Books in the Age of the iPad — Craig Mod

An important and artfully-crafted meditation by Craig Mod: "I want to look at where printed books stand in respect to digital publishing, why we historically haven't read long-form text on screens and how the iPad is wedging itself in the middle of everything. In doing so I think we can find the line in the sand to define when content should be printed or digitized. This is a conversation for books-makers, web-heads, content-creators, authors and designers. For people who love beautifully made things. And for the storytellers who are willing to take risks and want to consider the most appropriate shape and media for their yarns."

eBook Cannibalization of Dead Tree Sales? What a Surprise ...

John Mesjak, independant (bound) book rep, takes issue with a statement from Russ Grandinetti, Amazon's VP of Kindle Content: "The market is even bigger than we thought." Mesjak:

A shiny new Kindle or iPad or Kobo or Nook won't convert a non-book buyer into a rabid book buyer. It might give us some incremental growth. But not revolutionary growth. The market isn't bigger than we thought. It's exactly the size we were afraid it might be. eBook readers aren't a panacea for our business. They're a band-aid. A shiny new band-aid. ...

This massive acquisition of eBook readers in 2010 may make for a bright and shiny holiday season for eBook retailers. And it might even contribute to a gloomy holiday season for bookstores that still specialize in the "books printed on paper" category.

Mesjak misses the point. Grandinetti's statement translates to: the market for e-readers and e-books is far larger, at this time, then was originally forecast. Grandinetti is talking about accelerated growth/acceptance for e-books, nothing more. Certainly not growth in the market for books overall.

No one I know expects digital devices to transform illiterates into bibliophiles. Meanwhile, everyone I speak to realizes the rapid expansion in e-book sales must come with an equal, counter-balancing cannibalization of dead-tree sales.

Everyone. Especially Grandinetti. No headlines here.

Could Kindle EBook Gifting Become a Reality This Year? | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Could Kindle EBook Gifting Become a Reality This Year? | News & Opinion | PCMag.com:

Earlier this week, Amazon introduced the new lighter, faster, brighter, cheaper and Wi-Fi-ready Kindle. I first saw the device in a private meeting with Amazon executives. Overall, I'd say it does an impressive job of stripping away the technology so you can focus on reading. Since I had Russ Grandinetti, Amazon's vice president of Kindle Content, in the room, I decided to get to the bottom of this e-book gifting issue.

I told him I had seen complaints about people not being able to gift e-books. Grandinetti smiled. "Stay tuned, we know gifting is important," he said. "We have a long experience with trying to make people's holidays really good." And, he added, Amazon is working on making this year's holidays good.

Barnes and Noble Plans Brick-and-Mortar Push for the Nook

NYTimes.com: "In September, the chain will begin an aggressive promotion of its Nook e-readers by building 1,000-square-foot boutiques in all of its stores, with sample Nooks, demonstration tables, video screens and employees who will give customers advice and operating instructions. By devoting more floor space to promoting the Nook, Barnes & Noble is playing up what it calls a crucial advantage over Amazon in the e-reader war: its 720 bricks-and-mortar stores, where customers can test out the device before they commit to buying it."

Amazon Kindle Features Hint at Future Direction

eWeek:

Now the question becomes: What’s Amazon planning next? Fortunately, the new Kindle comes with a handful of “experimental” features, which in turn could provide a few clues.

“The experimental category represents features we are still working on to enhance the Kindle experience even further,” reads a note on Amazon’s Kindle page. “Try them out and let us know what you think.”

Those features include Read-To-Me, a text-to-speech feature that can “read English newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book’s rights holder made this feature unavailable.” A Voice Guide can read aloud the Kindle’s menu options, home-screen content listings, and item descriptions.

Other features include the Webkit-based browser, which is apparently free to use over Wi-Fi, and the ability to listen to music and podcasts.

A Useful Gathering of Informed Blogger Opinion Concerning the New Kindles

New Amazon Kindle vs. Apple iPad and Android Tablets - Computerworld Blogs: "You saw this one coming, didn't you? ... Page turns are faster and contrast is improved ... the keyboard and five-way controls have been streamlined ... rocker is now more compact and flush ... side buttons have been modified ... to emphasize the forward paddles ... back buttons have been downsized. ... The build quality and materials used did seem slightly more polished ... and we really liked the new, more subtle rocker ..." Many other comments, all worth digesting.

Copia's Crappy New eReaders for Fall - No WiFi

The Digital Reader's Nate the Great Cuts to the Chase: " ... a pair of LCD e-readers (no Wifi or touch screen) called the Wave5 and Wave7 for $99 and $129. I showed you the 5″ e-reader before; the 7″ model is equally pathetic. Do they really think they can sell either device when you can get a 7″ Android tablet for $149? or the Kindle Wifi for $139? Who do they think they are kidding? Hell, I thought the whole idea of Copia was social media. How exactly am I supposed to share with my friends if these e-readers don’t have Wifi?" There's also a 10" tablet ($299) with WiFi which seems to suck a bit less, but still ...

Kindle iPhone/iPad App Improved With Smarter Dictionary, Interior Book Search, Better Line Spacing and Fast-App Switching

M.G. Siegler at TechCrunch:

Despite their clear commitment to the hardware version of the Kindle, Amazon continues to make the Kindle apps that run on the iPad and iPhone better. Today, version 2.2 of the app brings a full dictionary with it. This matches the functionality of Apple’s own iBooks app, but the Kindle implementation is even a little better.

... this dictionary functionality matches that of Apple’s own iBooks app. But those definitions are an extra click away (you highlight a word then select “Dictionary” which bring up the definition in a pop-up).

The latest iPad version of the Kindle app also allows you to search inside a book for the first time. This too matches iBooks functionality. (The in-book search for the iPhone has also been improved with 2.2.)

Other small improvements include better line spacing on the iPad version, and fast-app switching for iOS 4 devices.

Penguin's John Markinson on the Opportunity of eBooks

Penguin boss has no problem with ebooks | Business | The Guardian:

... Penguin chief executive John Makinson says he is a convert. The day after we meet he is on his way to India, as part of David Cameron's delegation, and had loaded titles on to his iPad, including a manuscript by John le Carré and some Portuguese classics (in English) ahead of Penguin launching a range in Brazil. He is also reading Lord Mandelson's diary. It simply makes sense, he says, instead of carting an armful of books in your carry-on luggage.

"It does redefine what we do as publishers and I feel, compared with most of my counterparts, more optimistic about what this means for us," he says. "Of course there are issues around copyright protection and there are worries around pricing and around piracy, royalty rates and so on, but there is also this huge opportunity to do more as publishers." Publishing, he says, must embrace innovation ...

"You have to give the consumer what the consumer wants – you can't tell the consumer to go away. So we didn't participate in this experiment where a number of publishers deferred publication of the ebook until a certain number of months after the hardcover publication. I thought that was a very bad idea. If the consumer wants to buy a book in an electronic format now, you should let the consumer have it."

Overheating Vampire iPads Ain't "Just Like a Book"

Apple sued for Overheating iPads: eBook Reader Outrage : Product Reviews Net:

According to this report from CNN, the iPad shuts off after a certain amount of hours, when exposed in direct sunlight. The users have said that Apple hasn’t met its promises when they said that reading on the iPad is "just like a book".

Apple’s iPad shutdown also occurs on the iPod Touch and iPhone devices, giving users the message that the device is operating at a high temperature level and should be left alone to cool down for a while.

If Apple hadn’t of said that reading on the iPad is the same as on a real book, then we wouldn’t have an issue here. Instead, there appears to be further trouble on the way for Apple.

Enhanced Editions, Vooks, Amplified Books ...

Of course, "enhanced books," "vooks," etc. are ideal for tablets and nonstarters for eReaders such as Nook and Kindle, which are not designed to handle multimedia. But this fact is not a death knell for eReaders as a class of devices, especially as these become steadily cheaper, elegant, compact and efficient. I can easily see myself traveling with a tablet in my briefcase and an eReader in my breast pocket. I don't always want or need multimedia. Sometimes I just want to curl up with a good book, and to do so without digging out the tablet. The simple eReader e-Ink screens are MUCH easier on the eyes when it comes to extended reading.

Multimedia E-Books, Adorned With Video Extras - NYTimes.com: "Penguin Group released an 'amplified' version of a novel by Ken Follett last week. And on Thursday Simon & Schuster will come out with one of its own, an 'enhanced' e-book version of 'Nixonland' by Rick Perlstein. All of them go beyond the simple black-and-white e-book that digitally mirrors its ink-and-paper predecessor. The new multimedia books use video that is integrated with text, and they are best read — and watched — on an iPad, the tablet device that has created vast possibilities for book publishers."

