Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

“Seriously, folks, the future of books is being decided now, much like it was being decided for newspapers 5-7 years ago. I’m not at all bashing e-books. I think they’re great in many ways (like being stuck on Atlanta tarmac and downloading John Buchan’s The 39 Steps to your iPhone). But, there are some extremely important questions involving books and technology these days which – left unheeded – are defaulting in a direction which may not be the world of books we want to live in.”

“Printing with THINK™ allows manufacturers to avoid the use of curing devices, ovens, and blowers to help dry ink, reducing the amount of electricity used in the printing process, and reduces drastically the amounts of VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, released into the air as a byproduct of the manufacturing process.”

“Just over half of publishers have put plans in place to sell books in any digital form, according to a survey taken at this year’s London Book Fair. Only 53% of the almost 200 respondents to the questionnaire—conducted by IBS—said they had plans in place currently, while 43% have no arrangements made. A further 4% said they did not know. But the survey also found 42% of publishers expected to “significantly increase” the amount of titles available in a digital format over the next five years.” Gah, percentages. And gah, publishers! Get with the program, please!