Speaker is Peter Collingridge of Enhanced Editions. Published The Death of Buddy Monroe. Came from a background of publishing, web page designing and film production. Value of books driven down by retailers and impact of digital has been very small. Want to make digital innovations to increase value of books. Sit between developer, consultancy and marketing house.
UK publishing houses slow to uptake on the iPhone. They said they were not publishing houses. E-ink devices too limited. iPhone has the ability. Had to be a premium publisher to get value back into the book. Needed a hybridized book for a hybrid device.
Feature set: use Epub cause is HTML and has good rendering; synchronize audio and text, this was ectremely difficult. Took a year to go from concept to first App.
Extremely successful. Future of publishing based on their experience. Next 3 to 5 years: losts of change; must learn from the mistakes from the music industry; disruption is necessary for publishing to survive; traditional value chain in publishing is the same for plain ebooks; they blurred boundaries between roles of reader and of all parties to the value chain; Enhanced Editions moved in different direction than standard ebooks. Their value chain is not linear, but is cyclical and iterative. Must rethink many typical roles, for example rights and editorial skill set. Multimedia skills needed. Digital marketing different and requires a different skill set.
Publishing industry must innovate fast to avoid disintermediation. Authors cutting out publishers to go with digital publishers. Potentially a flood of this happening. Agents are beginning to look for digital publishers because publishing industry is moving so slowly. Kindle, Sony Reader, etc. are simply an extension of the current book and do nothing to enhance the book’s value.