Review: My 20 Minutes with Amazon's Latest Kindle | ZDNet

Larry Dignan provides a very detailed (despite his mere 20 minutes) and very useful discussion of the new Kindle.

Review: My 20 minutes with Amazon's latest Kindle | ZDNet: "Overall, the new Kindle swung me back on to the side of e-readers in this never-ending debate about multifunction (think iPad) vs. mostly single function devices (e-readers). The latest Kindle (in white and graphite) is a handy extra gadget to carry around. For me, the e-reader vs. iPad debate doesn’t necessarily apply since it’s not a zero sum affair. There will be iPad/Kindle households depending on the family. Simply put, I’m looking to consolidate devices, but I’m also looking to consolidate paper. ..."

Amazon Unveils 2 New Kindles; 3G For $189; WiFi Only, $139 - Tech Trader Daily - Barrons.com

The new Kindles are here - well, almost here. They release for shipment on August 27th. Synopsis: The new device is approx. 20 percent smaller and 15% lighter with the same 6-inch screen. Amazon has added Wi-Fi to accompany the 3G on the higher-end version. Pricing $189/$139.

Amazon Unveils 2 New Kindles; 3G For $189; WiFi Only, $139 - Tech Trader Daily - Barrons.com: "The company said the new generation of Kindles have a new electronic ink with 50% better contrast, a new design with a 21% smaller body but the same 6-inch reading areas, 15% less weight at 8.7 ounce. Amazon says the new Kindles have 20% faster page turns, up to one month of battery life, double the storage capacity at up to 3,500 books and built in WiFi. The new Kindle comes in two varieties: with 3G for $189, or WiFi only for $139."

Why the iPad Hasn't Killed Kindle - Newsweek

Why the iPad Hasn't Killed Kindle - Daniel, Lyons, Newsweek:

... people have realized that the iPad might be good for a lot of things, but isn’t really the best device for sustained reading over several hours. It’s too heavy, for one thing—about a pound and a half compared with 10 ounces for the Kindle, which can be held in one hand, like a paperback. ...

Another problem is that the iPad’s bright LCD screen can be tiring on your eyes compared with Kindle’s black-and-white "electronic paper." The Kindle's screen also works better in bright sunlight. Kindle has better battery life—it can run up to two weeks on a charge, if you keep the wireless switched off. That compares with 10 hours for an iPad. Plus, with Kindle you have no contract and no monthly fee, and you have wireless access in 100 countries—a nice feature for travelers.

... I suggested to Bezos that maybe Amazon didn't care about selling Kindle machines, that maybe the device wasn't important. He said that wasn't the case, but that "our goal with the Kindle device is separate from the Kindle bookstore." Bezos insisted there is a market for "a purpose-built reading device," as he calls it. "It's not a Swiss Army knife. It's not going to do a bunch of different things. We believe reading deserves a dedicated device." So far, at least, it looks like he's right.

Amazon Sells Out of $189 Kindle, New Rev Rumored

Italics mine.
Amazon sells out of Kindle | Crave - CNET: "While the device being out of stock may be related to those brisk sales, it's also possible Bloomberg was on the mark in May when it cited anonymous sources saying we could expect the next generation of the e-reader in August, which is right around the corner. Bloomberg reported at the time that the device was expected to be thinner and have a sharper picture but not come with a touch screen or color."

New Nook Firmware v2.4.1 From Nookdevs

New Nook firmware now available – v2.4.1 | The Digital Reader: "Nookdevs announced a new firmware for the Nook yesterday. It’s based on the v1.4 firmware that B&N release some months back, but it has a number of improvements. I’ve installed it and I have to say that this version is definitely more polished than before. In case you’re wondering, one thing that sets this firmware apart from Nokdevs’ previous work is that the v2.4.1 release has all the latest and best versions of the Nook apps ..."

Crown Digital's eBooks Pricing Policy Misses the Mark

I think the pricing scenario described below is a mistake in that it will disadvantage the eBooks of Crown authors against more fairly and appropriately priced eBooks from other publishers. The eBook market has already been trained to expect e-editions to be more economically-priced than dead-tree media, and will vote with its dollars. Crown's theory, I assume, is to guard against moderately-priced e-editions cannibalizing dead-tree sales. Previously, Crown has also experimented with delaying e-editions until a period of time well after the dead-tree publication, thus endeavoring to create artificial scarcity and protect higher-priced dead tree sales through brick-and-mortar outlets. Either approach will rebound against Crown and Crown authors.

Crown Digital Embraces eBooks And Interactivity - mediabistro.com: eBookNewser: "Random House's Crown Digital imprint is embracing the digital publishing landscape with interactive digital titles and a push into iPhone apps. Crown is also setting eBook prices equal to print editions. ... For example, if a novel is $24.99, the eBook is $24.99. It is consistent with the lowest price, so if the publisher puts out a paperback version at $12.99, then the eBook will drop to $12.99. ..."

LOC: 'Jailbreaking' of iPhones OK

Steve Jobs loses a round; Apple gets shoved a few steps closer to being open. Exemption Will Allow ‘Jailbreaking’ of iPhones - NYTimes.com: "The Library of Congress, which has the power to define exceptions to an important copyright law, said on Monday that it was legal to bypass a phone's controls on what software it will run to get 'lawfully obtained' programs to work. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights group, had asked for that exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow the so-called jailbreaking of iPhones and other devices. ..."

Authors Guild re: Wylie/Amazon

The Authors Guild weighs in on the Wylie/Odyssey/Amazon situation- and in doing so demonstrates a stark misunderstanding of American antitrust laws. They also, surprisingly, seem not to "get it" that in a free market the proprietors of copyrights (read as "authors and their estates") are entitled to dispose of those rights in any way they see fit, regardless of the "exclusivity" of any given deal. This is business, children, not Culture. Is the Authors Guild's position that Wylie's clients are too stupid to look out for their own interests? Wylie's deal could not have been put in place without their green light. Something tells me that the Nabakov and Mailer heirs, etc., and their advisors, are likely quite capable of making informed decisions. They, with their agent and his new imprint, have every right and perogative to proceed as their ambitions and logic dictate.

Penguin Group Interim 2010 Financial Results - eBooks $ Grow Threefold Over Last Year

Penguin Group And Pearson See Spike In First Half Sales And Profit | Finance & Investment: "Digitally, eBook sales continued to support Penguin's growth. Penguin's eBook sales grew threefold on the previous year. Currently, 15,700 eBook titles are now available across multiple platforms. Additionally, Penguin continues to extend their reach to new audiences, most recently with the launch of Apple's iBookstore and iPad where, in the US, Penguin's Winnie-the-Pooh was the only book pre-loaded onto the device."

Big Brother Steve Jobs: More Apple iBooks Censorship

Apple accused of censorship after porn disappears from iPad book chart - Telegraph: "Blonde and Wet, the Complete Story was ranked first on the iPad in a top 10 that included three other erotic novellas yesterday morning. But all four titles disappeared simultaneously and had been replaced with less risque books, such as Peter Mandelson’s autobiography, by the afternoon. Book chart analysts said it was unlikely that all the erotic titles could have dropped out of the list at the same moment without being deliberately removed. It is not the first time that Apple has faced accusations of prudishness. The company embarked on a "great porn purge" in February, ridding its iPhone App Store of all "overtly sexual content." Steve Jobs, chief executive, announced in April that he wanted the newly-launched iPad to remain free of pornographic applications. ..."

HTML is Dead; Long Live HTML

From Publishers Weekly, a VERY important interview with entrepreneur Jared Friedman, of the "social publisher" Scribd, concerning HTML5, the soon-to-emerge game-changing update for the Web's lingua franca.

Betting the House on HTML5: "Simply put, because the new features in HTML5 mean that e-books and digital reading can now enjoy all the advantages of the Web. So far, digital reading formats have forced readers to choose between an impoverished Web experience or a frustrating patchwork of proprietary formats and applications tied to specific devices. But with HTML5, we can now display written works digitally in a way that is enjoyable to read, that retains the distinctive appearance of a work's original design, and that takes advantage of everything the Web and our mobile devices can offer us. With HTML5, book pages can literally become Web pages as opposed to images encased in a locked-down, artificial frame inside a browser, preserving complex designs unique to documents, books, or magazines, from fonts to images, vector graphics, rotated text, precise positioning. Maybe most importantly, HTML5 e-books are universally accessible. That means publishers get access to the largest audience possible, because HTML is an open standard, supported anywhere. If you convert your content to HTML5, almost any device can read it."

