Going Digital: Nature.com on new forms of textbooks
There is a great news story on Nature.com today, in their Careers section, that helps describe the evolving landscape of digital textbooks. Nature is in the game big-time, after having released their Principles of Biology textbook, an online and interactive offering that is accessed via a subscription. The author of the article, Roberta Kwok has done a great some great research on the idea of publishing a digital textbook, and in the article she highlights the fact that scientists now have access to set of publishing tools that frees them from having to work through traditional publishing and distribution channels. This is not an easy road as she points out, and requires a certain combination of skills and some dedication. Roberta covers Cachalot in some depth in a Content Box that focuses specifically on self-publishing.
The article is available here.