Topic: Amazon Wins?

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, July 22, 2010.

• Register to participate LIVE.
• Subscribe to the audio podcast.
• DBW Members can access the on-demand archive of The Roundtable.

Featuring:

Laura Dawson, Publishing Industry Consultant
Pablo Defendini, Interactive Producer, Open Road Integrated Media
Kate Rados, Marketing Director, F+W Media
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Special Guest:

Sarah Weinman, Publishing Reporter, AOL’s DailyFinance

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

eBook vs. Hardcover: Beyond the Headlines

Depending on where you get your news, and how far beyond the tweets and catchy headlines you tend to read, yesterday’s well-timed press release from Amazon (they release their 2Q report on Thursday) either came as a shocker (TIPPING POINT!) or an interesting soft data point in need of further clarification.
Amazon chooses its words carefully; in the midst of the Kindle hype, Bezos made a point of noting that ”our hardcover sales continue to grow.”

Publishers Back Amazon on E-book-Hardcover Figures

Interviews with several major trade houses found all acknowledging that they were selling at least as many e-books as hardcovers through Amazon with one major publisher reporting that in the last couple of weeks the ratio had been higher than the 143 e-books to 100 hardcovers Amazon reported for the second quarter. “[E-book] sales are growing week by week,” this publisher said.

What Amazon didn’t say about e-books

Amazon is a master of selling paper books online and still offers the best user experience. It has transitioned that experience over to the e-book world and Kindle Store and clearly had much success. But in the digital book world, where pricing is largely fixed now (at least for traditionally published books), you’re starting to see a more level playing field as Barnes & Noble invests millions in its online arm and Apple knows a thing or two about user interfaces. Sony and scrappy upstarts like Kobo are also trying to get in on the e-book game, though consolidation seems inevitable.

Why Amazon’s Kindle Won

And marketing can make the difference between an OK product selling OK and selling in gonzo numbers. The Kindle was an OK product — that is, it could read books and make buying them easy, but the hardware design was from Bizzaro World, with buttons that could be easily hit accidentally. But people put up with that OKness for the ease of buying, the lowered expense of buying, and the ability to read with less clutter and less weight.

Literary Agent Plans E-Book Editions

The literary agent Andrew Wylie, who has announced that he will publish digital editions of works by some of his clients. Mr. Wylie said his new company would focus on older titles whose digital rights are not owned by traditional publishers. The books will be available exclusively at Amazon’s Kindle store for two years.

Twitter (as RTd by @digibookworld):

RT @Knownhuman: #DBW Have we really only been in a Kindle world for 33 months now?

RT @eBookNoir: #dbw – so who will the battle will be between? Amazon and google and apple? Is kobo and the rest going away?
 
RT @Knownhuman: #DBW Didn’t Amazon directly court several power agents directly late last year? (Yes. Was Wylie one of them?)

RT @susanmpls: #DBW Worth pointing out Wylie is working w/ successful authors, not new/unknown/debut authors who have no existing audience.

RT @MoriahJovan: No, why did he [Wylie] go with Amazon versus APPLE??? That’s the better question. #dbw

RT @eBookNoir: #dbw What if apple sends iBooks out to the world for other devices, will that change things if apple gets their act together?

RT @jfallone: #dbw ePub is now last hope of being Kindle Killer. Enhanced functionality & open source dev could leapfrog closed Mobi format.

RT @MatthewDiener: Is Amazon really putting the pressure on IDPF w/r/t ePUB: How do they keep ePUB standard from becoming irrelevant? #dbw

RT @neustudio: Amazon wins? Noooooooo. . … mobi is a pain to code!!! Format exclusivity is evil!! #DBW #ePrdctn

RT @MatthewDiener: Amazon Kindle /Mobi won on easy to convert (Amazon did it for free/percentage points). Result: more books, faster. #dbw

RT @MatthewDiener: ePUB is harder to create, though more robust. Makes the standard slower to adopt because less titles are available. #dbw

Topic: Defining Failure

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, July 15, 2010.

• Register to participate LIVE.
• Subscribe to the audio podcast.
• DBW Members can access the on-demand archive of The Roundtable.

