Overdrive/Sony in Library Deal

This is one of those developments that’s kind of low-key and insidery, but ultimately has a big impact.

Sony and Overdrive have announced a cross-marketing effort. This is big news because Overdrive supplies ebooks to libraries. Users can download Sony Reader ebooks from library websites. The books "expire" after a few weeks – this is a fantastic service for readers of genre fiction, particularly. You don’t necessarily want to own every single book you read.

I know that many libraries have already been doing this – my impression from the press release is that new marketing initiatives consist of:

• Reminding visitors to both websites that this service exists, and providing a search box to locate their library
• Training librarians to help patrons with the Sony Reader
• Doing marketing within the Sony Style stores to raise in-store awareness about this service

It’s a great idea – for all the complaints about Amazon raiding users’ Kindles to "take back" books they never should have sold in the first place, it may be that those who are not interested in perpetual ownership of books come to see ebooks as a way of reading quickly and disposably – and begin using their libraries more often.

Book Oven Ready To Bake

I received word the other day that Book Oven is out of alpha.

Their first offering, Bite-Sized Edits, is open to the world. Bite-Sized Edits allows you to upload a document, share it (or not) and offers proofreading tools. According to Hugh McGuire, who created Book Oven:

You can help proofread other peoples’ texts, you can proofread your own text (in private) using Bite-Size Edits, you can invite a small group, or open up your project for proofreading by the world.

Hugh’s vision of collaborative or "cloud-based" publishing uses a little bit of crowdsourcing, some innovative tools, and a lot of love for books and reading:

Book Oven was born of this inspiration: to make an online space where writers could gather a group of collaborators (editors, proofreaders, designer) around their work to help take a raw manuscript through to finished product, and then, if they wish, to sell it through online channels (though of course, if they wish to ship the final manuscript to a publisher, they can do that too; or they can just keep it for themselves).

More on teens and ebooks

A couple of weeks ago, the Bits blog of the NY Times covered a proposal by the Democratic Leadership Council called "A Kindle in Every Backpack." Says the Times:

Its authors argue that government should furnish each student in the country with a digital reading device, which would allow textbooks to be cheaply distributed and updated, and allow teachers to tailor an interactive curriculum that effectively competes for the attention of their students in the digital age.

David Rothman at Teleread pointed out subsequently that he’s already done a lot of research along these lines, going back to the 1990s. But David also brings up a very good point – a Kindle is not the magic bullet. He stated in an email (which I have his permission to quote):

So why do standards matter? To separate the idea much as possible from specific brands and types of machines. Policymakers need to understand that just like adults, kids ideally should be able to use whatever kinds of devices they want for reading, Web-browsing, you name it. Many children can benefit from the interactivity of netbooks, the compactness of iPod Touches and so on. And it would be horrible to force all low-income students to use Kindles–without good keyboards–when they lacked decent hardware at home and faced long lines at the library for use of Internet-connected machines.

I’m thinking of the entire population, not just young people. For example, what about the seniors for whom Kindles or variants might be more appropriate than for the young? As some have said, Kindle-style machines could be the new large print. 

David is absolutely right – and what I like about David’s approach is how it highlights the critical role that libraries take in a ebook world. Libraries provide content that we look at as "free" – subsidized by taxes and private grants. Distributing content independent of the device is the only way ebooks are going to flourish at the rate many initially envisioned – strapping content to DRM (and a particular device) and squeezing every last penny out of it consumer-by-consumer is yet another stranglehold being put on ebooks, ensuring that only those with disposable income can take advantage of their benefits (those who need these benefits the least, I might add).