Burning the Page: The eBook revolution and the future of reading

experiences they gain are essential for evolving into the future. In times like this, when the pace of evolution is fast enough to be called a revolution, there are massive changes and die-offs, and the nimble will inherit the earth. The survivors will be those who are agile enough to scamper between the legs of the bigger dinosaurs, avoiding them as they fall.
    I’ve spoken of innovators, but the publishing world has plenty of laggards, as well, including some of the biggest names in the game. While they were once the industry darlings, many of the bigger, more established New York publishers are now the dinosaurs.
    Walking into the New York offices of a Big Five publisher is like stepping back in time. Or like stepping onto the set of Mad Men . Even when you’re out for lunch with the presidents and general managers, you’re often in a vermouth-fogged version of the 1950s and ’60s, where deals are decided over lunch or sometimes by the quality of your suit tie or class ring.
    Success slows some publishers down, making it hard for them to take risks. And just as Amazon is wary of innovating too fast or leaking its secrets, top New York publishers likewise can be very cagey and secretive. I know of one publisher, for example, who paid for a vice president to rent an apartment for a month and lock herself in there, in total secret, with the manuscript of a forthcoming blockbuster book. The vice president had a month to format the manuscript as an ebook by hand. The publisher didn’t want to risk giving outside conversion houses the digital manuscript, for fear it might leak.
    But all the secrets come out once a year when all the retailers and publishers gather at a trade show called BookExpo America.
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    April showers bring May flowers, along with rants from publishers at BookExpo America in New York, the nation’s largest book event. I’d fly there every May to represent Amazon in talking to publishers about ebooks and innovation. My meetings with publishers outside Amazon’s walled garden weren’t all pleasant exchanges of ideas and innovation, though. In fact, more often than not, I’d find myself getting yelled at and treated like I was an invading Vandal or Hun.
    On one particular day, for example, I was in a basement somewhere in New York City, and a senior vice president of Disney books was screaming at me.
    He was at one end of a conference-room table, and it felt like an interrogation. I usually associate Disney with talking animals and spinning teacups and walking brooms, but when you’re actually being yelled at by Disney, you see the dark side of the Magic Kingdom. But I don’t hold it against them. An hour earlier, I was in the same conference room, but that time, a vice president of HarperCollins was screaming at me. An hour later, another publisher would be yelling at me.
    The screams got worse every year, louder and louder. Publishers love to hate Amazon. Even before Kindle, Amazon’s relationship with the publishing world was like that of an aging couple. They were forever arguing with one another, but still married after all these years.
    It didn’t matter what we yelled about in any given year. The next year, it would be something different—but we’d always shake hands and smile when it was all done. The Amazon folks would move on to confrontations with the next publisher, and the vice president of Disney would go on to yell at Apple or Sony. It’s a dance we did every year underneath the trade show floor.
    On the floor itself, you could get autographs from famous authors, pick up complimentary books or comics, hold the latest e-readers in your hands, and swap business cards with thousands of small publishers and independents on the book-publishing sidelines.
    But two stories below the trade show floors—in underground conference rooms laid out like Cuban detention cells—the real wheeling and dealing happened. Everyone’s shirts were rumpled with sweat and exertion, and people were pounding their fists on tables. And yet, everyone smiled to themselves, because everyone was getting something from these negotiations.
    The same unholy shrieking happens every year at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany—the screams are just more guttural. Even at the London Book Fair, now that ebooks have taken off, strained smiles break through the British reserve of once-formal publishers. That’s because serious amounts of money are involved every year at these negotiations, and