Featuring:

Laura Dawson, Publishing Industry Consultant
Pablo Defendini, Interactive Producer, Open Road Integrated Media
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Special Guests:

Don Linn, former owner/CEO, Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
Mary Ann Naples, VP, Development, OpenSky

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

10 Signs that you’ve got an innovation dysfunction – Jim Carroll

• People laugh at new ideas
• Someone who identifies a problem is shunned
• Innovation is the privileged practice of a special group
• The phrase, “you can’t do that because we’ve always done it this way” is used for every new idea
• No one can remember the last time anyone did anything really cool
• People think innovation is about R&D
• People have convinced themselves that competing on price is normal
• The organization is focused more on process than success
• There are lots of baby boomers about, and few people younger than 25
• After any type of surprise — product, market, industry or organizational change — everyone sits back and asks, “wow, where did that come from?”

Publishers can no longer boondoggle – Stephen Bateman

• Restructure the business so that it has a newly articulated mission – the business needs to look “out” not in
• Put your best people on your biggest opportunities – move bums on seats to get new momentum and fresh initiatives in the business
• Create a culture of “initiative” not “fear” – recompense the bold
• Budget for failure – things are going to get a lot worse – don’t be meek – bring sales down then bring your costs down in line to preserve your margin and some headroom

Publishers Need to Fail Better, Cheaper, Faster - Rebecca Smart

If you perceive that your only environment is that encompassed by your current supply chain then you’re only going to adapt to changes in that environment – so the response to the digital challenge viewed in this way would be to create and sell e-books. If you put the consumer at the heart of your thinking you can consider instead each group of customers you serve and what they might want on top of what you already provide, how they might want you to serve them differently in the future. More to the point, you can ASK them, listen and respond.

The “Fail Week” Challenge - Ryan Chapman

A successful editor aims for three profitable books out of ten. Shouldn’t a successful online/new media department try for the same? Sadly, the departments I know of don’t attempt ten projects in a year. They’re aiming for the fences with every swing. At FSG, I’m dialing things down a bit. Instead of grand attempts to Save Publishing, how about just hitting a double? (You know things are bad when I’m using sports metaphors.)

Long story short: I’m aiming to fail harder.

Twitter (as RTd by @digibookworld):

RT @babetteross: we’re seeing innovative things for sake of innovation and not based on strategy #dbw @donlinn #DistractedByShineyObjects

 RT @MatthewDiener: “We are great at failing with books everyday.” @donlinn Grt pt; an industry surviving on 10% success rate w/ print. #dbw

RT @babetteross: Pubs don’t always look before they leap @ljndawson #dbw ie. taxes w/ agency pricing, not all have backend process to handle

RT @MatthewDiener: $500K advance for book that will be lucky to earn back vs. $500K for MarkLogic server and an end-to-end XML workflow #dbw

RT @deegospel: Why aren’t bookstores cultural centers anymore? Where are the cultural centers & do they accommodate readers? #dbw

RT @MissAdventuring: #DBW Innovation or desperation – bookstores working with google? | RT @eBookNoir: desperation i think

RT @bakersmark: One thing we don’t do in this industry is postmortems to discover why a book failed and what we could have done better. #dbw

RT @babetteross: Are silos at typical publisher, tech vs editorial vs marketing, creating an inability to analyze effective processes? #dbw

RT @MissAdventuring: #DBW #oldspice leveraged traditional with new media and self-reflective humor = success. Lessons for publishers?

RT @TomThompson: You wouldn’t have heard about Old Spice on twttr unless it gained the traction through the ad spend. That plus genius. #dbw

RT @babetteross: The important thing is to learn from your failures. Get back on the horse and keep going. @donlinn #dbw

Topic: The Self-Publishing Opportunity

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, July 1, 2010.

Subscribe to the audio podcast here. DBW Members can access the interactive video archive of The Roundtable here.

Featuring:

Laura Dawson, Publishing Industry Consultant
Pablo Defendini, Interactive Producer, Open Road Integrated Media
Kate Rados, Marketing Director, F+W Media
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Special Guests:

Jane Friedman, Director of Content & Community Development, Writer’s Digest
Moriah Jovan, Author & Publisher, B10 Mediaworx
Carla King, Co-author, Self-Publishing Boot Camp

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

Harlequin Horizons Now DellArte Press

In the wake of widespread criticism over its self-publishing imprint, Harlequin has changed the imprint’s name from Harlequin Horizons to DellArte Press. As Harlequin publisher and CEO Donna Hayes said it would, the company renamed the imprint to a designation “that [does] not refer to Harlequin in any way.” There is no mention of Harlequin on DellArte’s Web site.

