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D

avid H. Rothman might be thought of as a televangelist, in the sense that

he has a cause and promotes it through electronic media. And he is as ded-

icated to his cause as any fire-and-brimstone preacher ever was. But don’t worry:

you won’t find him pushing religion or calling for offerings. Rothman promotes

e-books, e-book standards, and digital libraries. His medium is the Internet, and

his podium is the TeleRead blog (

www.teleread.org/blog

), a nonprofit operation

David Rothman

TeleRead

“Try to reward readers for the time spent visiting

your blog.”

—David Rothman

6

www.teleread.org

http://www. amazon.com/BloggingHeroes

ISBN: 9780470197394

56

Blogging Heroes

that accepts neither donations nor advertising. It has been online in one form or

another since 1993, when it began on CompuServe.

What exactly is TeleRead? As the site itself explains, it is a plan and group

that supports putting e-books in American homes through a well-stocked

national digital library system and small, low-cost e-book readers based on a

standard (yet to be determined) that is accepted and used by publishers—

print and electronic—everywhere.

TeleRead’s purpose is not to establish libraries or dispense e-books. Instead, it

serves as a clearinghouse for ideas, discussions, and proposals involving e-books,

e-book media standards, and digital rights management (DRM). Of course, the

site’s activities can always change to take advantage of the site’s mission.

At times it is a struggle to keep the TeleRead blog (which is often referred

to as the TeleBlog) in operation. As noted, TeleRead doesn’t accept donations

and has no income, not even for advertising. Rothman has wrestled with the

question of registering as a nonprofit corporation, concerned that he would

have to give up complete freedom of expression in exchange for a tax break.

(In connection with this, he heartily recommends the Sinclair Lewis novel

Gideon Planish, which in part dissects the world of charitable foundations.)

And Rothman does at least 85 percent of the posting and management, with

volunteers filling out the rest. So the driving and supporting forces behind

TeleRead are truly in Rothman’s dedication to the cause.

In addition to TeleRead, Rothman works on several complementary proj-

ects, including LibraryCity

(www.librarycity.org

). This is a project that will

put thousands of e-books and other electronic resources online to make them

available to librarians, learners, teachers, and readers in general. As the site

notes, “Honoring the Carnegie tradition, we intend to reduce the correlation

between personal income and access to the best books and other items for

self-improvement.”

The E-book Cause

In an online world where blogs that aren’t personal hobbies or supported by

organizations are focused on generating money or fame, the TeleRead blog is

a rare example of pure dedication. Read on to see why.

Did you start blogging as an extension of promoting your cause?

Yes. I started TeleRead.org to promote the cause of well-stocked national

digital libraries and related matters, especially e-books. The e-book–focused

blog happened because no one else was covering the issues—technical,

legal, you name it—in the depth and manner that I wanted.

I’m also interested in stimulating people to provide answers to problems,

in a collective process.

Are you achieving what you set out to do with the TeleBlog?

TeleBlog is doing its share, and it is achieving visibility. It helps that we’re

included in many blogrolls, including The Wired Campus blog of The Chron -

icle of Higher Education.

TeleBlog has been a leader in the area of e-book standards, [which are] very

important to the future usability of e-books. E-books aren’t going to really

become as popular as, say, CDs or MP3s until there is a standard. And I’m

talking about one the big publishers are comfortable with, as opposed to

simply distributing e-books in ASCII or HTML. That’s why John Noring

and I started OpenReader [

www.openreader.org

]. I doubt OpenReader will

end up being the final standard, but it has influenced the thinking of the

International Digital Publishing Forum [

www.idpf.org

], and they have

taken e-book standards a lot more seriously as a result of OpenReader,

which arose from TeleBlog.

Our traffic is pretty good for a spe-

cialized site. It’s hard to pin down

the number of readers because

many read us on RSS. The number

of unique visitors per day is typi-

cally in the region of a thousand.

But there are times when the accesses are well above one thousand.

We are interested in sponsors, but they have to be people who won’t try to

influence the content of the site in ways that could be very harmful to our

credibility.

Again, though, please understand I didn’t start TeleRead to make money.

The talk about donations or other support is simply a matter of sustainabil-

ity. We have avoided appeals for small donations except for a quick exper-

iment with an Amazon tip jar.

How much time do you think you spend on the blog?

It can vary all over the place. Sometimes it’ll be just a few hours a day.

Sometimes I’ll just bang out something and focus on a book or whatever

else I might be up to.

“I learn from

interaction with my

readers.”

