Paperchains

Phone books seem to be essential. I’m not so sure that they are, but I guess a lot of people like to riffle through pages of paper to find information. They’re big books, updated each year, and presumably costly to print and ship.

You’d think anything that could reduce the amount of unnecessary paper would also reduce the whole cost of production and shipping. And you’d think that would be a good thing.

Rowan Simpson wrote about how the New Zealand Telecom Directories didn’t take up a small font change that would have saved a lot of money. Here’s what Rowan writes:

One of the examples [Kris Sowersby] showed was a font he designed for a pitch to Telecom Directories (back in the day before this part of the business was sold).

He came up with a bunch of simple design changes to improve readability and make the millions of bulky directories they print each year more efficient to produce (i.e. less paper, less ink, etc).

… it was designed to make better use of the space.  In fact, it was estimated that they would be able to save between 8% - 15% on every page …

Imagine the total saving that could have been achieved in time by making this simple small change. You’ll have to, because they didn’t go for it.

[Via Rowan Simpson: Little things.]

It’s an idea though: if you’re in the business of producing books, magazines, leaflets or newspapers, is there some small thing you could do that would make a big difference? A change in font or design could be worth your while.

Although many people love the feel and smell of a (new) book, there are also many who believe that a move towards ebooks could be a good thing.

Personally I hate the problem of ‘old’ books. I have problems giving them away or selling them, as they are often just not wanted. And I have huge resistance to throwing a book in a bin, whether for recycling or as rubbish.

Dave Balter suggests authors should release their works as ebooks, as a way of testing the market before publishers print copies:

• Authors self-package their book entirely on their own.
• Authors distribute digital copies of their books for free to attract readers and to identify a market. They use self-distribution tools to sell as many books as they can.
• Based on the response, the publisher determines which books to pick up, and pays a licensing and distribution right and uses their relationships to distribute a product that has developed an initial marketplace of buyers (note: great new potential business model for some plucky entrepreneur: track the ‘response’ of free book downloads as a data set for publishers to review opportunities).
• Publishers take the completed product, make tweaks as author and publisher feel necessary, print more and distribute them through the strength of their partners.

[Via : How the Book Publishing Industry Should Reinvent Itself - Harvard Business Online's Conversation Starter.]

I think the whole matter of ebooks is more complex than that, but it’s an interesting point of view.