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Tag: Michael Tamblyn

Published February 3, 2010

Midweek Miscellany

A Wall in Palestine — more quiet mastery from Henry Sene Yee who excels in projects that require maximum discretion and minimal commentary. Like his cover design for Columbine,  A Wall in Palestine is notable for what it leaves out. An early contender for cover the year. You heard it here first.

Making the World Fun to Look At — The Cleveland Plain Dealer has (what is believed to be) the first interview with Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes,  since 1989:

I think some of the reason “Calvin and Hobbes” still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it.

I’ve never regretted stopping when I did.

Amen.

Seven Things Publishers Need to Remember — A nice post by Kobo Books exec (and compulsive list maker) Michael Tamblyn on e-books and pricing:

A reader should never have to worry about “leaving books behind” or “losing their library”. If you can’t download it and move it somewhere else, it’s worth less. Seriously. They’re books, not Atari 2600 video game cartridges.

(But I’m waiting for the “7 Things E-tailers Need to Remember” post Michael. When’s that coming? You can post here if you want)

The Lost 1970 Man Booker Prize — Commemorating novels missed out because of rule changes in 1971. Bonkers. But kind of great.

Problem Solver — Ian Shimkoviak of The Book Designers interviews the legendary Carin Goldberg for their new blog CoveredUp:

I’m not a sentimentalist. The e-book is inevitable. And they make sense. The publishing industry can’t sustain the old/current model for making/selling books. It’s wasteful and unsustainable. They have to embrace change. Good content will continue to be created whether it’s represented on paper or on a screen.  And there will always be a market, albeit small, for beautiful picture books. The role of the graphic designer is shrinking but it’s in our court to get involved in the next wave of imagery and ideas.

And finally…

Jonathan Lethem, author of Chronic City (which I liked, but wanted to like more), interviewed on KCRW’s Bookworm (via the incroyable Largehearted Boy):

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Published December 3, 2009

E-Reading the Tea Leaves

While The Wall Street Journal recently suggested that e-readers are more eight-track than iPod and Forrester Research predicted that B&N will steal market share from Amazon and Sony in 2010, Joe Wikert, General Manager & Publisher at O’Reilly Media, made the even bolder prediction that Amazon — in the face of stiff competition from other e-readers and multi-use devices like the iPhone — “will completely exit the Kindle hardware space within the next 3 years”.

Although predicting the future is a mug’s game (and Amazon are particularly adept at being at least 2 or 3 steps ahead of the pundits), I think that Joe — an early Kindle advocate — might actually be onto something and Amazon really might be prepared to let the device, if not the format or apps, die quietly.

Does this mean that Amazon made a mistake in launching their own e-reader?

I don’t think so.

If publishers had rushed to embrace the Kindle, Amazon would have completely pwned the distribution of e-books (and had publishers even further over the proverbial barrel).

But even though this hasn’t quite worked out, Amazon are still sitting pretty. The Kindle has undoubtedly increased the popularity of e-books and Amazon — the best known and largest online bookstore — is the natural beneficiary. Even if manufacturing the hardware becomes too much like hard work, Amazon will still sell a lot of e-books and the Kindle will surely have served its purpose as a beachhead…

Kindle and Shortcovers

And on the subject of the Kindle, it’s been interesting to see Indigo, Canada’s biggest book retailer, respond to Amazon launching their e-reader north of the border.

Joel Silver, President of Indigo, — who apparently reads on his Blackberry — discussed e-readers and e-books on Business News Network last week (there’s also an interesting follow up interview with the estimable Jason Epstein) and Michael Serbinis, President of Indigo’s e-book initiative Shortcovers, took a few (slightly uncharitable) pot-shots at the Kindle in a recent interview with The National Post.

But, as Shortcovers clearly demonstrates, Indigo have been preparing for the arrival of the Kindle for a while, and — if you have a spare hour — it worth listening to Michael Tamblyn, their VP of Content, Sales & Merchandising, re-enact his Tools of Change presentation Your Reading Life, Always With You to see where they are going…

So what do you think is the future of e-readers? Any thoughts?

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Published March 19, 2009

6 Projects Video

6 Projects That Could Change Publishing For the Better — Video of Michael Tamblyn’s talk at BNC Technology Forum 2009:

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