Creating healthy digital environment

Jo Lusby, managing director with Penguin Books China

Definition of “book”: “My definition of a ‘book’ is, it’s a story. That’s all it is. It tells me something I care about and I want to know. I think we don’t need to define a book more than that. I think “book” is a very emotional item, which has been really unchanged in 5000 years despite the technological advances. You look at the oldest book which was from Dunhuang in China, which is now at the oldest museum in London. And that book is a book. You look at it and you know it’s a book. And through these thousands of years of development and history, it’s still a book. The format is never important now than it was. People do still have the relationship with the thing they can hold. The thing that has spine, that has page. But actually the real value of a book, I heard the head of Amazon Jeff Bezos when he was very first introducing kindle to the American market. I heard him give a speech and he said e-reading device must be like a book. You forget the device. You read a book and you forget holding the book because all you see were the words and the rest of the book disappears. You don’t see the books while you are reading. For him a successful e-reader would do the same thing where you forget the device. You don’t see the device because you’re in the words and the words become your world. And I think that’s really what a book is. It’s a way for you to live the words on the page. The words just become the thing you’re absorbed in.”

Creating healthy digital environment: “Actually children in the UK and the US are not reading as many e-books as you would expect them to. They’re actually reading a lot more print books. And I think that’s not really for the reason of their eye health. It’s actually more that you see with children. They love to say “this is mine, that is mine, mine, mine and I want to keep it and have it. And with something that is e, you don’t have this sense of ownership. You don’t have this sense of “this is for me” and also interestingly for children, they associate a lot of this e-reading with school. This is for us, I think, certainly for my generation, anything that was digital was fun. It was not for school when I was at that age. But now these children, they equate this with school, so they want just actually have a book that’s fun. And that’s not about study. It’s not about work. It’s just about having fun and relaxing. So in some way, in England and in America, people didn’t spend much time worrying about their children’s eyes because the children are not actually reading e-books in huge amounts. If they have the choice, they would still take the print book. As I say in China, people are very worried about this issue and I think they are right to be concerned. But I think ultimately it’s a choice for the parents because it’s about how long you spend using something. It’s not about the fact that you have used it. I’m very interested to see what I can do around creating healthy digital environment for children that feels healthy both for their learning, but also for their bodies and for their eyes.”

China is a suitable place for audio: “China is a suitable place for audio as well because you have such things like “Pingshu”, a such big part of Chinese traditional culture. Yes, Pingshu is not audio books, but actually a kind of audio books. It’s a story told by one person who reads out all of the characters. And so often in some ways Chinese drivers and Chinese people should really easily accept audio books. But it’s about delivery. I’ve seen some beautifully new formats developed in Korea, about how you can sell a book with an audio together. And I’m quite excited about these new technologies that are coming out, that are really quite appealing. So we’re looking into interesting ways we can bring the audio and the print together because I think internationally it’s a good opportunity, particularly so in China.”