Publishers Look Beyond Bookstores

Coming to a bait and tackle shop near you. NY Times: " ... Publishers have stocked books in nonbook retailers for decades — a coffee-table book in the home department, a novelty book in Urban Outfitters. In the last year, though, some publishers have increased their efforts as the two largest bookstore chains have changed course. Barnes & Noble has been devoting more floor space for displays of e-readers, games and educational toys. Borders, after filing for bankruptcy protection in February, has begun liquidating some 200 of its superstores. ... "

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AT&T stores to carry Amazon's Kindle 3G

Reuters:

AT&T will begin carrying online retailer Amazon.com Inc's market-leading Kindle electronic reader next week, expanding the device's availability in stores.

AT&T said it would start selling the Kindle 3G at its stores across the United States beginning on Sunday and feature it in its device displays.

Amazon, whose Kindle competes with Barnes & Noble Inc's Nook and Apple Inc's iPad, has been trying to make the Kindle more widely available for sale beyond its own web site on the assumption shoppers prefer to try e-readers before buying them.

Last year, office supplies retailer Staples Inc, discount chain Target Corp and Best Buy Co Inc all started carrying the Kindle.

Forrester Research estimated in December that about 6 million Kindles had been sold at that point since its launch in 2007, far ahead of the Nook and other devices.

This Library E-Book Will Self-Destruct After 26 Check Outs

NY Times: " ... imagine, if you will, a publishing company - oh, let's say HarperCollins - telling libraries that after checking out a book a certain number of times - oh, let's say 26 - that they've reached the cap on loans. The book can no longer be shared, and libraries need to return the copy or buy the book again. ... "

E-commerce drives Q3 growth for Barnes & Noble

- Web accounted for 89.3%—$150 million—of all growth in the latest quarter, per Internet Retailer.

NOOK for Android updated with new grid view, wish list and download progress meter

intomobile: "Barnes & Noble has updated its NOOK Android app adding in few of the user-requested features. Version 2.5 comes with a new library grid view, wish list facility and download progress meter, along with “other improvements” — I assume they talk about performance improvements."

Google adds eBooks to Android Market

Important given advent of Honeycomb for new gen of Android tablets. Expert Reviews: "An extension of the Google eBooks store launched late last year in the US and formerly known as Google Editions, the Books portion of Android Market makes it possible to buy and download electronic books for reading on an Android 3.0 device."

Kindle for the Web - or - Why Amazon Isn’t Worried About Apple’s In-App Purchasing Rules

Chuck Toporek @ chuckdude: " ... the reason we haven’t heard Jeff Bezos screaming about this recent change to the IAP rules is because Amazon isn’t worried. They have a solution already in beta testing and it works just fine. Instead of using the Kindle app, iOS users can just point Safari to Amazon’s site, buy the Kindle ebook, and read it right there in Safari. No app required. Again, Kindle for the Web is just a beta right now, so full text isn’t available at the moment. You can bet Amazon will make a big splash about this, though, once they have all the publishers lined up and ready to go."

O'Reilly ebooks outsell print editions by more than 8 to 1

Pocket-lint: "Technology and computer book publisher O'Reilly has revealed that 88 per cent of its unit sales in 2010 were ebooks, with print editions and paid-for video taking up the other 12 per cent combined. In addition, 79 per cent of its dollar revenue was generated by digital versions of its titles."

Apple Announces an iPad-2 Event

NYTimes: "Apple on Wednesday sent the news media an official invitation to an event that is expected to showcase the next iPad. The e-mail said Apple would be holding an 'invitation-only event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco on March 2.' Although invitations to Apple events are usually cryptic, this announcement was less subtle, as it shows a calendar page peeling back to reveal an iPad."

Motorola Xoom - Bad Timing, High Price, Complex Interface

Xoom price = $800, $70 above 32-gig iPad. + iPad 2 about to launch. + Honeycomb a complex interface compared to iOS. NYTimes: "Starting Thursday, you’ll be able to buy one of the most eagerly awaited iPad rivals: the Motorola Xoom. Like most iPad aspirants, this one runs Google’s Android software — but the Xoom is the first that runs Android 3.0 (code-named Honeycomb), which Google designed for tablets instead of phones."

RIP, Alex eReader

RIP, Alex eReader: "The Spring Design Alex eReader is dead. The Android-powered dual-screen device is no longer in stock and production on new units has ceased. Company officials claim the investor has pulled funding."

Amazon's delivery fees for Kindle books putting a hurt on publishers of graphic novels, comics

PW: "However, while there is a nascent market for comics on e-book readers like the Kindle and B&N’s color device, the Nook, Amazon’s recently introduced digital 'delivery fee,' charging publishers 15 cents per megabyte to transfer a book’s file to the Kindle, has forced some comics publishers to rethink using the Kindle platform. While novels are text-based and unlikely to run up a delivery charge much over $0.02, graphic novels have a much higher bandwidth, and could be forced into a lower payment/royalty rate and higher list price because of their file size, directly because of these Amazon fees. In addition, Amazon also has a recommended file size which affects graphic novel pricing."

Steve Haber Speaks: Apple’s Rejection, Sony Reader Sales, the Future of E-Ink

PW: "In a wide ranging conversation, Sony Reader president Steve Haber said the Sony Readers have sold millions of units; that the redesigned Touch and Pocket edition units have sold out completely and he maintained that Apple changed the rules on them when it rejected the Sony iPad/iPhone app. Haber outlined a growing international demand for Sony Readers, the launch of a library device lending program and emphasized that not only are e-ink devices 'not doomed' but “set to replace the traditional book."

Barnes & Noble 3Q net income falls

Yahoo! Finance: "NEW YORK (AP) -- Book seller Barnes & Noble's third-quarter revenue rose, but its net income fell 25 despite higher revenue as it continued to invest in its online operations and Nook e-readers, the company said Tuesday. Barnes & Noble also said it was suspending its quarterly dividend, and it doesn't plan to forecast its fourth-quarter or full-year earnings due to the effect of last week's bankruptcy filing by Borders Group."

