The Washington Post published an article discussing the rise of Graphic Novels:
I’ve wandered into an alternative universe, and I’m trying to decide if I want to stay. The setting is the lovely, old-fashioned library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, in midtown Manhattan. The event is a gathering called “SPLAT! A Graphic Novel Symposium.” I’m here because the organizers have promised to lay out, in the course of a single day, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Graphic Novels.”
What I want to know is: How did this formerly ghettoized medium became one of the rare publishing categories that’s actually expanding these days?
Julia Phillips, Oscar-winning producer on Taxi Driver, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Sting, writes:
When a job comes up on the set that no one else has to do, according to job definition, the producer gets to do it. This comes up on a regular basis, usually because someone else didn’t do his job, didn’t do his job well, or didn’t think of the job in the first place.
Looks like Cengage is back in the acquisition business:
Houghton Mifflin Selling College Unit
Houghton Mifflin to Sell College Division to Cengage for $750M
NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Houghton Mifflin Co. is selling its college textbook unit to Cengage Learning for $750 million so it can focus on its publishing business geared toward kindergarten through 12th grade, as well as trade and reference publications.
Cengage, previously known as Thomson Learning, said Monday’s cash transaction would help broaden its education products, including textbooks and study guides.
Boston-based Houghton Mifflin and Stamford, Conn.-based Cengage also said they planned a long-term agreement to cooperate in expanding distribution of Cengage’s book titles into the U.S. market for high school advanced placement textbooks.
It’ll be interesting to see how the various moves and shakes affect the quality of the books, which never seems to be talked about. It’s easy enough for a new edition or a 10th edition to get ground down beneath the HR shakeups and employee migrations that accompany a sale like this.
Lookybook allows you to actually embed an entire book in your page:
The interface is outstanding - no cluttered TOCs, index, or taxonomies - just click and turn the page. The Flash even sizes to match the book’s spine, so there’s no awkward white space around the book.
It’s most useful for children’s books and other books with lots of illustration (where you don’t have to scan text or see a lot of detail) but the idea of embedding an ENTIRE BOOK into a blog or web site is incredibly impressive. There’s a certain tactile sense of turning the page, and it would be easy to layer additional features (search for word etc) on top of the application, much like YouTube’s ability to rate videos within the page itself.
Looks like the Boston State House will be looking into the true value of the multimedia that accompanies textbooks:
State House hearing focuses on costs of college textbooks
A month into the fall semester, Nathassia Torchon has already had two tests in her precalculus class and is approaching her first history exam. But the Massachusetts Bay Community College student said she could not afford the $330 price tag for two of the required textbooks until this week.
“They always tell you 20 hours is good enough to work and go to school full time,” said Torchon, 21, of Mattapan. “I have to work three jobs to pay for two books.”
Also of interest:
Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education with the Association of American Publishers, said one of the most popular college art books is required to be sold with a CD that includes thousands of high-resolution images.
“You take that apart and neither of them will be of any value to anybody,” Hildebrand said.
I think this is actually a good thing for publishers. Most “media ancillaries” don’t add that much value to the book itself; publishers create them to ensure that each of their books can match up against their competitor’s. (This book has a CD-ROM, and that one doesn’t - ergo this book gets adopted by the school system.)
In reality, the entire package (books, CDs, media, etc) should be judged based on how well they educate students on new concepts, not whether they can close adoptions. However like many industries, the need to close the sale often wins out over the need to demonstrate the effectiveness of the product.
