The Future of Books?

Books are the physical results of quintessential human creativity: an original idea. And for 500 years these ideas were spread through books; printed static stories on paper, marketed and sold via bookstores and newspapers. The pricing model was based on production costs and the supply chain consisted of several layers of filters. Filters based on the perception of what is good quality and what would sell, i.e. Nobel Prize winners and Bestsellers. Nothing in-between.

Then came The Web and the rest is history. Freedom of expression via HTML started in the mid-90s and with the emerging blogging platforms in the early 00s it took off like a bat out of hell. Suddenly everyone had their own megafone to share their ideas; some really great and some mundane. But the concept of articles, chapters and books stayed the same.

Enter Amazon Kindle (and later iPad) and created a whole new ecosystem for distribution and consumption of digital books. Just like the iPod it made it possible to carry your whole library in your pocket and do simple searches, highlights and commenting of the static book. A step forward yes, but hardly (r)evolutionary.

Then a small San Franciscan startup innovate the publishing space by making it possible for anyone to create affordable, easy-to-make, bookstore-quality books. Yes, I’m talking about Blurb.com where I was leading the product strategy 2006-2008. We solved the problem of self-publishing: gathering content (via Flickr, Picasa and SmugMug), designing the book and making available on the web. Print-on-demand at it’s best.

But there are still two big problems to solve: cost-effective dissemination of books and dynamic books. In reality, how do you get people to embrace your idea and build upon it? It’s the stick to the match that lights the fire. 

What re-ignited my thinking in this space was a run-in with a fabulous European stealth startup, several talks with my awesome author friend Alan Moore and a serendipitous Twitter conversion with a fellow Sweden (@agaton) who writes a fantastic blog called “Four shades of brown” (all these guys are sharp as nails I might add). And, of course, Seth Godin’s ramblings on The Domino Project. He’s smart as hell and if any parents read this please make sure your kids learn two things in school: math and philosophy.

So what if there was a platform that allowed us to share an original idea and build a conversation around it that could result in a realtime, storytelling / storybuilding book-like experience but also in derivatives and extensions of the idea. Authoring a book is a solitary confinement, reading a book as well. But what if we could make that experience participatory and inclusive to make a really great idea bubble up to the surface and fuel new ideas, new ventures and new revolutions. But without ignoring or disrespecting the original or derivative source.

That leads me to think about the book as data, as contextual creations, packaged and framed to target a specific segment, market or niche (all the same really). But a book is just an idea, it doesn’t need to be conclusive in the digital era.

I think the dissemination of books can be solved the same way that Alexander Osterwalder built his fantastic “Business Model Generation”: crowd-sourced suggestions/feedback, a well thought-out, researched and packaged idea, shared via social media, made participatory via workshops. I actually got my hands on a few limited edition books a few years ago and sold them via Amazon. And that’s how we met (I hope I’m forgiven by now).

But what I’ve realized is that the dissemination becomes part of the dynamic book. Yes, there needs to be static versions for all but it also needs to be a participatory experience, connecting everyone to the original idea and letting people build and profit from it - just like a platform API. Challenge the original hypothesis, alter it, build something new, beg-steal-and-borrow - what do I care.

It’s all about connecting cool ideas and the people that have them with the world to make it a much better place. It’s about starting a digital wildfire with infinite tangents, giving people the opportunity to add, alter and remake what you started in any form or shape to share their perspective on a really cool life altering story. The more realtime perspectives, the better.

As Pablo Picasso said: “Good artists borrow; great artists steal”. But it’s not about stealing anymore, it’s the oppsoite: share a real great idea with everyone and let them build upon it, alter it, tweak it and change it. And laugh all the way to the bank. :p