The Kindle-Killer That Wasn’t

TIME: "Throw away your iPad. Trash your Kindle. The future of reading is made of something far more innovative, and it's called 'paper.' The flipback is, according to Patrick Kingsley at the UK Guardian, an ingenious new kind of printed book designed for the iGeneration. 'Could this kill the Kindle?' the headlines asks. Err, no. ..."

The rejected Google e-books settlement: What it means and what comes next

LA Times:

More than a year after giving it preliminary approval, U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin on Tuesday rejected the Google Books Amendment Settlement Agreement, yet left a door open for the parties to try for a revision. 'The motion for final approval of the ASA is denied, without prejudice to renewal in the event the parties negotiate a revised settlement agreement,' he wrote.

What's more, in his decision, Chin detailed several possible revisions, providing a roadmap for the parties if they intend to attempt to revise the settlement.

Will they? It looks like they may try. ...

"Although I am persuaded that the parties are seeking in good faith to use this class action to create an effective and beneficial marketplace for digital books, I am troubled in several respects," Chin wrote. He brought up several key issues that seemed to point a way toward potential resolution of the agreement, including moving the issue of orphan works and international copyright issues to Congress, privacy concerns and inverting the structure of the ASA so authors interested in participating could opt in, rather than being included by default. ...

Books-A-Million sales slipped last year

In other words they are doing great, compared to Borders. Birmingham Business Journal:

Books-A-Million Inc. (Nasdaq: BAMM) reported a 2.7 decrease in sales for its last fiscal year.

The Birmingham-based book retailer said sales totaled $495 million for the year ended Jan. 29, 2011, according to a news release.

Comparable store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, dropped nearly 5 percent and net income fell 35 percent to $8.9 million, compared $13.8 million in the previous fiscal year.

“The results for the fiscal year illustrate a dynamic and rapidly changing retail environment for booksellers,” said Chairman Clyde B. Anderson. “We are also pleased with our ability to manage inventories and maintain a strong balance sheet giving us flexibility to address the challenges and opportunities ahead.”

Anderson said the company successfully launched a partnership with Nook in the fourth quarter to sell e-readers and its toy and game and electronic accessories businesses performed well.

During the fourth quarter, Books-A-Million had a 2.6 percent decline in sales to $153.1 million and a 6.7 percent drop in comparable store sales.

Amazon Reinstates Kindle-Lending Startup Lendle

Business Insider:: "After a bit of press and consumer outrage, Amazon's team got in touch with them [Lendle] and they're back. They had to remove their book sync feature to get into the terms of service. It's hard to know whether Amazon's crackdown was just a fluke or was pushed on them by publishers or what. In any case it's impressive how fast they responded."

Judge Rules Against Google Books Settlement

Good decision: Agreement needs an opt-in rather than opt-out in order to fully protect copyrights. That would also help get around the inappropriate fact of a publishers' org and the Authors Guild presuming to have authority to negotiate for all authors of out-of-print works, which they don't. Puts power back into the hands of true copyright holders. paidContent: "A federal judge has ruled against Google (NSDQ: GOOG) in its long-standing attempt to expand a plan to scan and then distribute millions of books online. Google was sued by the Authors’ Guild and the Association of American Publishers back in 2004, with the writers’ groups saying that the company’s Google Books site broke copyright laws. The two sides settled their dispute in 2008, but revised that initial settlement in fall 2009 in response to objections from the Justice Department and competitors, who claimed that the initial settlement gave Google too much control over the electronic distribution of in-copyright, out-of-print books. In an opinion issued today, U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin said the new settlement remained too favorable to Google. 'The [settlement] would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case,' Chin wrote. ... "

That was quick: Four lines of code is all it takes for The New York Times’ paywall to come tumbling down

Josh Benton, Nieman Journalism Lab: "The New York Times paywall is costing the newspaper $40-$50 million to design and construct, Bloomberg has reported. And it can be defeated through four lines of Javascript." Read Josh's interesting piece and then check NYTClean. Couldn't be easier.