David Rothman: TeleRead

57

But some days—and this is where I need badly to find the right business

model—sometimes it can take up most of the day, or a working day and

then some.

As I’ve implied, for now the blog is financially a disaster. But the operative

words are “for now.” I’m convinced that something good will happen. If

nothing else, possibly the LibraryCity project will work out, and that can

be a source of income for me and for others.

What is your source of inspiration for postings? Do you read many

other blogs?

Basically I combine news items with my years of writing about e-books,

and come up with connections that might elude other people. I get some

great ideas from readers, but basically I do a lot of surfing and a lot of

RSS-ing.

As for other blogs, I look at them directly and I follow them through RSS

feeds. I have hundreds in my reader. I’m not claiming to read every weekly

item from the hundreds of blogs I follow, but I’ll read RSS on my desktop,

I’ll read it on my tablet, I’ll read RSS even on my Palm TX PDA.

My ambition is to be in a position where I’m reading fewer rather than

more feeds. I’d much rather be reading books than RSS feeds. This is the

way in which the blog is a time sink, in that you can’t do a good job with-

out keeping up with the rest of the world, and that takes time. But the

mainstream people don’t care sufficiently about e-book–format standards

and other important topics. And more than a few are clueless on topics

such as draconian DRM. So I work to bring information to the public.

Do you have time to do much posting on other blogs?

I do occasional posts, and every now and then I attempt to get slashdotted,

but I generally stay within the confines of the TeleBlog, because I feel that

I have so much to cover for the blog that I just can’t take time out to be all

over the net.

I know it sounds hypocritical, but because the blog has become such a cen-

tralized hub for the e-book world (it’s not the only one out there, but it’s

one of the major sites), people are posting not only in their home blog, but

also coming to us with some real gems. I love it when they share. And they

in turn get greater exposure in most cases. I figure that by tending my own

little garden, I can better fertilize the ground for other people.

Blogging Heroes

58

What do you do to bring in new readers?

I’m not doing anything special to attract readers, other than trying to pro-

vide a quality site and blog. Normally, readers and the media just find me.

This is a concern for me. I’m very frustrated that I can’t clone myself, so

that one David can do the blog and the other promote it.

I have been fortunate to have gotten media attention over the years. I get

quoted in publications like Newsday, and I’ve been mentioned on the

National Public Radio (NPR) website. In the past, TeleRead has been

included in The New York Times site list, and The Washington Post has

linked to TeleRead.

Ironically I’m often outdrawing

http://libraryjournal.com

, according to

http://alexa.com

, although neither of us would be in the big leagues.

Do you have any favorite blog tools or widgets you

use with TeleBlog?

WordPress provides much of the

functionality we need. Its disadvan-

tages are many, but it works. I use a

wide variety of plug-ins. A recent ad -

dition was MyBlogLog, a reader com -

munity tool that displays photos of

its members. It is helping us reel in

visitors. Various other additions pro-

vide pictures in postings and the dis-

play of recent comment excerpts in

the blog’s margin. We are currently

looking for a new trans lation service.

That last is really useful, because 40

to 50 percent of our traffic is from overseas—Eastern Europe, in particular.

I think people in other countries see e-books as a way to drive down the

cost of reading.

What is the most difficult part of blogging for you?

My main problem is time. And I would like to see more participation in the

blog by readers. We’re not doing too badly, but we could do better.

But the biggest frustration is the lack of a decent business model. If I

charged for membership, then people would just gravitate to free sources

“I see some blogs that

are nothing more than

disguised outlets for

news releases, and

this is unfortunate,

as those blogs could

be offering fresh

information and

raising questions.”

David Rothman: TeleRead

59

of e-book news and views. Advertising? It’s a possibility, but keep in mind

that I’ve tried hard to keep TeleRead a noncommercial site.

Another frustration is not having enough volunteers to help with the

writing and other tasks. I’m very thankful to Robert Nagle for pitching in

with hosting and technical services. Still, I do maybe 85 percent of the

posts myself.

And yes, I think about quitting from time to time. And yes, it’s possible that

I might take some of the things I’m doing with the blog and use the same

skills in a more commercial way. But when I get discouraged, people come

to me with things to post and that prods me on. We get some great ideas

from people who are reading the blog, and it actually can be very interest-

ing to have thousands of different editors looking at posts.

Do you consider bloggers journalists?