In the New Publishing Environment, Small/Indie is Beautiful

FT.com / Media - Wylie’s split with publisher seen as bad omen: "The severing of ties between publisher Random House and Andrew Wylie, one of the world’s most powerful literary agents, left many executives fearing the showdown over e-book rights would lead to the death of the 500-year-old publishing business as it is known. ... It is not the first omen about the potential end of the publisher’s role as middle man in the books business. The role of the music label, in much the same way, has been threatened by the internet. ... "

Here's my take: Publishers as a class are not in danger of extinction. But the enormous dinosaur houses who dominated for so long? They find themselves hobbled by new climate circumstances - crippled by their weight, this no longer an advantage.

Our Random Houses and Simon and Schusters - still carrying on standard (though declining) print/brick-and-mortar bookselling - labor under the burden of legacy expenses/infrastructure/corporate cultures wed to the old publishing model, a model which provides less and less sustenance every day.

It is somewhat easier for smaller players to adapt their businesses and evolve. (Survival of the fittest.) Also, the low cost-of-entry enabled by eBooks and POD allow new players, indie authors, and other upstarts to mount significant competition to the "majors" in a way they never could before.

The most important capital in this environment is intellectual capital: the smarts to assemble, promote and sell worthy publications.

The dinosaurs are long gone. But the birds remain. Small is beautiful.

The Future of Books: All About Apps

TechNewsDaily extols these increasingly-important cross-platform wormholes.

iPads on Campus

AllAboutJazz.com: "The iPad is about to have its academic chops put to the test this fall in a number of programs around the country. Colleges and universities are looking to adopt the iPad as a collaborative tool, a standardized mobile device to integrate into curriculums, and, in some cases, even a cost-saving device. ..."

eComics

My old friend and colleague Byron Preiss would have loved this. From the Wall Street Journal blog Speakeasy: "It's a sure bet that any device with a screen will eventually be able to display comics. Micah Baldwin is working to make that happen as we speak. The CEO of Boulder, Colo.-based Graphic.ly (previously known as Take Comics) works with publishers like Marvel Comics to create apps so that valuable properties like Spider-Man can be available on any computer or mobile device. 'This is the future,' says Baldwin ... "

Amazon "Disappoints" By Being Up 45% In Profits Over Same Quarter Last Year

Analysts were expecting more, and came away "disappointed." Can anyone look at the big picture, please? From NYTimes.com:

On Thursday, Amazon said its second-quarter profit rose 45 percent from the same period a year ago as revenue grew 41 percent. ... Net income at Amazon was $207 million, or 45 cents a share, up from $142 million, or 32 cents a share a year earlier. Revenue was $6.57 billion, up from $4.65 billion in the recession-mired quarter last year. ...

Shoppers are still flocking to Amazon, in large part because it usually offers lower prices, but its pricing is also cutting into its profit margins, said Jordan Rohan, managing director of Internet and digital media equity research at Stifel Nicolaus.

“If consumers are retrenching, it’s quite possible that Amazon’s gaining share because they’re the low-price player and they’re pressing that advantage, but there’s a trade-off between margins and growth for retailers,” Mr. Rohan said. “Amazon is clearly selecting a page out of Wal-Mart’s playbook.”

Amazon is also spending a lot more money to keep up with its growing sales, said Thomas J. Szkutak, Amazon’s chief financial officer. Operating expenses increased 40 percent from the year-ago quarter. The company is building 13 new retail fulfillment centers and adding office space, and it hired 2,200 people during the quarter, mostly to support increased sales volume, he said.

Amazon quelled fears that Apple’s iPad, which started sales in April, would threaten sales of the Kindle, Amazon’s e-reader. Instead, there are signs that three years after Amazon released the Kindle, e-book and e-reader sales are beginning to make a real contribution to the company’s earnings.

Get it? In an economy that is still a basket-case Amazon was able to make very significant investments in expansion while at the same time increasing profits 45%.

Hands-On with Kindle 2.5 Tweeting

In the end, I think people who opt for a Kindle or Kindle-esque (Nook, etc.) eReader device will be those who are simply interested in straight-on linear text, with no need for social networking to be a part of their reading experience. The others will do their reading on tablets.

Why? Well, Kindle Tweeting under 2.5 sounds like it is more than a bit cumbersome. And the same sort of hardware limits will be present for the Nook, Sony Readers, etc.

From Lance Ulanoff, PCMag.com:

I love reading books and my New Yorker on the Amazon Kindle. But let's be clear: the e-reader is a long way from a computer or even a smartphone. As Amazon adds more features, the limitations of the device become increasingly clear.

Navigating beyond simple page turns often involves a combination of button presses and toggles. Even then you may have to hunt for things under the sometimes inscrutable interface. Finding the social sharing features, for example, wasn't immediate obvious. (They're under the settings.) Set-up requires you go through the Kindle's still experimental and very limited web browser, with the Whispernet connection on.

Once there, I used the Kindle joystick to navigate to and select the Twitter account box. I signed into Twitter and connected the account to my Kindle account. Twitter verified my login and I was able to leave the hoary browser and return to my regular Kindle reading interface.

A bare minimum of guidance

Once again, there was nothing on my Kindle page to indicate anything has changed. I had to move my cursor around on the e-ink screen for a message to appear at the base of my text telling me what to do if I wanted to create a note. Kindle's skeletal instructions in the settings told me I could share notes and highlights. I had to move my cursor around on the e-ink page to see a message that told me I had entered the beginning of the social sharing process. It said I could simply start typing on the Kindle's keyboard – something I've almost never done – or click the joystick to start highlighting text.

I decided to highlight text. As soon as I did, another message appeared at the base of my text, telling me I needed to hold the "Alt" and "Return" keys to "tweet/share". The next screen offered me a typing window and a character count (like any good Twitter app should). I only had 100 characters of my 140 allotment left because, as the screen informed me, the Tweet would carry a link to my highlighted text. Though QWERTY, the Kindle's keyboard isn't built for extensive typing. It took me far longer than it should have to compose a simple tweet. Still, I got through it and I assume I may get better at Kindle typing over time.

Once I finished and selected "Share" there was no indication that I had successfully tweeted out my message. On the e-ink screen, however, my highlighted text kept a thin underline and had a small, numbered footnote. When I highlighted it, my tweet appeared at the base of the page.
On my PC I found my tweet in Twitter, complete with a link to the excerpted text on a special Amazon.com Kindle Beta page. This was pretty impressive, and I soon realized that I could share passages of any length from any book or magazine I was reading. The Amazon page automatically features the book name and cover image, so there's no need to worry if you haven't shared the actual book title.

While I tweeted my passage to all my followers, I would also love to see the ability to tweet to, say, an individual over a Twitter direct message or to send the passage via email. While there's also a Facebook sharing option, there isn't any way yet to share text via e-mail.

Stephen Windwalker re: The Wylie/Amazon Deal

Seeking Alpha's Stephen Windwalker hits the nail on the head: "So, the power shift in the publishing industry continues, and we're seeing some signs that there's an A-list of players holding the trump cards: authors, agencies and Amazon."

John Sargent, Macmillan CEO, Joins the Random House Rant Against Wylie/Amazon

John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan, has joined the powers-that-be at Random House in being apoplectic about the Wylie/Amazon deal. You can tell these guys feel quite powerless - rather like Lear raging against the elements. But they are not powerless. They could stop much of what they hate simply by giving authors the 50% royalty they deserve for eBooks, including digital editions of backlist titles. By not doing so, they have invited the current situation.

Random House Agonistes

As punishment for abandoning the sinking Random House square-rigger, RH announces that it will not invite Wylie back aboard. Wylie, in turn, speeds away in a new state-of-the-art motor yacht. At least that's what he should do. Stay the course, Andrew.

NYTimes.com: "The literary agent Andrew Wylie announced on Wednesday that he had started his own publishing venture and would produce e-book editions available exclusively on Amazon.com for 20 titles, including those by Philip Roth and Vladimir Nabokov. Now Random House, which had previously staked a claim for the e-book rights to most of those books, has issued a forceful response: it will stop doing business with the Wylie Agency. ...Mr. Wylie said he was taken by surprise by Random House's move and was not sure how he would respond. 'I'm going to think about it a little bit,' he said."

Nook for Android Plus B/N's Pursuit of Ecosystem Brand Strategy, ala Amazon

PCMag.com: "Barnes and Noble on Thursday introduced its eBook software on a new smartphone platform with Nook for Android. The software will run on phones with Android 1.6 or later. This is especially good news for users with Android phones like the Motorola Droid X or HTC EVO 4G, which both have 4.3-inch screens that could make for a decent-to-good reading experience."

