Bookexpo Set-up Monday

BookExpo hadn't even started before news that Larry Kirshbaum, was taking up a role with Amazon as their head of publishing dropped like the proverbial pin. Will B&N, which is rapidly growing their eBook and publishing business, adopt a similar approach? Meanwhile Kobo announced a new reader this afternoon which got many excited enough to start pre-ordering new equipment (more from LATimes)

At the IDPF conference there was much anticipation over the launch of ePub 3.0 which is nicely written up by Good eReader:

Primarily, this version of EPUB was formed from the working groups of the IDPF with the cooperation of over twenty companies who have come on board to implement it to their devices, and iBooks already support a subset of EPUB 3 right out of the gate while Adobe Digital Editions has forward plans. Additionally, one of the requirements from the IDPF was that EPUB 2 files still work on any device that uses EPUB 3, voiding any fears of obsoleteness and erasing participants’ concerns about needing to reformat EPUB 2 files to the new version.

The biggest crowd response came from the news that audio and video playback are synchronized with the text in real time through Media Overlays, as well as the fact that there is a pronunciation lexicon support . The new format will also mean greater global use, as the vertical language format for Japanese, as well as the right-to-left requirements from several languages will be workable; however, the real excitement there was that the entire book doesn’t have to be formatted for the one language, making it possible now to have a text with different language standards in it.

And they have some interviews in the rest of the article.

At the same conference Hannah Johnson wrote up the session: Publishers Debate Future of Enhanced E-books (PubP):

While the future of enhanced e-books and apps remains hazy, it’s clear that publishers are thinking a lot about how to monetize their content. They are making big investments (including the development enhanced e-books and apps) in order to find a solution. Nash is focused on building value through a community of writers and readers. Raccah at Sourcebooks has been successful building enhanced e-books and apps. This is just more evidence that the future of publishing isn’t a one-size-fits-all scenario.

At the ABA sponsored Publishing University Susan Danziger, CEO of DailyLit and Michael Healy, executive director of the Book Rights Registry reprised their London BookFair roles as moderators of the big debate: Authors and readers are all that matter. Publishers will soon be irrelevant. Here written up by Publisher's Weekly's Danny Snow:

Nash closed in favor of publishers, citing 18 million creative writers today who want to reach the 65 million consumers who spend five hours a week reading. He concluded that publishers are the essential link between readers and writers, especially independent publishers.

Not surprisingly, in the post-debate balloting (with a larger portion of the audience participating), the publishers in the audience voted for themselves again -- but in smaller proportion: 68 voted for publishers; 33 voted against publishers; 9 were undecided

Finally Library Journal held a Day of Dialog and here are some selected tweets (#LJdod11) where Karin Slaughter seems to have made an impact:

@acornsandnuts: I don't want, as a librarian, to have to be the gatekeeper for quality. Publishers (& editors!) have such a important role to play

@HuisceBeatha: If you cut library funding, you decrease access to books, "the great leveller" in a democracy, says Slaughter

@DonLinn: Library tweets are making a compelling case for libraries as a benefit to publishers...not just to the community

@AudioGo: Books are power. Library is way of giving access to everybody , great equalizer-Slaughter

@acornsandnuts: I don't think our patrons care about advocacy in large enough #s to have it matter. Note what came up earlier re: the NYC libs.

@glecharles: Are publishers paying attention to library social media efforts? Critical discoverability point; how to support, partner?

@surlyspice: notes Karin Slaughter is just as adorable as she was last year, only now she is helping to save libraries all across the country.

@glecharles: Karen Slaughter notes history of book banning, forced illiteracy to control people. Ebooks + digital divide a similar angle?

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DAY 2 - Wednesday
DAY 1: Tuesday