James Bridle

James Bridle does things with books, mostly. With a background in both computing and traditional publishing, he attempts to bridge the gaps between technology and literature, whether that takes the form of writing about the publishing industry, consulting to leading international publishers, or actually being a publisher.

James created Bookkake, a small publisher using new technologies to bring new life to independent publishing, and Bkkeepr, an attention data service for bibliophiles. He writes about books and the publishing industry at booktwo.org and runs a series of websites including Quietube, an accidental anti-censorship proxy for the Middle East. In 2009 he helped launch Enhanced Editions, the first ereading application with integrated audiobooks.

On Covers

I've been thinking about covers for a while now. One of the many great debates around the ephemeralisation of music has been the lamentations for the loss of cover art: now, we are reaching the same point with books. I say ephemeralisation rather than digitisation because it's not just a physical transformation we're going through, it's a cognitive one….