The music world has shown us that it will be the little boys, not the big boys, that will revolutionize the way we read and produce books (think Spotify).

In fact, the thought leaders in the digital publishing space are already predicting that two types of approaches to ebooks will guide what happens in the next few years.

• Social Reading - This is the idea that bringing together other readers will improve the reading experience.
• Online Publishing Tools - Here the key concept is that books will be created online and then ‘ported’ to the relevant reader. The idea being that content is separate from the way it is delivered (container). This free online book will explain this in more detail.

So, putting my money where my mouth is, here’s three companies I feel will do well in the coming years…

PressBooks

PressBooks is an online tool that allows writers to add their text and then produce an ebook ready for publication. The system is very simple and currently produces epub, pdf and more. It is also free.

Small Demons

Small Demons is a new concept and is best described as follows:

It all begins here. Suppose someone took every meaningful detail from all the books you love. Every song mentioned, every person, every food or place or movie title. And what if they did that for all the books everyone else loves, too. The ones you’ve never heard of. Suddenly you’ve got a whole world of seemingly random people, places and things, all gathered in one place.

Together they create something vast, wonderful and entirely new. A Storyverse. A place where details touch, overlap and lead you further. To new music to listen to. New movies to watch. Places to visit. People to know. And of course, new books to read. Getting started is simple. Just choose a book. See where it takes you.

Readmill

At its core, Readmill is a system that allows readers to read and comment on books. It then takes these comments and uses them to build a bigger conversation. It is currently only available as an iPad app but they have big plans…

This is Readmill from Readmill on Vimeo.

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