As things come to a head between publishers and providers, and as Barnes & Noble(NYSE:BKS) and Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) compete over the digital self-publishing market, Amazon is attempting to place themselves firmly in the forefront of publisher attention by offering the potential for doubled royalties to users of their DTP self-publishing platform. The gist of the announcement is simple; If you publish a book through their service and the digital copy is at least 20% cheaper than the print copy, listed between $2.99 and $9.99, and have Text-to-Speech enabled, you will get 70% royalties on all your eBook sales instead of the standard 35%.
Let’s face it, this gives Amazon a huge advantage when it comes to providing content for the Kindle and all related software readers. As much as the traditional publishing industry balks at the concept, independents are coming out of the woodwork these days and some of them are making big names for themselves in the eBook marketplace(J.A. Konrath makes a good example). By keeping them happy and coming back for more, money in this case, Amazon has a chance to gain fairly exclusive rights to loads of great talent. It’ll be interesting to see what the response is both from the industry and the competition!
As of today, 6/16/2010, Random House’s Magic Tree House series, a childrens’ staple since 1992 by Mary Pope Osborne has been released for the Kindle. All 43 books in the amazingly popular series are now up for sale in the Kindle Store as I write this, with the 44th already available for preorder, anticipating its September 14th release.
The Magic Tree House series has sold over 70 million copies worldwide, been translated into 28 languages, and distributed in 31 countries over the course of its life cycle so far. It is a widely acknowledged tool in promoting childrens’ literacy and can be(and often is) coupled with Random House-distributed educational material related to the stories for use in classrooms as a teaching aid in any number of subjects.
Much publicity has focused on what the Kindle can do on college and high school campuses, but this brings useful attention to the fact that an eReader with a properly durable case, perhaps even a library’s worth of them, could easily enhance the learning experiences of children at any age. The Text-to-Speech feature is helpful for any struggling reader and the ability to vary the font size can make a text more approachable for easily overwhelmed young readers still unsure of their ability. Clearly a step in the right direction.
While it’s ridiculously early to be talking much about a product that will, in the best possible case that they’re claiming, not be available until late fall(December has been mentioned), the Kno is an interesting take on the eReader market and might address some of the reasons that the Kindle is having trouble taking off as anything but a library resource at many universities. While the Kindle is far more pleasant than any LCD for leisure reading, eye strain is usually a lesser concern for a student hitting the books.
Here’s what we know so far:
It’s HUGE. Two linked 14″LCD touchscreens meant to accommodate a full sized textbook with note-taking capability and integrated annotation functions for textbooks
It’s expensive. They’ve not released much information about pricing yet, but most sources and interviews about the device tend to focus on the range of $1,000
WiFi enabled. Enough said. It’s for students and if you can find a college student without regular internet access these days, you’re likely going to a lot of trouble for it. 3G would be overkill
Deals with McGraw Hill, Pearson, Wiley and others already in place for textbook distribution
SDK entering Beta this year. More options are always better and it’s a safe bet that the application selection on this one will be essential
That’s about it. The size and weight will be off-putting for a lot of people. This is clearly not a leisure device for most. For students already used to carrying around multiple textbooks each the same size as and nearly the same weight as these devices, however, it makes a lot of sense. The ability to display textbooks with natural pagination, little to no scrolling, and annotation by the student has the potential to make the Kno a must-have for students. Overall, the news is cautiously optimistic.
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Yes, this is simply the new incarnation of the Kakai device we reported on a while back. We’ve gotten more details and they’ve gotten more interesting since then. A second glance was merited.
Amazon’s(NASDAQ:AMZN) first publishing imprint, AmazonEncore, has announced plans to bring us ten titles for the fall of this year from a variety of areas. For those who are unaware, AmazonEncore is a program that uses information from the Amazon.com site, in the form of sales trends, review data, etc, to identify new or outstanding works that deserve a wider audience and introduce or re-introduce these books to the public through both digital and print media.
These titles range from self-published works, including what I believe to be the first self-published Kindle edition to get optioned for a movie(A Scattered Life), to complete originals. There’s something there for almost any audience. So check them out. Seriously. Go on, I can wait. Anyway, it’s good stuff. Clichès aside, I’m going to go order some of my own now.
Today(Mar27th) brought about the announcement of Sony’s(NYSE:SNE) plans to make a large international push in eReader device sales, bringing their products to nearly twice as many countries as currently enjoy them. The current list of the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland will be expanded to include Japan, China, Australia, Italy, Spain, and probably others. While in recent years we haven’t seen anything groundbreaking from Sony in terms of eReaders, they are really the ones that started the craze in the US with their PRS series. The current hardware offerings are easily as functional and easy to read as anything from their competition, they just lack a lot of the bells and whistles that more famous lines like the Kindle bring to the table.
