The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy
January 19th, 2012
At first I thought we should blame ourselves for getting our knickers all in a knot when the rumors started circulating that Steve Jobs’ deadly forces of disruption, honoring his dying wishes, had turned their sights on textbooks. But don’t we frighten easily! Then I felt angry at Apple.
May 19th, 2011
I’ve been trying to find a simple explanation of effective user interface design for web sites. I think this captures the tone: You put your left foot in / You put your left foot out
April 2nd, 2011
Which ebook formats do we really need? By “need” I’m thinking only about consumer needs, not what the vendors want. * I think the only ones we need today are: 1. ePub – Not because it’s any good, but because it’s an industry standard, not just one vendor’s idea. 2. PDF – Because there’s already…
February 23rd, 2011
Last evening I wrote to a colleague who runs a regional association of trade book publishers. I thought I would share the letter: Hi xxx, I thought of you when I read this just now in today’s Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703529004576160421561955208.html I think it’s a very good article just because it presents the unvarnished truth…
February 11th, 2011
(The title of this post is inspired by one of my favorite books of cartoons by one of my favorite New Yorker cartoonists, George Booth: Think Good Thoughts About a Pussycat.) I’ve been using Adobe’s Acrobat technology forever, and I’m a huge fan of the underlying technology. The user-facing software, however, stinks. It’s the same problem that you find in Microsoft…