Comments for Green Lamp Media

Comment on Things Publishers Fear: #3 ~ Apple by iPad Links: Monday, March 8, 2010 « Mike Cane's iPad Test

iPad Links: Monday, March 8, 2010 « Mike Cane's iPad Test — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:45:45 +0000

[...] Books are not music New York’s Indie and Small Press Book Fair Things Publishers Fear: #3 ~ Apple E-books are [...]

Comment on Things Publishers Fear: #2 ~ Google by eoinpurcell

eoinpurcell — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:16:14 +0000

It is funny,

I always move between a basic feeling that the database itself is a powerful and useful tool and the fear that the power of such a database in one private party’s hands may not be a good thing.

Tricky position!
Eoin

Comment on Things Publishers Fear: #2 ~ Google by Samantha Holman

Samantha Holman — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:10:36 +0000

Overall a good analysis of the fears around this fait acompli. I can’t quite decide which outcome of the fairness hearing we should fear most. I will comment again after attending tomorrow’s session on Google at the IPA Copyright Symposium.

Comment on Whither Publishing In The Twenty Teens? by Seizing the Means of Production – Part 3 » Oisín McGann's Blog

Seizing the Means of Production – Part 3 » Oisín McGann's Blog — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:20:09 +0000

[...] Charlie Stross, Eoin Purcell talks about the race to the bottom in the world of digital publishing. He questions whether there [...]

Comment on Things Publishers Fear: #2 ~ Google by Things Publishers Fear: #2 ~ Google (Over At Green Lamp) « Eoin Purcell's Blog

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:34:39 +0000

[...] google, Publishers by eoinpurcell The second part of my series about modern publishing over at The Green Lamp Media Blog: The database brings the reality of competition with EVERY SINGLE BOOK EVER PUBLISHED into sharp [...]

Comment on Things Publishers Fear: #2 ~ Google by Cool Springs Press Blog » Blog Archive » Google Books: Why It’s Not the End of the World

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:39:20 +0000

[...] I read an article on Google Books and its effect on book publishers (Things Publishers Fear #2, Eoin Purcell). And while I will acknowledge the idea of all books being scanned and made [...]

Comment on Things Publishers Fear: # 1 ~ Amazon by eoinpurcell

eoinpurcell — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:53:39 +0000

This is true!

It is certainly a worry. As long as publishers can make connections though, I think the current state can be changed. Macmillan do a good job connecting via Tor.com, if they could find a similar model for other niches …

Comment on Things Publishers Fear: # 1 ~ Amazon by Karen Wester Newton

Karen Wester Newton — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:49:31 +0000

>Having already surrendered the publisher-reader relationship. . .

I think it’s worse than that. The Amazon/Macmillan feud may have kicked off a lot of sympathy for Macmillan in the publishing world, but to a lot of Amazon’s customers, Macmillan is now actively the bad guy. Most of them never paid much attention to who published the books they read, but they’re all fired up about it now.

Comment on Whither Publishing In The Twenty Teens? by eoinpurcell

eoinpurcell — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:41:30 +0000

Oisin,

Thanks for the comment.

Love Stross’ point of view, mainly because totally agree. The real advantage news orgs still have is that they have brands and reputation. If they’d only reduce their exposure to legacy distribution and employ more journalists doing real work, they might justify their pay-walls and the value of their content.

In publishing terms, I agree that they need to move online with gusto and more than likely around vertical communities of interest that engage the audience and their attention. Tor.com is doing a good job of showing how that might work.

In terms of brand there was an excellent keynote at the Digital book World conference by Shiv Singh on the topic of branding.

Eoin

Comment on Whither Publishing In The Twenty Teens? by Oisin McGann

Oisin McGann — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:18:38 +0000

Hi Eoin,
Sci-fi writer and tech journalist, Charlie Stross, has some interesting points to make about the problems of making money from digital publishing, and ensuring quality. He isn’t a great believer in Murdoch’s model, because of the way Google is creating a completely different model of spreading information. One that doesn’t automatically create an environment that demands quality (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/01/the-monetization-paradox-or-wh.html). And I don’t necessarily agree that an iTunes for stories wouldn’t work. Given that iTunes is looking at a subscription model, I could see that being the way publishers need to go – though it could mean we all end up writing serials.
First though, publishers would have to give their brands a proper online profile so that people recognize them as filters of quality and come to them looking for the good stuff. This is still the main reason writers need publishers in the real world, but the recognition of the publisher’s brand, to date, has only needed to extend as far as the reviewers and booksellers. Now that consumers are starting to bypass traditional retail outlets, that brand recognition – that of a provider of quality material – has to reach all the way to the reader. Otherwise, the publishing industry will merely become a service provider to writers who can afford to use it, and we’ll be swamped with gigabytes of free-of-charge, stream-of-consciousness ‘reality’ writing, following in the wake of television.
I think there’s a danger that the publishing industry could be shunted aside because the readers are busy writing for each other. So there HAS to be a place to go for people who want something more.
Oisin.