Amazon’s New Kindle Commercial Jabs At iPad Again

SlashGear: "The Kindle commercial also accentuates the fact that their device can run up to a month on one battery charge and comes at you with a relatively affordable price point of $139. These advantages plus their overall feel-good message of 'The Book Lives On' should appeal to the true book enthusiasts. And for those book lovers considering an iPad instead, Amazon warns you again in this commercial of the imminent glare."

Books Beyond Borders

Megan McArdle, The Atlantic: "At least Barnes and Noble should be happy; this erases their biggest competition for bricks-and-mortar pure brick retailing. But looking to the future, they too have to be nervous. All that real estate is expensive, and their margins are under pressure from Wal-Mart on the bricks-and-mortar side, and Amazon on the web. One wonders if the Nook can really make up for those competitive disadvantages."

Amazon pushes out Kindle update

TechCentral: "US e-retailer Amazon.com has released the first major software update for its popular Kindle e-reader since it unveiled the Kindle 3 last year. The new software introduces real page numbers that match the pages in printed books, a feature long requested by users of the popular device. The software update, version 3.1, will be pushed to SA Kindle users in the next few days. A Wi-Fi connection is needed to download and install the update. It will not be made available over the cellular networks. ... "

Alexander Nazaryan on the future of publishing - best soundbite of the month award

NY Daily News: "In truth, flooding the market with books doesn't work, because books aren't like shoes or groceries. Readers don't demand choice as much as they demand quality. Fewer books, rigorously edited and thoughtfully published, would have better served both readers and writers. ... If there is hope for publishing, it is with modest presses and modest books, putting out titles for small but loyal audiences. But that's not something that's going to warm the heart of Penguin's CEO."

No More Crippled iBooks? Jailbreaking Tool's Update Claims to Fix Issues

NYTimes: "Last week, Apple updated its e-reader app iBooks with several minor new features and one very unwelcome tweak that affected users of jailbroken phones. Jailbreakers who downloaded the update were no longer able to use iBooks on their mobile phone. 'Apple deliberately crippled my device,' wrote an angry blogger on Social Apples after realizing what had occurred. Today, an update to the jailbreaking tool Sn0wbreeze may have addressed this issue, according to reports from mobile bloggers and Twitter."

Borders bankruptcy's impact across the industry

PW: "The trickle-down impact will affect everyone from manufacturers to agents. Borders accounted for about 8% of overall industry sales, a higher percentage in some categories. A downsized Borders means publishers are likely to receive smaller orders and in turn place smaller first printings, resulting in less business for printers. The likelihood of lower print sales, one publisher said, means that books acquired one or two years ago when Borders was much bigger will have a more difficult time earning the advance back and that less shelf space could mean lower advances."

AAP Reports the Obvious: eBooks Boosted Sales in 2010

PW: "The Association of American Publishers' domestic sales report for 2010 showed e-book sales jumping significantly from last year, rising 164.4%, with e-books bringing in $441 million at the 14 companies that reported sales, compared to $166.9 million in 2009. While all print categories were down slightly in 2010, children's/YA hardcover dropped the most, at 9.5%. The good news for reporting companies is that the significant growth in e-book sales was able to make up for the drops in print revenue, resulting in a 0.2% increase in combined print and e-book sales in 2010. E-book sales represented 8.3% of combined trade sales in 2010, up from 3.2% in 2009. E-book sales have jumped 623% since 2008, when sales from reporting companies were $61.3 million, a figure that represented about 1% of trade sales."

Can Tina Brown successfully reinvent Newsweek?

Money quote from NY Times: " ... there is the much larger question of whether a weekly magazine is still a viable format for delivering the news. Publishing veterans are not focused on whether Ms. Brown can sustain Newsweek as readers have come to know it during the last 78 years. What she needs to do, they say, is create a whole new magazine from scratch. 'Whether it can be saved is irrelevant,' said Ron Galotti, the former Vanity Fair publisher, who worked with Ms. Brown at Conde Nast and left the company with her to help start Talk. 'What is to be created is the task.'"

Book Lovers Fear Dim Future for Marginalia

per NY Times re: digital. But I'm a book lover; and I don't give a rat's ass.

Apple’s Message to Publishers: Quality

Interesting "take" on Apple's new subscription model. Liam Cassidy via NYTimes: "Much publishing today is less concerned with quality than it is with quantity. The more copies there are of a magazine in circulation — or clicks on a web page — the more eyeballs see accompanying ads. In a world where, more than ever before, readers have more choice of content, but less time to engage with it, for many publishers, the key to generating appreciable revenue lies not in value, but in volume. ... Online publishing’s focus on advertising, sponsorship and syndication is problematic, for viewers and for Apple as a company that wants to provide worthwhile content for users of its platforms. Great quality content, in this model, is of little use to publishers, despite the fact that it happens to be precisely the thing readers actually want. Apple, I think, has noticed this problem, and is now taking positive steps to solve it. Apple wants to ensure that publishing on the iPad is never anything less than top quality, where the paramount priorities of publishers lie always in ensuring the quality of their content."

Pressure mounts over Apple's 30% subscription charge

BBC: "Pressure is mounting on Apple over subscription charges it plans to levy on some mobile content. The company wants a 30% cut of payments for newspapers and other publications downloaded to its devices. Anti-trust regulators in the US and Europe are reportedly poised to investigate the new pricing model. ... "

Apple Subscription Service Draws Antitrust Scrutiny

We all saw this coming, right? NYTimes: "Apple’s new subscription service for iPad and iPhone applications, which has drawn complaints from some publishers, has also drawn the attention of federal antitrust regulators, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. ... "

GOB Banners To Go Up Friday for 200 Borders Stores

PW: "At Thursday morning’s hearing for Borders’ bankruptcy, Chief Judge Arthur Gonzalez of U.S. District Court, Southern District of N.Y., gave the retailer the go ahead to liquidate 200 stores and begin going-out-of-business sales on Friday rather than hold off for the customary 21-day waiting period. ... "

Nook Color Honeycomb 'beta' hack advances | Crave - CNET

Carnoy, CNET: "A couple of weeks ago, I posted something on how an industrious Android enthusiast, who goes by the handle deeper-blue on the xdadevelopers' forum, had hacked or 'rooted' the Nook Color to run a preview version of Honeycomb. At the time, we were looking at a pretty crude port that was missing a lot of Honeycomb's core features. But since then, some improvements have been made, giving 'rooters' hope that the slightly underpowered Nook Color might be able to handle Google's Android 3.0 operating system for tablets without running too sluggishly. Several videos of "HoneyNook" in action have cropped up in recent days, including the embedded video from Noah at TechnoBuffalo, who credits the newer NookHoney port to deeper-dev. More recently, David Cogen at theunlockr.com put together his own NookHoney demo complete with a background soundtrack. His assessment: "Not bad for a $250 tablet running beta software...it can only get better." (Note: Cogen is running the Honeycomb port from the internal memory, which works better and has the Android Market, but is harder to undo)."