Google Says Microsoft Patent Lawsuit Threatens Innovation

PCWorld: "'Sweeping software patent claims like Microsoft's threaten innovation,' Google said in a statement. 'While we are not a party to this lawsuit, we stand behind the Android platform and the partners who have helped us to develop it.'"

Semantics: "Real" Books vs. eBooks

Get with the program. eBooks = BOOKs. Stop editorializing about how eBooks kill "real books." eBooks ARE "real books." eBooks are of course drastically minimizing (though not killing) paper-books, but the narrative (the REAL "real book") remains intact, regardless of the container. Thank you and have a great day.

Yet Another Tech IP Lawsuit: Apple Sues Amazon Over App Store Name

DailyFinance: "Apple says it holds the trademark to the 'App Store' name. That may be decided in court. The suit was filed in the federal court for the Northern District of California. The complaint stated that people might think the Amazon Appstore is owned by or associated with Apple."

Microsoft v. Android: now B&N Nook gets software patent lawsuit

Computerworld Blogs: "Microsoft is suing more Android device makers: now it's Barnes & Noble with it's partners Foxconn and Inventec. Steve Ballmer's gang doesn't like B&N's Nook e-reader, so has slapped them with a software patent lawsuit."

Amazon stymies Lendle e-book lending service

In the long run, Amazon is doing Lendle, eBook Fling and BookLending a favor, because they had shit business models anyway. That being said, I think it may be a strategic mistake for Amazon to look like it is trying to stifle lending. Carnoy, CNET: "It may be game, set, and match for Lendle. No, not Ivan Lendl, the former tennis great. Lendle, the newly hatched e-book lending service. Lendle first reported the news via Twitter: 'Amazon has revoked Lendle's API access. This is why the site is down. It's sad and unfortunate that Amazon is shutting down lending sites...According to Amazon, Lendle does not 'serve the principal purpose of driving sales of products and services on the Amazon site.''"

Waterstone's Managing Director: Academic bookselling at "crisis point"

The Bookseller: "Waterstone's has called for academic publishers to 'significantly' increase their support for the chain, warning bricks and mortar academic bookselling could vanish from the high street within a few years. The retailer's m.d. Dominic Myers told delegates at the Bookseller Association’s annual Academic, Professional and Specialist Bookselling Group conference last week that the academic bookselling industry was at a “crisis point,” in which 2011 would be a defining year. ... "

re: Borders UK meltdown

The Bookseller: "Waterstone's could be best placed to capitalise from a loss in market share by Borders, according to an influential retail analyst. In a wide-ranging note on entertainment retail, Paul Smiddy at HSBC said this week that between space re-allocation and store closures, Borders would lose market share over the next year, with Waterstone's in the best position to gain from this. ... "

What if Amazon released Android Kindle tablet?

Tech Gear: "Firstly, in the short term, any Android-based Kindle isn't about Amazon competing with iPad or other Apple iOS devices. Amazon's ambitions are much larger: Capitalizing on the enormous Android ecosystem of applications and devices and extending its core competency as a retailer. Amazon already does this on Android and other mobile operating systems with the Kindle app. But Amazon sells more digital content than just ebooks. Android Kindle -- as device or app -- would allow Amazon to better bundle other digitally downloaded products, like movies, music and TV shows."

Is Amazon working on an Android Kindle?

Nick Bilton of NY Times via NDTVGadgets.com: "Although Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive, has said in the past that a color Kindle is 'multiple years' away, new job listings on the Lab 126 Web site, the division of Amazon that makes the Kindle, show that the company is building up its team of Android developers, which might involve developing software for a color screen. At least five new jobs were added in the last week alone seeking developers with Android programming experience. Now this could simply mean that Amazon is hiring engineers to work on new software for other Android devices. But it could also pave the way for a Kindle that runs Android, which would in turn be a color device. The current Kindle runs the Linux operating system. It's still up for debate whether an Android Kindle would be good for Amazon, or better for Google. With tablets becoming a competition over the number of apps available for the platform, Amazon would have a lot of catching up to do if the company decided to introduce an entirely new tablet operating system."