Like Amazon, B/N is not so much interested in owning the hardware franchise as they are in selling content, this achieved by owning a significant eBook ecosystem (aka, platform) franchise, hence:

"... the company also announced its decision to move all of its Barnes and Nobile eBook software under the Nook brand name, with Nook for Android, Nook for iPad, Nook for iPhone, and more. Previously, it was called B/N eReader. With its Nook e-Reader and Nook software across most smartphone platforms, Barnes and Noble is trying to develop a strong platform to compete with the Kindle and Apple's iBooks. Barnes and Noble's Nook platform currently has more than a million titles and is available on iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, PCs, and Macs."

Elsewhere, PC World delivers an excellent comparison of Nook for Android vs. other Android-based eReaders.

Big Surprise: Random House Disputes the Wylie/Amazon eBook Deal

From eBookNewser: "Random House is not happy about the Wylie Agency's exclusive eBook deal with Amazon that was announced this morning. The publisher released the following statement from spokesman Stuart Applebaum: 'We are disappointed by Mr. Wylie's actions, which we dispute. Last night, we sent a letter to Amazon disputing their rights to legally sell these titles, which are subject to active Random House publishing agreements. Upon assessing our business options, we will be taking appropriate action.'"

RH did not have a leg to stand on when it came to e-rights for the Styron backlist, hence that list's movement to Open Road. Neither will they have a leg to stand on when it comes to these other contracts, all of them negotiated long before e-publishing was ever envisioned, or the term eBook coined.

Amazon Content Coup: Two Year eBook Exclusive on Select Roth, Mailer, Bellow, Ellison, Hunter Thompson, Nabokov, Rushdie and Updike Backlist Titles

From the Los Angeles Times: "Amazon.com now has exclusive rights to sell the e-book versions of some of the best-known titles from top literary authors Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike and more. In an announcement late Wednesday -- shortly after midnight Thursday, East Coast time -- the online retailer revealed that a deal with the powerful Wylie Agency will give Amazon.com the exclusive e-book rights for two years to books such as 'Lolita.' The e-books will only be available through the Kindle store."

How's this for scoring a significant content-advantage over Apple, Google, and all other contenders? Also note the very important element of agent Andrew Wylie bypassing "publishers" per se, creating his own imprint, and cutting a deal directly with the eBook retailer. This is the kind of thing that has many publishers shaking in their boots. According to the New York Times, Wylie's new venture is called Odyssey Editions.

In making the announcement Mr. Wylie opened a new front, and a possible negotiating tool, in a debate over e-book rights for what are called backlist titles. Many traditional publishers have said they own the electronic rights to those books, but some authors and their estates have disagreed, arguing that since the books were published before e-books existed, the digital rights were not explicitly sold to the publishers.

“The fact remains that backlist digital rights were not conveyed to publishers, and so there’s an opportunity to do something with those rights,” Mr. Wylie said in an interview.... Mr. Wylie declined to disclose the financial terms that Odyssey had reached with authors or their estates, but he said they were more favorable than the terms that other publishers were offering.

Apple take note: The Kindle eBooks will be priced at $9.99.

Granted, the exclusive is only for two years. However, the next two years are going to be critical for all players in influencing the longterm retailer and ecosystem choices for hoards of new eBook readers; a monopoly on high-demand backlist items won't hurt at all.

Analyst: More iPads out there than Kindles

From eWeek: "Last night, Apple stated it has shipped 3.27 [million] iPads since the April product launch, surpassing our estimate for an installed base of [around 3 million] Amazon Kindles to date despite supply constraints,” Marianne Wolk, an analyst with Susquehanna Financial Group, wrote in a co-authored research note to investors. "However, Kindle device sales have also accelerated recently, with the growth rate of Kindle units up 3x since the June 21 price reduction from $259 to $189."

Note my previous comments about Amazon's ambition (I presume) to win the content and ecosystem war rather than the hardware war. Also note today's post about Amazon's new content deal with the Wylie Agency.

Bertelsmann and Holtzbrinck Partner for German-Language E-Book Platform

Sparse details from PW's PWxyz blog:

... The platform will mostly sell the two partners’ e-books, but will also sell books from other companies.

ABI Analysts Triple Tablet Sale Estimates for 2010 Based on iPad Surge

From Electronista:

The iPad alone has tripled the likely sales for tablets this year, ABI researchers said. They now expect 11 million media-friendly tablets to ship in 2010, almost all of which will be Apple's model. Competitors could factor in but may miss their opportunity if they don't arrive by early September or sooner. The tablet market isn't yet mainstream and might not reach that point until 2013, analyst Jeff Orr said. ...

Please note yesterday's blog entry concerning the close relationship between Amazon eBook sales results and the frantic growth of the iPad installed-base.

David Carnoy Looks Sideways at Amazon's Numbers

CNET's David Carnoy speculates as to what different spins we might put on Amazon's recently reported figures.

Sony Reader Sales for 2nd Quarter Triple Over Last Year

Publishers Weekly: "Kindle has reached its tipping point, and now the Sony Reader has, too. Earlier this year the 10 millionth book was downloaded from the Sony Reader Store, Phil Lubell, v-p of digital reading at Sony Electronics said today. 'We are well on our way to doubling this number by year's end,' he said. Since launching its digital reading business, the company has seen 'steady growth, month over month, year over year. In fact, device sales for the second quarter of this year are about triple what they were for last year.'" This is roughly half the percentage increase Amazon claims (tripling over two quarters), and of course must be well under Amazon's actual unit numbers.

Exactly What Hardware Lays Behind Amazon's eBook Sales Surge?

ZDNet's Larry Dignan asks whether Amazon's eBook sales explosion has been occasioned by the spread of Kindle hardware, or the popularity of the iPad and the Kindle app for iPad:

Amazon’s price cut was a month ago and definitely helped accelerate things. However, the Kindle to hardcover book ratio was already at an inflection point three months ago. What happened a little more than three months ago? The iPad launched. On April 3, the iPad debuted and sold 300,000 devices. Eighty days later Apple sold, three million iPads.

Meanwhile, Amazon was all set with its snazzy Kindle iPad app. ...

The most plausible reason for the e-book jump is the iPad. Jefferies analyst Youseff Squali connects the iPad dots:

We believe that Kindle’s e-book sales are benefiting from the launch of the iPad, since the Kindle e-book store offers a broad (and probably the richest) selection, with over 630K titles, which iPad owners can easily chose from.

Our current estimates for 2H10/FY11 could also prove conservative as we assume only 10% Y/Y growth in Kindle device sales with no contribution to e-book sales from the iPad. A more probable scenario, based on a higher unit sales of Kindle and e-books, yields an additional ~$100M and $200M upside to our revenue estimates for FY10 and FY11.

Squali reckons that there will be roughly 4.62 million Kindles in circulation by the end of the year. Given that figure, it’s likely that the iPad led to Amazon’s e-book inflection rate. ...

Whatever the hardware, these eBook sales figures are terrific news for Amazon. In my opinion Bezos is far more interested in owning the ecosystem within which people read than he is in owning the hardware. Kindle on iPad. Kindle on Android devices. Whatever. Bezos wants to sell content. And he's right.

Five Reasons Amazon eBooks are Outselling Hardcovers

From Tony Bradley, PCWorld Business Center: And the winners are - Cost, Portability, Accessability, Cross-Platform, and Conservation.

Sharp Will Launch XMDF E-book Reader Later This Year

PCWorld:

Japan's Sharp plans to enter the increasingly competitive e-book reader market later this year with a device that can read a new e-publishing file format of its own, it said Tuesday.

The company will launch an e-book reader in Japan before the end of the year and is also working towards a launch outside of Japan. The device, which has not yet been detailed by the company, is likely to hit the U.S. after Japan and Sharp said it is already in launch talks with Verizon Wireless. ...

Sharp's e-book readers will read files in a new version of XMDF (ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format), a format developed by Sharp and used in some of its previous devices.

The new version adds support for multimedia data and will allow audio and video to be embedded into e-book pages.

The original version of XMDF was accepted into the international standard for e-publishing (IEC62448), although its use remains largely confined to Japan. ...

Sharp said it has yet to decide if its reader will support other formats in addition to XMDF. ...

And Now, iBooks Audio and Video Support

From Mac Observer:

Along with iTunes 9.2.1, Apple released iBooks 1.1.1 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch late on Monday. The update for Apple’s ebook reader app added support for ebooks that include audio and video content.

Version 1.1.1 also added the ability to double-tap images to zoom in, improved performance when reading PDF documents, added the ability to look up English word definitions in books that don’t include a specified language, and improved overall stability and performance.

Jeff Bezos: "Kindle Format Has Now Overtaken the Hardcover Format"

According to Amazon, quoted by GalleyCat: "Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books."

The LA Times provides a bit more detail and analysis:

Authors Charlaine Harris, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, Nora Roberts and Stieg Larsson have each sold more than 500,000 ebooks for the Kindle, Amazon.com announced today. ...

