If publishers are near at one affair , it ’s publishing . If they ’re good at two things , it ’s publish and order every aspect of the newspaper book , until changing anything about it seems unthinkable . This hebdomad ’s eastward - crisis : The Death of the Cover .
The New York Timesnotesone of the many attendant — and admittedly kinda captivating — consequences of switching to ebooks : covers do n’t matter as much any longer . I stand for , sure , they ’re more authoritative in a narrow signified , since ebook stores video display book covers instead of books spines , and obviously , a catchy cover song will help sell a book , online or off , to a person who ’s already at a ( e)book memory , but that ’s not what anyone ’s upset about here . Nope ! It ’s theloss of free marketing :
If you find the cap on the books the great unwashed are reading on a planer or in the common , you might make up one’s mind to mark out “ The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ” or “ The Help , ” too .
This no longer happens with ebooks , because the backside ofebook readersdon’t kick upstairs anything except ebook readers .
So , fundamentally , the unquestioning dubiousness is : How will people ever have intercourse what to buy , if not by stretch out their necks to see what the cute girl across the subway automobile is reading ? And who will compensate the publishing industry for this lack of free advertising , which they are entitle to ? The answer : We ’ll be o.k. ; and shut up .
Yes , people who would have purchased a book because they saw three people reading it at Starbucks may not buy said book in an ebook world . But they might buy another Quran , because they see it on their brother ’ Twitter feeds , or because iTunes spit out some kind of automatise recommendation for them that ’s actually grounded in data , beyond their 20 - soul , Dan - Brown - predetermine coffee shop sample radical . More to the point , the expiration of this totally unquantifiable benefit to publishers is likely — and probably massively — offset by the fact that all these secretive ebook enjoyer are now , at all times , just seconds aside from tapping into a vast digital bookshop , which delivers book in a matter of seconds . A band of cities do n’t have places where masses conglomerate and read , decent libraries , or even a major book store . So , newspaper publisher , focus on this vast , new , and unexplored market that ’s about to detonate — not a granular small non - issue , that ’s really just another formulation of “ but it ’s just not that same , man ! ”
The rest of us are reasonably aroused about it . And we ’re also pretty excited about what twist like the iPad could do to make covers more interesting , like in this concept from Jesse Rosten :
That ’ll deal books . [ NYT ]
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