Publishers Gild Books With ‘Special Effects’ to Compete With E-Books →
Book publishers are starting to see the light.
“If we believe that convenience reading is moving at light speed over to e,” Mr. Schnittman said, using the industry shorthand for e-books, “then we need to think about what the physical qualities of a book might be that makes someone stop and say, ‘well there’s convenience reading, and then there’s book owning and reading.’ We realized what we wanted to create was a value package that would last.”
Martha K. Levin, the executive vice president and publisher of Free Press, the imprint of Simon & Schuster that published “The Iliad,” said the presentation sent “the message that even if you’re buying 90 percent of your books on your e-reader, this is the one that you want to have on your bookshelf.”
Exactly. There are books that I just want to read---and then there are books that I want to treasure and display.