Late last week, Romance Writers of America and other writers’ associations spoke out against the November 17 announcement that Author Solutions had teamed with Harlequin to form Harlequin Horizons, an imprint for self-published romance authors. RWA deemed Harlequin no longer eligible for RWA-provided conference resources–meaning the publisher would not be entitled to enter any award competitions. Harlequin publisher and CEO Donna Hayes said the company was “surprised and dismayed” at RWA’s actions and said it would change the imprint’s name.

Self-Publishing, Author Services Open Floodgates for Writers

In 2001, the Wild Writing Women, a San Francisco Bay Area travel writing group of which I was a member, decided to self-publish a book of stories. Why? Because none of us could find a traditional publisher for what we thought was our best writing.

We had skilled publishing professionals among us, so we never considered using a vanity press. Instead, each of the twelve of us tossed in $500 and formed a small business. One of us went to San Francisco City Hall to process our business name, Wild Writing Women Press. Another bought the ISBN and bar code; others hired a book designer, edited, proofread, created a website, and chose a printer. Promotion was easy because we had 12 professional adventure travel writers talking up the book in the course of marketing our other books and projects.

Wild Writing Women: Stories of World Travel was an instant hit. We sold all 1,000 copies in the first week of publication and made back more than double our investment. Eighteen traditional publishers were suddenly interested in purchasing the book. The group decided — by a skinny 7 to 5 vote — to sell it to Globe-Pequot. Self-publishing success? Well, it’s 2010 and we’ve yet to see any royalties.

An Exciting Future for Authors (That Can Succeed Without Publishers or Agents)

What’s an author to do when there are fewer vehicles for gaining that rubber stamp of approval and credibility, getting published, and getting noticed in a world of enormous supply, but diminishing demand?

As many have argued, it’s time to focus on the reader (or the community).

Kickstarter holds within it a model of authorship that empowers you to build a future based on your fans and supporters and colleagues, without the need for “traditional” approval of a publisher or an agent.

But Kickstarter isn’t necessarily a breakthrough model as much as a re-discovering of an ancient support system for artists and creative ventures: patrons!

Why Robin Sloan is the Future of Publishing (and Science Fiction)

“To me,” says Sloan, “the point isn’t always to get a story out into the world by any means necessary. Just as often, it’s to try out new technologies and new platforms; sometimes it’s to experiment, play and learn.”

To this end, Sloan has experimented with various strategies of releasing his stories, none of which involve sending them out to publishing “gate-keepers.” He made a story available for sale on the Kindle with the caveat that after 100 sales he would put it on his website for free. He wrote a story in exchange for a pair of pants. He wrote a story from start-to-finish on an airplane ride. He wrote a story and then offered the rough draft to his Twitter followers for editing. He asks his readers to remix and rewrite his stories. He has made a game of making canny use of the Internet and social media without ever doing anything that remotely resembles the traditional publishing model.

One Fan Per Day

I work with a lot of writers on their digital strategy, and I very often hear that they don’t feel their hard work and engagement online is making a difference. @garyvee would say HAVE PATIENCE.  And he’s right.  If you’re a writer (and I would encourage you to do ANYTHING else if you can, because it’s really really hard to be successful as a writer), you are building a long-term relationship.  It’s not just about THIS book; it’s about your career.

The take-away from the post that I’m always left with, is:  ”If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years.”  One fan per day just seems so doable, right?

Twitter (as RTd by @DigiBookWorld):

RT @tstcpublishing: #dbw so is lack of support for authors by big pubs due to outsourcing/freelancing of many editorial/marketing functions?

RT @pablod: …and scale. most legacy pubs are operating at 30k feet, when some authors may need support at 15k-feet #dbw

RT @MatthewDiener: Getting a manuscript into print and/or eBook = easy part. Marketing, promotion, sales, discoverability = hard part. #dbw

RT @babetteross: #dbw Being published by one of big 6 is not a magic potion for sales. For Self or Trad, the author needs to help market it.

RT @eBookNoir: #dbw – self-pub seems to fit into those areas where a traditional pub isn’t willing to take the risk

RT @MissAdventuring: #dbw So if the publishers can’t handle it then why all the shouting when the tech industry takes up the slack?