I think it’s going to vary according to the blog. Some blogs just pass along

news releases, but others really are interested in informing the reader, so I’d

like to think that TeleBlog is practicing journalism, though it’s not tradi-

tional journalism in the sense that the coverage is influenced by the cause.

What was your most gratifying experience as a blogger?

Helping David Faucheux get his blog into TeleRead. David is a blind librar-

ian who holds a Master of Library and Information Science degree and has

written both fiction and nonfiction reviews for Library Journal. He used his

blog, Blind Chance [

www.teleread.org/blind

], to build an online portfolio.

When Audioblogger disappeared without explanation, I helped him move

Blind Chance to TeleRead. I later convinced Audioblogger’s new corporate

owners to restore the audio on company servers.

Blind Chance has been on TeleRead since May 2004, and provides both

audio and text versions of David’s postings.

Your blog isn’t for money or notoriety, but you put a lot of time

and energy into it. Is there any benefit that you, personally, derive

from the blog?

Well, certainly I get my share of fame within the e-book world. Just about

everyone who’s anyone in the industry knows of me, so it has been good in

terms of being famous and infamous and whatever. But the main benefit is

that my activities promote the cause.

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I learn from interaction with my readers. They tell me when I’m right and

when I’m wrong, and this is so much better than the usual journalistic sit-

uations, where readers don’t feel as free to comment. My quest for dialogue

is also one reason why I’m so keen on interactive e-books. The blog gives

me a far, far better understanding of interactivity than books and academic

studies could.

What do you think of the blogging world at large?

I see bloggers as being able to assume a unique role in the scheme of

things. Some blogs try to provide news, to function just like a newspaper,

though usually specialized. But I see a different potential for bloggers, a

role in which bloggers raise questions. But a blogger typically doesn’t have

the time or resources to get the final answers to those questions. This is

where traditional journalism comes in, to answer those questions.

Yes, it’s true that bloggers have “an -

swers” in terms of their opinions,

but in terms of answers on specific

issues, there ought to be a synergy

between the mainstream media and

the blog world.

Not a lot of bloggers appreciate how

much energy is involved in news-

gathering for the mainstream media.

It’s true that you can get a lot of infor-

mation from documents. I did reporting, for example, under a grant years ago

from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and a lot of my work involved

interpretation of documents. But that is not all that’s involved in gathering

news. A lot of what the media does involves interaction either over the phone

or in person with newsmakers. And because most bloggers blog in their off

hours, they’re not going to have the same interaction with newsmakers that

members of the mainstream media have.

On the other hand, the members of the mainstream media are so busy gath-

ering news that they may lack time for reflection, and they may be so inter-

ested in immediate details that they fail to connect the dots.

But if a synergism is established, the media will notice the questions raised

by bloggers, and some good hard news stories will result.

“I’m not just

interested in providing

answers. I am

interested in

stimulating people to

provide answers

themselves.”

David Rothman: TeleRead

61

So I’m not just interested in providing answers. I am interested in stimulat-

ing people to provide answers themselves, in a collective process, though I’d

like to think that the TeleBlog is practicing journalism. It’s just not tradi-

tional journalism in the sense that the coverage is influenced by the cause.

I see some blogs that are nothing more than disguised outlets for news

releases, and this is unfortunate, as those blogs could be offering fresh infor-

mation and raising questions.

I also have to say that, as a group, the major e-book and publishing-related

blogs, and others associated with publishing and writing, tend to be better

than blogs as a whole. This is true not just in the writing, which is to be

expected, but in the overall organization and quality.

And there is the integrity issue. If I find adverse information about e-books,

I’m going to put it in the blog. In fact I want to put it in the blog, so people

can think about answers—whereas a lot of people who might have a cause

to advocate will let that limit the kind of coverage they do.

Do you have any specific advice for other bloggers—to do a

better job, to attract readers, whatever the positives may be?

My biggest advice is to work to get people information that is relevant to

them. Don’t just come up with arguments; provide information along the

way. It’s a way to reward people for the time they spend visiting your blog.

A newsy approach is always better than a static, pamphleteering one.

Points to Review

David Rothman’s dedication is sincere, as evidenced by the energy and time

he puts into TeleRead and his other projects. It also shows in the depth and

quality of TeleBlog’s posts and comments. The success of TeleBlog is largely

due to that dedication, along with these considerations:

•

Combining news with one’s personal background and perspective can

make for more interesting blog posts.

•

An important role of bloggers is to raise questions and encourage

others to provide answers in a group setting.

•

Give readers something extra in the way of information as a reward

for visiting your blog.

Blogging Heroes

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