No More NY Times Links

I'm going to stop posting links to NY Times articles on my blog, not because I dispute the Times's right to charge for proprietary content (I don't), but simply because the links will be of no use to readers of e-publishing, etc. who are not subscribers to the Times and have used up their 20-free-articles privilege for any given month.

Kindle to move to Android? [Rumor]

Android Community: "There’s talk going around that Amazon may be looking to take completely redesign the Kindle platform and base it on the Android OS. According to posts in the New York Times Blog, Amazon is looking for Android developers for 'Lab 126' which is Amazon’s Kindle development unit. That would make for a very interesting development and may signal Amazon’s concern that the NOOKColor is suddenly very popular with Android geeks looking for an affordable tablet option. There’s also the fact that with Amazon’s Android App Store that the book seller may simply be looking to evolve the Kindle to take advantage of Android apps they sell."

Kobo eBook app now available for Samsung Windows Phone 7 devices

Mobiputing: "Kobo has released an eBook app for Windows Phone 7, but it appears that at the moment it’s only available for phones from Samsung."

Paywall for The New York Times Set for March 28

ReadWriteWeb via NYTimes: "The New York Times has finally announced the terms and pricing for its paywall that will go into effect beginning March 28. The paywall is porous, meaning that you'll be able to read 20 articles a month without having to pay. ... "

Borders closing 28 additional stores, making final count 228

Reuters: "Borders Group Inc is set to close another 28 of its superstores on top of the 200 locations it is already shutting down as part of its reorganization under bankruptcy protection. Those locations will close by the end of April and include stores in Hollywood, California, and Stamford, Connecticut. The closings will leave Borders with only half of its superstores. 'We reached the determination about these stores after a further review of their ongoing economic viability,' Borders spokeswoman Mary Davis said in a statement. ... "

January E-book Sales Soar, Top Hardcover, Mass Market Paperback

PW: "The surge of e-book buying expected to take place in January following a round of holiday e-reader gift-giving did in fact materialize. According to preliminary estimates from the Association of American Publishers, e-book sales from 16 reporting companies jumped 115.8%, to $69.9 million in January. No other trade segment posted a sales increase in the month."

No breakthrough over author e-book rights in France ahead of fair

The Bookseller: "French authors have urged culture minister Frederic Mitterrand to intecede in order to break the deadlock in their negotiations with publishers over electronic rights. For the second year running, the Permanent Council of Writers (Conseil Permanent des Ecrivains, CPE) and the French Publishers Association (Syndicat National de l’Edition, SNE) have tried and failed to conclude an agreement in time for the Paris Book Fair. ..."

Kindle’s "Real" Page Numbers - How They Did It

Per Amazon:

... With our massive selection and knowledge of print books, we were excited to be in a position to help solve this problem. We had to invent an entirely new way to match the streams of text in a print book to the streams of text in a Kindle book, and assign page numbers in Kindle books. There are hundreds of thousands of Kindle books (and growing every day), so to handle a job of this size, we turned to our Amazon Web Services computing fabric. We created algorithms to match the text of print books to Kindle books and organized all of this in the cloud, using our own AWS platform. The results of this work are stored in Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, where we track the complete history of every page matching file we’ve produced. We even found a way to deliver page numbers to books that customers had already purchased – without altering those books in any way, so customers’ highlights, notes, and reading location are preserved exactly as they were.

Some other e-bookstores have added virtual “page numbers” to e-books, but we’ve found that these approaches can be confusing and often inconsistent – they don’t map to the page numbers in physical books, and in some cases they don’t account for title pages, blank pages, and other nuances that we see in print books. We’ve already received a lot of great feedback from customers who like our approach. Real page numbers are already available in tens of thousands of our most popular Kindle books, including the top 100 bestselling books in the Kindle Store that have matching print editions, and we’re adding page numbers in more Kindle books every day. We want you to lose yourself in the reading, so page numbers are only displayed when you push the menu button. ...

