Google hosted “Unbound: Advancing Book Publishing in a Digital World”, a one day programme, to examine the latest changes in the book business and its possible evolution. The event was primarily for book publishers. At Unbound, the speakers tried to convince the book publishers that Google could be a friend and that digital content, instead of being a threat may turn out to be a solution to the problems faced by the publishing world.
For a long time, there have been divided opinions between serious supporters of traditional book publishing and organisations like Google that seek to digitalize all information. Google’s statement, ‘to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’ doesn’t sound like a good idea to many publishers and librarians.
Google began with scanning and indexing of entire books in Google Books. This caused a great deal of consternation among booksellers, publishers and librarians that the popularity of e-books might cause the printed books to disappear from the bookshelves. Opinions online are that this fear might not materialise in the near future. People still prefer reading printed books to reading the pages of text online which would be very stressful for the eyes. Google is now reportedly planning on launching a companion service that would allow users to search Google Books by titles and then permit them to download the entire text. This service might give e-books a big boost.
The event was largely a response to Google's controversial Library Project and corresponding Book Search tool, which have met with strong opposition from the publishing industry. According to the speakers at "Unbound", the 21st century's new-media culture, print publishing is going to have to evolve.
"We're in a period of tremendous change, and have to embrace that change," said Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of technical manual publishing company O'Reilly Media. "We as publishers have to become part of the new digital ecosystem that Google is working so hard to build."
"The goal is to stimulate thinking, both your thinking and ours, on how these challenges and opportunities are going to impact all of us," said Jim Gerber, director of content partnerships at Google, whose presentation opened the day's events.
The speakers included Wired Magazine's editor Chris Anderson, who told about how he promoted his own book, The Long Tail, through early blogging, links, and fostering community; Seth Godin, the quintessential marketer, who believes you have two choices - give away your writing or toil in obscurity; and Cory Doctorow, founder of BoingBoing, a science fiction writer, who provided testimonial to the power of giving away your books.
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