The Future of Publishing

I was kicking myself this morning for not getting my blog post done on Friday like usual, but I'm glad I waited considering this week's topic for my class is the future of publishing and where we think it'll be in ten years. I got to see a Kindle2 at work today, and I think that my post might have been somewhat different if done before seeing the Kindle2 and talking at length to its owner.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I don't relish in the idea that books may one day go completely digital. In fact, I've said that I hope I'm not alive to see that day. But, after seeing the Kindle2 and talking to its owner, I am definitely a believer that the Kindle will play a concrete role in the transformation of publishing.

I don't think that everyone will eventually own a Kindle, nor do I think that books will ever go completely away, but I do think that the Kindle will change the kinds of materials that are published traditionally. I can see textbooks going digital, especially since the Kindle2 lets you annotate a text. I can also see periodicals going digital--especially in light of a Business Insider article which details how much money the New York Times could save by sending their subscribers a free Kindle instead of printing a paper version.

More novels will eventually be digital, too, but there are just some things that the Kindle cannot recreate. Imagine trying to read a children's picture book on a Kindle. I don't think so. How about a full-color coffee table book? Nope, wouldn't be the same. While there are books like these that will never transition into digital versions, I think that in ten years it will be normal to carry your novels on a Kindle.

I see the Kindle taking off like the iPod. Ten years ago would you have imagined that you'd be able to carry your entire music collection in your pocket? Probably not. It caught on slowly, but surely, and now it seems as though every other person walking down the street in Portland is plugged into white earbuds.

Increased popularity of the Kindle will give smaller publishing companies a greater chance of survival, especially since there will no longer be expensive printing and warehousing costs. I think that we may be on the cusp of a publishing industry made up of more independents and fewer conglomerates, and I think that's a very exciting prospect.

When I started the PSU publishing program last fall, I had the idea that everything was bad news for the publishing industry. Five months later I have a very different view. Now I see all the changes the industry has undergone as potential. It's no longer grim; it's exciting. I cherish my traditionally printed books, and I'm still not certain I REALLY want a Kindle, but I'm perfectly happy to drool over someone else's and think about how maybe, with digitalization, the publishing industry may flourish once again.

That "S" Word...Sustainability

Before I moved to Portland, I worked for UC Davis Extension's sustainability and green building program where I learned more about green living than I ever thought I'd know as a recently graduated English major. When I decided Portland would become my new city, my manager looked a little bit jealous, then offered me his map of a biking tour of Portland's sustainable stormwater control system.

I politely declined the map, but it was only a week later Portland was named the greenest city in America. It was then that I began to realize that even though I'd been working in sustainability for over a year, I had more knowledge about what was going on overseas from assisting with my manager's UCD Summer Abroad program in Sustainable Communities of Northern Europe than I did about my soon-to-be new home's growing number of sustainable projects.

Portland's love of everything green and sustainable has been reinforced to me in recent weeks--first, when Portland General Electric came knocking at my door a couple of weeks ago asking me to switch from "traditional" energy sources to renewable, green source energy. Second, when the Portland State University Publishing program's own Ooligan Press, the press at which I'm getting all my hands-on publishing experience, announced that we will begin transitioning into a sustainable publishing company.

Ooligan has received a grant from Portland State to publish our first sustainable book. This will include printing the book in the country to cut down on pollution caused by overseas shipping, as well as printing with vegetable-based inks.

The transition will take time, and money, but how great will it be when PSU can boast that it is not only home to a unique student-run publishing company, but that the same press is also at the forefront of sustainable publishing?

I'm no green living expert, but I'm pretty sure my old manager will be even more jealous of our hip, sustainable city...especially since he's been busy working on his next book.

The Secrets of my Childhood, or How I Learned To Love Reading

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder…also known as the book that changed my life. There have been other significantly influential books throughout the years, of course, but Little House in the Big Woods and the subsequent Little House books became a cornerstone of my childhood from the day my maternal grandparents gave me the first one.

My grandparents always sent books as holiday presents. It could always be counted on that there would be a book as part of my birthday and Christmas presents, as well as for Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Halloween. They particularly enjoyed choosing series to send, slowly but surely providing me with a complete set. There may have been series sent to me before the Little House books, and I know for a fact there were series after, but none had quite the same influence on me.

