Talk about niche-need forecasting! A new publisher, Ether Books, launching today at the London Book Fair, will be offering short stories and poems over smaller mobile devices people already own.
Georgina Prodhan, reporting for the Washington Post, spells it out this way:
A new publishing company is betting that readers will bypass electronic readers such as Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader in favor of reading bite-sized stories on mobile devices they already own.
Ether Books will launch at the London Book Fair on Monday, and will offer a catalog of short stories, essays and poetry initially via Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch, by authors including Alexander McCall-Smith and Louis de Bernieres.
Well over 1 billion mobile phones are expected to be sold worldwide this year, compared with just a few million e-readers. Apple alone has already sold more than 85 million iPhone and iPod touch devices, and has just launched its iPad tablet PCs.
"The tech press may be slavering over the iPad, Kindle and Sony eReader as traditional publishers leap over themselves to expand their e-book offerings," Ether Books Digital Director Maureen Scott said.
"But at Ether Books we've made the decision to go straight to distributing short works via our iPhone app to devices people already own, are familiar with and are happy to use when they have 10-15 minutes to spare."
Scott previously worked for British technology group Psion, was a director of U.S. mobile Web pioneer Openwave and managed the development of the first airline consumer self-booking reservation product at British Airways.
4 comments:
John Putnam Another interesting post, John.
I'd like to know more about the stories they run. How long are they, what subjects, how to get published, etc? Stories that fit modern attention spans could be less than 500 words, so . . .
It could be a great way for a writer to get started.
Hello John...Since Ether Books is just launching, I suggest you keep note of their name for future ref...For now, just put "Ether Books" in your browser search and you will get all current available info...The answers to your questions should be forthcoming...
By the way, John, I would love to have you join my Writers Welcome Blog...It would make ... See Moreme feel good and increase my followers by one! Just go to http://alturl.com/4z88 and click on the little "follow" button at top left of page...Thanks for considering.
I looked up Ether Books but didn't find much. I did find another post that said Orbit Books may do a similar thing, but found nothing about it on their site. I joined your blog. Thanks for asking.
I don't think much info is out yet on Ether Books; I'll keep checking too...Thanks for joining my blog!
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