B&N Pines for a Storybook Ending

WSJ: "It's never fun to realize, after starting a book, that the plot is so familiar it loses any element of surprise. The question for Barnes & Noble shareholders is whether they are living such a predictable tale. The stock's 47% plunge in the past three weeks, to below $10, its lowest point since the early 1990s, suggests investors feel that way. Last month's suspension of the dividend, to preserve cash for digital investments, likely sent income-oriented investors heading for the exits. But despite Barnes & Noble's claim to be 'now a growth company,' growth investors appear to be staying away—with good reason."

The chain gets smaller margin on eBooks than on physical books, the latter market shrinking as the former grows. It also has the brick-and-mortar monkey on its back, plus:

"It doesn't help that Barnes & Noble has taken on long-term debt for the first time in several years, partly to fund the $596 million cash buyout in 2009 of the Barnes & Noble college-store chain from Len Riggio, chairman and 30% shareholder. The price paid was more than Barnes & Noble's now-shrunken market capitalization. While the college chain's earnings have proved valuable as Barnes & Noble invests in digital, its sales at stores open more than a year have declined since the purchase. The deal would have looked better for Barnes & Noble shareholders if Mr. Riggio had taken stock rather than cash."

My late father-in-law Bill Bartkovick, a longtime Senior VP at B&N, founded the Barnes & Noble College Division. He would be the first to tell you that this division's days are numbered [see story below], and that the deal benefited Lenny and his family entirely at the expense of shareholders.

1 in 4 College Textbooks Will Be Digital By 2015

NYTimes: "Sales of digital textbooks still only account for a small fraction of the U.S. college market. But according to the latest report by the social learning platform Xplana, we have reached the tipping point for e-textbooks, and the company predicts that in the next five years digital textbook sales will surpass 25% of sales for the higher education and career education markets."

EU anger over ebook deal suggests hard times ahead for publishers

What'd I just say? Check the guardian.co.uk: "The perception that selling ebooks by the agency model is unfair (consumers) and illegal (EU) is a big worry for publishing firms ... "

French government says publishers should collaborate over e-book negotiations

The Bookseller: "French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand has urged French publishers to speak with one voice in forthcoming negotiations with Amazon over supplying their e-books for the Kindle. During a visit to Silicon Valley, where he met senior managers of Amazon, Apple and Google, Mitterrand told reporters that if publishers go into negotiations separately, 'in disorder and a climate of permanent rivalry and competition', Amazon would 'fairly rapidly dictate its law'. Publishers should establish common rules on fixed e-book prices and other issues, he added. Referring to the recent raids of five French publishers and the publishers association (SNE) by European Commission competition officials, he said: 'I don’t think that we are in a zone of conflict or zone of difficulty between the French State and the main partners and players. ... .'" Yeah, pal, but you will be in a "zone of conflict" with the European Commission very shortly if you keep advocating the fixing of prices.

Apple Keeps Right On Approving Amazon And Netflix Updates Without In-App Purchases

TechCrunch: "Remember when everyone was freaking out over the Apple in-app subscription changes? You should. It was just a month ago. And while some of the fears that arose do appear to be very real, the two things most people focused on were Amazon’s Kindle app and the Netflix app. Well guess what? Both received updates today [March 15th], and neither includes the supposedly mandatory changes."

Good Summary of the Current State of Business re: eBook Lending

Stu Woo, WSJ: "BookLending and Lendle opened in the past two months, while eBook Fling plans to start Monday. The sites' creators said they decided to launch the services after Amazon, following Barnes & Noble's lead, introduced the ability to lend Kindle e-books in late December. Analysts estimate that Kindle has about two-thirds of the U.S. market for e-books." BookLending and Lendle are just for Kindle users. The new eBook Fling provides service to both Kindle and Nook users.

Luddites Whining: The End Of Bookstores

Nicole Krauss uses the pages of The New Republic to moan about our losing a certain curatorial element which she believes can only be found in the brick-and-mortar bookstore.