Report from BookTech West

BookTech West is the premier book technology conference and expo in the western U.S. for book publishing professionals. It was held in San Francisco on December 11-13. "U-Publish.com" co-author Danny O. Snow moderated a panel at the event, and offers the following on-site report:

Microsoft received the inaugural "Alan Kay Award for eBook Innovation" for its role in the recent release of the Pocket PC with Microsoft Reader.

Once again, new publishing technologies dominated the scene. This year's keynote speakers were Markus Malik, COO of Xlibris.com; Len Kawell, eBook Product Development Director for Adobe Systems; and Robert Bolick of McGraw-Hill, who also chairs the task force on e-Book standards for the Ass'n of American Publishers.

The underlying message appeared to be that while e-Books are still widely regarded as the future of the publishing, the future is still years away. As noted in previous issues of "U-Pdates" (see http://www.u-publish.com/nov2000.htm) most publishers discovered that sales of e-Books were almost insignificant in 2000, compared to conventional books.

Many of those in attendance agreed that "print-on-demand" is likely to be the dominant technology for at least three or more years. POD will serve as the bridge between the conventional printing methods of yesterday and the e-Book technologies of tomorrow.

BTW 2000 also offered publishing professionals a wide range of panels on topics about both printed and electronic books, including design, production, management, software, and many others. For a detailed summary of events at BookTech West, see: http://www.u-publish.com/bookwest.htm.

Co-Author Danny O. Snow moderated a panel on e-Book formatting, featuring Lisa Clark, manager of e-Book design for Adobe, and Martin Hensel, president of Texterity.

As always, a great deal of the action took place behind the scenes, as industry leaders networked and shared opinions about the latest developments. As reported by "Foreword this Week" (12/27/2000):

"Terri Boekhoff [of iUniverse] revealed informally that iUniverse has terminated its independent publisher distribution program, which she said the company hopes to have phased out by the end of March."

IMPORTANT: stay tuned to "U-Pdates" for an upcoming special bulletin on recent policy changes by iUniverse, Xlibris and Mightywords-Fatbrain-eMatter that could have a major impact on the options available to self-publishers in 2001.

Snow to Speak at BookTech East:

Danny O. Snow will join Kenneth Brooks, President of Publishing Dimensions (and former vice president for digital content of Barnes & Noble); Christopher Warnock, CEO of ebrary.com; and Steve Potash, CEO of OverDrive Systems, in a panel discussion titled "Content Sold" at BookTech East in NYC on 2/13/2001.

The panelists will discuss the myriad ways in which e-books are being sold (from an entire book to individual chapters or even paragraphs), and the digital rights management solutions that make the sales possible.

BookTech East is the largest high tech publishing in North America. For more information, please visit: http://www.u-publish.com/bookeast.htm.