Sad and Yet, Maybe Not Surprising.

Perhaps the best digital edition I’ve seen to date was Al Gore’s "Our Choice," which was produced by PushPop Press. If you have an iPad, do yourself a favor: buy it. It will really show you what can be done with the technology.

That said, you won’t see anymore e-books like it from PushPop Press, as they’re being bought by Facebook, who, it should be noted, doesn’t see themselves producing e-books.

On one hand, it’s a bummer. On the other hand, I never expected PushPop to make it big. Forgetting the technology, the amount of multi-media that went into Our Choice was such that a publisher could only be assured to profit if they had a runaway best seller on their hands, and if you understand book publishing, you know that runaway best sellers are the exception, not the rule.

The challenge, however, is as great as it ever was – produce as much compelling content as possible without crushing your business model.