Bezos' Kindle rocks the book world

Jeff Bezos, the man who reinvented the way the world buys books with Amazon.com, has started a new firestorm of publishing controversy this week, releasing the latest in a series of electronic gadgets which, by design, could render the books we hold, read, linger over, revist, catalogue and collect -- all but obsolete.

Others have tread into these electronic waters, most notably Sony with its Reader, a device I've briefly sampled but couldn't get too excited about. The Reader seemed clunky and too complicated, lacking both the tactile experience of cracking open the pages of a book and featuring a screen that required some tinkering to be legible. And although I have grown weary of toting a very heavy bag of reading material on every flight and jamming books and magazines in my handbag to kill any potential downtime, I found that I couldn't like the Reader even though logic told me I should. And the bottom line is, when you don't like something, you probably won't use it.

It seems that a trio of improvements to the idea of virtual book are making the Kindle a big story -- so big, in fact, that Newsweek devoted a cover story to it. The Kindle allows the download of books directly to the device without a stop at a computer. It allows one to change the the size of the font, something the over-40 crowd struggling with the decision to use reading glasses will no doubt appreciate, and it packs 30 hours of battery life. Weighing in at less than a pound, there can be no doubt that it will lighten everyone's luggage which is no small feat in a day when passing through airport security makes most people wish they could leave everything they own at home to avoid the hassles of packing and unpacking while lines of fellow passengers sigh around you.

The advantages are clearly there, but will the reader follow? Will it, as Bezos has said, "change the way readers read, writers write and publishers publish."?

While the purist in me refuses to imagine a world without physical books, I can't help but think of my children and the entire generation to which they belong, who have grown up in a world not only digital, but instant and on demand. The other night we dug out an old VHS holiday movie and my youngest had to have the concept of "rewind" explained. Many of us will recall gathering around the television set (minus remote control) to watch those classic movies which aired once a year and were major social events. We can also remember when computers filled not desks but rooms, 8-track tapes were "really cool" and playing with friends involved no screens but things like bikes and board games. Given that all that, is it really so hard to believe that a world without physical books is possible? Again, the purist moans, but the hard eyed realist who barely moves to a different room in the house without her blackberry isn't so sure.

Herb Schaffner, the publisher of McGraw Hill and someone savvy and excited about the digital potential of the written word recently said me, "books are the original portable entertainment device." Clearly, he's right. But Jeff Bezos just may be the man to change the form of those books forever.

Newspaper of Record Discovers Its Inner YouTube

I am going to drag out my soapbox for a new discovery of mine, something I would not only go out of my way to watch, but would actually motivate me to watch that stuff called "streaming video" that made the founders of YouTube a fortune when they sold it to Google.

I make a disclaimer up front that I am VERY cautious about playing favorites with the media in any form. Just as a parent never admits to having a favorite child, as a publicist I feel compelled to profess an equal love for all media. The truth is, while I haven't watched a regular sitcom since Seinfeld, I have a new favorite program that is so good I find myself becoming an outspoken fan. That is something called "viral marketing" by the way, and we work to establish it for books every day.

The New York Times recently started showing up on my commutes to Manhattan via JetBlue from Austin. As I settle in for the almost-four hour ride, I find myself from tempted by the direct television staring at me from the seat in front. That particular perk didn't make me a JetBlue customer, but I will tell you that I am now deeply addicted to an offering on that television-in-the sky -- "Times on Air". A joint venture of the airline and the newspaper sponsored by JetBlue's American Express card, it's a video magazine featuring stories from the paper. It launched in August 2007 and was described in the press as a "branding extension" for both companies.

The first episode I watched featured reporter Harry Hurt III, who pens the "Executive Pursuits" column for the Times Sunday business section, attempting to master enough dance to partner a New York City ballerina. Wearing his trademark polo shirt and, in a nod to the ballet studio, a pair of tights and slippers on his lower half, the slightly portly Mr. Hurt could not have been more earnest in his efforts at the barre. His stories are reportage of participation and he has pitch-perfect ability to make his own efforts illustrate his stories rather than take center stage. Subtle, skillful, and dead-on compelling.

This week, I made a round trip to Manhattan from Austin in a single day and I watched the following segment twice -- once in each direction. It featured Times reporter Julie Salamon in a side-splitting interview with Daniel Handler, the author known as Lemony Snicket who wrote the popular children's book series, "A Series of Unfortunate Events." While Salamon reported that her 11 year old son had pleaded with her to get an autograph, which she dislikes doing, she decided to relent. When the signed book arrived on her desk, she opened it expecting to see an inscription along the lines of "To Eli, I enjoyed meeting your mother," instead she found one that read, "To Eli, here's hoping you will be an orphan one day." Asked to explain, the author replied that he saw nothing outrageous in the suggestion that her child would indeed, outlive her. Handler is a treasure who should be lauded not just for the 13 books that brought him fame, but for his offbeat, slightly sinister, and deeply amusing interviews. The segment ended with Handler lustily singing a song about "Lemony Snicket" while accompanying himself on the accordion. Priceless.

The media isn't dead, it is reinventing itself. When the great gray lady is making television THIS good, it's clear to me that while the lines between print and online, broadcast and cable may be blurry, they are also creating an environment where the bets are off, the rules are broken, and great ideas are born.

Commercial over. I'm going back to work to figure out how to get my authors featured on this great new offering.

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