What Sony really has going for them in this initiative is the localization angle. Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) may have recently begun bringing international authors to the english-speaking arena, but Sony will be bringing countries around the world works in their native languages from local authors through partnerships with affiliated bookstores. This should have a strong appeal for potential buyers, given the overwhelming weight, at present, on the availability of books in the English language above all others. Maybe this will be what brings the Sony Reader back into more equal footing with the Kindle and nook?
Everybody has their little pet peeves when it comes to their favorite eReader. Nobody ever has every feature quite the way we want it and nothing will ever be quite perfect. One of the complaints I’ve heard surprisingly often with the Kindle has been its lack of normal page numbering. While this seems like a simple sort of thing to deal with, since we are given a progress counter of sorts anyway, I can certainly understand it getting on the nerves of some.
In response, we have The Natural Page(TM) from Forbidden Stitch Press. Their first book, Spirit in The Sky, is now available for download from the Kindle store for $9.99. The basic premise is that by setting a page length at right around 400 words, it is possible to put a page number, formatted as (Page 12), at the bottom of each screen as the reader moves through their book. It’s a novel concept, if you’ll pardon the pun. While there’s little chance that this will work out as a long term solution, being rather un-dynamic and therefore breaking any time the reader changes font size or a Kindle DX, it’s a good thing to have around, most likely. If nothing else, the reader response could point out to Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) that this is a desired, and quite possibly easy to include, feature for a future patch. The best way to get your point across about a product has always been to vote with your wallet, after all.
After years of Amazon’s dominance in the self-publishing ebook marketplace, Barnes & Noble(NYSE:BKS) has decided to enter the scene. Eligible independent publishers and self-publishing authors will be able to add their content directly into the BN.com and Barnes & Noble eBook Store Catalogs, giving them immediate exposure to one of the largest electronic book marketplaces on the net with all the perks already built in. Books published through this PubIt! system, as it is called, will be accorded the usual digital rights management one would expect out of Barnes & Noble, an industry standard ePub format for distribution, and a presence accessible through any of B&N’s many platforms including the nook eReader and their many computer-based software and cellular downloads. While there has not, as of yet, been any discussion of what the royalty model will be for these publishers and authors, there have been assurances that it will be competitive and simple to use and understand.
Make no mistake, this isn’t a groundbreaking new technology or idea. It does, however, bring Barnes & Noble in line with Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) as they attempt attempt to secure their place alongside or even ahead of the Kindle and its ever-growing pressence in the ebook market. Sure Amazon got there first, but who will make it most worth their authors’ while as time goes on? More options have to be good for the lesser known names out there.
All over the world there are people doing their best to, and sometimes managing to, publish the next great novel. Not even the most shortsighted reader can truly indulge the thought that all enjoyable literature comes from their native or preferred language. Apparently Amazon.com(NASDAQ:AMZN) has come to the same conclusion and decided that this market will lend some uniqueness to their brand. AmazonCrossing, as it is to be called, will concentrate on bringing international authors to the English speaking audience. Their first publication, The King of Kahel by Tierno Monenembo, is the winner of the 2008 Renaudot Literary Prize and should be available on your Kindle, or even in paperback, on November 2nd.
This is Amazon’s second publishing endeavor, so it is safe to say they know something of the ins and outs of the process by now. According to what information we have regarding this move, titles chosen will be heavily influenced by the standing they have in terms of favorable reviews on the Amazon website, thus allowing readers to directly influence how well distributed their favorite authors become. This new imprint promises to be a positive move for authors, readers, and hopefully investors alike. There aren’t nearly enough international authors represented well in English just yet, much to many of our monolingual dismay.
Apparently at some point recently, somebody over at Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) gave it some thought and found themselves wondering why so many of their Bestsellers(63/100 as of March 12th) were never actually “sold”, as such. The plan is to eliminate the free book presence from the Kindle Bestseller list. The date on this is still up in the air as far as we know, but the apparent aim is to have two lists: one for sold books and one for free ones.
To publishers, this seems like a no-brainer. It highlights what books people are spending their money on and gives readers a chance to vote with their wallet on whether or not a book does well. Others, on the other hand, may be hit a bit hard by this move. It has become somewhat common for new or self-publishing authors to give away a free book or portion of a book in order to direct attention to their further works.
We’ll have to wait and see how this is handled, but I for one am hoping to be able to access both lists on my Kindle device rather than having to shop the website. I find it interesting to know what new finds people have made lately when I’m looking for something new to pass the time with.