AAP Stats on Viral eBook Sales Growth

More good #s: "E-books grew a dramatic 164.8 percent in December 2010 vs the previous year ($49.5 Million vs $18.7M). In the AAP’s ninth year of tracking this category, E-books once again increased significantly on an annual basis, up 164.4 percent for 2010 vs 2009 ($441.3M vs $166.9M). E-book sales represented 8.32 percent of the trade book market in 2010 vs 3.20 percent the previous year. ... "

S&P Analyst: US Market "Over-Saturated" in Terms of Number of Retail Book Stores

NYTimes.com: "'The book retailing industry is very challenging right now,' said Michael Souers, an analyst for Standard & Poor’s. 'We’ve had significant transformation. Bookstores have gradually been losing their prominence, and the U.S. market is over-saturated in terms of the number of retail stores. So that trend will likely continue as e-books gain more prevalence in the market.' ... "

Kobo Reassures Its E-Book Customers After Borders Declares Bankruptcy

NYTimes: "Kobo readers join Borders customers today in asking, 'What's next?' And Kobo has responded with a blog post, reassuring users that its service - and their digital purchases - will remain intact. What does Borders' bankruptcy mean for Kobo customers? 'Nothing,' says Kobo, stating its independence from Borders and its financial security. ... "

Bankruptcy Filing Means Borders Owes Big Publishers Millions

Trachtenberg, WSJ: "'If publishers are lucky, they'll get back 25 cents on the dollar,' said Jed Lyons, chief executive of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group Inc., which publishes its own titles and distributes books for other publishers through its National Book Network. According to Wednesday's filing, Borders owes National Book Network $2 million. Although many publishers scaled back deliveries to Borders in the past year as its finances worsened, the filing showed they were the bookseller's biggest unsecured creditors, with the six largest on the list owed a combined $182 million. In first place was Penguin Group (USA), a unit of Pearson PLC, which Borders owes $41.1 million, followed in close order by Lagardère SCA's Hachette Book Group and CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster Inc. ... "

With Borders decline, industry loses millions of square feet of shelf space (permanently)

Hillel Italie, AP: "Whether or not Borders survives closing some 200 stores, the 'superstore' boom of the past two decades has busted, authors and publishers face a market minus millions of square feet of physical shelf space and communities once crowded with booksellers may find themselves with none. ... "

Google Announces Payment System for Digital Content: Google One Pass

NYTimes: "SAN FRANCISCO — A day after Apple stirred up online publishers by announcing a digital subscription plan that some called too restrictive and financially burdensome, Google on Wednesday announced its own payment service for digital content that aims to be more publisher-friendly. ... "

Good roundup of pundit opinion Amazon vs. Apple re: in-app iPad content purchases -

From The Bookseller.

Conde Nast Newsstand Tries Convergence of Technologies

NYTimes: "LONDON — A newsstand set to open here next week will sell more than a dozen international editions of Vogue magazine, in languages including English, Russian and Chinese. More than 100 other titles from around the world will line the shelves, with little flags indicating their country of origin. Visitors will be able to browse through digital versions of these and other publications on iPads tethered to sleek plastic tables. ... "

And Here We Go: Borders Files for Bankruptcy

NYTimes: "Borders Group, the beleaguered bookseller, filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after failing to secure agreements with publishers and other vendors about reorganizing its debt. The bookseller listed $1.29 billion in debt and $1.27 billion in assets in a filing in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan. ... "

No iBooks For You - Latest iBooks Version Won't Work On Jailbroken Phones

NYTimes: "Apple's e-reader app iBooks received an update last week, boasting a fairly typical set of changes: better stability, better layout, and a connection to AirPrint. But according to some reports, this latest version can cause problems for those trying to open e-books on jailbroken iPhones. ... "

Apple: if we get you subscribers, we deserve a cut

Ars Technica:

It has been almost two weeks since The Daily made its debut on the iPad, but Apple has finally announced its in-app subscription terms for other offerings in the App Store. The system is open to all publishers of content-based apps—music, newspapers, video, and magazines, but not insurance policies. Anyone who sells subscription-based content outside the App Store must also use Apple's system, giving Apple a 30 percent cut. Hello in-app Netflix subscriptions?

"Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app."

Apple's announcement went on to emphasize that publishers are not limited to using the App Store for subscriptions; they're allowed to use their own websites to sell subs. They can even offer free access via their apps to existing out-of-app subscribers (so, if you subscribe to a magazine in print form and that magazine lets you get iPad subscriptions for free as part of your agreement, that's still allowed). However, companies cannot offer those types of subscriptions as the only options within their iOS apps—just like Apple's newly enforced rule with e-books, publishers must go all-in with Apple's subscriptions and their own, or they can't be on the App Store.

Oh, and the subscriptions offered within iOS apps must be the same price or less as the company's other offerings, and the apps can no longer link to an outside store where users can purchase content. ...

Blog To Book Deals ... and Market Saturation

Digits - WSJ: "Blogger starts a blog. Blogger solicits photos or texts or emails. Blogger gets a book deal. That formula has been wildly successful for the last few years, but is showing signs of market saturation. ... "

Borders demise signals end for chain bookstores

Retail Gazette (UK):

High street book shops are becoming increasingly rare, with many of the biggest names in the sector pushed into oblivion by buying online and the increasing popularity of reading devices such as the Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPad. ...

