Last week, after shooting my video coverage of the launch of Amazon’s Kindle 2 in NYC, I sat down with O’Reilly Media founder and CEO Tim O’Reilly, who was producing the Tools of Change For Publishing Conference across town. The book publishing industry is going through a massive, and in some cases very painful, transition. In my podcast interview with O’Reilly (full transcription below), he discusses Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN)’s decisions from his perspective as a book publisher, how this transition actually began centuries ago, and where it’s going. Is it a case study that your industry can learn from?
There’s actually a bit of irony in Amazon’s choice of the Morgan Library in New York City to launch the Kindle 2, as well as the choice to have Stephen King do a reading from his new book Ur which, when it first comes out, will only be available to owners of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader.
The Morgan Library is home to the largest single collection of Gutenberg Bibles (three). The Gutenberg Bibles are considered to be “the first substantial printed book in the Western world” and in my interview with O’Reilly, he refers to their printing in the 1400s as perhaps the beginning of a revolution that’s still underfoot.
Gutenberg and typewriters
So, to explain how moveable type works we liken it to a typewriter? Sheesh. Makes me feel old. Does he mean a machine like the one in my basement that got me through graduate school? Hey! It’s electric, you know! Even has that built-in eraser tape. Sigh.