RT @StrachanLit: The self-published authors who are successful have found ways to connect with their readers. #dbw

RT @bakersmark: ” Author took the time to cultivate an audience” I love it… #dbw

RT @eBookNoir: #dbw – so a lot of this comes back to previous conversations of pubs needing to engage readers and authors

RT @MatthewDiener: Much easier for pubs to scale up existing platform/community/following than build one for author. #dbw

RT @MissAdventuring: #dbw self-publishing is necessary for writers who want to break through – advantage to extroverts who know social media

RT @MissAdventuring: #dbw writers thinking about self-pub to get noticed, still so much work! EaSY to produce but not to mktg (killer app)

Topic: Community vs. Commerce

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, June 24, 2010.

Subscribe to the audio podcast here. DBW Members can access the interactive video archive of The Roundtable here.

Featuring:

Pablo Defendini, Interactive Producer, Open Road Integrated Media
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Special Guests:

Elana Roth, Literary Agent, Caren Johnson Literary Agency
Kevin Smokler, CEO, BookTour.com

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

The Curator and the Docent

Recently, as I wandered around a museum with overwhelming breadth and depth of content, I was lucky to be guided in my travels by a professional. When she introduced herself to me, she used the term ‘docent’ to describe her function. A docent is a ‘knowledgeable guide’ and the function seems to me to perfectly complement the process of curation. In an online world, where more and more content appears to “carry the same weight,” we will look to and pay for the combination of curator and docent – sometimes the same person or entity – who can organize and manage a range of content and also engage with the user so they gain insight and meaning from the material

Book Publishing Websites: The Best And Worst (PHOTOS, POLL)

Everyone in book publishing has a website. We know Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound and Borders among others sell books on the web. Authors have web sites that tell you about their writing. But what do book publisher websites do? We wanted to know, so we looked at what’s out there to see if we could figure it out.

There’s a mix of blog content, video, book purchasing options and news. Some sites seemed neglected and with no personality, others were brimming with enthusiasm. Some had us clicking through for more, while others had us navigating away quickly. While many publishers have found ways to integrate blog content and social media, others remain essentially book-buying portals.

So You Have a Platform; Now What?

It’s been a while since I ranted about social media gurus and the “Blogs! Facebook! Twitter! GET ON IT!” mentality that most of publishing is still annoyingly mired in. It’s partly because I’m bored by the topic, and partly because I think the backlash finally started to set in late last year and not as many people are blindly drinking the Kool-Aid any more.

Or maybe they are and I’ve moved on? (Sadly, I know many still are.)

One thing’s clear, though: writers are being encouraged expected to be their own marketing and PR departments nowadays, building an audience BEFORE even thinking about a traditional publishing deal, and arguably needing one in order to have any real hope of DIY success. Sure, anyone can sell eBooks via Kindle just by uploading them with a decent cover and compelling description, but like blogs, the competition for attention is only going to increase, and the early adopter edge is fading fast.

MANIFESTO

I am not saying that it is a bad or dishonest thing to try to sell your work. It is not. What I am saying is that I am tired of the rush to commodify  everything, to turn everything into products, including people. I don’t want a brand, because a brand limits me. A brand says I will churn out the same thing over and over. Which I won’t, because I am weird.

Markets Are Conversations

The first markets were filled with talk. Some of it was about goods and products. Some of it was news, opinion, and gossip. Little of it mattered to everyone; all of it engaged someone. There were often conversations about the work of hands: “Feel this knife. See how it fits your palm.” “The cotton in this shirt, where did it come from?” “Taste this apple. We won’t have them next week. If you like it you should take some today.” Some of these conversations ended in a sale, but don’t let that fool you. The sale was merely the exclamation mark at the end of the sentence.

Twitter (as RTd by @DigiBookWorld)

RT @Stacy_Boyd: Book bloggers are the docents of the literary world. #dbw

RT @tstcpublishing: #dbw Groundswell by Charlene Li is  good primer for efforts along these lines.

RT @Stacy_Boyd: Niche publishers are best positioned to move quickly to B2C model. Yay for romance! #dbw

RT @pa4culture: Thank God for librarians because they really do get the books into the hands of the kids. #dbw

RT @Stacy_Boyd: Interesting Q: Are writers’ websites, outreach geared toward readers or peers? #dbw

RT @pa4culture: Booksmith (SF) monthly book swap as community builder + interaction, gathering around books is brilliant. I want to go. #dbw

RT @kellymcclymer: #dbw Awkward authors and disinterested staff can kill a book signing/reading. Amen to that!