You can’t quite begin to grasp the influence Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books had on my childhood unless I publicly admit to a few things that nobody outside of my family and anyone who knew me during my younger years knows. Here goes:

Little House in the Big Woods let to a significant obsession with all things Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House. This included celebrating a birthday with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s wedding cake, getting taffy stuck in someone’s hair at a birthday party where we tried to make a taffy recipe from the Little House cookbook, family road trips that included visits to every single related site and monument you can think of between Northern California and Chicago, a sunbonnet and nightcap made by my grandmother (worn often and nightly, respectively), and an after-school tradition of watching Little House on the Prairie TV show re-runs.

As you can tell, the adventures of Laura had a great impact on my childhood.

Aside from the obsession, Little House in the Big Woods was the book that really made me love reading. It showed me that a story just didn’t have to be words on paper, that it could be something deeper…that I could take the story and embrace it on many levels.

Even beyond that, it was the foundation of a bond, and eventual common love of reading and books, between my mom and me. While my grandparents sent the books, my mom was the one to read them to me every night before bed. Laura’s journey was a journey we shared, and I can guarantee that if I have a daughter someday, it will be a journey she will share in, too.

Sorry Amazon, your e-mails just haven't gotten me yet!

I get lots of e-mail promotions. Most of them are a direct result of something I've bought online in the past, but so far, I can proudly say that I've never purchased something as a direct result of an e-mail promotion.

It's unfortunate for Amazon that I tend to shop for my leisure reading in person and that 95% of the book purchases I've ever made from Amazon have been school books. That has resulted in a rather skewed, and slightly eclectic, list of books that Amazon is convinced I will like.

In the few instances where I've bought non-school-related items off Amazon, I've bought a strange variety, including tire chains and a book on Christianity for my Mom. Combined with a random assortment of school books, I imagine I'm one Amazon customer profile that is decidedly inaccurate. Fortunately for me, this makes it rather easy to ignore the suggestions Amazon constantly e-mails me.

Somehow, though, Amazon has discovered my weakness for shoes and have recently begun sending me shoe-related e-mails. I've clicked through and browsed, but I've yet to succumb to the temptation...

Let's see how long I hold out.

The Mud Puddle That Is E-book Rights

What constitutes e-book rights? PDF distribution? Kindle distribution? iPhone app distribution? XML format distribution? Because of the recent growth of these e-book formats, the general term "e-book rights" is just not easily--or clearly--defined.

With Amazon's announcement last week about the February 24 release date of the new-and-improved, more user friendly, slimmer Kindle (known as the Kindle2) came debate over e-book rights. See, the Kindle2 has a built-in text-to-audio feature that has the Authors Guild concerned about audio rights.

The question is: where in the gray area of e-book rights does an electronic device's ability to read text aloud fall? Is it an infringement upon publishers' ability to release audio versions of their books or sell the subsidiary audio rights?

I'm not sure I see how the Kindle2's text-to-audio feature differs much from the text-to-audio available on my laptop. I doubt the Kindle2's text-to-audio software can recreate the experience of listening to a book recorded by a live person, particularly if the software reads in a similar manner as my GPS or laptop. I don't know about anybody else, but I couldn't stand to sit through an entire 75,000+ word novel being read back to me by an electronic, simulated voice.

But, I could be wrong. Maybe many people will clamor for the Kindle2 when it releases next Tuesday, and maybe they will all fall in love with it's audio feature. If that's the case, then I think the Authors Guild will have reason to warn its members about negotiating e-book rights in their contracts.

Until then, the Kindle2's voice simulator is simply another uncertainty in a developing tenet of publishing that only time will be able to answer.

Want to e-mail me? You've got a few options.

We've been discussing e-mail marketing campaigns in class and in order to blog along those lines, we have been challenged to think about the different e-mail accounts we each have and what we use them for.

There's my Gmail account that I snatched up when you still needed an "invite" to sign up. This is the address I use for both personal and professional e-mails and has become my primary account over the last several years. It's the address my family and friends use. It's where my daily publishing news and New York Times arrive. It's the account attached to bills and the one I used to send out resumes before I decided I'd rather go straight to graduate school than work for a few years. It's kind of my multi-purpose address, and it works well because Gmail has an excellent spam filter that I just skim once or twice a week to make sure nothing important was flagged. While I know lots of people with many e-mail addresses for different purposes, I'm all about the convenience of keeping it all in one spot.

