We recently reported on a recent conference introducing trade book editors to XML, the markup language that promises to facilitate so many costly, time-consuming and tedious functions performed by traditional book publishers. Among the most significant improvements stressed by Hachette Book Group David Young was that XML could eliminate printed galleys, which Young described as a “major money pit.”

It appears as if we’re going to be wallowing in the pit longer than XML drum-beaters would like. Craig Morgan Teicher writes in Publishers Weekly that “most people would like to put off using e-galleys as long as they can.”

Bound proofs, some plain-covered and others handsomely jacketed, are early uncorrected versions of forthcoming books, submitted by publishers to reviewers. Because of the long lead time it takes for reviewers to read and write up books, it is unfeasible for publishers to submit finished copies. But, as Hachette’s Young points out, it is a big expense. It’s also about as far from green as it gets: reviewers receive hundreds of galleys a week and are only able to review a handful. The rest they toss. Now that publishing is doing digital, proofs submitted via email would seem to be a perfect solution.

Not so fast.

Ron Charles, senior editor for the Washington Post Book World, says, “As a reviewer, I need to have a physical book to read at home and on the subway – the last thing I want in my life is more screen time!” And Teicher reports Lev Grossman, book critic for Time magazine, saying,

“I’ve been offered them before, but only tried to read one once, on an early-generation Sony Reader. I hated the experience. That low-contrast screen, the poky refresh rate! It was like a horrible, crippled imitation of a book. But having said that, I think e-galleys are inevitable. They just make too much sense—financially for publishers, environmentally for everybody. Maybe by the time I’m forced to read them, e-readers will have turned into something less insulting to the eye.”

Despite the resistance, book trade observers think it’s only a matter of time before paper gives way to e-ink, especially because improvements to the production and submission process are on the way.

Read The E-Galley Cometh? and judge for yourself.

RC

Slashgear reports a different approach to ePaper, this one produced by Sharp. It’s an eight-color liquid crystal display that can freezes static images after the juice is switched off. Sharp foresees a variety of markets for it such as grocery displays: by hooking the screen up to a Wi-Fi, store managers can readily adjust prices displayed to customers. It could also be competitive with emerging e-book applications once the cost comes down and some other issues, such as temperature distortion and power consumption, are resolved. The technology doesn’t sound competitive yet with eInk but given Sharp minds, that could change fast. Read about it.

RC

It’s been said that the first applications of every scientific innovation are invariably sex and warfare. This one is about warfare.

The US Army is investing tens of millions of dollars developing light, electrically charged plastic display screens that can be carried in a soldier’s pocket, replacing bulky, heavy and unreliable systems that compromise mobility, communications and rapid response.

“These flexible displays have been the dream of science fiction authors, wearable-computing enthusiasts and the display industry for nearly a decade,” blogs Priya Ginapati in Wired. “LG Philips, Fujitsu and Sony have shown off prototypes of flexible-display systems, while startups such as Plastic Logic and E-Ink have talked about the possibility of putting their digital ink displays onto bendable backings. But so far the idea has remained more in the realm of Minority Report than the real world.”

“For instance,” continues Ginapati, “a soldier in the field could get information about the surroundings, the position of enemies or the blueprint of a building he or she may be planning to enter. Other applications could include the use of the flexible displays as maps.”

E-Ink was developed by MIT scientists for use in e-books, and we’re hopeful that it will prevail as much in peace as in war.

RC

Scientists are exploring a multitude of applications for “buckypaper,” a tissue-thin and steel-strong fabric made up of carbon nanotubes. Because of its strength and vast surface area – a gram of it could theoretically blanket about 3000 square yards – it may one day provide the vehicle for the e-ink that is the basis for electronic newspapers, magazines, and books.

For a fascinating article and video on buckypaper, click here.

- RC

A few weeks ago, Amazon was telling the rumor mills to stop buzzing about the next generation of Kindle and that if a Kindle 2.0 was coming at all it wouldn’t be until next year. But now that Sony has announced their new PRS-700 Reader and it’s getting all sorts of press, Lo! What should appear the very same weekend? Leaked spy shots of the next Kindle. Coincidence? Nah.

Granted, these are the sneaky tactics you expect in an election year, when it seems everyone is doing their best to play a game of one-up-manship. Presidents, banks, and reality TV contestants are all queuing up to see who can fail the most spectacularly in their efforts to win the hearts of all the Joe Sixpacks and hockey moms. However, we at E-Reads don’t want to see either the Kindle or Sony Reader products fail. We love them both. They both deserve the limelight.

But the possibly fake/likely real Kindle 2.0 spy shots by “Boy Genius Report” make me think the device isn’t yet up to par with the latest Sony Reader, and I’m sure Amazon isn’t entirely pleased with seeing these pictures getting blogged at heavily trafficked Gizmodo.com. The revised Kindle in the spy shots has cleaner lines, but it looks more like a Star Trek medical tablet than ever before, and I assume all those buttons mean that it won’t be a touch screen, like the new Sony. But it is reported to be sturdier and recharge via USB cable. Maybe Amazon is still playing catch-up, maybe they’re simply refining a low cost alternative to the Sony Reader. Who knows what’s really going on. All I know is that when your product has rumors and buzz, it’s going to take on a life of its own in the public’s mind. And anything that puts ebooks in the public’s mind is good by us.

- Michael Gaudet

Driven by the same E-Ink technology that powers Sony’s eReader and Amazon’s Kindle, Mountain View California’s Plastic Logic will soon release a large-screen reader designed to carry your daily newspaper, according to Eric A. Taub in the New York Times. The screen will be twice the size of the eReader and Kindle and just about the same weight but two thirds thinner.

You’ll be able to buy it in summer of 2009, but the economics of newspaper subscription haven’t been worked out. It could be far more expensive than subscription to the paper version, not even counting the cost of the device itself. In time we may see the newspaper equivalent of Gillette’s “Give away the razor and sell the blades,” but too much remains to be settled about technology, economics, psychology and customs before the next generation is as comfortable with downloading newspapers as today’s aging populace is with ink on newsprint. But with magazines and newspapers dying, the lure of huge savings on downloads may prove overwhelmingly tempting. Though European culture may not be an accurate guide, the iRex’a iLiad newspaper and magazine reader may show us how an Old World society can adapt to a completely new way of reading the daily news.

The Plastic Logic reader (it doesn’t have a name yet – you got any suggestions?) also brings us a little closer to the tablet-sized device that will inevitably revolutionize the classroom.

– Richard Curtis

To celebrate its 75th year of publication, Esquire magazine will put an “electronic” cover on its September 2008 issue. About 100,000 newsstand copies out of the total circulation of 700,000 will carry it. The image itself is a closely guarded secret, except perhaps for the nations of China and Mexico, the states of Texas and Kentucky, Esquire’s staff and executives of the Ford Motor company

Actually, “electronic” doesn’t really describe the venture very accurately. “Electric” is the more appropriate term. The cover will be produced with E-Ink technology. A mini-battery, developed in China, is the power source and will be hand-sewn into the cover by Mexicans, then the lot will be shipped to the magazine’s distribution depot in Lexington, Ky. The carbon footprint for this exercise in digital modernity is about sixty thousand square miles.

It would be hard to make this up, but if you are skeptical read Tim Arango’s article about the
Esquire cover in the New York Times.

When the battery runs out, readers may wrap their fish in the magazine’s paper.

– Richard Curtis