This week has brought us the launch of a co-branded HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS) eBook store. What does this bring to the market? Not a whole lot of new insight. The new site, accessible at http://hp.bn.com is basically a new black skin on the same old B&N website. Apparently, many new HP computers will be coming with a link to the B&N eBook store preloaded and may even have the reader software already installed and ready to go.
The most important thing to note here is that there seems to be absolutely nothing new happening. Maybe it is simply a branding move to help build the presence as eReader sales wars escalate, but you would expect something a bit more substantial from such a teaming up.
The store is the same. The software is the same. The selection is the same. The frequently referenced access to the LendMe technology is nothing more than the same old feature that the software already had. There is not even any effort made to specifically market it as an eBook store; there are still tabs for normal books and DVDs as on the B&N main site. This is all distinctly underwhelming. I suppose they had to come out with something new now that the Kindle has taken the feature lead back with their Collections organization system, but from my perspective this one fizzled.
With the recent launch of the iPad and battle with book publishers, Amazon’s Kindle book prices are starting to rise. Books on the bestseller list that used to cap at $9.99 now start at $9.99 and up. Bestselling author Jodi Picoult’s latest novel, “House Rules”, is available for Kindle at $12.99. Others such as “The Bridge,” by David Remnick is $14.82 and “Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang,” by Chelsea Handler is $12.99. More info is available in this article from The Baltimore Sun about the Apple iPad’s influence on e-book prices. There are still a good many bestsellers holding at $9.99, but it remains to be seen what the future holds in terms of e-book price inflation.
It will be interesting to see what the reader response is to the price hike in the long run. Based on observations of the comments on the Kindle forums, they are not happy campers. There are many mass market paperbacks available for nearly half the price of the Kindle versions of the same books. According to the article about the new e-book prices, publishers claim that paperback versions are often printed by different publishers than the Kindle version, thus leading to inconsistent prices. Time will tell whether the price hike will be a short term or long term issue. If they stay high for long term, it will be interesting to observe the impact on e-book and e-reader sales.
In a recent drama, MacMillan made it publicly known that they were having problems with Amazon over the pricing scheme of eBooks on the Kindle platform. MacMillan was apparently already in talks with Amazon for quite sometime about the prices being raised from Amazon’s current $9.99 maximum price.
Whilst everyone can see that over pricing digital content can really backfire (look at digital music or movies for lots of examples), it seems like MacMillan has been really hell-bent on increasing the pricing based on their latest agency model. Under this model, MacMillan would like to make sales through agents, who would charge the normal 30% commission that standard throughout the industry. The extra cost of course gets pushed on to the buyers and this is where Amazon did not want to comply with MacMillan’s requests.
After negotiations broke down, Amazon took off all MacMillan books from the Kindle store. However, even then the Kindle makers acknowledged that MacMillan owned too many important titles for Amazon to be able to keep those books away from Kindles. And true to their predictions, Amazon ultimately had to give into MacMillan’s demands to increase the prices.
Under the current model, the eBook prices will be capped at a maximum of $14.99 instead of $9.99 as per existing models. The average prices are supposed to start from $5.99 and go up to $12.99 but the real situation would be that most important titles will be priced between $12.99-$14.99. MacMillan gave everyone a glimmer of a hope saying that they will bring the prices down dynamically. However, that simply means that they will gradually reduce prices on existing titles but will likely price newer titles high.
These new prices put Kindle costs on the same level as those on iPad, making the gap between the two become much smaller when it comes to pricing.
Kobo's service is currently online at kobobooks.com
Borders, in association with the Canadian publishing company called Kobo, has become the latest company to venture into the world of eBooks. This includes both reader devices and the selling of eBooks through an online store. Although a Borders spokesperson has clarified that Borders will not be involved in the reader devices and they might not carry the devices being developed at the moment. Borders thus constitutes a growing number of competitors for the Kindle and hence for Amazon’s burgeoning eBook business. Of course, it is no secret that the market is expected to explode sometime soon. So even though companies like these are late into the game, they are still entering the market at a nascent stage.
Sure, it would be pretty interesting to see what the devices are going to be like but Borders’ intention to make the platform completely open is even more interesting. It seems like the Borders and Kobo initiative will try to please as many people as they possibly can. And by that I mean that the service will support multiple devices and will be completely platform agnostic.
According to the Chief of Indigo Books & Music (the company behind Kobo), the idea is to free the user from obligations to only one device. Once they buy something from Kobo, they will be able to read it on their readers, their iPhones, their Blackberries and anywhere else that supports eBooks. The service will be based on the open ePub publishing standard, which is already supported in nearly every reader that is there in the market right now. They intend to offer free eBooks from the Internet, as well as paid for eBooks that will start from around $10. They are looking to target light readers who “buy a couple a books a year”.
