“Midnight release parties have become common for blockbuster movies, video games, young adult/fantasy fiction and anything else likely to command long lines of loyal nerds. As far as I know, no physical bookstores held Harry Potter-style release parties for Walter Isaacson’s new biography. But we nerds stood in a virtual queue for ‘Steve Jobs‘ just the same,” Tim Carmody reports for Wired.
“A full hour before the official digital release, blogger/investor Dave Pell captured the mood, tweeting with tongue half in cheek: “Aside from big religious holidays, there have probably never been more people reading the same book at the same time.” Preorders had already made the Jobs biography a best-seller for Kindle, iBooks and Nook. Jobs’ death on Oct. 5 saw preorders skyrocket, leading Simon & Schuster to accelerate the publication date,” Carmody reports. “Just think: Not so long ago, Simon & Schuster might have delayed the e-book release by as much as four months after the print release date. Now, an Amazon spokesperson says that the Jobs biography may be Amazon’s bestseller for all of 2011, with Forrester analyst James McQuivey claiming that, given current trends in bestselling books, the Steve Jobs e-book may outperform print for up to six months and account for up to 70% of all sales.”
Carmody reports, “Jobs’ biography may be the first great digital book event, a last hurrah for the universally appealing hardcover, a collective reading experience of Potteresque proportions.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Steve Jobs can now be purchased from Apple’s iBookstore (US$16.99) here: Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward Weber” for the heads up.]
Yup, I preordered the ebook. Buying a digital version seemed fitting, somehow.
Its a great read so far. Jobs was a prickly fellow it seems.
This part is nothing new, though.
Also, being ruthless and as result-driven as Jobs was is different side of the same coin.
If Steven would be nicer person, nothing big would come out of his endeavours. Isaacson said that Jobs’ son is similar to Steven, but milder. This means he can never follow steps of his father in terms of greatness of team-related work.
You can you never tell that by a person’s mellowness.
He might not be so mellow when it comea to getting what he wants .
I have a friend who has accomplished a lot in business. He is laid back most of the time but the guy turns into an epic tyrannt when he sets a goal andd goes for something.
If Steven’s son is that type, then it could be interesting, I agree.
i think its pretty slick that publishers dont view e-books as a second class citizen anymore
Anyone else download a copy of Steve’s bio that is full of blank pages and missing photos?
On the Apple support site, I don’t see any obvious way to complain to Apple about a defective download.
Check out the reader poll results for the current Joy of Tech (link on the left side of this page).
Physical books lead the combination of (ebooks) plus (ebooks with physical book) in the reader poll.
Have to agree – ebooks are too damn difficult to share.
Revolutionizing one last industry on the way out.
Steve Jobs is Harry Potter for nerds!