Just over a year ago Borders closed the doors of all of its UK stores, marking the start of a disastrous down-turn for the industry.

The next to go was British Bookshops which announced its move into administration in January, and more recently Waterstones closed of 11 stores in the UK and Ireland following disappointing December sales trading.

So the question is whether there is still space for a large chain bookstore on high streets around the world?

Consulting Director of Verdict Research Neil Saunders argures that because bookstores require an extensive amount of space in order to offer a wide selection of books, a combination of low sales and high rents can be lethal. ...

At Huff Post and Social Media Networks - A Nation of Serfs, and a "Tom Sawyer Moment"

David Carr, NY Times:

... The Huffington Post, social networks and traditional media may all seem like different animals, but as advertising, the mother’s milk of all media, flows toward social and amateur media, low-cost and no-cost content is becoming the norm.

For those of us who make a living typing, it’s all very scary, of course. It’s less about the diminution of authority and expertise, although there is that, and more about the growing perception that content is a commodity, and one that can be had for the price of zero. (Content manufacturers like Demand Media that gin up $15 articles based on searches, put the price only slightly above that.) Old-line media companies that are not only forced to compete with the currency and sexiness of social media, but also burdened by a cost structure for professionally produced content, are left at a profound disadvantage.

For the media, this is a Tom Sawyer moment. “Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” he says to his friends, and sure enough, they are soon lined up for the privilege of doing his chores. That’s a bit like how social networks get built. (Just imagine if Tom had also schooled them in the networking opportunities of the user-generated endeavor: “You’re not just painting a fence. You’re building an audience around your personal brand.”)

“The technology of a lot of these sites is very seductive, and it lulls you into contributing,” said Anthony De Rosa, a product manager at Reuters. “We are being played for suckers to feed the beast, to create content that ends up creating value for others.”

Last month, Mr. De Rosa wrote — on Tumblr, naturally — about how audiences became publishers, essentially painting the fence for the people who own the various platforms.

“We live in a world of Digital Feudalism,” he wrote. “The land many live on is owned by someone else, be it Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr, or some other service that offers up free land and the content provided by the renter of that land essentially becomes owned by the platform that owns the land.” ...

Borders' Bankruptcy, eBooks, and Evaporating Physical Shelf-Space

Jeff Trachtenberg and Paul Sonne, Wall Street Journal:

A bankruptcy filing by Borders Group Inc., which could come within days, will mean fewer places for consumers to buy books, which in turn is expected to speed the pace of online and e-book sales.

Borders has been putting the finishing touches on a store-closure program that could eliminate more than one-third of its 674 stores as part of a Chapter 11 restructuring, according to people familiar with the matter.

"Once physical shelf space is gone, it's gone forever," says Mark Coker, chief executive of Smashwords Inc., an e-book publishing and distribution platform based in Los Gatos, Calif. "If you remove books from our towns and villages and malls, there will be less opportunity for the serendipitous discovery of books. And that will make it tougher to sell books." ...

Why Innovation Doffs an Old Hat

NY Times: "Just as the average human carries around the remnants of a prehistoric tail and a useless appendix, the tools we use also bear marks of the evolutionary process from which they arose. Add to that list Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle, which will now supplement its 'location numbers' with page numbers that correspond to physical books. The change, announced last week, does have a practical purpose — especially for book clubs, whose digital readers presumably will no longer have trouble looking up the same page as analog readers. But there is also a sense of absurdity here. E-books, by definition, do not have pages. Depending on which size font someone uses, she may have to advance the screen many times before 'turning a page.' Then there are the questions of how to approach books with many physical editions, or texts that exist only in digital space. ... "

Time Inc. Strikes Blows for Publishers in Standoff with Apple

Jeff Bercovici - Mixed Media - Forbes:

For Time Inc., the world’s biggest magazine company, the quickest way to get it titles onto iPad screens may be getting them onto other tablets first.

While other publishers wrangle with Apple over the ins and outs of subscription sales in the iTunes store — How big a cut does Apple get to keep? Who gets control of the consumer’s information? Should the customer get to choose? — Time Inc. is moving ahead diagonally, making deals with the makers of other devices in hopes of gaining leverage in its negotiations with Apple.

Today, Sports Illustrated introduced an “All Access” subscription plan that will allow readers to pay one price to read the magazine in print, online, on Samsung Galaxy tablets and on Android phones. Although newspapers including The Wall Street Journal already offer such an option, SI is the first magazine to do so, according to managing editor Terry McDonell. The news comes just in time for the magazine’s swimsuit issue, its biggest annual seller. ...

Borders Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

Mike Spector and Jeff Trachtenberg, WSJ:

Borders Group Inc. is in the final stages of preparing a bankruptcy filing after failing to persuade publishers and others to go along with a plan to refinance the troubled bookstore chain's debt.

The Ann Arbor, Mich., bookseller could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as soon as Monday or Tuesday, said people familiar with the matter, paving the way for the closure of about 200 stores and thousands of job losses.

The people cautioned the filing could be delayed a few days. But Borders has pivoted from focusing on refinancing efforts and is preparing bankruptcy papers and seeking financing agreements that would keep it afloat during the Chapter 11 reorganization process, those people said.

"There have been constant inquiries by reporters, and stories written, regarding whether Borders is considering a Chapter 11 filing," a Borders spokesman said. "Borders is not prepared at this time to report on the course of action it will pursue."

Borders initially plans to close about 200 of its 674 stores, the people said. Liquidators have been bidding for the right to run the store closures, with an option to close an additional 50 stores or so under similar terms, the people said. ...