Of course, everyone is jumping into the eBook thing. And that too before Apple arrives with their market altering tablet and makes everyone feel like they need to go back to the drawing board. So in an attempt to be all ‘me too’, Foxit has made its own eBook store. I just hope they don’t think that they can take on the Nook or the Kindle with this. It’s just not happening.
Foxit has its own eBook readers eSlick and they are actually pretty handy. The devices have recently been updated to support ePub and eReader. It already supported PDF and TXT, so now it is a well-rounded reader in terms of formats. I also like the fact that it started with PDF support built in. We all know by now how important that is.
This new store from Foxit offers over 60,000 titles to its customers. That is pretty nice on paper but when you realize that industry juggernauts like Barnes and Noble are in the game as well, you know that this store from a relatively small company is can’t be all that big a deal. And it actually isn’t. The major titles that you get on the Whispernet and on B&N’s store will probably not appear in this store soon enough for eSlick readers to choose this store over the other two that I mentioned.
But hey, more competition is always a good thing for the end users. There’s always more innovation and better prices in a market that is stuffed to the gills with products. Look at the mp3 player market for instance. No matter what your budget and needs, there’s one for you somewhere in the world. The direct relationship between price and quality will always be there but you can still get a 16GB player for around $50 if you look hard enough. So here’s to a better eBook future.
News about several major publishers delaying e-Book releases in 2010 have been circulating for some time and eventually made it to Wall Street Journal (article about Simon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group, article about HarperCollins). In case you haven’t heard, several major publishers are adopting a policy of publishing digital versions of certain bestsellers (the most frequently mentioned being Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue”) several months after the hardcovers on which publishers typically made significant chunk of profit.
This move seems to be nothing more than an act of desperation. Several quotes of publishing executives pretty much speak for themselves:
“The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback. We believe some people will be disappointed. But with new readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of e-book reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible.”
— Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster
“The future of hardcover publishing is at stake. You don’t have a lot of time left to save it.”
— Nat Sobel, a partner at Sobel Weber Associates
Unfortunately for the publishing industry the train may have already left. e-Book readers are probably the most wanted Christmas gift. Nook and Sony readers are sold out. Amazon Kindle not being sold out is a small miracle giving it’s killer sales in November that (I guess) are going to be topped by December sales. Sweet $9.99 price point may be only part of the reason. Let’s not forget that in order to enjoy cheap e-Books you need to make the initial $200 investment in eBook reader device (reading on PC and iPhone may get you hooked but after some time most likely you’ll either go for eInk or drop reading e-Books altogether). For me personally the biggest reason for choosing e-Books over paper books is convenience. I will not go into details here about I find e-Books convenient – just read this blog. While book reading was declining for years now, e-Books have revived it.
So why would publishers so desperately want kill the very thing that seems to be saving the books? Because they don’t control it. They have been comfortable with the old model of chopping trees and making books out of them for authors and then promoting these books because authors didn’t have the resources to do it themselves. The system has worked for centuries until the Internet arrived. With Internet you no longer need to chop trees to get your word out to large number of people. The concept was out there for anyone to see for years but publishers ignored it. It’s hard to blame them – when you have a well-oiled machine that has been generating cash for centuries it’s hard to always stay on your guard and constantly look for ways to improve the machine. After all there is always the risk of the breaking the machine instead of making it better. And this works… until someone else who is a newcomer and has nothing to lose comes by and completely reinvents the machine. That’s just the way everything evolves.
With Amazon Kindle publishers don’t control the final price. Amazon is cutting in their current profits by selling the e-Books for $9.99 to establish a market share. Once the market share becomes big enough, Amazon can then either raise the price or tell publishers to lower their cut because then it will be “digital sales or no sales at all” Publishers understand this all to well but they will not be able to turn the tide. While they may succeed in thwarting Amazon’s attempt at becoming a e-Book monopoly, 10 years from now most of the books will be digital (whether though Amazon, Google, B&N, Sony monopoly or no monopoly at all) – there is no doubt about it. With technology advancing as rapidly as it is, using paper hauled by fuel burning trucks to transfer information seems as outdated using horses to plow the field in the age of tractors. I have no illusions – eInk is not perfect – far from it in fact. We already have Mirasol displays coming in color e-Book readers in 2010. Then there’ll be some other technology. But even today’s imperfect eInk and DRM digital books beat the heck out of paper books in many aspects.
Publisher’s side of the story is similar to the one of music recording industry:
If new hardcover titles continue to be sold as $9.99 e-books, the eventual outcome will be fewer literary choices for customers, because publishers won’t be able to take as many chances on new writers.
