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By Katerina Karidi, editor We first met Vasilis Dioskouridis, whom we said goodbye to a few days before Christmas, in 1985. A few months after the death of our father, Odysseas Elytis, he demonstrated his trust and support in a tangible way by entrusting us with the publication of “The Little Sailor.”It was a huge responsibility, and the legendary Panagiotis Mermigas, who had been the permanent editor at Ikaros Publications until then, had just retired due to health problems. His then assistant, Julia Tsiakiri, although perfectly capable in her own right, suggested that Vasilis, known at the time as the editor of the magazine Ekivolos, should take on the editing and proofreading of “The Little Sailor.”His knowledge, education, prestige and integrity gave us great confidence that we would do justice to Elytis, that we would best proclaim the continuation of the tradition of Ikaros’s exemplary publications.That was the beginning. With Vasilis and Julia, we went on to produce many books, and we experienced joys, anxieties, tensions, rewards – everything that comes with publishing a book. Until they devoted themselves to their Rodakio.I want to pause and describe, as best I can, a scene that makes me smile whenever I remember it. We all went together, as was our custom: Vasilis, Chrysi and I, to Stefanos Koumanoudis’s house so that he could hand over his grandfather’s ‘Diary 1845–1867’—also by Stefanos Koumanoudis—for publication. We all leaf through the contents of a blue folder together, discussing the peculiarities of the text and how we will address them, agreeing on the layout, the font, the page format and, of course, that the book will be polytonic with accents – a matter of course for Vasilis and for us.We are ready to leave, standing there in our coats, and Koumanoudis cannot bring himself to part with the blue folder. A familiar syndrome when handing over a manuscript. Vasilis holds it on one side and he on the other, and he won’t let go of it. Like children who remember they’re thirsty when you put them to bed so they can prolong your stay in their room, he asks again and again: “Will it be polytonic with grave accents?” “Yes,” we tell him. “With grave accents!” he clarifies. “Of course,” we say again. “Mind you, not just polytonic but with accents too,” he says, pulling out the blue folder. “Definitely with accents,” we say. “Yes, but with accents,” he repeats. And then Vasilis, having lost his Job-like patience, pulls the folder forcefully towards him and exclaims: “But for goodness’ sake, Mr Koumanoudis, you haven’t understood. I AM the grave accent!” That was Vasilis. And one more thing: In one of the many articles that followed Vasilis’s death, I read that “in the 1980s, he trained as a proofreader at Ikaros Publications.” Wrong! We trained alongside him, in proofreading and much more.

When we at Ikaros began exploring the world of ebooks in 2009, I must admit that I knew only the very basics and was completely ignorant of the technologies and specifications involved in such a book – or file.At that time, Greece had neither the market nor the know-how, with very few exceptions.In most cases, publishers were very to extremely reluctant to proceed with the creation and distribution of ebooks, whilst those who did dare to do so usually did so under pressure from various resellers, who hoped in this way to get in on the act early, securing a large catalogue of digital books, as well as recognition from the reading public.There were two factors that played a role in overcoming the resistance of most publishers, or at least those who ultimately decided to enter the digital book market: ease of use and zero production costs. Once you have a file ready in the page-layout programme, why not turn it into a PDF and release it as an ebook as early as tomorrow? The truth is, it sounded so easy and straightforward that we even released a few trial books in PDF format. As far as I know, not a single copy has been sold. I’ve noticed that most digital books released in PDF format have exactly the same ISBN as the corresponding print edition. But how wrong that is! Every ISBN is a unique serial number that identifies a publication. We cannot have the same code whether we are talking about a printed book, a digital book, or even different formats of the same digital book (PDF, EPUB, Kindle). As the boundaries between print and digital blur, it will become increasingly important to be as precise as possible with metadata—the details of each edition. Imagine an online bookshop that sells both print and digital books. A search based on the ISBN will return a single result, but which one? A lot of time has passed since then, with plenty of reading, research and experimentation. Our ebooks are now in EPUB format and are available from our website, online stores, and Apple’s iBookstore. Sales are satisfactory, although they clearly still account for a very small percentage of the total.I am struck by how many colleagues continue to prefer the easy option of PDF. And that’s a shame. Because we are in a profession that has been changing radically over the last two years, and will change even more. The way we publishers work will not be the same, and if we do not change too, we will be left behind. We must evolve, learn new things, and learn to work differently. Abroad, this shift in the way traditional publishers operate is more evident than ever, and publishing companies are taking action. The reading public has expectations. Let us listen to them and anticipate them, before developments overtake us.

The ebooks available from Ikaros on Apple’s iBookstore were expanded yesterday with two more titles, bringing the total to 23. Specifically, we have uploaded the two talks by Kiki Dimoula that are also available in print from our publishing house.The Playful Myth (first published in December 2003) is the text delivered by Kiki Dimoula during her induction ceremony at the Academy of Athens on 11 November 2003. The Fundraising of Thoughts (first published in February 2009) is the text delivered by the poet at the Archaeological Society on 26 January 2009.Together with ‘Ekto Shedio’, which has long been available as an ebook, these three books constitute the complete collection of Kiki Dimoula’s prose works currently in circulation. Happy reading.

Every year, as publishers, we receive countless requests for book donations to remote schools, institutions, correctional facilities and other organisations. One would expect that in most, if not all, of these places, there would be provision for a library, so that the people there could spend their time creatively.Unfortunately, the lending library in Greece has never received the attention and importance it enjoys in most societies around the world, whether it is located within a university or a prison. The state, as usual, has ensured that the libraries established in recent years with European funding remain understaffed, inadequately equipped and, ultimately, with very low visitor numbers. Fortunately, there are exceptions. Thanks to private initiative, or to exceptional individuals who found themselves in the right positions, there are now libraries that stand out and provide their visitors with excellent services, whilst at the same time bringing people together around books, culture and other activities. Examples of this include the Public Central Library of Veroia, the Livadeia Library, and the library of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in Piraeus.As publishers, and as a business, we always place social responsibility high on our list of priorities. We try to respond whenever we can, but as any entrepreneur who has attempted to donate goods will know, Greek bureaucracy and tax legislation act as a deterrent.Over the past year, we have had the pleasure of contributing to the creation of lending libraries, donating books to institutions and organisations facing financial difficulties. Among these, in October, as part of the Book Night event organised by Public bookshops and Public Book Friends, we contributed by donating books to the library of the Eleonas Women’s Prison, with a total of over 18,000 books collected, with the help of publishers and visitors to the event. In December, following a similar initiative by NET’s ‘Morning News’ programme, we collected books once again, this time to set up a library at the KETHEA unit of Korydallos Men’s Prison. Finally, we donated books to SOS Children’s Villages through the Onassis Foundation Scholars’ Association. Happy holidays and a happy new year!