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If "lean startups" these days are supposed to release a minimum viable product, get reactions from initial customers, and then rapidly iterate - might not a book about startups work the same way? Every Book is a Startup is Todd Sattersten's new book, published by O'Reilly, about the changing publishing industry. You can buy the first two chapters of the eBook today for $4.99 and get subsequent chapters as free updates as they are written. But if you wait for the full book to be completed and published in paper, the price will be $25.

It's a fascinating experiment in eating your own dog food but it's not without historical precedent. Many novels throughout time were sold by subscription (Dickens, for example) and Samuel Johnson once took nine years to write the Western world's first authoritative printed dictionary. It was supported by subscription along the way and the end product weighed 20 pounds. That project was initiated by the publishing industry in response to massive disruption caused by the proliferation of printed materials and a need for a reference book defining common words. Perhaps this period of technological disruption will be well suited for another experiment in a similar format.

Author J.K. Rowling unveiled the plans behind the mysterious Pottermore website this morning, and fans that were hoping for a new installment in the beloved Harry Potter series or for a wizarding MMORG may be disappointed. But for those who've been waiting to read the novels on their e-readers, good news: Pottermore will involve, in part, the release for the very first time of the Harry Potter series in a digital format.

In what's an uncommon occurrence, Rowling retained all the rights to digital copies of her books. And until now, she had not struck any deals with publishers or distributors to make the series available digitally. All that will change when Pottermore officially launches this fall.

Publishers are looking to get in on the magazine-layout aggregation app game, swimming in the waters currently inhabited by tablet apps like Flipboard, Zite, and News.me. Pressjack, a publishing tool created by former publishers, is looking to create the same look and feel of those applications in your browser.

The idea is simple - take RSS and social feeds and turn them in to a branded, slick user interface. Pressjack is an attempt to make it easy and intuitive to publish on the Web with existing tools and, for once, not let the Silicon Valley startups eat their lunch.

When the Association of American Publishers (AAP) released its sales figures for the month of February, the headlines were easy to compose: e-books have surpassed print in all trade categories.

E-books have become the format-of-choice, these figures suggest. In January, the AAP said that e-book sales were up 116% year-over-year, and for the month of February that growth accelerated even further. February 2011 sales were up 202.3% from the same time last year.

"Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For he tames it who fetters it in verse." -- John Donne

In advance of National Poetry Month, Publishers Weekly has published an essay by Craig Morgan Teicher on a significant obstacle in the move toward e-publishing. Well, maybe it's not significant. It's poetry.

Poetry is the red-headed step-child of publishing, always last in the queue for its bowl of gruel. But finally, it's gruel-time. The main poetry publishers, including Graywolf, Copper Canyon, BOA, Coffee House and Wesleyan "will make at least some of their books available as e-books by the fall." But there's a problem.

Although there have been rumors of Google's new micropayment system for publishers for some, the timing of this morning's news couldn't be better. Following Apple's announcement yesterday that it was rolling out its new subscription service, a move that seems to have sparked debate, if not panic among publishers and developers, Google has responded today with a new option for publishers, one that seems to offer far better terms, control, and pricing.

Google has just introduced Google One Pass, a service that will let publishers set their own prices and terms for their online content.

Whether "information wants to be free" or not is arguable. But medical students seem overwhelmingly to want it to be free. The largest organization of medical students in the world, the "International Federation of Medical Students' Associations" has joined the open access advocacy group Right to Research in its fight to make research and publication more free.

The Amsterdam-based IFMSA represents 1.2 million medical students from 97 countries and provides a substantive boost to open access efforts. Open access is the belief that scholarly research should be widely available instead of being siloed in fantastically expensive, gated journals and otherwise guarded.

The Magazine Publishers of America was established in 1919 and is the leading industry association for magazine publishers. However, it's just announced a curious name change. It will still be known by the acronym MPA, but is officially dropping two of the words from that acronym: "publishers" and "America." Henceforth, the trade group will be known (rather illogically) as "MPA - The Association of Magazine Media." The reason? "Magazine media content engages consumers globally across multiple platforms, including websites, tablets, smartphones, books, live events and more."

In other news, last week blog publishing software company Six Apart was acquired and is being folded into a new social media advertising company called SAY Media. The world of media is changing. These days, 'publishing' content is merely the first step for a media business.

Platform development - it has to be one of the most discussed topics in the past few months and an exciting space to watch as the world of the open Web shifts to the emerging micro app universe.

Recently we have noticed that platforms with specific purposes are faring well as they provide ways for developers to connect the Web to the mobile universe in manners that are specific to a community.

For example, MindTouch is launching a service today that it calls a technical communications suite.

Eye-fi, the creator of camera memory cards that automatically upload photos and videos to your computer or favorite website, has announced that it will launch a software development kit and community this Fall.

That means that any approved application will be able to pull media automatically from your camera into your account online when you walk past an accessible wifi signal. Will the company be generous in approving use of its developer platform? Startups around the world hope so.