— Brian Murray, CEO of HarperCollins Publishers
“The music industry has lost most of their national chains, and the ability to expose a lot of new artists.”
— John Marmaduke, CEO of Hastings Entertainment Inc., a book and music retailer
While fewer new artists may be exposed now, I don’t feel a shortage of music that I like to listen to. In fact I like the fact that major MP3 music retailers like iTunes, Zune and Amazon offer DRM-free music that now plays on my PC, XBOX360 (that I use as media center), iPhone and MP3 car stereo without useless limitations. It may be more correct to say that publishers will get fewer chances with new writers since e-Books open self-publishing possibility to anyone.
Publishing industry has my sympathies, they do not have my wallet though. Personally I’m so hooked on e-Books, that waiting for several months for digital version is not a problem for me at all. The book will be as interesting for me to read in a couple of months too and meanwhile there are other books that I haven’t yet read. The situation is similar to DVD and Blu-Ray disks coming out months after theatrical movie releases. The idea is not to cannibalize movie ticket sales by giving people the ability to watch the same movie at home. I might be a non-typical consumer but for the this dilemma is resolved in exactly the same way – I wait for DVD release while I watch other movies that were already released. Truth being told I’m even to lazy to go to local Blockbuster or even my mailbox for that matter. If I can get the movie via Zune Marketplace or Netflix “Instant Watch” on XBOX360 that’s what I do. It’s not that I’m ultra-greedy and don’t appreciate movie theaters. I do. But my schedule just doesn’t allow me to go to the movies that often. And movies that I really cared about like “Lord Of The Rings” and “Star Wars” I watched in the movie theater regardless because this is the right way to watch them for the first time. Period.
Getting back to the Sarah Palin book… If you search of “going rogue kindle” on Amazon you get an interesting list of results: the Kindle edition of the book that is currently available for pre-order for $7.99 (I guess this is Amazon’s way of giving customers extra incentive to wait for the digital version) ranks 3rd after 2 books that are available for sale right now that are only remotely related to the original book in question. These books may be ranking higher because they sell while the book customers really want is stuck on pre-order. So while publishers may be gaining some hardcovers sales, they are also loosing sales to different books that aren’t on a several month hold.
PS: Although I find e-Book reading more convenient, there are some places Kindle or any other eBook reader can’t go. I read paper books to my daughter as she goes to sleep and during the day. Even if I had 12″ color e-Reader with LCD-like response time, 3D holographic animated pictures and surround sound, I still don’t envision myself “reading” it to her. Some books will stay on paper for quite some time just as we still have sail-boats in the age of affordable air-travel and combustion engine.
Skiff, owned by Hearst Corporation, specializes in delivering digital content like newspapers and magazines. Come 2010, they are going to launch a new service that will rival with Amazon and the Kindle in some ways.
Skiff intends to start delivering digital content directly to consumers who want this content. The aim is to distribute it to all available channels and that includes dedicated readers, smartphones and tablets. This platform seeks to do exactly what other platforms do for various products.
Skiff will bring publishers, advertisers and consumers together on one forum. The idea is to deliver content to the users and help publishers generate revenue through advertising like they do now. The main focus, as mentioned earlier, is on newspapers and magazines. These publications already generate revenue this way, so it won’t be anything new for them.
They are also planning to sell books through this platform. The question now is whether they can survive in a market that is currently growing extremely fast. To help things along, they are planning to launch a dedicated ebook reader that will be using the Marvell chipset and Sprint’s 3G EV-DO Rev.A network for wireless connectivity to the store. This dedicated reader is supposedly coming in 2010, which means it should already be in the labs getting prototyped.
There are multiple ebook readers that use the Marvell chipset at the moment and adding wireless support to one will not be a big deal. Spring Design’s Alex, Entourage’s eDGe and Plastic Logic’s Que use this chipset. Skiff may be looking at re-branding one of these readers for their purpose. My guess would be Spring Design’s Alex because it looks like they could use a partner.
If this service becomes a hit with publishers of periodicals and newspapers, it will become a leader in that niche and the Kindle will not be all that affected. But if it starts carrying a massive number of books, both new and old, then Amazon might have something worry about on their hands.
The Kindle is a great device. It’s owners are by and large satisfied with their purchases and no one will argue that the Kindle makes eBook reading anything but a breeze. But what about the eBooks themselves? Is the format innovating at the same pace as the devices we read it on?
