With PowerPoint presentations, Palm Pilot-beaming executives and cell phones trilling in the audience, last November's e-Book World seemed typical of the hundreds of business-tech gatherings held every year. But it wasn't. In fact, it was the first conference devoted solely to the forthcoming transformation of the book world by digital technology. Hundreds of people from around the world paid as much as $995 to hear some of the most influential editors and publishers in the United States forecast radical changes in the writing, distribution and reading of printed material.

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