Hedge fund financier acknowledges $125 million loss on Borders investment

AnnArborDOTcom: "One of the top investors in Ann Arbor-based Borders Group Inc. acknowledged that his New York-based hedge fund has lost $125 million on its investment in the book store chain, Bloomberg BusinessWeek is reporting. Activist investor Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management 'admits' the Borders investment was a mistake, the magazine says in a lengthy profile story. ... "

Apple, Google and the Publishers: Here’s How to Make Subscriptions Work

John Squires | AllThingsD: "In recent weeks, we’ve heard growing concern from magazine and newspaper publishers regarding the challenge of providing content for mobile media while preserving their print franchises. The concern is nothing new, but it’s apparent that content providers are at risk of losing track of their customers like toddlers in a shopping mall. ... "

Sports Illustrated Magazine to Offer Subscriptions for Android Devices

Digits - WSJ: "Sports Illustrated magazine on Friday afternoon will start offering subscriptions to digital editions on Android smart phones and tablets, according to a person familiar with the matter. ... "

Yahoo Launches "Livestand"

One more aggregator. NYTimes: "Yahoo on Thursday announced the debut of Livestand, a publishing platform that aims to deliver personalized content to mobile devices. As The New York Times first reported on Sunday, the platform, a digital newsstand, will offer a continuous stream of programming based on users’ interests. Yahoo plans to push the platform across multiple formats, including tablets, smartphones, and Web browsers, according to the company’s press release."

PC WORLD Ponders the eBook Format Morass

Money quote: "Ultimately, what consumers need is e-books that they can buy and read anywhere, using any software they choose on any device they have at hand, whether it be a phone, a tablet, a laptop, or a PC. No muss, no fuss. This issue is critical to library management and to the future success of e-books."

HP TouchPad and Other Tablets vs. the Advantaged iPad

Michael Hickins, WSJ: "Hewlett-Packard announced its entry into the mobile device space today, but is entering a market already crowded with strong contenders. The market, currently dominated by Apple’s iPad (which hogged approximately 87 percent of the worldwide market in 2010, according to research firm IDC), already includes Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, and will count the likes of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Research in Motion and Dell, all of whom intend to ship by the end of this year. But it’s that very timing that gives Apple such a huge advantage, according to Susan Kevorkian, who follows the mobile device market for IDC. ... "

Amazon HP TouchPad Kindle App

Gizmocrunch: "While no release date has been specified, it is expected to launch around the same time the HP TouchPad hits the market (summer release). With the HP TouchPad Kindle app, you can read Amazon Kindle books on your tablet and even sync it with other devices you own (e.g. iPad, iPhone). Amazon has also announced that the Kindle app will be making its way to Android, BlackBerry and Windows 7 tablets soon as well, allowing you to share book with just about every platform. ... "

Kindle Books on Linux

Amazon Kindle 3 and Kindle DX Review and News Blog: "As of recently it is possible to run Kindle for PC application via Wine on Linux. I tested it on 64-bit install of Ubuntu 10.10 and put together this step-by-step instructions and a short review. Enjoy! ... "

Page Numbers for Kindle Books an Imperfect Solution

But imperfect is all we can hope for - so says Dave Pogue in the NY Times.

Powell’s Lays Off 31 Workers

PW: "In a sign that no bricks-and-mortar bookstore, even one with a strong online presence, is immune from today’s economic conditions, 40-year-old Powell’s Books in Portland laid off 31 employees yesterday. ... "

Apple's New iPad in Production

Wall Street Journal: "Apple Inc. has started manufacturing a new version of its iPad tablet computer with a built-in camera and faster processor, said people familiar with the matter. The new iPad will be thinner and lighter than the first model, these people said. It will have at least one camera on the front of the device for features like video-conferencing, but the resolution of the display will be similar to the first iPad, these people said. It will also have more memory and a more powerful graphics processor, they said. The new iPad will initially be available through Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., but not Sprint Nextel Corp. or T-Mobile USA in the U.S., according to some of the people familiar with the matter. ... "

European publishers upset over Apple's iTunes subscription fees, restrictions

AppleInsider:

A group of European newspaper publishers has warned Apple that a 30 percent commission on iTunes subscription revenue and restrictive conditions would be unfair, according to a new report.

The BBC reports that the European Newspaper Publishers' Association has expressed concern over Apple's revenue split for iTunes digital periodical subscriptions and possible restrictions limiting whether iPad users can subscribe to a periodical through the company's own website.

The ENPA warns that Apple is demanding too large a cut of publishers' profits while potentially banning newspapers from taking subscriptions via their own websites. ...

Yankee Group: eReader sales to reach $8.2 billion by 2014

Boston Globe: "Global sales of e-readers such as the Kindle are projected to reach $8.2 billion by 2014, according to a new report from Yankee Group, a Boston-based market research firm. That's up from 2010 sales of nearly $1.9 billion, or from about 11 million units last year to a projected 72 million in unit sales in 2014, Yankee Group said. And by 2014, the average retail price for an e-reader device should be $114, down from a 2010 average of $182, Yankee Group said. ... "

Having stopped shipments to Borders Group, publisher John Wiley writes off $9 million, doesn't expect payment

Crain's Detroit Business Mobile: "With Borders Group Inc. now into its third month of withholding payments to some landlords and publishers, a New Jersey-based publisher is giving up on getting paid by the bookseller. Last Friday, John Wiley & Sons Inc. (NYSE: JWA) filed a disclosure stating that it is recording $9 million in bad debt because of nonpayment by Ann Arbor-based Borders. Wiley based its reporting of bad debt on 'the status of our current business relationship with Borders Group Inc. and potential future adverse financial events that may affect this customer,' according to the 8K document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. ... "

Amazon adds "real" page numbers to Kindle eBooks

PC Pro:

... At the moment, Kindle eBooks show the percentage of a book a reader has finished, as well as the 'location' - usually a number reaching into the thousands.

Because the location number doesn't correspond with page numbers in physical printed copies of books, it makes it difficult to use the Kindle as part of classes or book groups.

"Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or class," the company said in a post on the Kindle blog.

"Rather than add page numbers that don’t correspond to print books, which is how page numbers have been added to eBooks in the past, we’re adding real page numbers that correspond directly to a book’s print edition." ...

What's to stop ...

iPaders from buying Kindle books not through app but direct thru browser in Amazon, and only then opening app to read? I'm probably missing something obvious. But, anyway, that's my question.