But what isn't being said is that these aren't necessarily new books; most of these authors have an impressive backlist. James Patterson has published almost 40 novels; Nora Roberts' books have been issued and reissued so frequently that it's almost impossible to tally her published work. Stieg Larsson, who died in 2004, is the underachiever: His popular mystery series consists of only three books.

When CDs began to outpace vinyl, music companies realized that they could sell the same original works to fans a second time, in a new format. How much of Amazon.com's Kindle sales are an echo of this -- readers purchasing much-loved favorites in a new format -- is impossible to say without seeing sales figures based on specific titles. And that's something that no companies, neither publishers nor Amazon.com, seems interested in releasing. ...

Additionally, as noted by Market Watch, Amazon.com says unit sales of its Kindle have tripled since the price cut on the hardware late last month. Amazon posts second quarter results on Thursday. They'll be strong. Count on it.

Tweaking B&N Nook Hardware

From SlashGear:

Barnes & Noble’s nook looks to be going through a further hardware tweaking, with a new version of the 3G/WiFi ereader showing up in the FCC database. The nook BNRZ100-01 – codenamed “CR Nook/Bravo Delta” – looks to be a minor revision of the original model (the BNRZ100), swapping out the 3G modem used for an updated version.

That updated 3G card is the Sierra Wireless MC8201V (again, locked into data-only mode), supporting the 850 and 1900 bands. That means that the triband UMTS/HSPA (which added in 2100MHz support) capabilities of the original nook have been lost; it’s possible this is a cost saving measure on B&N’s part. Of course there’s also WiFi b/g for local networks.

The confidentiality letter B&N submitted to the FCC requests 180 days secrecy on the external and internal photos, together with the user manual for the new nook model, from the date of approval. That’s the maximum period of confidentiality a company can request, and probably doesn’t give us a hint as to when B&N plan to debut the new model.

An Argument for eBooks and Wireless in Elementary School Classrooms

Writing in the Washington Post, Brian Levin and J. Erik Garr ask: Why are we still using ink-on-paper textbooks, when digital technology offers a much better way?

Today, Johnny opens his math textbook and reads a chapter. He understands parts of it, but not all. He does the 10-question homework on paper and hands it in. Later, he gets the homework back and sees that he answered seven questions correctly.

Envision this: Johnny pulls up a math chapter on his e-reader. When he doesn't understand something, he clicks a link and watches a video of a great teacher presenting the concept, perhaps using a cool simulation. If Johnny still doesn't understand, he can chat online with a tutor familiar with the material. When Johnny does his homework on his e-reader, he immediately learns what he got wrong and sees an explanation based on his particular mistake. Johnny's parents receive a text or e-mail saying that he finished his math homework. The teacher receives a report that evening outlining what the class found straightforward and which problems puzzled students, along with suggestions on how to address the inadequacies. The school board receives data that lead to constant improvement in the effectiveness of course material. ...

And those improvements are just the beginning. ...

Apple's iBooks Censorship - Steve Jobs the New Tipper Gore?

From Jessie Kunhardt and Alexandra Carr, Huffington Post:

As Apple has gotten the chance to control more and more content with its ever-expanding app store the popular company has shown itself to be somewhat tyrannical and more than a little prudish when it comes to censorship. Books and book apps have gotten caught up in the storm of arbitrary rejections and strange censorship as Apple decides which make the cut into the apparently exclusive app store and iBookstore. Though the reasons for the censorship vary -- from gay themes to 'objectionable' language -- the majority of these books and book apps have one thing in common: Apple reversed the censorship after being publicly derided across the Internet for their decision.

Dianna Dilworth at eBookNewser hits the nail on the head:

Apple ... banned Tom Bouden's comic book adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest because of kissing men. CNET editor David Carnoy's thriller Knife Music was banned because the word "fuck" is used a few times. Both were eventually allowed in.

My personal favorite was an eReader app called "Eucalyptus," [offering] access to Project Gutenberg's entire catalog of copyright-free books [which] was rejected because it included the Kama Sutra. The app was accepted after Apple got bad press. Who would have thought that Apple would be the new Tipper Gore?

Barnes & Noble Looks to Build Digital Libraries with Free Public Domain Titles

From Chris Crum at WebProNews:

Barnes & Noble is encouraging customers to build their own personal digital libraries with a promotion called Barnes & Noble Classics.

Customers will get a free weekly slate of "high-quality, special edition classic eBooks" to read on the company's Nook eBook Readers, the iPad, PC and other devices using BN eReader software, and they'll be able to keep large digital libraries of these works. They'll be able to choose from ten free eBooks each week throughout the summer until the promotion ends. ...

The promotion is no doubt a push to get people reading more digital books and thinking of Barnes & Noble as a place to get them. ...

Of course, as most know, Project Gutenberg offers an enormous collection of classic free public domain eBooks all day every day, with no promotional time limit. You can also find them at the Kindle Store, etc., etc.

Copia vs NookStudy/Blackboard in College Market?

From The Digital Reader:

I admit we don’t really know what Blackboard adds (to NookStudy), but I think it’s reasonable to assume that students will be able to share their notes, highlights, and other annotations with other students. This could be very similar to what Copia does. Of course, no one has seen either app is talking about it, so what do we know.

If I’m right, then right now Copia are in a race with B&N. They need to get their app out of beta and on to the market before B&N release Nookstudy. If they don’t, then Copia have pretty much lost the academic market. ...

Andrew Richard Albanese Asks An Important Question

In a brief piece considering the argument between the traditional book publishing establishment and authors/agents with regard to eBook royalty rates, Andrew Richard Albanese brings everything into sharp focus: "... it’s hard not to imagine the day coming very soon when e-books are the primary edition, when mainstream authors widely write works specifically for, and optimally consumed, in digital form. So the bigger question may be: when do we start treating print like a subsidiary right?"

Under iOS 4, Synch to Apple's iBooks App in iTunes

Details: Macworld. iTunes can handle ePub and PDF files.

B/N and Blackboard Announce Strategic Partnership

A very shrewd alliance. From CrunchGear:

Barnes & Noble continues to makes inroads into the education, um, space. It just announced that it has teamed up with Blackboard, the Web site/software suite that is used in colleges all over the U.S. (Lord knows I had to use it all the time.) The deal should ensure that college students, starting with the upcoming fall semester, have easy access to electronic textbooks.

It’ll work like this. You log into Blackboard and click over to your literature class. There you’ll find links to all (if any) electronic versions of the books you need to read for the semester, making it easy to purchase and download a semester’s worth of books in no time at all.

There’s also possibilities for NOOKstudy-Blackboard integration. View all your Blackboard assignments from within NOOKstudy, that type of thing. I mean, I guess that’s what we could be looking at.

Maybe even more important to Barnes & Noble: brand awareness. Yeah, we’ve obviously all know of Barnes & Noble, but from now on if a college student logs into his or her Blackboard account and sees notes everywhere to the effect of “Need this book? Download it right now on your Nook!” Considering how absolutely ubiquitous Blackboard is, that’s an awful lot of college students who will be within a few mouse clicks of learning more about nook, NOOKstudy, etc.

"Green Eggs and Ham" eBook for iPhone and iPad Released as the 100th App From Oceanhouse Media

Press Release:

Oceanhouse Media, Inc. today announced the release of three new Dr. Seuss eBooks for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The best-selling children’s classic Green Eggs and Ham, and early reader favorite Hop on Pop are both now available in the App Store for $3.99 each. In addition, Oceanhouse Media released the Dr. Seuss short-story Gertrude McFuzz, available for only $1.99. All Dr. Seuss eBooks are designed as universal apps that can be used on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch for no additional charge. These apps also include special high-resolution graphics for the iPhone 4 Retina display. ...

Oceanhouse Media, creators of the award-winning Dr. Seuss apps, reached the milestone of publishing their 100th app with the release of Green Eggs and Ham. “We love developing for these mobile platforms” said Michel Kripalani, President of Oceanhouse Media. “We are incredibly excited about the rate of iPad acceptance and what that means to the future of learning.”

The Cat in the Hat was recently awarded the Parent’s Choice Silver Medal for Mobile Apps, and four Dr. Seuss apps received Editor’s Choice picks from Children’s Technology Review in June 2010. Over 300,000 Dr. Seuss apps have been sold since the release of the first app, Grinchmas!, in November of 2009. ...

Poetry And eBooks: Will Poems Ever Work In eBook Formatting?

Hillel Italie addresses the question:

NEW YORK — Billy Collins, one of the country's most popular poets, had never seen his work in e-book form until he recently downloaded his latest collection on his Kindle.

He was unpleasantly surprised.

"I found that even in a very small font that if the original line is beyond a certain length, they will take the extra word and have it flush left on the screen, so that instead of a three-line stanza you actually have a four-line stanza. And that screws everything up," says Collins, a former U.S. poet laureate whose Ballistics came out in February. ...

