Veteran literary agent Richard Curtis highlights the kind of problems that arise when dragging the moribund editorial process into the 21st century, and suggests a unique solution (this is a good blog for anybody interested in the ebook business and ebook technology):

Not long ago an editor told me she'd discovered that the Sony Reader was so perfectly suited to reviewing manuscript submissions that her boss purchased them for everyone on the division's editorial staff. She simply uploads manuscript files and reads the book at home or on her commute to and from work. Recently I have heard many an editor rave about the virtues of the Sony (and to a lesser extent Amazon's Kindle) as an editorial tool. They also speak of the "green" benefits of paperless transmission of texts. Authors and agents benefit too, thanks to savings on photocopy, printing, and mailing costs.

Curtis also points out an unexpected difficulty with using Word to review drafts (the intrusiveness of the spell and grammar check functions), and discusses the evolving experience of reading as it becomes more and more dominated by electronic media.

Labels: books, ebooks, publishing, technology