You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘POD’ tag.
The first publication of the OAPEN project has recently come to light, a collection of essays by Johan Huizinga entitled De hand van Huizinga, collected and with an introduction by Willem Otterspeer; the essays are in Dutch, via Amsterdam University Press, but will also be translated into several other languages via the other OAPEN partners, in French by Presses Universitaires de Lyon and in English by Manchester University Press.
Who would have known that the works of such a, as some characterize him, posh and studious historian, would be at the forefront of these kind of digital experiments? For as I wrote before, one of Huizinga’s other great works, Homo Ludens, was part of an AUP/Athenaeum Bookstore POD series which is doing very well in the Netherlands at the moment (strange thing being that I have been seeing these editions pop up everywhere now – makes you wonder whether a secret small print run hasn’t replaced the ‘handicraft’ disguise of the ‘genuine POD edition’). Next to that Huizinga’s works can also be found on the Project Gutenberg Website, amongst others The Waning of the Middle ages (in Dutch), his most famous work, and Erasmus and the Age of Reformation
Of course Huizinga’s international renownedness, the accessibility of his work, covering a wide range of topics, and the beautiful and playful character of his language will be appealing to both an academic public as well as a more broader public interested in general cultural topics and literature. These considerations must have been influential when it comes to the choice of such an author and scholar for these kinds of new projects; not only to give the projects themselves a little more flair and esteem, but foremost to revive interest in one of Holland’s most gifted scholarly writers.
On a more personal level I am also very proud and glad this selection of essays has been picked to be the first OAPEN publication, as I am originally a (cultural) historian by education and Huizinga has always been my favorite historical thinker – well to be honest it is a tie between him and Walter Benjamin, although the latter can’t technically be called a historian as he is such an inherent cross- and interdisciplinary thinker.
But Huizinga can’t be called an ‘ordinary’ historian either! His orations, books and essays cover a huge array of subjects and his style is –although of course a little outdated- very lively, fresh and passionate. I absolutely love the little review Carel Peeters wrote about the essay collection for the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland. Here is an excerpt (my translation):
“Although he [Huizinga] developed from an esthete who believed art to be far superior to the natural sciences, into a moralistic cultural critic, Otterspeer sees the ‘larger unity’ of his work in the logical ‘metamorphoses’ he went through. Out of the philologist developed the historian, out of the historian came the cultural critic and from there developed the cultural-anthropologist. The connection between everything being the Burckhardtian idea that history is ‘poetry in its highest sense’. For Huizinga it eventually all comes down to literature.”

This excerpt is a direct reference to Otterspeer’s introduction to the essay collection, where Otterspeer furthermore states that ‘according to Huizinga language originated like poetry originated: from a lyrical merging of sensory impressions. Synesthesia was the cradle of language’ (my translation). Otterspeer’s introduction tries to give an insight in the development of both Huizinga’s character and his work and is a must-read if you are interested in Huizinga’s works and thoughts. You can read or download De hand van Huizinga here in Dutch or wait a little longer for the French and English translations.
Kevin Kelly reports on his blog about an experimental book publishing model. In this model you first sell a required amount of (hard cover) books (in this specific case 200), enough to cover for the costs of the print run, after which the book is made available online for free as a downloadable PDF. Actually this is just a variant of the delayed Open Access model, in which after a certain embargo time the books or journals are made Open Access. What I like however about the example Kelly mentions of the New Liberal Arts book, a Snarkmarket/Revelator Press collaboration, is how they combine this delayed Open Access model with a community support or maecenas model. Stressing the importance of patronage they state on their website:
“We’ll post a PDF online, free for everyone—but only after we sell this run of 200 real, physical objects. So think of it this way: You’re not just buying a thought-provoking, take-it-to-the-coffee-shop book for yourself. You’re buying access for everybody. You’re a patron of the new liberal arts!”
Of course, as Kelly also says, you need an audience big enough to be able to offer both a print run and on online edition. And here’s where word of mouth marketing comes in handy. And it definitely worked in this case where the print edition sold out in less than eight hours, as the website again states:
“New Liberal Arts, a Snarkmarket/Revelator Press collaboration, is the beginning of an attempt to describe topics, disciplines, and methods of inquiry essential to any 21st century education. Ranging from “attention economics” to “video literacy,” New Liberal Arts is a glimpse into the course catalog of an idiosyncratic new school—a liberal arts college 2.0 New Liberal Arts went on sale on July 7 in a limited edition of 200 copies at Snarkmarket. The initial print run sold out in less than 8 hours.”
