Love it or ignore it, the launch of the iPad is opening up a new era of publishing.

When Theodore Gray, author of “The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe,” heard about the iPad, he started work on an iPad version of his book, which was published in 2009. He also launched a new interactive publishing house, Touch Press.

In the article, “Future of publishing: Reinventing the concept of the book”, he says about Touch Press:

There are many companies that offer the service of taking thousands of back-list titles and putting them on a Kindle. But we’re really reconceptualizing books — new photography, new software development. Reimagining books in a super-interactive form. We look for books that would work well with interactives. For instance, a book about the solar system — you need to be able to look at the planets and turn them around.

Read the article, it’s fascinating.

In April, Touch Press is bringing out T.S. Elliot’s poem, “The Wasteland”, as an app.

Can your ebook function as an app?

In the light of what Touch Press is doing (no doubt other publishers will follow), it’s worth thinking about how you could use this kind of technology in writing your books.

Could one of your ebooks work as an app?

2010 was an amazing year for digital books. The iPad joined the Kindle, and the age of the ebook finally arrived.

Judging from this article in Publishers Weekly, Digital Book World: Publishing CEOs Optimistic About the Future publishers are gearing up to seize the day:

“‘It’s the end of the beginning’of the digital transition, Friedman said. Macmillan’s COO said publishing is entering a ‘golden age,’ but added that the question is will it be a golden age for publishers.”

The question is, what does this mean for authors — for YOU?

There are no easy answers. It depends on what you want to achieve.

If you’re a new author, the world’s your oyster. Go ahead and publish your book on the Amazon Kindle. You don’t need technical expertise, and you have a market of millions.

That said, you’ll still need to promote your book. Taken as a group, writers are fearful of marketing. You’ll give your books the best chance of success if you accept that you need to promote. I created a promotions guide to help you along the path.

If you’re a published author, you have a decision to make too: will you go the traditional publishing route, and try to get a publishing contract? Or will you self-publish?

Either way, you need to focus on promotions too, and build your platform.

Authors have more opportunities than they’ve ever had. You no longer need a publisher. Nor do you need anyone’s permission to publish your books, and sell them. Even if you’re a technophobe, you can publish on the Kindle.

If take advantage of the tools you have available to you, you can be successful beyond your dreams. It may well be the down of a golden age for authors.

It’s up to you to take advantage of the myriad opportunities.

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Barnes & Noble is leaping aboard the electronic publishing express in a big way. In addition to their Nook ereader, they’ve announced PubIt, a digital publishing platform for publishers and writers.

Their press release Barnes & Noble Announces PubIt!(TM), An Easy-to-Use Digital Publishing and Distribution Platform for Independent and Self-Publishers – MarketWatch says:

“NEW YORK, May 19, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Barnes & Noble, Inc. (BKS 19.77, +0.27, +1.38%) , the world’s largest bookseller, is extending its deep and longstanding tradition of supporting authors and publishers with PubIt! by Barnes & Noble, an easy and lucrative way for independent publishers and self-publishing writers to distribute their works digitally through Barnes & Noble.com and the Barnes & Noble eBookstore. The easy-to-use publishing and distribution platform offers qualified independent publishers and authors of self-published works expanded distribution, visibility and protection that only Barnes & Noble can offer.”

The details haven’t been announced yet. It’ll be interesting to see what kinds of royalties they offer, and whether they demand exclusivity.

Can the Apple tablet revive the publishing industry? That remains to be seen. Apparently Apple’s been shopping the tablet around to publishers, offering a better deal to publishers than Amazon.

Publishers talk about Apple’s tablet | 9 to 5 Mac reports:

“Apple has been pitching itself against Amazon’s model specifically to the publishers.  Apple’s ‘Agency model’ gives publishers more control and freedom for pricing vs. Amazon who’ve recently restructured a small part of their publisher offering to compete with this surge by Apple.   We received the exact same wording from both people so we think this is the type of thing that Apple is touting to all publishers.  We might hear about ‘the Agency Model’ vs. Kindle’s at the event.”

Fascinating.

Some analysts are predicting that Apple’s rumored device will sell ten million units in the first year. If so, and if the device is content-centric, then your book may indeed appear on the Apple tablet.

We live in exciting times…

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When you work and play on the Web, you’re trained to expect everything fast. As I mentioned in this post about writer’s book contracts, the idea-to-bookstore process takes around two years.

That is, from the time you get an idea for a book, develop the idea, sell the book etc is around two years, minimum. It can take much longer — I’ve had agents who shopped around manuscripts for 18 months before getting a nibble from a publisher.

This may be about to change, for some books at least.

Tina Brown’s forming a new book imprint, called Beast Books, which will publish books by writers at The Daily Beast (blog) site.

Publishers want to make money, so I think we’ll see other publishers ramping up their schedules too.

The Daily Beast Seeks to Speed Up the Publishing Process for Books – NYTimes.com reports:

“On a typical publishing schedule, a writer may take a year or more to deliver a manuscript, after which the publisher takes another nine months to a year to put finished books in stores. At Beast Books, writers would be expected to spend one to three months writing a book, and the publisher would take another month to produce an e-book edition.”

What does this mean for you as a writer? It means that you need to get your skates on, and develop good writing habits, so you can write more, and can write faster too, if you want to be published in the fast-forward years to come.

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