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Sunday, October 16, 2016

The Explosion From Desktop to Mobile Publishing

I the past twenty years (+ or -) the publishing industry has been bombarded into new business models due to the transition from print (traditional) to digital publishing and now it is blasting into new directions again due to the inner digital transition from desktop to mobile.

Damn the constant change and associated drama and stress this has heaped upon, not only publishing entities, but writers, authors and other content producers as well! :(

Different ways to manage ad dependent revenue or lack of, different advertising avenues, different distribution ways and means, different angles for this and that, etc., etc.

Anyway, according to Kunal Guptafounder and CEO of Polar, a branded content platform provider, due to the rapid jump from desktop to mobile the desktop has become the new print for publishers.    

The following insight by Kunal Gupta gives an interesting and knowledgeable understanding of this latest aspect of the publishing phenomenon:

Publishers are missing the jump from desktop to mobile


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Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Elusive English - Why the English Language Is So Hard To Learn

What did they say?
This post is going to talk about a peripheral, but fundamental, element to both writing and publishing.

The language used to paint stories, legal contracts, instructions, teaching lessons, laws, campaign point papers, jokes, directions etc., etc., etc.

What would we do without our languages? And even with them, some people still tend to interpret the same words differently! Talk about bending the subject to suit their own purposes :)

If anything, we all should pause, reflect and appreciate what people go through when learning to communicate AND write in another language.

Now, all languages must have their eccentricities, but I believe English is probably one of the hardest languages to learn. Why? Too many words having the same spelling but different meanings and even pronunciations at times.

Time to have a little fun :) Here are just some of the reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:


> The bandage was wound around the wound.
This is too HARD! I don't understand 

> The farm was used to produce produce.

> The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

> We must polish the Polish furniture.

> He could lead if he would get the lead out.

> The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

> Since there is no time like the present, she thought it was time to present the present.

> A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

> When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

> I did not object to the object.

> The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

> There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

> They were too close to the door to close it.

> The buck does funny things when the does are present.

> A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

> To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

> The wind was too strong for the mates to wind the sail.

> After a number of injections, my jaw got number.

> Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.

> I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

> How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?


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Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Way Beyond Publishing - The Disrupted Publishing Field Is Just the Tip of the Future Iceberg!

The future is just an arm length away!
 
Leila Villalobos from Caracas, Venezuela, a classmate from my high school days in Key West, Florida, sent me an interesting article that will energize your thoughts about our rather immediate future.

We are getting ready to enter an even more disruptive and rapidly changing world AND the changes will be coming faster than ever! All of the prognostications may or may not come to pass in the exact time frame forecast, but, I feel they will come to pass. Fun reading:

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years - and most people don't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years.

It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Welcome to the Exponential Age.

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world.

 Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.

Watson, the Computer, already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate than human nurses.

Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans.

In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear to the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving.
Our kids will never get a driver's license and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking space into parks. 1,2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000km, with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies might become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.

I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; they are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream in 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all cars will be electric. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can only now see the impact.

Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that all coal companies will be out of business by 2025.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There will be companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and your breath samplet. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medicine, nearly for free.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.

At the end of this year, new smartphones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they already 3D printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. Any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields. Aeroponics will need much less water.

The first petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore.

There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

Lie detection: There is an app called "moodies" which allows anyone to know immediately in which mood you are. In 2020, there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they are telling the truth and when not.

Currency: Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more that one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long, long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smartphones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. In 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smartphone. That means, everyone has the same access to a world class education. Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at school in First World countries.

Interesting ~  

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Supreme Court Authorizes Stealing Books From Authors!


Stolen Books
On Monday, 18 April 2016, the Supreme Court (SC) let stand a lower court's ruling that allowed Google to mass copy/scan millions of authors' books without their permission or granting them any remuneration.

By legitimizing Google's mass digital scanning of authors' books without their permission or remuneration, the Supreme Court believes that authors' work, created from their own imaginations, is NOT their own property! I guess then Google owns our very imaginations?

Hogwash! What a bunch of rubbish. What is the sense or purpose of copyright laws, if the SC won't even recognize or uphold them?

Books no longer under copyright are excluded. But, books still under copyright law should not be copied, in part or in whole, without the permission of and some kind of remuneration to the authors (or their estates), especially when the use of the scanned/copied books results in profits.

Something is rotten in the state of supreme law (if there is such a thing on this earth). Could it be that the SC is overly influenced by the wealth of some corporations and not enough by fairness in law and true ownership?

What say you?

Read more about this topic in the research article for this post:

US Supreme Court Rules in Google’s Favor After Decade+ Legal Fight With Authors 

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Sunday, March 20, 2016

It's All About Freedom and Creative Control

Breaking Publishing Chains of the Past
How many books have been written, songs composed and sang, plays performed and movies produced about breaking some kind of boundaries and rushing into new found freedoms?

