The digital revolution is not only changing the format of books, but also could redefine their very nature, Christian publishing executives heard yesterday at the close of a two-day summit on the issue.

Technological developments will require the "right-sizing" of books, whose physical format has traditionally dictated they be a certain length to make printing and selling them viable, suggested Evangelical Christian Publishing Association (ECPA) President and CEO Mark Kuyper.

But with many people now looking for content in bite-sized chunks available on smartphones as well as e-book e-readers, "we could actually consider content as short as a sentence or two to be something we could deliver and possibly monetize at some level," he said in closing comments at the ECPA's Executive Leadership Summit in Colorado Springs, Colo.

More than 150 leaders from 50-plus publishers, ministries and service providers attended the event. They heard about the rapid growth of the digital book market, how that had implications for their publishing programs and learned of new trends in social media and marketing to digital readers.

Among the presenters were Mark Nelson, strategic partner development manager for Google's e-books initiative; Michael Tamblyn, executive vice president of content, sales and merchandising for e-book retailer Kobo; and Michel Kripalani, president of leading book application producer Oceanhouse Media.

Even after all that attendees heard—including how editorial processes and pricing will need to change to fit new digital publishing opportunities—they were warned by Kuyper: "We are at the very early stages of this revolution." Companies would "have to think differently."

• Prev
• Next