I also have a Yahoo! account that I've had since middle school. I used to check this frequently, even after it was no longer my primary e-mail, but it has become the spam account and now gets checked and cleared out once a month or so. This account used to be associated with several online networks I'm still active on, but I just recently switched all of those to a different account. I think I'm subconsciously preparing to stop checking my Yahoo! address and will just let it expire. Sorry, Yahoo! I just haven't been a fan of your newest redesign.

There's also my Portland State University Webmail address. If you have not had the pleasure of using PSU's Webmail system, consider yourself lucky. It is worthless and archaic, yet I have to use it because I do get some important e-mails there, especially because it's where I'm granted access to the account I need to do my job as Marketing Co-Manager for Ooligan.
PSU IT...if you come across this, please give us an upgrade. Please.

I also have my newest e-mail, the Gmail account I created specifically for this class. So far it's only purpose is to use Blogger and other Google business tools that we've discussed in class.

I did have to really think about this, probably because I have several institutions I'm not affiliated with anymore and thanks to mail forwarding, I'm just not sure which are active and which aren't. Mail forwarding made it so that I haven't had to log into them in a very long time; it all goes to one place...What would I do without my trusty, all-purpose Gmail account?!

A Final CPSIA Update

This morning's PW Daily finally gave the answer to the question children's book publishers have been waiting for since August. On Friday the Consumer Products Safety Commission gave its final ruling on book publishers and the Consumer Product Safety Information Act, an act that would potentially render thousands of books unsaleable because of its strict lead testing requirements.

Fortunately for publishers, the CPSC decided that "ordinary" books will be exempt from the stricter testing requirements, given that they were published after 1985. According to the CPSC, an "ordinary" book is one that is ink-on-paper or ink-on-board. As of this most recent ruling, it will only be publishers of "special" books that involve plastics or other novelties who will need to prove their books' safety before sale.

This is wonderful news for publishers considering three weeks ago they were wondering if they were going to have entire warehouses of books that were unsaleable, but I can't help but ask the CPSC: why 1985?

Now instead of delving into the issues for publishers, we can attempt to answer all kinds of questions about the law's impact on the used bookseller...will used bookstores be a thing of the past in the near future?

Ooligan Press Commemorates Oregon's 150th Birthday With Upcoming Release of Oregon at Work: 1859-2009

On April 8, Ooligan Press will celebrate the release of an exciting new book commemorating Oregon's sesquicentennial (150th birthday). Written by Tom Fuller and Art Ayer, both Oregon Employment Department employees, Oregon at Work: 1859-2009 explores the role that work has played in shaping the state's history. The book is a partner project of the Oregon 150 Commission and features a foreword by Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski.

Fuller and Ayer tell Oregon's work and economic history through the stories, photographs, memories, and momentos of real Oregonians. Some of the stories have been passed down from generation to generation and begin with Oregon's statehood in 1859. Other stories are more recent, highlighting Oregon's growth from farming, mining, and logging country to include high tech businesses, earning parts of the state the nickname of Silicon Forest.

For more information on Oregon at Work: 1859-2009, other Ooligan Press titles, and Ooligan Press Oregon 150 events, please visit http://ooligan.pdx.edu

CPSIA Update

Finally, a bit of good news for the publishing industry!

Remember my post from two weeks ago detailing the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and its potential impact on publishers?

On Friday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission approved a one-year delay to the testing requirements that threatened to render warehouses of books useless.

According to a PW article announcing the delay, all items on store shelves will need to be "safe" as of the February 10 deadline, but proof of third-party testing will not be required until next year and, at that time, may or may not include all books.

The question of requirement has still not been answered for publishing companies, but at least pallets of books will not be tossed to the dumpster come February 10. It's a small victory, and an uncertain one, but it's one that the publishing industry desperately needed amidst news of slow sales, layoffs, and closures.

Now I just hope the CPSC gets their act together sooner rather than later so we aren't faced with the same questions and dilemmas next January, and so that publishers can get forget thinking about potential testing costs and can get back to doing what they do best: publishing safe books for kids.

Publisher Websites: Ineffective Marketing At Its Best

When it comes to the web and the general consumer, all signs seem to keep pointing back to convenience. It’s not a user-friendly interface or personalized suggestions based on previous purchases that keep us going back to Amazon for more. Instead it’s one-click ordering, 24/7 availability, and the ability to order that book you’ve been wanting while you order clothes for your mom’s birthday, DVDs for your dad’s, and the tent you need for camping next weekend for yourself.

