Frédéric Filloux has a smart prediction on the Monday Note (a recommended weekly email about media and technology, by the way) about how the iPad and tablet computers could change the book business and help longer-form journalism.
I have a couple of thoughts about it.
First, I think he’s right that, as I tried to say in my column on the iPad, its biggest advantage for publishers and writers is that it encourages deeper engagement with individual publications than the experience of surfing on the internet.
Second, he imagines a world in which news publishers could rival book publishers by publishing long-form pieces electronically without the slowness and high distribution costs of today’s book world.
That could well be true, although I wonder whether he underestimates the value of marketing and distribution – for example, placement at the front of Barnes & Noble stores in the US – in encouraging people to buy titles that publishers are pushing
In any case, I think he is right about the battle for control of distribution of books between tablet makers led by Apple and Amazon, the dominant online bookseller.
One skirmish was the face-off between Amazon and book publishers over the economic model for selling books on the Kindle, in which Amazon had to give ground.
Filloux’s economic model, with a 30 per cent distribution fee, increased royalties for authors, and higher margins for publishers, sounds Apple-like rather than Amazon-like.
Jeff Bezos, be warned.
