The Evolving Book

Adrian Zackheim, publisher at Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin, posted an interesting piece today in response to another post by NY Times writer Jonathan Galassi about eBooks' role within publishing. Galassi sets up the idea, and Zackheim focuses on an interesting perspective - the role of publisher as a filter, a curator, and a packager of ideas; ideas which then get distributed to a large amount of eyes and minds. eBooks are a piece within that process, just as paperbacks, online essays, videos, etc. The book, ideally, is the core work, the piece that contains content crafted, edited, and proofread by professionals. Many other formats, including eBooks, don't receive such treatment, or at least not the caliber that major publishers put into their hardcover releases. The Galassi piece expounds on that. Of course, at 8cr, we're pretty big supporters of the book in it's ability to broadly present, discuss, and create an understanding around an idea, and the two posts above shed some interesting light on the issue from a variety of perspectives.