Publishing companies have not yet faced this reality when designing their websites. Perhaps direct online sales were a potential market when the internet first became a phenomenon, but today’s reality is clear: Amazon rules.

Amazon holds convenience, selection, and is well known and easy to locate. It is a household name, unlike the majority of publishing companies. Most average consumers probably know at least one or two publishing companies, likely big ones, such as Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, or Penguin. Aside from avid readers, publishers, and niche-specific readers, it is probably safe to assume that a majority of book consumers do not pay attention to the publishers of their books.

When an Amazon transaction can be completed in five clicks and three minutes, few consumers will venture to Google to locate a publisher’s website, click over to the website, find a particular book, and finally click over to purchase. It’s just not realistic in today’s age of convenience.

Unless you are a business lucky enough to not be featured on Amazon, your likelihood of turning much of a profit with direct online sales is slim.

So why are publishers still directing their websites towards an unresponsive audience? I think they just aren’t sure who to target. They’ve realized that it’s essentially a requirement in our internet-savvy culture to have a business website—but that’s as far as they’ve gotten. Unless a company has a very specific niche or a particular deal available to consumers who purchase their books though their website, it seems highly unlikely that online direct sales will ever generate any significant income for companies.

Instead of pumping marketing dollars into creating fantastic websites for selling books, publishing companies need to use their marketing budgets to reevaluate the audience and best use for their web presence.

The Growth of the E-book: It's Only A Matter of Time

The Shelf Awareness for Tuesday, January 20 featured a letter sent in by author and marketer M.J. Rose, which you can find here. For those who don’t feel like clicking over and reading the letter in its entirety, Rose recounts purchasing an e-book in under a minute on January 16—for a title that won’t release in bookstores as a hardback until January 27. What?!

Within the publishing industry, we’re anticipating the growth of e-books. That’s why publishing houses across the world are experimenting with various e-book platforms and even Ooligan has recently decided which of our titles will be our first e-books. The ability to publish an e-book is quickly becoming an industry requirement.

But Rose’s letter got me thinking: what happens to bound books when e-book buyers get perks for switching platforms? Will bound books go the way of cassette tapes, CDs, and records? Will being a digital customer garner additional perks, like advance release dates? If music is any indication, the answer is a resounding YES.

Look at the transition that the music industry has undergone in the digital age: full-length tracks are released online way ahead of an album’s release, iTunes albums frequently include material, such as additional tracks or videos, unavailable on a traditionally purchased CD, and some musicians have gone so far as to make entire albums of material available to stream for free. While you cannot yet purchase an album ahead of a physical album’s release date, consumers definitely get a few perks by being tech savvy.

I anticipate that the transition to e-book perks will take more time than the digital music revolution did, but it will eventually occur. It will take awhile because e-book readers need to skyrocket in popularity and availability. Once a user-friendly, budget-conscious e-reader is released, it will only be a matter of time before e-books have advance release dates and include additional content, such as author interviews. iPods and digital music did not become popular overnight, and neither will e-readers and e-books.

For the record, the Wednesday edition of Shelf Awareness arrived with a letter from Margot Sage-El, the owner of an independent bookstore, affirming that HarperCollins admits that the early release was a mistake on their part, the issue still got me thinking about the future of bound books versus e-books.

Bound books may not become obsolete during our lifetimes, but as universities toy with adopting electronic versions of textbooks and publishing companies release e-books earlier than bound books (though by mistake), it is only a matter of time before the e-book will prevail. One thing is certain: we’re entering an industry that’s in transition and we’re the ones who will define its future.

I dread the day when bound books are a rarity, but have come to realize that I have to be open to e-books. If I can’t embrace it, I have no business being in the publishing industry and might as well start browsing the want ads. But not at Craigslist. That would be hypocritical.

Amazon.com: Good or Evil?

I admit it.

I have a certain affinity for convenience. We’re talking the “point and click, I’ll take this and this and this in my shopping cart, check out” kind of convenience. Thank you, Amazon.com. Two to seven days after a few mouse clicks (unless I chose to spring for overnight shipping), my purchases of choice show up on my doorstep—and I didn’t have to drive anywhere, stand in line, or go to multiple stores to find exactly what I want. And that’s what Amazon is great for. I don’t venture to Amazon.com to browse. I click over to purchase.

