The book publishing industry is pleased that Apple’s new iPad offers them a way to charge more for electronic books. They’ll be able to charge up $15 on the iPad’s e-books app instead of the $10 per book on the Amazon Kindle.

Unfortunately, the book publishing industry is more backwards than newspapers when it comes to adapting to modern high technology.

Recently, The New York Times featured a story about Kindle best sellers that were being given away as free downloads to build new audiences for unfamiliar writers.

Smart, right? Building loyalty, creating new interest, new fans.

Well, as is typical for publishing, some publishers protested, saying it wasn’t a good idea to give away anything at a time when they had to deal with people paying only $10 per e-book.

Conversely, publishers are thrilled to be charging more for their books. How do you think consumers will react? Here’s the choice: The more affordable Kindle, which is the better book reader, with more affordable digital books; or the more expensive iPad, an inferior reader, harder on the eyes with its backlit display, with more expensive books. I have a feeling I know which way this will go.

What’s the opposite of the publishing industry?

The mobile app industry. Apple’s app store has over 140,000 of them in two short years. Google’s Android marketplace has well over 20,000. Billions of downloads have been made and hundreds of millions of new dollars have been created. This is an major industry – seriously threatening and impacting traditional software and video game industries. The most stunning thing is, the mobile app industry did not exist two years ago. Talk about adopting.

What are the lessons? Adopt. Pivot. Customize. Leverage. Give people what they want. Don’t force what you think is important onto people. Give them what they think is important.