Also check Travis Nichols on the topic of The eBook Ugly Stick.

Borders' Triple-Secret Rollout of the Kobo

Very interesting. From The Digital Reader:

On July 3rd I reported that none of the five local Borders stores that I called knew a thing about the Kobo. ...

Well, Borders stores in Southern California have Kobos in stock. At least three of the stores that I visited have them.

But you’d never know it – unless you asked.

The Sony models are on the displays. But not a Kobo in sight. The small brochure is there for the Kobo. That’s it.

I feel like I am more excited about my Kobo than Borders’ retail stores.

“Oh, we have ‘em. They’re in the back!” – was the reply from all three stores. One store had a unit that was brought to me to play with. About 10% battery life showed (“yea, we’ve had it for five days and haven’t charged it yet.”) It was Firmware Version 1.0.

This isn’t the way I would roll out a new product. ...

How to Hack the Pandigital Novel

From The Digital Reader:

I didn’t go all the way and actually root the Novel. Instead I stopped after I installed a replacement home screen (so I could run other apps). I had trouble finding a home screen that I could download. For the most part they are only in the Marketplace and I don’t have access. Eventually I found Panda Home, and it seems to be working okay.

Installing apps on the Novel requires the use of the command line (that’s what works for me) but the process is relatively easy. You can’t use the new apps from the existing home screen, so you’ll also need to install a new home screen. I have Aldiko, Kindle, Fictionwise eReader and Kobo apps installed. I’d forgotten how much I liked Aldiko. ...

iRiver Wifi Story Price Cut in UK

From Tech Digest: The price on the new Wifi edition goes from £250 to £199.

RUMOR Passed On By Mac Observer: 5.6- and 7-inch "eBook-Oriented" iPads In The Works?

From The Mac Observer:

Apple plans to launch a second generation iPad with 5.6-inch (14 cm) and 7-inch (18 cm) screens, according to DigiTimes on Tuesday. The iPads would be more focused on eBooks and less on multimedia.

“The sources noted that Apple has recently placed new iPad orders to Taiwan-based component makers for the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 with 9.7-inch, 5.6-inch and 7-inch models all included,” DigiTimes reported. The 9.7-inch model is said to have only minor changes and no camera was mentioned.

This move, if it proves correct, would be very similar to how Apple undercut competition with the original iPod by shipping smaller, less expensive iPods like the nano and shuffle. These appealed to a wider market due to the lower price and served to increase Apple’s market share.

The report also noted comments by their senior analyst that Samsung, a major supplier of OLED panels, can’t even supply their own needs, so it remains unlikely that Apple would be able to switch to OLED panels in smaller iPads sold by the millions.

DigiTimes has not always been on the mark with its insider information, so, as usual, take this rumor with a grain of salt.

Penguin Chairman John Makinson Comments re: eBooks

The UK Guardian Media 100 profile of Penguin Chairman John Makinson (#86) focuses almost entirely on eBooks:

Penguin reinvented publishing in the 1930s with the invention of the quality paperback. Now its chairman and chief executive, John Makinson, wants to do the same with the ebook in the digital age. "The definition of the book itself is up for grabs," he has said.

The former Financial Times journalist – chairman of Penguin since 2001 and its chief executive since 2002 – is helping to define how we will consume books, and how the publishing industry tackles a digital transition that hobbled the music industry.

Makinson has promised a new definition of books providing "interactive learning experiences", with "book applications" for the Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle reader that include embedded audio, video and streaming content.

"The transition from physical to digital is a momentous moment for the industry," said Makinson, who compared the rise of the ebook to the 15th-century invention of the printing press. "The decisions that we take now on behalf of authors will determine the future of publishing." ...

Will Tablets Be BMOC (Big Machine on Campus) This Fall? - PCWorld

From PCWorld, re: the inevitable replacement of textbooks with eTextbooks. With regard to NOOKstudy, the writer misses the point when he calls it a strategic mistake for B&N to provide that software for Windows and the Mac OS X, since this "actually gives users a reason not to buy" a Nook. Remember, B&N is not in the business of marketing devices. It is in the business of marketing content within its Nook ecosystem. Therefore, B&N has every reason to extend that ecosystem to the Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, just as it already has extended a Nook app to the iPad, etc.

FCC Approves Acer LumiRead E-Reader

Bottom line, no 3G. From UberGizmo:

The FCC has just approved Acer's upcoming LumiRead e-reader, although the papers did not include pictures as well as a user manual, so there is no way to garner additional information unless you work in the FCC itself and decide to spill the beans (at your career's peril, of course). What has been confirmed though is this will be a WiFi-enabled model, missing out on 3G connectivity at the moment. With the FCC approvals in the bag, it won't be long before you start to hear of promotional materials as well as ads concerning the Acer LumiRead. Hopefully the back-end support system is solid enough to prop up the hardware.

In Praise of the Amazon Kindle DX (Graphite) Screen

From Computerworld:

What a difference a display can make. All it took was turning on the Amazon Kindle DX (Graphite) second-generation large-format e-reader to see that Amazon's claims of a higher-contrast display than its predecessor were true. The E-Ink display on the new Kindle DX ($380, price as of 7/9/2010) indeed reflects a significant improvement in contrast, as evidenced by the clarity of the crisp text, and the darker blacks of graphics and words alike. ...

UK Society of Authors Head Calls for 50% eRoyalties

According to the guardian.co.uk, Tom Holland, head of the UK's Society of Authors, says 25% author royalties on eBooks are bogus, and 50% is more the number. He's right. What he's wrong about, I think, is to say that 25% is ok for a couple of years going forward, while publishers continue their investment in "digital infrastructure," whatever that is. I don't have a clue. e-publishing calls for the dismantling and abandonment of infrastructure (warehouses, deals with distributors to brick and mortar franchises, etc.) And that's not expensive to do.

Barnes & Noble Introduces NOOKstudy -- Online Reading and Study Platform

Press Release:

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS | PowerRating), the world's largest bookseller, today announced that it has developed an integrated software solution for the higher education market. Called NOOKstudy, the feature rich, free software application is the ultimate study tool, enabling students to manage all their digital content -- eTextbooks, class materials, and notes -- on the computing device they rely on most, their PC or Mac. NOOKstudy, developed with input from students and leading higher education institutions, delivers a superior digital reading experience and is the first digital textbook application that enhances the academic experience through unique and customizable study features. ...

Very smart. Software-driven rather than device-driven approach. Also note that B&N, via its college textbook/wholesale division (founded by my late father-in-law, by the way), dominates the college textbook market, bringing a great deal of clout and preemptive penetration to the distribution equation.

Meanwhile, it seems - according to a recent survey - that 50% of U.S. college students plan to acquire an e-reader of some type before the start of the autumn term.

eBook Price Randomness, the Agency Model, and the Myth of Cannibilization

From Calvin Reid at Publishers Weekly:

The launch of the iPad and the implementation of the agency model has led to wildly varying prices for e-books. The agency model allows publishers to set the retail price of their e-books and designate an "agent" who will sell the book at retail and collect a fee for doing so. While the new pricing model has allowed certain publishers to take away control of e-book pricing from Amazon—publishers complained that under the old wholesale model, Amazon's $9.99 e-book price point was too cheap and cannibalized print sales—it has also left consumers with a sometimes bewildering patchwork of inconsistent pricing. ...

I, for one, think $9.99 remains the reasonable upper threshold for eBook pricing, with plenty of profit built-in for everyone. What's more, the notion that eBooks "cannibalize" print sales seems absurd. Big picture: Print is in decline, digital in its ascendancy. Get used to it.

In the end, the price will be set by market demand, just as it always has been. Note this from Jeff Bezos's recent Fortune interview:

Fortune: In the past, you've been a big proponent of lower prices for ebooks and an open opponent of the book publisher agency model, which allows the publisher to set the final retail price whether there's an intermediary retailer or not. Now that you've switched to an agency model, will ebookstores like Amazon's get hurt?

Bezos: No. First of all, there are a bunch of publishers of all sizes, and they don't all have one opinion. There are as many opinions about what the right thing to do is as there are publishers. So you're seeing that some of them are being very aggressive on prices, pricing their books well below $9.99.

Others are trying to do everything they can to make prices as high as possible. And what you're going to see is a share shift from one group of publishers to this other group of publishers.

Fortune: Do you expect a significant share shift? When do you see that happening?

Bezos: It's a significant shift and we're seeing it already.

Google’s New Do-It-Yourself Android App Tool

Very cool. To what extent can this tool be used by lay-people to customize (personalize) the reading experience on Android devices? From NYTimes.com:

Google is bringing Android software development to the masses.