There’s a great Op-ed at Computer World about how eBook publishing could be improved. It isn’t an attack on the Kindle, or other eReader devices, but more a critique on the eBook publishing industry. The largest point of the article is that publishers should offer bundles where a customer can buy all versions of the book (physical, eReader, mobile phone, audio) for one discounted price. The full list of suggestions is:
Bundles of all book versions
On the fly revisions/corrections to books
Audio books that can be borrowed (Sony will be supporting loans of eBooks, but there is no word for the future of audio books)
Social networks created around each book’s reader base
Early release for the eBook edition
Make audio books cheaper
I agree with these arguments for the most part, but I want to point out that Amazon already does some of this. You can’t get audio books as part of a bundle, but audio books have to go through a whole extra set of production in addition to the physical/digital versions. Amazon does let you, however, buy books for the Kindle and then access the same books on your mobile phone. Whispernet will even keep your current page number synced between devices, so transitioning back and forth is effortless. Also, Kindle additions can have corrections made to them without buying a new edition.
I would however like to see some sort of digital tie in with physical book sales. You can walk into a record store and buy a new album on vinyl, and half the time it will include a code to download a free digital version. The music itself has already been paid for and the record label can eat the minuscule overhead that digital downloads add. Why can’t Amazon throw in the Kindle version for free every time someone buys a physical book? Not only would the cost to them be relatively small, but it would also encourage customers to take a closer look at eReader devices.
According to a leaked internal document, Time Inc. may release their own eReader device. Consumers would be able to buy subscriptions to Time publications (such as Time, Sports Illustrated, and People) in bundles that would be delivered to the device together. Time’s plans also mention the strategy of forming a joint venture with other companies to share the new platform.
Besides the bundling of subscriptions, and a desire to create a “consumer-facing brand” for the gadget, it’s not really clear what the marketing strategy will be. If Time tries to sell the device for super cheap, or even give it a way for free, they will need to rely on a surge of subscriptions due to the ease of “bundling.” If the device is too expensive, people either won’t be convinced to switch to eInk or they will choose a more general device like the Kindle.
Speaking of which, Time magazine is already available on the Kindle. Since eReaders are already available that offer magazine subscriptions, anything produced by Time will need to find a way to compete against Amazon. A full color reader that completely mimicked a real magazine could be successful, but I’m not sure how they could keep the price of the device low enough. Nobody will shell big bucks for something that is limited to only a handful of magazines.
BlogKindle.com is now available as subscription and can be wirelessly delivered directly to your Kindle along with 4,400+ other blogs currently in the blog section of Kindle Store. Since Amazon recently simplified the process of self-publishing blogs on Kindle Store the amount of blogs skyrocketed from 1,400 to 4,400 in just a few days.
Amazon itself decides what the subscription price is going to be. Publishers have no control over it other than pulling their blog from the store completely. Currently BlogKindle.com is valued at $1.99/month.
I don’t believe that in my case 30% commission will make me a fortune. I mostly did it to get extra exposure for the blog. Kindle Marketplace seems to be a very logical place to have Kindle related blog. Of course the blog will still be available as it is now so you can read it in any browser or RSS reader of your choice.
Scribe Media discusses the future of books, and how e-books could possibly be the future – or at least part of it.
Its a fascinating discussion with Bob Stein who is the Director of the Institute for Future of the Book – futureofthebook.org – and it well worth listening if you have a spare 40 minutes.
If e-book readers are to ever catch on then they must be able to display all kinds of documents and information, from novels to picture albums to technical documents. This presents a challenge for publishers right now because whist e-book readers are catching on, they don’t posses the technology to display anything other than just words and simple black and white images. A lot of publishers are wanting to put their technical documents on to e-ink devices, however technology in the e-ink industry is limiting how those documents can be displayed.
Once such publisher is Dave Thomas from Pragmatic Programmer which publishes technical programming books, as you can imagine, programming books will be full of diagrams, tables, code lists and images — they are really tricky to reproduce for e-book viewing.
This is what Dave had to say
About once a week, we get a request from a reader to have our books available in a format that can be read on an eBook reader (typically, nowadays, the Amazon Kindle).
In fact, we’ve had a prototype form of that capability for a while now, but we’ve always held back. Frankly, we didn’t think the devices worked well with our kind of content. Basically, the .mobi format used by the Kindle is optimized for books that contain just galleys of text with the occasional heading. Throw in tables, monospaced code listings, sidebars and the like, and things start to get messy. The .epub format (used, for example, by Adobe Digital Editions) is slightly more capable, but it also has issues.
