We love these quick pics and note Scott sent over the weekend after catching Jason’s talk at South by Southwest:

“The very fickle SxSW audience kept moving further to the front during Jason’s talk so they could photograph his material—and him of course. No shortage of groupies at the end. It's been a long time since I've seen Jason speak. He was terrific. He even had the audience greeting each other in Swahili at one point.”

The digital book marketplace in South Korea has grown 200% in four years -- and it’s just getting started. And judging by the size of the bookshops and matching size of the crowds filling them, the print business hasn’t suffered a shock like the one we’ve witnessed in the U.S. over the past decade. Yet. And it might not.

What’s worth watching:

What might happen to a digital book marketplace when its given a chance to ride on ubiquitous broadband, delivered with remarkable speed, supported by an infrastructure that’s enviably consistent? The US certainly doesn’t know.

How might that digital marketplace create a mutuality with the physical marketplace when it’s given a chance to grow in an environment surfeit with QR codes that are wildly popular, in which NFC technology is native to all devices, and book marketers are already digital? Again, the US wasn’t given a chance to find out.

What might we witness when a pop-culture movement as strongly branded as K-Pop creates, markets and exports its own intellectual property globally on the back of a homegrown market that’s more digitally savvy than ours?

It will be fun to witness the answers materialize. Amazon’s already lept from observer to participant. During our visit to the Samsung hub in Gangnam to talk display technology, the team we met with was abuzz with the news: the day before Amazon had just leased a prime space around the corner.

-Jason

We could listen to Jason Ashlock talk all day. As the founder of Frontier Press, the next-generation publishing unit of The Frontier Project, and a former NYC publisher, we’re lucky to call Jason a colleague. 

In the early months of the global recession, when the publishing industry was anxious and contracting, Jason launched a literary firm from standing start. In a few years, it had become a known industry force. He packaged books for Hall of Fame athletes and Oscar-winning actors, for Pulitzer nominees and Grammy winners, for indie film stars and fledgling novelists. In the process, he honed his skills in narrative design and product development, and then pivoted to a new mission: break the book out of its ghetto. FrontierPress is how he’s chipping away at the wall.