SXSW 2010 Q&A: Kevin Smokler
Matt Geraghty February 26, 2010
The Breakdown: Our next interview in the SXSW Q&A series is with Kevin Smokler, CEO of BookTour.com who will be leading the panel ‘A Brave New Future for Book Publishing.’ This discussion will cover the state of the publishing industry and how the movement towards embracing digital is playing out among authors, publishers and readers while reshaping the landscape altogether.
S/G: Can you tell us what people can expect from your SXSW panel ‘A Brave New Future for Book Publishing’?
Kevin: A candid look at how the existing model of book publishing is not well and getting sicker, but more importantly is ripe for a kind of passionate reinvention. Then a brisk run-through of the amazing ideas we hear everyday as publishing professionals from our colleagues, from authors and plain old literary enthusiasts about to how we can make every aspect of our business easier, more accessible and with greater cultural relevance. Then straight to Q & A because I’m positive our audience will have more.
If I may say, It’s a wondrous time to be in books, like living in the Bronx in the late 1970s when Kool Herc started throwing street parties.
S/G: Has the book publishing industry as a whole been slow to embrace unique digital business models?
Kevin: I would say so but not because book publishing is filled with grumpy fuddy-duddies. There may be a few but a) I haven’t met them and b) the slowness you’re asking about is so deeply wired in publishing’s DNA that it will take a long time to re-engineer. Think of how long it takes an author to write a book, how long it takes a publisher to bring it to market. How long does it take us to read a book v. listen to an album or watch a movie? Careful, incremental cultural production has been the way of things for so long in publishing that it takes re-conceiving then reorganizing whole sectors of the industry to simply bring it into our rapidly changing present.
Now of course change should happen and it should happen faster. But no one should be surprised that it has been slow in getting here.
S/G: How does the iPad play into the new landscape for book publishers and readers?
Kevin: I think my fellow panelist Pablo Defendini (web producer for Tor.com, the science fiction publisher) said it best: “the iPad is the first step in replacing the mass market paperback in a casual reader’s hand—the true replacement to the supermarket/drug store/airport mass market rack.” Meaning that the iPad simply isn’t another device you must spend several hundred dollars on so you can read books in digital form. Rather, it is both an eReader and a lightweight replacement for a laptop in one swift stroke. Michael Sippey of Six Apart went a step further and called the iPad “the new family computer” meaning its size, weight and UI lend itself to being used as the ipod or television remote control, a digital picture frame and a casual games console, a multitude of replacements for existing devices and peripherals.
All of which to me says that this is going to provide a ton of functionality for a rather modest $500. And if that’s true AND is has decent eReader functionality and eBook shopping, then why bother spending at least half that on a dedicated eReader? The iPad is likely to be the second leap forward after the Kindle towards eBooks becoming a mainstream format.
S/G: Are there particular publishing models that you think stand out like Scribd, Book Oven, and Stanza that might point to where the business is headed in the future?
Kevin: I love that all three of the companies you named either democratize the writing and publishing process and add a kind of ubiquity to where books can be read. But what has not yet been done, and is vitally necessary, is technology to sample books at a manageable mp3-like size. I’m thinking 500 words. The sad truth is that the more easily available the more different kinds of books are available, the quicker the reader will feel overwhelmed and do what is only human: retreat to the comfortable and known. And that actually works to the disadvantage of the unknown author, the small press, the dissatisfied reader–the supposed beneficiaries of these new publishing models.
Therefore I would challenge all the smart folks at these companies (and those who I plan on meeting at SXSW) to design some sort of literary pez dispenser and find the correct platform (iPhone, desktop, iPad, the ether) for it.
S/G: What are you looking forward to at SXSW 2010?
Kevin: It will be my tenth year. Good friends, great ideas, old friends.
Explore the rest of the SXSW 2010 Q&A Series.