Literally thousands and thousands, I suspect. In stories from history, in present time and in futuristic presentations. 

Well, one such present time occurrence has and is taking place in the publishing/writing industry. 

Some refer to it as the changing state of affairs in the legacy and the indie publishing arena --- Some even are calling it a revolution!

I, for one, say the revolution part has already beckoned and been fought - and what is advancing now is the resulting growth and evolution of the new order, so to speak.

Both newbie and established authors are now self-publishing books for various reasons - such as a newbie not finding a traditional publisher for his/her new masterpiece or an established/published author who wants to shift more of the financial, risk and creative control to his/her side of the equation.

After the initial exit from traditional publishing (TP), due to the ever growing realization that TP's were really not manned to process and market the writing supply nor were they structured (interested) to develop new talent as much as they were geared for immediate profit margin AND the introduction of slick, new technologies, writers (the product producers) started to don entrepreneurship clothing and became more knowledgeable Re the business side of the publishing/writing industry as a whole - especially the new tech allowing more professional self-publishing and distribution avenues.

Even independent publishing has evolved into something new today. Fifteen to twenty years ago it referred to small presses that were not associated with the big corporate publishing houses. Today it refers to indie authors who are okaying, processing and publishing their own work.

Indie authors today have truly broken through the old boundaries and burst out upon a new landscape scattered with more level playing fields.

There are some land minds to be aware of, however.

As publisher of She Writes Press and SparkPress, president of Warner Coaching Inc., and author of Green-light Your Book, says "Self-publishing still carries some stigma, largely for two reasons: (1) because anyone can publish a book, and people who don’t care about standards do—and often; and (2) because the industry itself—steeped in tradition and invested in retaining the status quo—actively resists implementing changes that might truly level the playing field for indie authors."

It is also important for the indie authors/publishers to learn and maintain the highest standards of writing/editing, publishing and professionalism. If not, the real gatekeepers of worthwhile books, the reading public, will simply not buy - Talk about a 'self-correcting' feature!

I have said many times that a self-published book today is like the query letter of old - with benefits! If your self-published effort is somewhat successful a big publishing house may offer you a traditional deal, also. In fact, many authors have chosen to be so-called 'hybrid' authors; those who publish both traditionally and non-traditionally.

Yes, I would say that the freedom and creative control now enjoyed by successful indie authors will guarantee their continued growth.    




Monday, December 14, 2015

A Certain Level of Wisdom

Yesterday When I Was Young
Tonight's topic goes outside of the publishing industry block and concerns itself with 'other life stuff' - although it is related to published words (delightfully crafted) that can only come with age and experience.
"Hier Encore", whose original French title translates as "Only Yesterday", is a song written by Charles Aznavour and released in September 1964. [1] It was subsequently released in English as "Yesterday, When I Was Young", in Italian as "Ieri Si", in Danish as "Hvor tiden går", in Japanese 帰り来ぬ青春, and in Spanish as "Ayer Aún". It is considered one of Aznavour's greatest hits.
The English-language lyrics, were written by Herbert Kretzmer. 
This post is taken from a recent Facebook posting of mine.
The words to this thoughtful poem and song about life hit me especially hard today:

Yesterday when I was young,
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue,
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game,
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame;
The thousand dreams I dreamed,
The splendid things I planned
I always built, alas,
On weak and shifting sand;
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years ran away.
Yesterday, when I was young,
So many happy songs were waiting to be sung,
So many wayward pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see,
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out,
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall concerned itself with me, and nothing else at all.
Yesterday the moon was blue,
And every crazy day brought something new to do,
I used my magic age as if it were a wand,
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond;
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died;
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play.
There are so many songs in me that won't be sung,
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue,
The time has come for me to pay for Yesterday
When I was Young.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

2015 Digital Publishing Trends

The Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL) and Bowker have teamed up for their second annual survey on digital publishing trends and stats. Some cool data.

The results will be shown in colorful charts and graphs indicating statistics Re just who in the industry has published digitally, what genres were published more frequently digitally, the quality of digital works compared to print, etc.

Useful info that delves into some actual numbers. An interesting look-see into the digital publishing landscape.    

This news from E-ContentXtra: "The “2015 Digital Publishing Survey” shows that about 73% of respondents have published digitally (up from about 64% in 2014) and that about 45% have self-published. About 13% of respondents feel that ebooks are held to a lower standard than print books, but about 53% believe that the quality of digitally published content is improving.
Publishers are including quality assurance (QA) measures in their workflows: About 36% are performing self-checks, 36% are hiring editors, and 23% are performing QA before conversion." 

Excerpts from tonight's research article:









Many more categories of 2015 digital publishing data are presented in the 2015 Digital Publishing Survey

Please go read, ingest and enjoy :)

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