Friedman herself has embraced that evolution. She told the crowd of NYU SCPS students and publishing professionals that she'd recently begun using Twitter, although she wasn't quite sure why. "It's the weirdest thing in the whole world!" she said to general laughter.

"I just tweeted because I wanted to announce the birth of my granddaughter. And that was really great because I heard from people I hadn't heard from in years and years and years. I'm trying to figure out what's interesting about it."

Other voguish technologies seemed even more confusing to her. Here's Friedman's description of—one assumes?—augmented reality, the iPhone-enabled gimmick currently being played with on the newsstand by Esquire: "Somebody just told me there's a new camera—a new something—that you can hold up on the street and will GPS the person next to you…. From above? I find that all fascinating!" (She also curiously referred to Amazon and Barnes & Noble's website as "online book channels.")

Friedman wasn't specific on pricing, but she thought Open Road titles could sell for around $14, maybe more depending on premium content. After tallying up the costs associated with putting out a book under the current system—from the high cost of advances to companies' shrinking marketing budgets—Friedman described stores like Wal-Mart, Amazon, and Target pricing hardcover books at $8.99 as "a world of complete chaos."

"What we're trying to do with Open Road is tackle that chaos and say that we're going to really market. That's our deal. We're a marketing company—a publishing marketing company. And with that we're going to help sell books in all forms—physical and online."