Hands-On With The Daily (Sure Doesn't Feel Like The Future of The Newspaper)

Audrey Watters dissects The Daily, and doesn't like what she finds: "The launch event for Rupert Murdoch's new iPad-only newspaper The Daily was full of rhetoric about the future of journalism, heralding the app as a 'this changes everything' sort of moment. But having had a chance to download and read today's inaugural issue, it doesn't seem that the user experience matches the rhetoric. That may not be a surprise as plenty of people have long predicted The Daily would be a flop. But it still feels like a shame, considering the resources (some $30 million from Murdoch himself) that have been poured into the endeavor and considering the promise for a reinvented and reinvigorated journalism. That's just my opinion, of course, as are these first impressions of the new app ... "

The Daily vs. Flipboard - Which Wins?

Richard MacManus prefers Flipboard: "Last week Rupert Murdoch's iPad-only newspaper The Daily was launched. The Daily is a newspaper app available to U.S. users on the iPad for 99c per week (the first 2 weeks are free; non-U.S. people can download it for trial via this method). The Daily has been touted as the 'future of the newspaper' by News Corp. Audrey Watters wrote our initial review of The Daily and she was underwhelmed. In my own testing, I've found The Daily to be inferior to my current iPad 'newspaper' of choice: Flipboard. Here's how I came to that conclusion..."

Android Powered Archos 70 Joins eReader Market

At $149, serious competition for the Nook. EverythingUSB: "Archos will begin shipping a new Android device which will undercut every other 7 inch tablet available now. The Archos 70 tablet unassumingly sports the usual feature set of lower end tablets. Marketed as an eReader, the Archos 70 is an a capable tablet that ‘should’ come with all the abilities of any Android device. In the past, Archos has chosen to disable some of the Android features in order to focus users on their intended features; Music,Video and eBooks. These lockouts are usually quickly undone by the modding community. ... "

Big Brains on eBooks

Of these "big brains," only Judith Regan and Bill Lynch have anything to say that's relevant, or based in reality. Newsweek: "The transformation of the book industry has reached a tipping point. Electronic books now outsell paperbacks on Amazon, the retailer recently announced. And Borders, the second-largest bookstore chain in the United States, is reportedly considering a bankruptcy filing. With books evolving at warp speed, we polled some literary brains on the future of reading ... "

Apple rumored to hold "small event" in March to usher in new iPad

AppleInsider: "Apple may be planning a smaller than usual event to introduce its second-generation iPad as early as next month, according to a scant report, as rumors that the new device will include NFC technology persist. ... "

AOL to Buy The Huffington Post for $315 Million

Pay nothing for content; aggregate that content; build brand; sell franchise for $315 million. And there you have it. Huff Post's profitability, however, remains an unknown. But AOL seems only to have paid about seven times gross revenue, so from that perspective the price is quite reasonable. NYTimes: "The deal is AOL’s biggest since separating from Time Warner in 2009, and showcases the company’s intent to focus on original content. (In September, AOL bought TechCrunch, the influential technology blog founded by Michael Arrington.) But it also represents a major media move by The Huffington Post’s co-founder, Arianna Huffington. ... "

NYSE Warns Borders Stock Price Too Low For Continued Listing

WSJ: "Borders Group Inc. (BGP) said Friday the New York Stock Exchange warned that the price of its stock needs to rise above $1 a share in the next six months to continue its listing. Shares were down 2% at 39 cents in after-hours trading. Through the close of trading Friday, the stock has declined 67% in the last year, with shares particularly struggling in recent weeks as investors question the bookseller's ability to restructure outside bankruptcy court. The NYSE, a part of NYSE Euronext (NYX), notified Borders Thursday that the average closing price of its stock has failed to meet a $1 minimum over the last 30 trading days. In order to continue its listing, the company has six months to return the stock price to compliance. ... "

E-Book Sales Rise in Children’s and Young Adult Categories

NYTimes:

Something extraordinary happened after Eliana Litos received an e-reader for a Hanukkah gift in December.

“Some weeks I completely forgot about TV,” said Eliana, 11. “I went two weeks with only watching one show, or no shows at all. I was just reading every day.”

Ever since the holidays, publishers have noticed that some unusual titles have spiked in e-book sales. The “Chronicles of Narnia” series. “Hush, Hush.” The “Dork Diaries” series.

At HarperCollins, for example, e-books made up 25 percent of all young-adult sales in January, up from about 6 percent a year before — a boom in sales that quickly got the attention of publishers there. ...

Digital Publishing Collateral Damage: H.B. Fenn, Canada's Largest Distributor, Goes Bankrupt

PW: "Canadian publishing was shaken yesterday by news that H.B. Fenn and Company, Canada’s largest book distributor and a stalwart in the industry for 30 years, had begun bankruptcy proceedings and appears to be shutting down, leaving its clients and authors scrambling. Fenn issued a brief statement Thursday, saying that it had filed a Notice of Intention to Make a Proposal under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. That could mean a restructuring proposal to allow the company to continue operating, but in the statement CEO and founder Harold Fenn said, 'My heart goes out to our over 125 employees and to the many publishers we represent, as well as the customers that have supported us over the years.' And indeed, according to sources, Fenn staff were told to pack up their belongings yesterday. ... "

Springer Starts Online Review Program

PW: "Springer has started its own online book review program, making 10,000 of its titles available for review on springer.com. The online book review copies includes all English-language e-books that have been published since 2006. According to Springer, the service is designed for journalists, editors and book reviewers who are granted temporary reading access."

Want to Read The Daily? No iPad, No Problem!

Yeah, but what lesson will the Times take away from this info? NYTimes: "Well, that didn’t take long. The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s big push into iPad-based publishing, was introduced on Wednesday. And on Thursday morning, an unsanctioned Web site appeared with links to every article in The Daily, free on the Web. ... "

Digital Magazines Hindered by Long Download Times

NYTimes: "This morning I decide to try a little experiment: I opened up my iPad, clicked on the little Wired icon and purchased the magazine’s latest digital issue. After I agreed to fork over $4, it began downloading. For the next phase of the experiment, I grabbed my car keys, left my apartment and drove about 12 blocks to a local magazine store in Brooklyn, where I also purchased the latest issue of Wired magazine, this time in print. ... "

Apple sets deadline for Amazon's Kindle app to change

Tecca:

Apple has now taken the next step in its attempt to enforce the app store policy of not allowing iOS apps to use content which was purchased from an outside source. It's announced that as of March 31st, all apps must make the content they use available for purchase from within the app itself — paying Apple the customary 30% which it receives from every app store transaction.