You can see exactly what Dave is talking about because he has uploaded his tests, you can see the results here;
Dave goes on to say getting to this stage required a lot of hacks, for instance the code listings have been converted to images so that they render better, however they don’t scale when the user changes the font size — i’m sure many more hacks were used to get to this stage, Dave finises with a good question:
So… what do you think. Is this workable? Should we make these available, even though they’re not very good, or should we wait for a later generation of eBook that’s closer to the capabilities we need? Comments are open… :)
What do you think, should publishers wait or press on knowing this is the best possible outcome given the current technology?
The Kindle has been around since November 2007 and Amazon has yet released any sales figures. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Amazon has sold anywhere between 40,000 – 140,000 Kindle units per month and that e-book sales are on the increase accounting for 12% of title sales at Amazon.com. Whilst the Kindle hasn’t been a runaway success for Amazon, it has been a hit amongst readers and is slowly gaining acceptance amongst consumers.
Since its launch in 1995, Amazon has become a leviathan in the publishing industry, this spelt good news for the consumers, but not so good for the publishers. Amazon flexed its might in March this year by declaring that if publishers didn’t use Amazon’s in house print on demand wing called BookSurge then the “Buy” button on the Amazon page for their books will be removed. They could then only sell their books on Amazon through a third party.
This amounted to a antitrust suit being filed against Amazon in March of this year, the case is ongoing, Amazon filed for the case to be dismissed, the judge will decide on August 21st if the case can proceed.
The once mighty publishing industry is facing troubling times, with tighter margins on books and more competition from magazines and online publications, publishers are left with little option but to bow to Amazons wishes. Amazon’s cut is 65% when publishing book on the DTP and 25% when published on Mobipocket which gives Amazon even more power over the publishers. Removing their books from Amazon is not an option for many publishers simply because of the amount of revenue they will lose, precious revenue they cannot afford to lose.
The Kindle seems has tightened Amazons grip on the publishers, and as Kindle growth surges it will put the publishers in an even worse position.
Esquire Magazine celebrates its 75th birthday this year. To celebrate this milestone Esquire has partnered up with a Cambridge, Massachusetts based technology company, E Ink Corporation (the same company which makes the Kindles e-ink display), to become the first magazine to be printed-or should I say manufactured-with an e-ink cover.
The special 75th anniversary issue will focus on exploring the ideas, people and issues that will be the foundation of the 21st century.
“This cover is both a breakthrough for magazines and an expression of the theme of our anniversary issue,” said David Granger, editor-in-chief of Esquire Magazine. Whilst the cover uses “rudimentary e-ink technology” primarily because the cost associated with having a high resolution e-ink display is still very high, Mr. Granger hopes this is only the beginning of an explosion in the use of e-ink technology.
Mr. Granger, also has high hopes for the covers place in history saying “I hope it will be in the Smithsonian [...] Magazines have basically looked the same for 150 years,” adding “I have been frustrated with the lack of forward movement in the magazine industry.” – you can include the publishing and the newspaper industry’s to that also.
Whilst some might see this as a marketing gimmick, Esquire is hopeful that the technology behind the device will last, Mr. Granger thinks “The possibilities of print have just begun. In two years, I hope this looks like cellphones did in 1982, or car phones.”
Esquires publishers have had to invest a six figure amount in order to get the project off the ground, so a big-time sponsor was needed in order to turn a profit, Ford was brought in to help with some of the costs in exchange for a 2-page e-ink advertisement.
The Esquire team has been planning to use an e-ink cover for a long time, back in 2000, Mr. Granger visited E Ink Corporation in Cambridge for a technology demonstration, but conceded that it was too premature for magazines. In 2006 the technology had improved sufficiently that only limitation to creating an e-ink magazine was having a battery small enough to power it-and the associated costs-, so for the past 16 months Esquire has been working with a Chinese manufacture to create a battery which will fit inside a magazine, the battery is expected to last 90 days.
It would be interesting to see what magazine stands would look like in a decades time if the e-ink cover catches on. Magazine stands are already a visual assault on the eyes, every magazine is competing for you attention with bright colours and scantily clad women, one can only imagine the stands if they were filled with animated e-ink covers!
Now I suspect that the e-ink display will be a segmented type as opposed to a high resolution graphic type available on the Kindle, given the cost of manufacturing. The Esquire cover will probably have a few frames of animation or some flashing text – nothing fancy, but still quite cool. Esquire has an exclusive deal with E Ink Corporation on the use of e-ink technology in print through 2009, however only a 100,000 e-ink covers will be produced, they will only be available on Magazine stands and the 620,000 Esquire mail subscribers will get a printed copy of the issue.
Back in May we got wind of a new social fanzine site especially for science-fiction and fantasy readers, Tor.com was due for launch we were told imminently, but as with these things the launch actually didn’t happen for a couple of month – over the weekend Tor.com was launched.
