Readers Respond: Going Mobile

We recently ran Brian F. O’Leary’s analysis of Bowker’s annual summary of ISBNs registered for self-published works, in which he advocates for publishers to further develop “consumer-facing Web presences” and apps to establish “true first-party relationships.” Our readers had a lot to say about his ideas:

“If publishers think that going mobile means creating a dedicated-to-their-book-list mobile app, they’re going to be sadly mistaken. Extremely few readers are loyal to any publisher. Most pay no attention to who published a book.”—Michael W. Perry

“Bringing ‘just’ books to the smartphone might not do the trick—same thing, just a different format. Books in their current form are a solitary business. There is still no connection between the author and the reader, which is crucial. But this smartphone generation is not like this at all. They are used to being online almost 24/7, commenting, rating, sharing, following almost all their activities on the smartphone. This social component, which could go as far as even in-story commenting, is a must-have for making reading attractive again for a younger target group.”—Veronika Kartovenko

“Reading needs to become social? I thought that was kind of the point of reading... to NOT be social.”—Steve Quinn

Read O’Leary’s column.

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