Building a Better Mousetrap Dept.: Knowing all the bone-headed mistakes publishers are making today, if you were going to invent a new kind of publishing company, how would you do it? Seth Godin mentioned recently some of his ideas for a new kind of record label, but a lot of those ideas (like Internet-only sales and no radio airplay) don’t translate to publishing very well.
I sat in a restaurant over lunch recently, reading my copy of Preston & Child’s Thunderhead on my Jornada. (Good read, btw.) The waitress walked over and said, “Got a new toy?”
“I’m just finishing a good book,” I said.
She was amazed, and asked me if I could download whole chapters at a time. When I explained that I had nearly three hundred complete ebooks on my Jornada, that just about blew her mind. She said it was the coolest thing she’d ever seen. I get that reaction a lot. Most people don’t even know you can carry hundreds of books in your pocket.
That’s the audience I want to reach: “normal” people that have never really thought about ebooks, who might not even know ebooks exist. Would you try selling ebooks to the “un-teched,” or does a new publishing company have to sell books on tree pulp in brick & mortar stores to reach the masses?
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