To illustrate what will be changing, we'll use Amazon's Kindle app for iPhone and iPad as an example: Prior to the change, Kindle customers could purchase their reading materials straight from the Amazon website, and then load and read them via the Kindle app on their iPhone or iPad.

Apple's problem with this setup seems to be that it isn't seeing a cut of the money; Amazon distributes the app for free and all transactions are made directly through Amazon. After March 31st, Kindle users will need to be able to purchase their reading material through the Kindle app itself, which means Apple will receive 30% of the revenue.

What happens next is anyone's guess. Amazon could comply with the decision, and either absorb the hit to its Kindle proceeds, jack up the price of app-purchased reading materials to offset Apple's cut, or simply call Apple's bluff and allow the app to remain the way it is. Whatever their decision, it's going to be an interesting and tense couple of months between Amazon and Apple.

Authors Guild vs. The Free Market

PW: "To mark the one-year anniversary of what it calls 'the Great Blackout'--when Amazon pulled the buy buttons from Macmillan’s titles to protest the publisher’s adoption of the agency model--the Authors Guild is doing a series of member alerts looking at 'the state of e-books, authorship and publishing. ... " Want to survive the sinking of a ship? Swim away from it before the suction drags you down. The Authors Guild seems to like the Agency Model a hell of a lot more than does the British Office of Fair Trade.

News Corp. Launches "The Daily" iPad Newspaper

NYTimes: "Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday pushed the send button on The Daily, a news application designed for the iPad that he hopes will position his News Corporation front and center in the digital newsstand of the future. ... "

Analysis: Amazon Positioned for 50% Overall Market Share by End of 2012

Stephen Windwalker, Seeking Alpha: "... the low-margins interpretation [of Amazon's performance] misses another, much more dramatic story. The big story is that in just three years Amazon has positioned itself to triple its overall share of the U.S. book business for all formats. Before the end of 2012, Amazon could own more than half of the U.S. book business across all formats. ... " I agree with the above analysis and that Amazon will continue to be a great story over time, but I think the stock has gotten way ahead of itself from a P/E point-of-view. No reflection on the company, however, or its strategy.

EXCELLENT Interview with O'Reilly eBook Guru Andrew Savikas

John Martellaro, The Mac Observer: "Recently, I’ve been exploring and writing about ebooks, something of great interest to me. In the process of leaning more about ebooks — and purchasing a technical ebook from O’Reilly which came without DRM — I bumped into Andrew Savikas, interim CEO of Safari Books Online and the VP of Digital Initiatives at O’Reilly media. According to his bio, he’s also 'the Program Co-Chair for O’Reilly’s Tools of Change for Publishing conference, and is a regular contributor to the O’Reilly Radar blog on digital publishing issues.' I asked him some questions that have been on my mind as I’ve been learning more about ebooks, and he kindly provided some thoughtful answers. ... "

Wiley Launches New Program of Open Access Journals

PW:

In a move it says will increase “author choice,” Wiley ... announced the launch of a new line of peer-reviewed open access journals. Under the program, dubbed Wiley Open Access, the publisher will collaborate with professional and scholarly societies, which will appoint an Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board responsible for ensuring quality, beginning with disciplines in the life and biomedical sciences, including neuroscience, microbiology, ecology and evolution.

The journals will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. Publication will be supported by an author fee, payable on acceptance of their articles, although Wiley officials have not yet announced how much that fee would be, only that they will “introduce a range of new payment schemes,” including institutional agreements." ...

Apple: Nothing Has Changed. Except For This One Thing ...

Jason Kincaid, Techcrunch:

Last night the New York Times published a report stating that Sony’s E-Reader application had been rejected from Apple’s App Store, because it used a transaction system other than Apple’s In-App Payments. What’s worse, Apple was apparently blocking applications from downloading content that had been purchased outside the application — which could spell bad news for Amazon’s Kindle platform.

Now an Apple spokesperson has given us this statement:

“We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines. We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase.”

Huh?

At first glance it looks like the NYT article was simply mistaken — Apple is saying that its terms and guidelines are the same. Except now it’s apparently choosing a different way to actually enforce those terms, which makes the report seem accurate after all.

The most relevant passage from Apple’s developer guidelines — which were only published in September, mind you — appears to be section 11.2, which states:

Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected.

Now, Amazon’s Kindle app doesn’t conduct its purchases through the app itself — users are instead kicked off to a browser where they actually buy their books, and that content is then synced to the Kindle app. Apple’s rule is worded vaguely enough that it can claim this workaround is in violation of the guidelines. But it obviously hasn’t been enforced like this before now, so the notion that nothing has changed is clearly false.

It also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from the user’s perspective. Apple is effectively telling developers that they can offer two purchase flows for content: one through the browser, and another via in-app purchases. Apple is obviously assuming people will prefer the latter because it’s quicker and simply requires the user to enter their Apple password. But developers have an incentive to push users toward the browser flow so that they don’t have to give Apple a 30% cut of each purchase. Which could mean we start seeing some bizarre checkout flows that are anything but user friendly.

UK: eBook agency pricing investigation begins

TechRadar UK: "The Office of Fair Trading is investigating how ebooks are priced after receiving 'a significant number of complaints'. The complaints pertain to pricing arrangements between book publishers and retailers which could breach competition rules. ... "

On eve of 'The Daily' launch, rival iPad apps offer previews

AppleInsider:

Ahead of News Corp's unveiling of The Daily digital newspaper on Wednesday, developers showed off competing iPad apps, including a social news app from The New York Times and a digital book platform from a former Apple designer. ...

