Thursday, January 28, 2010

Pirates as Product Development

There were numerous fine presentations at the Digital Book World this week - notably the panel discussion featuring Larry Kirshbaum, Michael Cader, Evan Schnittman and Ken Brooks - which I think added a lot to our understanding of where we are in the eBook evolution.

Not to dismiss any other discussion, I thought the simple, clean direct - almost matter-of-fact - presentation by Liza Daly that described the typical consumer experience in finding, downloading and reading an eBook was one of the highlights. If that presentation didn't leave publishers thinking about the eBook versions of their titles then there's no hope.

During the course of her presentation and almost as an aside, she noted that there are many pirated eBook versions of books that are actually significantly better designed and presented than the legit version. Hence the title of this post; rather than shutting the Pirate down why not adopt the pirated version and use it instead as the legit version? Hey, why not hire the pirate?

I know, I know...

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