Revelator press, which publishes e-chapbooks for the masses, maintains another business model, where they put their books online for free, hoping they will gather enough response and attention to be able to sell print editions. Probably a saver model to use where there is a lack of an audience from the start, and even a small print run of 200 copies can already be a huge financial failure. Maybe POD, as its quality is improving enormously at the moment, could offer some more possibilities for similar presses. Revelator Press has an excellent Q& A section where they explain their choice for a free model. I love it so I have added it underneath. Also be sure to take a look at there beautiful designed e-chapbooks consisting of poetry, drama and short stories. I for example loved this one: Nine Poems by Gavin Graig.
A: e-chapbooks for the masses.
Q: What the hell does that mean?
A: I’ll level with you. We know some people. These people write. Good stuff. It’s really hard to get things published (yeah, I know, cry me a river), so we’re going to put some of this stuff out there. Free.
Q: Free?
A: Sure, the first one is always free.
Q: What’s the catch?
A: No catch. We’re betting that you’ll like it, and you’ll come back to read more.
Q: So this is like one of those record club things, where you’ll start mailing me stuff I don’t want, and charge me if I don’t return it?
A: Nope. We’re not in it for the money. We want to get people talking, and maybe if enough people get talking, or the right people in the right places, then maybe you’ll see some of these people in Poetry, or The New Yorker, or on the new release table in your local bookstore. You can buy stuff then.
Q: Real publication? You think these people are that good?
A: Who am I, Harold Bloom? These people are good writers. Read them. Tell them what you like and don’t like.
Q: Tell them? This thing is interactive?
A: This is a blog, isn’t it? Join the 21st century.
Q: How do I keep up?
A: Subscribe to our rss feed (http://revelatorpress.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default). You can keep an eye on the discussion there, and we’ll post original work, in PDF form, every four to six weeks or so.
Q: Anything else?
A: Yeah. Tell your friends.
“While I make my work public, the fear comes over me that many will consider it an insufficiently documented improvisation, in spite of all the labor that went into it. It is the fate of anyone who wants to deal with cultural topics, that he is compelled to make incursions into all sorts of provinces which he has not sufficiently explored. To fill all the gaps in my knowledge beforehand was out of the question for me, and by using references to justify details, I made it easy on myself. I had to write now or not at all. It was something very close to my heart. So, I wrote”
(Johan Huizinga, Introduction to Homo Ludens 1938)
De Dutch journal De Groene Amsterdammer is hosting a contest to let their readers choose which Dutch non-fiction books that are currently out of print, deserve to be republished as a print on demand version. Together with Amsterdam University Press, Athenaeum Bookstore publishes the fabulous abc-series in PoD. The citation above comes from the beautiful book Homo Ludens, written by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga. Homo Ludens is part of the abc-series (Athenaeum Boekhandel Canon), a great initiative to revive classics that need and deserve to be available, either digital or in print.


During last Thursday’s Round Table on ‘Digitisation and the Trade Book’, organized by the department of Book and Digital Media Studies at Leiden University, the focus was on the future role of ‘intermediaries’ (distributors, booksellers and librarians) in the age of the digital book. What kind of value will these ‘old players’ still add to the value chain of book production in the digital era? Three representatives of the book field where present to defend their position: Hans Willem Cortenraad, from the Centraal Boekhuis (the main Dutch book distributor), Dennis Eijsten from Bibliotheek.nl (library.nl) and Erik Rigters from ebook.nl.
Some of the main issues concerning the transition from the book to the digital medium were fiercely discussed during the round table, at which the audience was highly participatory. Hans Willem Cortenraad defended the efficient distribution of the paper book in the Netherlands, which, according to him, will pave the way for an equally efficiently coordinated system for digital books, because it has the efficiency and the system in place to create standardization in a digital world. Next to that he argued that the world is only slowly changing into a digital world, estimating that it will take another 10 to 15 years before there will be more Ebooks than print books. Cortenraad argued that this will give them enough time to develop the way the trade book value chain is organized now into a similar digitized one. The knowhow and the expertise of the old will also in the future allow them to develop services for the publishers’ content.