RT @Stacy_Boyd: Is it authors or publishers (or librarians or booksellers or agents) who should turn readers into fans? #dbw

RT @jfallone: Tor is curator + genre advocate building community, brand, fans. Genre first and the fan trust migrates to book sales #dbw

RT @jennybullough: Big pubs + self-pub arm: “lame”, “weird”, “shady” (@elenaroth) or “smart”, “forward-looking” (@glecharles)? Discuss! #dbw

RT @pa4culture: Pubs have been accused of not listening, no community building – self pub a response of a sort – @glecharles #dbw

RT @Stacy_Boyd: Thanks to @glecharles @ElanaRoth @weegee @vertigobooks for a great #DBW session. now, lunch time is officially over. (TY!)

Topic: The eBook Sales Dip

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, June 17, 2010.

Subscribe to the audio podcast here. DBW Members can access the interactive video archive of The Roundtable here.

Featuring:

Laura Dawson, Publishing Industry Consultant
Pablo Defendini, Interactive Producer, Open Road Integrated Media

Special Guests:

Bradley Robb, Author
Sarah Weinman, Publishing Reporter, AOL’s DailyFinance

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

AAP Reports 11.8% Increase in Book Sales through April

Book sales tracked by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) for the month of April increased by 24.8% percent in April to $629.8 million and were up by 11.8 percent for the year through April.

Adult Paperback sales increased 19.6 percent for the month ($128.2 million) and increased by 19.4 percent for the year. Adult Mass Market sales decreased 17.7 percent for April with sales totaling $49.1 million; sales were down by 6.3 percent through April. E-book sales jumped up 127.4 percent for the month ($27.4 million), reflecting an increase of 217.3 percent for the year-to-date.

New Benchmark for eBook Sales, and New Questions

eBook sales “soared to $31.9 million” in January — presumably spurred by Amazon’s claims of “record-breaking” Kindle sales in December, and “more Kindle books than physical books” being purchased on Christmas Day — but they declined slightly in February and March, with estimated sales of $28.9 million and $28.5 million.

By comparison, Adult Paperback sales ($103.2m, $106.3m, $123.2m) had monthly increases and are up +23.5% over last year, and Adult Mass Market sales ($56m, $49.8m, $53.6m) saw monthly fluctuations and are down -6.6% vs. last year.

BN’s E-Book Market Share Grows Under New CEO

Barnes & Noble’s new CEO William Lynch is making rapid headway for Barnes & Noble in the e-book market. According to Crains New York, Williams has increased BN.com’s share in e-books by nearly 20%, making it a distant second to dominant player Amazon.com…

Barnes & Noble’s relationships with publishers, which were not always so friendly, have become the company’s secret weapon in its fight to survive the digital transition and avoid becoming the book industry’s Tower Records.

“Publishers absolutely want us to succeed,” Mr. Lynch told Crains New York. “That’s driving their cooperation with us in the digital world.”

Whatever happened to the e-reader tsunami of 2010?

Along with the rise of 3D TV, E-Ink-based e-readers were one of the biggest tech trends in evidence at CES 2010 in January. Everywhere you turned on the show floor, there was either a 3D TV or a wall of e-readers, to the point that the markets for both seemed saturated before they even got off the ground.

Now, six months out from CES, Panasonic is cleaning up with 3D TV and the tidal wave of e-readers that was supposed to wash up on US shores is… well, that part hasn’t worked out.

Twitter (as RTd by @DigiBookWorld):

RT @jennybullough: ebooks are growing despite, not because of, publishers’ efforts #dbw

RT @MatthewDiener: #dbw If the #s are reported in the same way by the same pubs month to month, then there is significance in the decline.

RT @MatthewDiener: #dbw The significance may simply be that publishers are making less money off each sale, but that is significant.

RT @eBookNoir: #DBW – this makes me think of isbns & wonder if pubs aren’t assigning these, r they tracking correctly or guesstimates?

RT @crych: Blio based on Microsoft’s XPS & WPF; additional support via Silverlight. Quark + Blio = 0 + 0 = 0 #DBW

RT @eBookNoir: #DBW – i see future where physical eReader will matter less as software advances, features r more s/ware related then h/ware

RT @crych: Quark made big push for autopublish to XML, ‘99/’00. Never went anywhere. Not all Q’s fault as front-end XML pub foundered. #DBW

RT @MissAdventuring: #dbw I would like to see Bowker keep tabs on everybody, reporting the #s. Maybe some way to allow anon input of stats?