The company will offer a software tool, starting Monday, that is intended to make it easy for people to write applications for its Android smartphones.

The free software, called Google App Inventor for Android (http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/), has been under development for a year. User testing has been done mainly in schools with groups that included sixth graders, high school girls, nursing students and university undergraduates who are not computer science majors.

The thinking behind the initiative, Google said, is that as cellphones increasingly become the computers that people rely on most, users should be able to make applications themselves."

“The goal is to enable people to become creators, not just consumers, in this mobile world,” said Harold Abelson, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is on sabbatical at Google and led the project. ...

“We could only have done this because Android’s architecture is so open,” Mr. Abelson said.

Mr. Abelson is a longtime proponent of making intellectual and scientific resources more open. He is a founding director of the Free Software Foundation, Public Knowledge and the Creative Commons, and he helped initiate M.I.T.’s OpenCourseWare program, which offers free online course materials used in teaching the university’s classes.

The Google application tool for Android enables people to drag and drop blocks of code — shown as graphic images and representing different smartphone capabilities— and put them together, similar to snapping together Lego blocks. The result is an application on that person’s smartphone. ...

Barnes & Noble iPad App Nicely Updated, Android Version On The Way

From Electronista:

Barnes & Noble this morning [Saturday, July 9th] posted an upgraded version of its eReader app for the iPad (free, App Store) that brings it more in step with iBooks, other apps, and the features on some dedicated, LCD-based e-readers. Like the special control in Apple's iBooks app, the Barnes & Noble client can now tune the screen brightness itself instead of relying on the tablet's overall preferences. Its two-page layout has improved, and book syncing has also been accelerated.

Other improvements brought to bear include a newer in-app registration layout, a smaller minimum font size, and multiple unnamed performance upgrades.

Alongside the iPad news, Barnes & Noble has added that it expects an Android version of eReader to arrive later along with an upgraded version of the iPhone-sized app.

James Patterson Sets eBooks Sales Record - More Than a Million Units

From Daemon's Books:

Prolific author James Patterson has sold more ebooks than any other author. This according to his publisher, Hachette Book Group, who claim he has sold over 1 million ebooks—a new record. There is no independent data on ebook sales, so this is based on Hachette’s own numbers. ...

Microsoft Patent for Page Turn Animation? And If So, Do We Care?

From the NYTimes.com Bits Blog:

On Thursday a tidbit of news circulated around the Web that Microsoft had filed a patent in late 2009 hoping to lay claim to the look and feel of page turns on a touchscreen device.

The patent states that when “one or more pages are displayed on a touch display” a “virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page.” Just like real pages in a paper book.

Many bloggers speculated that if Microsoft is awarded the patent for page turns, Apple would have to remove, or license, the interface technique it currently uses in its iBooks application.

But the page turn doesn’t necessarily make sense in digital form and seems to be an unnecessary and archaic carryover from print.

Of course many might disagree with me on this: it is a topic of debate among fans of user interface design and digital books.

Jason Kottke, blogger and Web designer, had this to say about the iBooks page turn:

The page flipping animation in the iBooks app though? Super cheesy. It’s like in the early days of cars where they built them to look like horse-drawn carriages. Can’t we just scroll?

Craig Mod, a book designer, also noted earlier this year that the page turn is something of a relic: “The metaphor of flipping pages already feels boring and forced on the iPhone.” ...

Random House's Gina Centrello: eBooks Will Be 50% Of Book Sales In Five Years

From eBookNewser:

In five years eBooks will be 50% of book sales, said Gina Centrello, President and Publisher of The Random House Publishing Group during a lunch today at Thrillerfest. Her estimates are based on recent growth. She said that last year eBooks represented 3% of the market and this year it will be about 10%. ...

Acer LumiRead 600 eBook Reader for Fall

From Wireless Goodness:

Acer unveiled its LumiRead eBook reader back in May, and today the device made the rounds on the FCC. Unfortunately, FCC documents don’t reveal much, but today’s filings do suggest that the company is on track for the planned Q3 release date of the LumiRead.

The LumiRead will support Barnes & Noble’s eBook store, as well as Llibri.de, a German eBook retailer. The device, which has a 6 inch screen, offers 2GB of flash memory and expandability through microSD.

Acer mentioned that 3G and WiFi versions of the LumiRead will be released. However, today’s FCC filings only mention WiFi – no mention is made of 3G wireless data, yet.

iPad Owner/User Demographics, Habits, etc.

Interesting to see the demographics, but even more interesting (for me, at least) to ponder the smart methodology for the first of these two studies, based on the tech profiles of visitors to Yahoo - a huge self-selected universe. Nick Saint of The San Francisco Chronicle delivers details. "Who visits Yahoo with an iPad obviously depends on Yahoo's own demographics as well as those of the iPad, but Yahoo indexes the results to its baseline, offering up a good picture of what the average iPad owner looks like. ..." That was yesterday's paper, by the way. In today's edition, Ryan Kim delves deeper with the results of a new Resolve Market Research survey of iPad users - a more traditional approach.

Sony Reader Price Cuts

Of course, Sony simply had no other choice but do drop in step with the Kindle and Nook discounts. No surprise here. Won't help much. FT.com gives info.

The iRiver Story/W.H. Smith Thing ... additional info

W.H. Smith will be using a new release of the iRiver Story which now has WiFi connectivity (good, though still not 3G) and an increased price tag of £250 (bad, with both the Nook WiFi and the Kindle selling for roughly half that in the UK). You get the picture. Deadsville. Get a few more details from SlashGear. Also GadgetVenue.

More Borders ... from Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal's Jeff Trachtenberg has a good piece on WSJ.com:

"Borders is late, but not too late, because this is an emerging market. As a publisher, this is one more outlet for us,' says Jane Friedman, chief executive of Open Road Integrated Media LLC, an e-book publisher. "It's going to mean more choice for readers, and an opportunity for Borders to build loyalty with their customers."

Borders' e-bookstore faces plenty of competition. Fans of digital books have lots of retail options, including Amazon.com Inc., Barnes & Noble Inc., Sony Corp. and Apple Inc. Google Inc. is expected to enter the market later this year.

In an indication of how fast the e-book market is growing, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group earlier this week said that it has sold more than one million e-books written by James Patterson, the best-selling author.

Borders says, ambitiously, that it hopes to control about 17% of the e-book market by July 2011. Albert Greco, a book industry researcher, estimates that in 2009 Borders had a 10% retail share of books overall. ...

My skepticism remains intact.

UK's W.H. Smith Mates with iRiver's "Story"

From Mobility Site:

One of the largest booksellers in the UK, W.H. Smith, has decided to stake more of a claim in the Ebook market by offering a special edition of the iRiver Story ebook reader in its shops. W.H. Smith currently sells Sony ebook readers and does have some ebooks available for download, but it can hardly be called a focus of their business. In fact, their website tends to be dominated by the traditional fare of a UK Newsagent, Filofaxes and diaries. Not exactly on the bleeding digital edge is our W.H. Smith…

The Story has, of course, thus far proved somewhat popular in Europe.

Borders' "device neutral" eBook Store

A piece in the Tech Herald quotes Borders CEO Mike Edwards touting the "device neutral philosophy" of the Kobo-based Borders eBookstore and how this approach will help Borders take over "about 17%" of the domestic eBook market "by this time next year."

I don't see it. Starting from nothing right now, and going up against the already well-established stores hosted by Amazon, Apple, B&N, etc., it is very hard to understand how Borders can seize 17% of the market, especially when their hardware offer is the klunky Kobo e-reader (with only Bluetooth for some smartphone connectivity, and a USB cord for connecting to PCs) which sells at the same price right now as the far-superior Nook WiFi. Besides, to the extent that it is a hook, isn't that whole "agnostic" and "device neutral" rhetoric a Google Editions thing anyway?

You'll find a somewhat more in-depth piece in ComputerWorld.

Self-Publishing and Liberation, etc.

Belatedly, here is Laura Miller's excellent June 22nd Salon.com essay concerning eBook- and POD-enabled self-publishing:

If you have any contact with the publishing world, you probably hear some version of the story above every day. What's most striking, however, about the many, many conversations I've had about e-books, innovations in self-publishing and the emergence of publicity venues like social networking is how difficult it is to stay focused on what all of this means for readers. No matter how hard you try, within five minutes the talk turns inexorably back to how agents, editors and publishers will suffer in the coming cataclysmic change -- and, above all, how gloriously liberating it will be for authors. ...

Apple iBooks Censorship ... and David Carnoy

Very entertaining, even though I don't think the censorship issue is funny at all. Nevertheless, David Carnoy shows wit in enjoying himself at Apple's expense.