News Corp's iPad publication could also be the first to implement an iTunes subscription feature that Apple has reportedly been working on. Publishers have pressed Apple for an iPad subscription agreement that would automatically send content to paying customers.

Competitors, however, haven't been idly watching The Daily's development process. The New York Times, in collaboration with Betaworks, is working on News.me, a social news app that will aggregate article links from Twitter streams and link sharing site bit.ly, TechCrunch reports. The approach is worlds apart from News Corp's, which focuses on producing custom content.

Also making headlines Tuesday was Push Pop Press, a startup from former Apple designer and Delicious Monster founder Michael Matas. The startup, which aims to create a "new breed" of interactive digital books, launched a teaser site Tuesday. ...

Apple denies claim that Sony Reader, Kindle in danger on iOS App Store

AppleInsider:

... Wall Street Journal blogger John Paczkowski has reported official comment from Apple spokesperson Trudy Miller, who said the company has not "changed our developer terms or guidelines," while noting that "we are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase."

That would be the reverse of the situation reported by the Times, and also makes more sense. Pulling popular titles such as Kindle, and similar content-access apps including Dropbox, Hulu , Netflix and Pandora, would do little to benefit Apple.

That would be the reverse of the situation reported by the Times, and also makes more sense. Pulling popular titles such as Kindle, and similar content-access apps including Dropbox, Hulu+, Netflix and Pandora, would do little to benefit Apple.

In-app option required, but not exclusive

Instead, as Paczkowski explained, "Apple wants its cut on sales enabled by its iOS devices, it has an established guideline that allows it to take it and that’s what it’s doing.

"Developers are still free to send customers to their own Web stores, but they must also offer them the option of purchasing content within their apps themselves, and they must route those sales through Apple which will then take its percentage."

This harmonizes with Apple's previous policy, enabling users to buy through iTunes (and allowing Apple to earn a cut for facilitating the convenience) without forcing all content to be purchased within iTunes. For example, Amazon can sell Kindle-DRM ebooks directly from its website or through its own Kindle device, and iOS Kindle app users can sync those purchases to their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. ...

Harper's Publisher Rejects $50K in Union Pledges

Jeff Bercovici - Mixed Media - Forbes: "Tens of thousands of dollars in pledges raised by the staff of Harper’s magazine won’t save any jobs — or benefit the magazine in any way. That’s because publisher John 'Rick' MacArthur has informed the magazine’s newly-formed union, which organized the pledge drive, that he will not accept the funds.... "

Apps Customize How Users Read Content Online

NYTimes:

One popular tool, Readability, strips articles to the bare minimum of text and photographs with a single click. But now, Readability wants to give something back to publishers.

On Tuesday, the developers behind the tool will unveil a service that requires a subscription fee of at least $5 a month. The service, also called Readability, plans to distribute 70 percent of that fee to the news outlets and blogs that each subscriber is reading.

For example, if a subscriber is a regular visitor to the gadget blog Gizmodo and the women’s news site The Hairpin over the course of a month, Readability will calculate what percentage of her payment should go to each site and send them checks.

“We were never about stripping ads or being an ad blocker,” said Richard Ziade, who created the original Readability tool as well as the second-generation version. Instead, he said, the company has been wondering: “Can we come up with a mechanism to make the experience of reading on the Web better, but also support content creators and publishers?”

Readability is one of many services experimenting with the future of reading. A wave of applications, including Pulse, Flipboard and My Taptu, are responding to changes in how people prefer to read on the Web, putting articles and blog posts into cleaner or more attractive visual displays. ...

Apple's Sony app rejection poses serious questions

eBook Magazine:

... It’s a brave man who second guesses Apple but I can’t see them suddenly pulling the rug from under the likes of Kindle – the PR fallout would be disastrous for them.

On the other hand, if Apple were to move to make iBooks the only/default ebook app now’s probably the best time to do it. The iPad has sold fantastically well but its successor – now probably only weeks away from launch – is likely to sell even better.

Cutting third party ebook stores adrift before a new wave of iPad owners take delivery of their devices compartmentalizes the fall out.

As is always the case when Apple extends the higher of the wall around its garden, some speculate about legal action any disgruntled third parties might take.

The problem here is that the biggest potential loser if Apple were to kick ot third party ebook apps is Kindle, yet could Amazon really ask any court to rule against a closed, single retailer ebook platform without creating an instant case for opening up the Kindle to other retailers? ...

More re: Apple App Store restrictions

Money quote: “This sudden shift perhaps tells you something about Apple’s understanding of the value of its platform,” said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey. “Apple started making money with devices. Maybe the new thing that everyone recognizes is the unit of economic value is the platform, not the device.” ...

AppleInsider:

... Analysts were taken aback by Apple's new restrictions, as they represent a shift away from recent attempts to be more collaborative.

Last fall, after receiving criticism for App Store restrictions that were viewed as "anti-competitive," Apple removed its ban on third-party development tools. With the more open licensing terms, Adobe resumed development of its Packager for iPhone tool for porting Flash to iOS.

Rival Google also gained from the changes, as its Google Voice application was accepted into the App Store. After Apple pulled Google Voice-enabled iPhone apps from the App Store, the US FCC launched an investigation of Apple and AT&T. ...

Apple clips publishers' wings

A strategic miscalculation on Apple's part, especially if the policy extends to the Kindle app. The Register: "Apple is cracking down on applications that provide access to paid content, rejecting anything that looks as though its trying to bypass handing over 30 per cent to Cupertino. Apple gets a 30 per cent cut of anything purchased on the iPhone, or iPad, but iOS applications such as Amazon's Kindle reader and some newspaper clients provide access to content that was paid for elsewhere: something that Apple is apparently no longer going to tolerate. Sony is one of those affected, the New York Times reports, having had its Sony Reader software rejected by Apple on the basis that customers can buy a book on one device and view it on another. Apple has no argument with that concept, as long as both devices are running iOS and under the complete control of Messrs Jobs & Co, but if you buy a book on a desktop computer and then read it on your iPhone then Apple won't get its pound of flesh – and that's not acceptable. ... "