State of the Publishing Union: A Conversation

Set your DVR, writers and editors, because at around the same time the president addresses Congress and the nation in his State of the Union speech tonight, we’ll be talking about the state of the publishing industry’s union between writers, editors, and technology.

Indeed, tech seems to be the publishing topic of the week. At Digital Book World in New York, Google’s Amanda Edwards talked up Google Editions, its searchable store that will sell both digital and print books. Google plans to make Editions available on any device. “We’d like to make it so that books can be bought anywhere and read anywhere,” mediabistro’s eBookNewser quotes Edwards as saying.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported that The New York Times plans to create a whole new business out of charging for electronic editions, including content made available on Amazon’s Kindle an other e-readers. Bloomberg cites an internal memo that says The Times has appointed Yasmin Namini as general manager of the new unit.

Finally, there’s Apple’s tablet — or “iSlate,” as its being called — which is expected to be announced a few hours after this post goes live. It will be full-color and powered by a version of the iPhone operating system, according to comments made by McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw in an interview on CNBC (tablet talk begins at around 2:49):

How much will these and other technologies change the way editors and writers work together? That’s our topic for tonight. Specifically, we’re wondering:

• Writers: Are these highly mobile formats encouraging you to try the shorter form? Are editors asking you to write shorter?
• Editors: Are you experimenting with digital media and HMTL, CSS, and other code as a consequence of these more interactive formats? (We asked writers about this in a recent chat. Now it’s your turn to weigh in.)
• Publishers: Do you agree with McGraw? How important is the iSlate and related technologies to the business of publishing?

Join us tonight at 8:30pm ET to discuss these questions and more on FriendFeed.

[Full disclosure: Tim owns shares of Google.]