Dennis Eijsten stated that the main task of the library is to provide easy access to reading. This means that the library needs to make sure books are available, be it on paper or on e-paper. In his vision, POD is only a step on the way to a fully digital reading culture. Thus POD is just a form of migration to digital reading: it makes the transition to digital reading easier. Eijsten argued that within ten years everything will be digitized and we will do (almost all) our reading from gadgets.
Erik Rigters emphasized, amongst others, that in the transition from print to digital booksellers ought to do more to extend their customer relations to a digital environment. There are some obstacles they fear though in this transition. Rigters argues that Ereaders will convince people that reading from a screen is possible. 
One of the main topics addressed during the following discussion revolved around the question ‘what is the value of scale in the digital age?’ Will there be a few major players (Google, Amazon) or will there still be a role for the smaller players and intermediaries?
Dennis Eijsten argued that Google will certainly play an important role as search engine and in this respect will serve as the front office. However, there will be a second layer of services and information brokers that will come up from these searches that will distinguish themselves by their selection and quality mechanisms which will enable the survival of niche markets.
Another issue that arose was ‘what is the value of these platforms in a digital age when in theory everyone can be a publisher?’ The platforms, be it in the form of publishers or other intermediaries can serve as advisors, they can take care of selection, enrichment, administration and marketing of the content. Next to the selection and marketing mechanism, the platforms can also serve as a community building mechanism. These communities of book readers can take care of further selection and enrichment. This is where a possible future for intermediaries can lay: in the creation of platforms that make a selection of the immense data available on the web and at the same time host all kinds of community building opportunities and user interaction services.
This development was also reflected in the discussion about possible future Ebook business models. Erik Rigters defended the advertising model, in which content can be free to the end user by means of advertisements in or next to the content (comparing it to the Google model). Next to that he (and others) argued that in the future the most important issue is access to data: with all these massive amounts of data the issue no longer revolves around ownership but around accessibility. New Ebook business models will revolve around access to databases instead of access to items, be it single books, pages or chapters. And this access is where we will pay for. And in this respect, the players with the most data will play the biggest roles as information brokers in a digital age.
A few other interesting remarks that came up from the discussion:
- The fixed book price will disappear since the digital knows no borders.
- Authors want to be read more than to be paid: it is the secondary services (lectures, tours, promotions) that come with the fame after being read that make authors’ income in the new model.
- Copyright is old fashioned. This means that the business models modeled around copyright feel old fashioned too. We need to find new ways to ensure the author and the publishers get paid for their added value. Copyright makes this change slower.
These are just a few reflections of a round table that in my experience offered some very fruitful discussions. The next round table will be organized at the beginning of 2009.













Charming initiative by
Nothing has changed! The written word—the love of it and the power of the written word—it hasn’t changed. It’s a matter of fostering it, fertilizing it, not giving up on it, and having faith. Don’t get down. I actually have established an e-mail address, deggers@826national.org—if you want to take it down—if you are ever feeling down, if you are ever despairing, if you ever think publishing is dying or print is dying or books are dying or newspapers are dying (the next issue of McSweeney’s will be a newspaper—we’re going to prove that it can make it. It comes out in September). If you ever have any doubt, e-mail me, and I will buck you up and prove to you that you’re wrong.” 
I think his arguments also hold for academic books in the long run. Where printed monographs are also slowly but increasingly moving to the web, their printed version might still have some endurance. One of the models now proposed to sustain Open Access book publishing in the Humanities focuses mostly on an online, free Open Access edition and a paid for print edition, consisting of cheaply and in short (even single digits) print run produced POD books. The remit in this model lies predominantly in the sales from these POD books (for those people who still prefer to read from print) or added services on top of the online edition. It might however also be interesting to look into a market of deluxe editions of certain (probably only the best selling monographs and classics) books that people still want to ‘posses’ and pay for because they are beautifully designed or just nice to look at. Different readers, different markets; and just look at vinyl…


Recent Comments