Publishing | featured news

FOR decades, even after it was renamed and relocated from its original home at Radcliffe, the Columbia Publishing Course seemed unchanging, a genteel summer tradition in the book business, a white-glove six-week course in which ambitious college graduates were educated in the time-honored basics of book editing, sales, cover design and publicity. Not this summer.

Two days ago I went to the O'Reilly Tools of Change Publishing conference at the Marriott in Times Square. It's a pretty well-attended conference, focused on e-books, e-book readers and embracing digital change. Twelve hundred people showed up to hear about what's next. The book industry has not grown much in the last six years, but neither has the U.S. economy. However bookselling will change more in the next six years than in the previous 200.

Despite staggering growth e-books remain a sliver of publishing, but this season could be big break.

O'Reilly talks about the lessons learned by its foray into e-book publishing.