If you read the earlier post you know that had you signed up for the newsletter, Tor was giving away a free e-book every week in their weekly newsletter. Now that the site has launched, Tor will make available all 24 titles that were given away in the newsletter–only till the 27th of July, so head on over to the site and download them–in their Freebies Bonanza, there is a selection of artwork for download as-well, some would make an excellent desktop wallpaper.
If your a fan of science-fiction and fantasy books then you might want to bookmark Tor.com, and sign up for access to more advanced community features, whilst the site is still in officially in beta there is a lot there for you to look at and read. There are already some lively discussions going on in the community forum with Tor and Macmillan employees and the blog on the front page is filled with interesting news and stories.
An Amazon.com press release today revealed that 11 top Christian publishers are to make available thousands of e-book for the Kindle.
From the Amazon.com press release;
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced that Christian book publishers Augsburg Fortress, Crossway Books & Bibles, David C. Cook, Gospel Light, Group Publishing, NavPress, Strang Communications, Thomas Nelson, Tyndale, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. and Zondervanp have committed to making the majority of their catalogs of books available to Kindle owners by the end of 2008.
….
The response to our Kindle editions has been remarkable,” said Alan Huizenga, Director of Digital Publishing at Tyndale House Publishers. “We are excited to know that for readers who own a Kindle, they can download and begin reading bestselling Tyndale authors such as Joel Rosenberg, Tony Dungy, Francine Rivers, and Tommy Newberry in under a minute!”
“For years Eerdmans readers have enjoyed our extensive selection of titles from the scholarly to the popular,” said Sam Eerdmans, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Eerdmans. “Now Eerdmans is excited to announce that many of our titles will be readily available on Kindle. Fans of Eugene Peterson or Joan Chittister can quickly find and access their new books using the extremely easy interface of Kindle.”
“Thomas Nelson is excited to offer our books in the digital format on Kindle,” said Robert Edington, Vice President of Internet Channel, Thomas Nelson, Inc. “Our readers have enjoyed works by Max Lucado, John Maxwell and Ted Dekker for a long time, and now those who have a Kindle can quickly and easily download them in 60 seconds.”
It looks like more and more publishers are jumping on the Kindle bandwagon, the more the merrier!
As of today, 6/16/2010, Random House’s Magic Tree House series, a childrens’ staple since 1992 by Mary Pope Osborne has been released for the 
Amazon’s(NASDAQ:AMZN) first publishing imprint, AmazonEncore, has announced plans to bring us ten titles for the fall of this year from a variety of areas. For those who are unaware, AmazonEncore is a program that uses information from the Amazon.com site, in the form of sales trends, review data, etc, to identify new or outstanding works that deserve a wider audience and introduce or re-introduce these books to the public through both digital and print media.
Today(Mar27th) brought about the announcement of Sony’s(NYSE:SNE) plans to make a large international push in eReader device sales, bringing their products to nearly twice as many countries as currently enjoy them. The current list of the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland will be expanded to include Japan, China, Australia, Italy, Spain, and probably others. While in recent years we haven’t seen anything groundbreaking from Sony in terms of eReaders, they are really the ones that started the craze in the US with their PRS series. The current hardware offerings are easily as functional and easy to read as anything from their competition, they just lack a lot of the bells and whistles that more famous lines like the 
After years of Amazon’s dominance in the self-publishing ebook marketplace, Barnes & Noble(NYSE:BKS) has decided to enter the scene. Eligible independent publishers and self-publishing authors will be able to add their content directly into the BN.com and Barnes & Noble eBook Store Catalogs, giving them immediate exposure to one of the largest electronic book marketplaces on the net with all the perks already built in. Books published through this 
In a recent drama, MacMillan made it publicly known that they were having problems with Amazon over the pricing scheme of eBooks on the 
Of course, everyone is jumping into the eBook thing. And that too before Apple arrives with their market altering tablet and makes everyone feel like they need to go back to the drawing board. So in an attempt to be all ‘me too’, Foxit has made its own 
The Kindle has been around since November 2007 and Amazon has yet released any sales figures. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Amazon has sold anywhere between 40,000 – 140,000 Kindle units per month and that e-book sales are on the increase accounting for 12% of title sales at Amazon.com. Whilst the Kindle hasn’t been a runaway success for Amazon, it has been a hit amongst readers and is slowly gaining acceptance amongst consumers.
Esquire Magazine celebrates its 75th birthday this year. To celebrate this milestone Esquire has partnered up with a Cambridge, Massachusetts based technology company, E Ink Corporation (the same company which makes the Kindles e-ink display), to become the first magazine to be printed-or should I say manufactured-with an e-ink cover.
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