From Amazon.com’s reported success, including their best holiday sales season in history (during a nationwide economical slump, at that), it seems that I’m not the only one who finds Amazon’s business model tantalizing. I feel guilty even admitting it, but it is, for better or worse, the truth.

Rather than threatening the publishing industry directly, I think that Amazon poses a greater threat to the independent bookstore. It’s not the readers, publishers, and authors most affected, it’s the storeowner who just can’t pay the rent because readers have succumbed to the allure of convenience and endless inventory that Amazon has to offer.

For the budding author unable to find someone to publish his or her self-proclaimed “next bestseller,” Amazon’s BookSurge is a godsend. I suppose it all works out for the best—author ends up happy, those who care can get their hands on the book, and Amazon walks away with their little share of the publishing venture. Given the number of books I’ve had pitched to me when meeting someone new and telling them I’m studying book publishing, there’s no shortage of this segment of the population.

All in all, I don’t think this aspect of Amazon really hurts the publishing industry. It’s a strange idea that anyone can publish just about anything (edited or not, but that’s a pet peeve for another time), but if anything, everyone ends up happier because of it. Authors get their work published, readers get another book to read, and publishers (potentially) get fewer unsolicited manuscripts to add to their slush pile. Everybody benefits.

When it comes down to it, Amazon isn't the monster that so many people make it out to be. It has its perks and its annoyances, just like any other business. The greatest difference is that Amazon can get its hands on more inventory than any concrete store can warehouse and with that, the Long Tail continues to grow longer.

Children's Publishers Anxiously Awaiting Decision On CPSIA's Potential Impact

In an era where PW Daily and Publisher’s Lunch have become bearers of bad news, be it layoffs or independent bookstore closures, it really feels like the publishing industry deserves a break from the continuous hits. Yet PW Daily recently reported the February 10 enactment of the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, which requires that all products marketed and sold to children ages 12 and under be tested for lead. With an unprecedented number of toy recalls for lead levels between 2007 and 2008, it is no surprise that Congress decided it was pertinent to pass legislation to regulate every potentially dangerous item.

Now, with the enactment date a mere 23 days away, publishers are facing the possible reality that warehouses of inventory will be rendered useless as of February 10, 2009, thanks to the Act’s retroactive nature. For an industry already on unsteady footing in an economy that continues to spiral downward, the CPSIA could prove to be the next in a series of detrimental blows.

In an ideal world, the book industry’s extensive lobbying efforts will lead to certain exemptions from the February 10 deadline that could limit the number of books sent to the dumpster, but what if the ideal situation doesn’t occur?

While many publishing houses that have books on the shelves of stores like Target have already undergone testing procedures that surpass the requirements set forth in the CPSIA, what happens to smaller presses, such as Ooligan? What about other presses like us who have limited resources to devote to testing?

Books are not known for containing high levels of lead so the hope is that traditional, print-on-paper books will be exempt from the Act come February 10. However, even if publishing companies are granted an extension or exemption from the new law, lead levels and books is now a topic of discussion at the forefront of the industry.

How should this new question be handled? Is there enough of a threat that there should be standards for testing? Should it be left up to individual presses based on their resources and potential for young readers? Or is it an issue that got out of hand with the requirements set forth in the CPSIA? I guess we’ll see in the next 23 days.

YA Publishers Websites: Do They Really Know How To Market To Young Adults?

I began my search for publishing company websites by pulling out my copy of the 2009 edition of Writer’s Market and flipping right to the Young Adult listings. In my own research and our discussions about reaching target audiences, it is clear that it takes a little extra something for a website to catch the attention of the average YA reader, so what better way to analyze a website’s ability to capture a target audience than to examine the website of those companies that cater to that audience?

My final conclusion? Few companies that list themselves as publishers of YA fiction actually seem to know how to capture their target audience in an online venue.

I visited a variety of companies, randomly selected from the list, including Lerner Publishing Company, E-Digital Books, LLC (simply because their name intrigued me), Front Street, Harcourt Children’s, Simon & Schuster, Puffin Books, Peachtree Publishers, Candlewick Press, Big Idea, and Tolling Bell Books.

Surprisingly, E-Digital Books was a huge disappointment. For a company touting technology, their website was very not tech savvy, complete with an outdated design and too much text. I was expecting something more cutting edge. I also couldn’t really see how they characterized themselves as a publisher of YA fiction. Children’s books, yes. Young Adult, not so much.

