just could not bothered at the time.
Last week was my wife’s birthday so I bought her the latest kindle as she reads a lot -about as much I would like to- she is by no means a technophobe and she can navigate around an iPhone pretty quickly and she loves that device.
However, yesterday she was reading a book -old school- and I asked her why she did not buy it on her kindle and she basically said she found the experience of holding paper and turning pages a lot more enjoyable.
I find myself less convinced today that digital distribution works as well in terms of book publishing.
I am sold on digital distribution for movies, games, app’s etc. I just don’t see books having the same value add for the consumer.
Perhaps it is an acquired taste and with time she will get used to it, but as of now I don’t think she is that into it.
One of the things that struck me also was that we like the bookshelves we have -I know, I know, that sounds stupid- it is not to impress people, but it does make the room feel cozier.
From my own perspective, I have not had time to read a book at the moment, I did play around with the device as a major part of my work is digital distribution so I was intrigued by it.
I did buy a few new york times issues, but again I have to agree with my wife, I enjoy having the news paper in my mitts.
Again, I am not a technophobe; in my home office alone I have:
iPhone 3g and a 3GS
Xbox’s (every version)
Play Station (every version)
Wii
PSP
DSi and DS
52″ tv
So basically I have enough electronics to nuke the nuts off myself.
I really like the concept of digital distribution in terms of book publishing, I am just not convinced it is for the masses.
Posted by Kevin Dent at September 29th, 2009 at 4:43 pm