I am in New York at the Sheraton attending Digital Book World 2011. Key points so far emerging out of the introductory research presented by Forrester and the c.e.o. panel is that publishers regard 2010 as the the end of the beginning for the digital transition, while there are serious doubts about the future for high street booksellers, though Open Road's Jane Friedman did make a case for independents as "community" booksellers: the original users of social media. Interestingly, despite being well ahead of the UK, few US executives saw a viable economic model for the app.

I have just filed this news report for The Bookseller, more thoughts to follow:

Publishers should hang on to their hats after a "transformative" year in 2010, with the pace of change only likely to quicken, with many US executives now expecting digital sales to overtake print sales by 2014. Though there were concerns over the economic viability of apps and the big box retailers.
These were the key message coming out of the first sesssions of Digital Book World 2011, which saw executives such as Open Road's Jane Friedman , Macmillan president Brian Napack, and Thomas Nelson's c.e.o. Michael Hyatt address an audience of close to 1,200 delegates in New York.
James McQuivey, a principal analyst with Forrester, said that the book publishing industry was racing ahead of other media sectors in terms of its transition to digital. He said 10.5m people in the US now owned a dedicated e-reader, and were continuing to buy them in 2011, while there were 10m tablets sold--primarily iPads. He said that $1bn had been spent on e-books in 2010, and expected $1.3bn to be spent in 2011. "It took other media industries multiple years to get to this point, but we were there in two, and you haven't seen anything yet."
McQuivey said that Forrester had interviewed 35 publishing executives in order to find out how ready they were for this digital transformation. He said "executives are ready to rock", 89% of them were optimistic about the digital transition, while 66% thought book buyers would read more, and 83% thought their companies were capable of competing in the digital environment, although only 63% said their company had a plan for that digital shift.
McQuivey said that on average the respondents said ebooks would account for half of all books sold by 2014, though some believed it would be sooner. However, just a third said they thought apps represented a significant revenue opportunity for them.
The rate of change was also addressed at the c.e.o panel, which followed. Responding to those who though they could simply "weather" the changes, Friedman said: "This is not a storm, this is tsunami and nothing is going to return to what it was before. 2010 was the end of the begining, digital is here, and it is for real and we all have to face that as publishers."
But there were warnings that the change could be painful for both publishers and retailers. She warned that the big publishers had the toughest task among publishers of making the transition and that it would involve a "sea-change" for many.
Macmillan's Brian Napack said this could be a "golden age of publishing, but not necessarily for all publishers".
Friedman warned that the traditional books store was "imploding", while social media was "exploding", but this she said gave independents bookshops "a chance" as "indies were always part of a community, and have been practising socila media for all time".
But Mike Shatzkin, from the Idea Logical Company, who helped programme the conference, was more stark in his assement at a follow-up session. He said: "The fact is that as reading shifts to digital and print purchasing moves online you cannot run brick and mortar stores, and they will decline and eventually disappear, and publishers need to realise that."

Some lovely tweets coming out of DBW11. One responding to Friedman's support of indies, "Friedman makes case for indies, convinced yet?"