I also found Lerner’s website to be disappointing. They tried with bright colors, but for a YA reader, their site is way too juvenile with its primary colors. Even clicking on the link labeled, “Grades 6-12,” proved to be boring, only resulting in a blue, white, and yellow listing of all the books Lerner markets to that age group. Tolling Bell Books fell into a similar category—unexciting, boring, and nothing any YA reader would care to peruse.

A few sites did a better job, but I think that even those missed the mark. Front Street’s website is simple and easy to navigate. While they don’t have any showy features, they focus on their books, and make reviews and summaries easy to access. While it lacks animation and special features, I could see it appealing to a certain crowd of YA readers, maybe those labeled as more of the “bookworms.”

Simon & Schuster’s newly released website is a success. They are still working to embrace the technology that YA readers want, but are trying with a new set of message boards and book communities. Their new design is easy to navigate and has the modern, hip feel that teens want in a website. With a little work, their page may become the best at targeting YA readers (of the batch that I looked at, anyway).

For now though, I think the winners are Puffin Books and Candlewick Press. Both take simple designs but punch them up with color and graphics that kids and teens find exciting. Puffin even tries to gear their homepage to kids so much that they needed to add a “Grown Ups” tab to it. Even though they didn’t quite hit the target audience right on, they made it a lot closer than other companies simply by adding that one page.

Candlewick Press’ page design was good, with bright colors and graphics that link kids and teens right to series and book specific pages and sites. When you click over to Stink Moody’s website, you are greeted by a YA website dream—interactive, brightly colored, games, and other age-geared content.

This perusal was a bit of a disappointment. It’s hard to imagine companies publishing books for Young Adults without being able to adequately market them to their target audience online. Maybe I just happened to randomly chose a bad set of companies…I hope so! Anybody have any particularly great YA publishers sites to send me to?

Kids and Reading in the Age of Technology

Right now my "pay the bills" job is as a motor skills and developmental gymnastics instructor. A friend of mine recently chimed in while I was describing it to someone: “Don’t lie! You mean you PLAY with kids all day!” To an extent, he’s right. But on the other end of the spectrum, the serious end, working with kids has gotten me thinking about the status of reading among young children and how we, as future book editors, publishers, and marketers, can encourage reading in an era where kids are plugged into electricity nearly 100% of the time.

Consider this story relayed to me on Friday by my co-worker: While I was teaching a class, she spent 45 minutes playing with the older brother (he’ll be five in February) of one of my students. He typically brings his Gameboy (or whatever it is that is the current version. I’m clueless.) but forgot it on Friday. My co-worker asked him what he usually does besides his Gameboy. His response? “Play on the computer.’ She asked him what he does when he’s not on the computer. “Watch TV.” She finally asked him if he ever did anything that didn’t involve electricity and explained to him what that meant. He said he, “sometimes plays outside, but it’s boring. All there is out there is grass.” What stood out to me was not so much the lack of physical activity (the family is, at least, active members of my employer), but the lack of educational stimulation and reading.

One could argue that maybe he is only one child, but I see enough kids on a regular basis—over 125 per week—that I feel I can safely assert that he is only one of many in similarly “plugged in” situations. A parent recently told me that she thinks her daughter is so verbal because of all the shows she watches, not because of socialization or other influencing factors.

As lovers of books ourselves, how can we make reading and books exciting enough that kids will want to read instead of grouping books with playing outside because they’re boring? Is there a way that we can do this without utilizing the electronics we ultimately want them to learn that it’s okay to turn off? I’m not sure. The duality of paper and technology has worked for blockbuster books like Harry Potter and Twilight, both of which slowly gained followings before exploding in popularity. Can it work for non-best-sellers, or does a book need to be a blockbuster before interactive websites can play a vital role in encouraging kids to read? When parents don’t take it upon themselves to encourage reading, instead fostering technological media, how much harder do publishers and marketers have to work to capture a child’s interest?

The question is not whether or not viral marketing is the way of the future--I think we've all shown that we suspect that by enrolling in this course. The question, I think, is how to discourage constant connectivity while using technology to encourage reading. It seems like somewhat of a paradox to me, and definitely a mixed message for kids. I guess we’ll find out as viral marketing continues to expand. Thoughts?