The Governor came down to talk to the people at Calabasas High and help celebrate the introduction of digital books which will be introduced to the school system. I haven’t seen the digital textbooks and I don’t know what the details are about content but I presume that there will be books that can be replenished electronically and updated automatically wth ease.
As a writer and publisher I don’t look at this with alarm like some brick and mortar book publishers might because my investment is in myself and in content. Content can be dispensed electronically and as more and more workable business models spring forth – and the current electronic school system approach hasn’t been proven to be viable one way or another yet because it hasn’t been implemented – I can move my content over to the appropriate medium. One of the bigger problems facing everybody is that nobody is certain what the de facto medium is going to be for publishing in the future and that is something that may not get worked out or may have to be in sectors – maybe specific formats for certain industries (like one industry using .pdf files and another using .doc or .html or something that way). I just hope that the digital devices that they are planning on using are tough. The reason that books lasted as long as they did is because you can’t beat a thick binding to protect the content and as long as you didn’t get the book too wet to get mildewy you would be in good shape.
My e-book and Kindle sales haven’t been great and there is always the wall of “Free” that is represented by the “e” in e-book publishing. There is a lot to be said also by not having to lug around a lot of heavy books and the Governor made a point of showing how that you would be weightlifting with books. Considering that is the only exercise that some kids get, maybe there should be some old books to use as carrying weights to keep the school kids working out as they go from class to class. I was one of those geeks who carried all his books to every class most of the time. It wasn’t out of a sense of torture, it was out of a sense of having to run to my locker which was three floors away and on the other side of the building. There wasn’t enough time between classes and it was just easier to lug the books. I was able to build up my arms and get stronger. In retrospect I wouldn’t have minded having all my books in one simple, eas to use handheld device. Times change, huh?
Hopefully with more chances of loading more books onto the digital books, kids will have access to more information on health, working out and exercise. Of course, the things that the Board of Education needs to remember is that anything that is related to school becomes the Kiss of Death when it comes to kids wanting to have anything to do with it outside of school. They want something that will be theirs.
I also want to remind people who adapt the early technologies for this that there will be problems with batteries at some point dying, electricity causing issues with the books and possibly system degradation on the storage media. One would hope that you can redownload a fresh copy of the book if you had pages starting to go bad because of bad storage media. There is also the issue of the books getting banged up and having to be replaced or getting a fresh memory chip or card. I don’t know how that will work but some students are just plain hard on their books and I suspect with digital books it will be no different. Instead of book covers made with paper bags (eco friendly) we will have digital books with protective plastic covers and cases so that if you drop them they won’t shatter. I wonder if the screens will be in color or black and white. Hmmm.
If anybody knows anything about getting to distribute on other book systems that are going digital or have thoughts on the matter, please post here on the blog. Remember that I only take entries for up to ten days generally and after that I block posts. I wonder if the kids books will have a place where they can share feedback similar to the products that the large companies like Google are trying to get out that remind me of the old bulletin board systems (BBS) back in the early dark ages of the Internet (1990s). I guess that would be Middle Ages for the Internet and not the dark ages which would be the 1970s.
Be safe and healthy people and if you are working, keep your jobs!
June 10 2009
If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post. There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.
Interested in any of my books? You may want to make a stop over here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.
Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“? Please order it today. The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars! Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later.
Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book go to Rett Syndrome research. One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes. My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime. Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Calabasas High To Get Digital School Books
Tags: Business, Calabasas, digital books
[...] as a follow-up to the California Digital Initiative that I commented on from a few days ago here. I have signed up as a publisher for the program but unfortunately, I am swamped with other work [...]