Joe Wikert on One-Click eBook Sampling

Wikert is, as usual, on to something:

I rarely buy print books these days but I still love visiting my local bookstore to browse the latest releases. The scenario typically plays out like this: I find something interesting and I pull out my iPhone to see if it's available in the iBookstore or the Kindle store. If it is, I press a few more buttons to have the sample sent to my iPad.

What's wrong with this picture? First, you could argue I shouldn't be browsing in my local bookstore if my intent is to buy online. That's an issue the brick-and-mortar stores need to figure out. And when they solve that problem, I hope it's by embracing the online world, not asking everyone to leave their iPhones at the door!

Actually, what's wrong here is the fact that I have to go through so many steps to get an ebook sample. Why don't the major bookstores have apps that let me take a picture, and with that one simple click, push the ebook's sample to my device? Sampling is one of the key steps I take along the way to making an ebook purchase. I've probably got a couple dozen ebook samples in my Kindle and iBooks apps on my iPad; I have yet to buy an ebook without sampling it first.

So here's a chance for any book retailer with a mobile app to dramatically extend their reach. ...

Amazon's New Dual-Screen Patent - What Does it Mean for Nook and Other Dual-Screen Competitors?

From Engadget:

Looks like the battle for e-reader dominance between Amazon and Barnes & Noble could soon expand beyond the recent spate of price drops and into the courtroom as well: the USPTO just granted a 2006 Amazon patent on e-readers with secondary LCD displays (like the original Kindle's scroller-navigation panel), and several of the claims are potentially broad enough to cover the Nook and many other devices with both electronic paper and LCD displays. What's more, Amazon agreed not to file for any corresponding foreign patents during the four-year approval process and thus wasn't required to publish the patent application -- meaning this is likely a complete surprise to the entire industry. ...

Borders Kobo-Powered eBookstore Launches Today

From CrunchGear:

As promised, Borders is at last rolling out their e-book store today; it’s “powered by Kobo,” which I believe translates to “is Kobo with a layer of paint on top.” The selection should be the same as the existing Kobobooks site, but Borders has their own look and is launching its own versions of the Kobo e-book app (now available for iPhone, Blackberry, and Android). ...

One thing to note: it’s Kobo-powered, but it’s not actually Kobo. If you have books you bought from Kobobooks, they won’t transfer to Borders. Query: if the selection is the same, and the apps are the same, why not just go to Kobo in the first place?

Good question.

SONY Lowers Prices on eReaders

From Mobility Site:

They may be a day late and a dollar short, but Sony has finally waded into the ebook reader price war. They have lowered the recommended prices for all three of their ebook readers. The Pocket Edition is dropped twenty bucks to $149, the Touch Edition drops thirty to $169, and the 3G Daily Edition lowers its price by 50 dollars to end up at $299. ...

News Flash: Statistically Insignificant Nielsen Norman Study Yields Suspect and Useless Data Re: eBook Read Times

There's been much blogging and tweeting over the last day or so about a recent "study" conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group. This study supposedly demonstrates, among other things, that eBooks take longer to read than traditional books. Now, I don't actually believe that the core headline question (note: the study also embraces several other issues of usability and readability across devices) is terribly important, but it still needs to be said that the problems with this research are two.

First, the study embraces only 24 users, which is nowhere near being statistically significant, even though TG Daily optimistically calls it "just about statistically significant," whatever that means.

Also, no data is given on how the 24 users were chosen or who they were from a demographic point of view. Young? Old? People completely new to eBooks, or folks experienced with the technology? College educated? Not? People carefully chosen to be representative of the broad market across devices?

Fact is, I don't see how that latter can be achieved with a study universe so small as 24. In fact, as someone with thirty years experience in both qualitative and quantitative market research, I know it can not be achieved with so small a universe of 24. Such details need to be attended to in any serious research.

Thus, at the end of the day what we have here is an unreliable answer to an irrelevant question, plus (more dangerously) unreliable answers to several other more cogent questions concerning device ergonomics. Reader beware.

eBooks viz. Barnes & Noble's Guidance for Fiscal 2011

Jim Milliot's excellent PW discussion of last week's B&N 2010 year-end analysis/2011 guidance clearly depicts book publishing's current state of transition. Digital expands. Brick and mortar retreats. And Agnosticism calls us all. Italics mine.

While Barnes & Noble chairman Len Riggio said at last week's investors conference that physical books will constitute the majority of its sales for at least the next five years, the company is investing heavily to make the transition from a bookseller to an electronic and technology retailer. CFO Joe Lombardi noted that B&N will invest $140 million in the current fiscal year to upgrade its digital capabilities, and B&N's long-range forecast calls for the retail share of total unit sales to fall from 90% in 2010 to 69% in fiscal 2014. The decline in retail will be offset by gains at Barnes & Noble.com driven by the sale of e-books and e-readers and accessories.

Lombardi explained that B&N was confident B&N.com could hit that target in part because of the record fourth quarter of the division; sales in the period ended May 1 rose 51%, leading to a 24% increase in fiscal 2010, to $572 million. Lombardi said the sale of the Nook as well as of e-books drove the gains, particularly in the last period, when the Nook became fully available after being out-of-stock before Christmas. ...

B&N will close no more than six to 10 stores annually over the next three years as leases expire, said Mitch Klipper, CEO of the retail group, adding that with the weak commercial market B&N is renewing leases at rates that are reduced by 10% to 20%. The company, however, has no plans to develop small-format stores to replace the Dalton outlets it closed in malls. ...

Riggio and other executives, including CEO William Lynch, also stressed that B&N already has a larger share of the e-book market (20%) than it does of the bricks-and-mortar store market (17%). Lynch said given the investment necessary to sell a large number of e-books, he believes the e-book market will be dominated by only three or four players. B&N's advantage will be its stores and its commitment, despite the Nook, to remain "device agnostic" in selling e-books to all types of devices. ...

The optimism of B&N executives is tied in part to the belief that digital books will grow the entire market for consumer books. Riggio likened e-books to the debut of mass market paperbacks, which transformed the industry by making books more widely available than they had been and at cheaper prices. E-books will grow to a $6 billion business by 2013, B&N predicts, driving consumer book sales to $27 billion, and their growth will offset the projected $2 billion decline in the sale of print books.

Offline

I'll take a break for the July 4th weekend. Back on Monday, the 5th. Peace, - EJR

E Ink Pearl for the Revised (But Still Doomed "Odd Duck") Kindle DX

The adoption of E Ink Pearl is actually a pretty major leap, taking the Kindle family of products significantly closer to color displays. From Chris Nuttal on the Financial Times Tech Blog:

“We are in the process of building a colour display - our colour display is essentially a monochrome display with a colour filter on top,” Sri Peruvemba, head of E Ink global sales, told me.

This filter reduces the light going into the display, affecting the contrast, which is particularly noticeable on black and white text.

“We had to change the fundamental display so that we had double the contrast. Then, when we put the colour filter on top, the black and white text should look at least as good as the current product - so that’s what drove us to do this.”

E Ink has adjusted the chemistry of its black and white pigments and optimised the display to produce contrast ratios that can be better than the 50 per cent improvement claimed for the DX. ...

(Note: You'll find an excellent summary of the Pearl display technology here.) As PC Magazine observes, however, neither the new screen technology nor the DX price cut are likely to save that specific device:

The Kindle DX, of course, isn't an iPad-style tablet, nor was it designed to be. It's essentially a plus-sized e-reader with a 9.7-inch display; global 3G service for downloading e-books and a limited selection of Web-based content; and a mini-keyboard that's sufficient for limited text entry.

In short, it's a nonconformist struggling to find a niche. Want to read in coach on a cross-country flight? Lounge by the pool and indulge in a trashy bestseller? Take your e-reader to the gym? The smaller devices are a better ergonomic match for these uses. Sure, the Kindle DX has a larger screen, but its bigger form factor can be a disadvantage too. A smaller e-reader is easier to pack. It's lighter too. (Yes, we're talking a few ounces here, but those add up when you're holding a reader for hours at a time.)

Tablet shoppers? Kindle DX isn't on their radar screen. The iPad crowd wants a whiz-bang gadget for apps, games, movies, and music--and that's not the Kindle's thing. Besides, the DX looks old school, even if it isn't. ... Younger customers might think, "Hey, this would be great for my mom..."

Oh no. The stench of uncool.

Kindle DX may ultimately find its niche in vertical markets such as education, where e-textbook readers could prove an affordable alternative to conventional textbooks. (Come to think of it, anything would be more affordable than today's overpriced textbooks.) However, a trial run at Princeton University last year was a bust, with students griping about the DX's slow performance, poor annotation tools, and page-reformatting quirks. ...

DX is dead. Long live the Kindle. Soon to be color.