If you can use downloadable video to promote a movie, why not use it for a book?

This is what Stephen King and his publisher Scribner are doing for his forthcoming short-story collection, Just After Sunset (pub date, Nov 11). Marvel Comics is turning one of the stories, titled N, into a 25-episode downloadable video, reports the Wall Street Journal. Downloads will be available through iTunes and Amazon beginning Monday. A pass for all 25 episodes will cost $3.99 (episodes will also be free on Monday to some cellphone users and on CBS.com. CBS is Scribner’s parent company).

Scribner will sell a special edition of the book that includes a DVD of the entire video series. The ISBN for that edition is not yet available.

Just After Sunset

Stephen King

• Hardcover: $28.00
• Publisher: Scribner (November 11, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1416584080
• ISBN-13: 978-1416584087

If you didn’t see them already, two essays in the NYTBR are worth a look:

“I’m Y.A., and I’m O.K.” by Margo Rabb

“When is a novel for adults really a novel for children? When a publisher and its marketing department decide it is.” 

“Advice Squad” by  Virginia Heffernan

“A guided tour of the books on the self-help best-seller list.”

And, NPR discovers graphic novels:

“Americans Say Oui, Oui To Foreign Graphic Novels“ by Brian Mann, on All Things Considered, 7/19

Titles mentioned:

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

Monsieur Jean, Charles Berberian and Philippe Dupuy

Ever since the first mass market e-book was introduced (was the GlassBook first, or the Rocket eBook?), the media has debated whether these products meet the test of the “3 B’s”; usable in people’s favorite reading spots — the bed, the bathroom and the beach.

This morning, NPR’s Lynn Nearry and technology writer Rob Pegoraro took the Kindle to the beach (it would have been unseemly for them to take it to the bed or the bathroom). Unlike previous devices, it is not backlit, so it can be read in the sun. This is also true of its competitor, the Sony Reader. No lounging in a raft, however — it’s not water resistant. The major advantage over other eReaders is that 125,000 titles can be downloaded wirelessly.

The verdict? It’s good, “but not quite the iPod of eBook readers.”

The story concludes;

…if Kindle isn’t the future, you can see it from here: a better, cheaper product is sure to come along. And when it does, we may all be reading the classics electronically

Today’s NY Times may have a clue to that future; “flexible, foldable, even rollable…screens.” The article focuses on a new product, called the Readius. It’s not cheaper; when it is introduced in the US in 2009, it will cost more than the Kindle (now $359), but its flexibility makes more portable and therefore better.

You may not care so much about reading the classics on it, but imagine being able to carry a rollup device in your pocket and pull it out to check the catalog while helping customers in the stacks.

One of my favorite non-library blogs is “Kash’s Book Corner.” Kash is Arsen Kashkasian, the head book buyer for the Boulder (CO) Bookstore. He writes engagingly about daily life at work (how many of us can do that?).

I’m always fascinated to see the contrast between how libraries and bookstores buy. Kash doesn’t read prepub reviews (he’s already buying into ‘09) and placing orders doesn’t involve a computer.

Before you get misty eyed about how nice it would be to not stare into a computer screen all day, read his post from yesterday. He calls the current method of buying an “exercise in absurdity and futility…an antiquated, inefficient system that hardly takes into account the invention of the personal computer and completely ignores the existence of the internet.”

Kash is excited by HarperCollins’s recent announcement that they will soon make available an online interactive catalog. I’m excited, too. At this point, Harper doesn’t have their catalog available online in any form, not even as a PDF.

Here’s part of his dream of what an online publishers catalog should do:

As soon as a book has a new cover, I could see it on the site. When new publicity, like an NPR show, is booked, it would be updated online immediately. Never again would my rep and I have to waste time looking at outdated pages. Instead, our appointments could be used to quickly discover the best books for the Boulder Book Store and to determine how best to position those titles. Add-on sheets for late titles would be a thing of the past. Instead, those books would be up and ready to go on the website.

I always preach to libraries that publishers catalogs provide valuable additional information to prepub reviews. They show how the publisher is positioning a book and they list new editions and embargoed books that will not be reviewed. That’s the reason we have downloadable catalogs on Early Word; so you don’t have to troll around all the publishers web sites to find out where they’ve hidden the catalog. It’s frustrating that two of the largest publishers in the business — Random House and Harper — don’t post their catalogs at this point.

Take a look at Kash’s post. I’d love to see librarians weigh in on this. What’s your dream of an interactive catalog?

The Wall Street Journal today breaks the news that the new head of Random House, to be announced tomorrow, is expected to be someone totally unknown to American publishing, Marcus Dohle, the current head of Bertelsmann’s worldwide printing group, Arvato (the article includes a long string of official “no comments”). UPDATE, 8:36 a.m. — PW Daily says the news was made official in a memo to the staff this morning and Dohle will take over beginning May 31st.

The WSJ article (available only to subscribers), emphasizes that the 39-year-old Dohle has made his career by being entrepreneurial. He added cell phone repair, call centers and billing systems as well as pharmaceutical storage to Arvato’s traditional print business. This is credited with turning Arvato into a “major growth engine for Bertelsmann”, according to the Journal.

As to what Bertelsmann head, Hartmut Ostrowski is thinking, the WSJ states:

Mr. Ostrowski wants to introduce Arvato’s aggressive diversification drive to other parts of the company, including Random House, which is struggling to retain consumers increasingly drawn toward videogames, the Web and other forms of digital entertainment. One area of interest that Mr. Ostrowski already has flagged is education services.

Interesting, since many trade publishers divested their educational divisions in the ’90s. Random House never had one.

The online media gossip site, Gawker (which also runs a photo of Dohle, who is not pictured in the WSJ piece) gives their succinct take on the story with the headline, “New Random House Chief to Make Publishing Even Less Sexy.”

Further update, 9:30 a.m.: For those deep into Bertelsmann-ology, Publishers Lunch has links to download the various announcements to RH staff:

Ostrowski’s letter
Ostrowski’s in-house interview
Peter Olson’s letter to employees

Technology plays a large role in kids lives, but how should it be presented in children’s books? Does it make sense to show corded phones? Can kids relate to a clacking typewriter? Is it better just to stay low-tech, so picture books won’t become date?

A slide show in today’s Slate, “I’m Talking to You, Corded” by children’s book author Erica S. Perl (Ninety-three in My Family and Chicken Bedtime is Really Early) takes an enjoyable look at those and other questions.

A climate impact survey put together by the Book Industry Study Group and the Green Press Initiative, reveals that 60% of publishers have, or are working on, an environmental policy, as reported by the AP. Publishers are taking a range of approaches, from “Hyperion switching to soy-based ink, to Penguin Group (USA) using wind power, to Scholastic, Inc. printing the deluxe edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on 100 percent post-consumer waste fiber. Simon & Schuster and the Hachette Book Group USA are among those using e-book readers instead of paper manuscripts. The Random House Publishing Group is experimenting with sending books online to media outlets.”