RT @babetteross: #dbw the onus lies on publishers to be transparent on their figures @pablod (not saying this will happen)

RT @jfallone: #dbw Most detailed data may end up coming from Google Editions using Google Analytics.

RT @jvondeling: E-book sales dip? Looking hard to read the tea leaves. Thanks for great chat today by everyone in #DBW community.

Topic: Browser Wars 2.0

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, June 3, 2010.

Subscribe to the audio podcast here. DBW Members can access the interactive video archive of The Roundtable here.

Featuring:

Laura Dawson, Publishing Industry Consultant, LJNDawson.com
Kate Rados, Dir. of Digital Initiatives, Chelsea Green

Special Guests:

Colleen Cunningham, Senior Book Designer, ADAMSmedia
Joshua Tallent, CEO, eBook Architects

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

Avoiding the eReader Wars – A Call for ePub Standards – Liz Castro

Every eReader I’ve seen to date would rather reformat your carefully crafted ePub document than trust you to have designed your book on purpose.

I truly believe that one of the reasons that the Web took off like it did was because there were no authorities on high dictating elitist rules of design. If you were bent on making a hideous page, there was no browser that was going to stand in your way, or choose more “appropriate” fonts or colors to save you from embarrassment.

And although there may have been a number of ugly pages at the beginning, this lack of censorship also lay the groundwork for a most beautiful explosion of democracy. Anyone could create a web site. And everyone did.

Book publishers agree change coming; details murky – Reuters

Both want their devices — the iPad and the Kindle — to be the one consumers use to read e-books, and each wants to be the biggest virtual store were such content is sold.

For Michael Serbinis, chief executive of Kobo, a company that allows users to buy e-books and read them on most devices, that battle is a distraction to the real changes coming.

“Today you can buy a book at Barnes and Noble and you can buy a book at Walmart and you don’t have to keep them in separate rooms in your house,” he said. “You buy a book from Apple and Amazon and you have got to keep it tied up with your Apple universe or your Kindle universe.”

Publishers want universal e-books; won’t cooperate to get them – Ars Technica

There are already several open e-book formats out there—ePub and MobiPocket are just a couple. The major e-book devices even support them; with a little bit of effort, you can get an ePub version of a book onto your Kindle or iPad in no time. The problem is the “effort” part—e-book sellers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple heavily market their own stores and make it even easier for customers to simply buy the proprietary formats.

The downside, of course, is that customers are then locked into specific formats and devices. As noted in a recent Reuters piece, a Kindle book may be readable on a Kindle app on the iPad, but it’s still limited to the Kindle “universe”—other devices that lack Kindle apps won’t be able to handle those formats, and vice versa.

Apple is the new AOL and new Microsoft, and whoa that can’t be a good thing – BetaNews

1. AOL’s success wasn’t just about an easier online experience. AOL also wooed content providers to its closed network, in part because so many consumers signed up for the service. Once AOL reached a critical mass of subscribers, content providers and application developers were sure to follow — and they did, but doing things AOL’s way. It was AOL’s way or the Information Superhighway. Many partners chose the former. Apple’s situation is quite similar, when looking at iTunes, which is the content and applications hub for iPhone OS devices.

2. Microsoft didn’t just win the browser wars, it won developers. Microsoft feared that Netscape would establish the browser as an alternative platform to Windows. But the real threat was the Web. Microsoft delayed the Web threat, but couldn’t prevent it. Apple may be the creator of WebKit and may talk HTML5, but ultimately an open Web threatens its mobile platform much the way it did (and does) Windows. Apple is pushing an application stack that it solely controls. Such a model can’t coexist with an open Web, particularly one where, say, Google can bypass the iTunes App Store by releasing browser-based HTML5 apps.

Global E-books and The Agency Model at IDPF’s Digital Book 2010 – Publishers Weekly

Indeed, the session before the agency model panel focused on success stories from “The Global Digital Community” featuring presentations from LibreDigital’s Tyler Ruse, Daihei Shiohama from e-book developer Voyager Japan and Michael Tamblyn of e-book retailer Kobo. Ruse outlined the well known successes of romance publishers Harlequin and its Mills & Boon imprint and the effective use of embeddable book widgets that allowed readers to preview M&B titles.

Shiohama outlined a Japanese e-book market with 300,000 titles that had $600 million in sales in 2009. Eighty percent of the Japanese e-book market, Shiohama said, was via mobile phones and aimed at young women in their twenties. And Shiohama said he believes that digital manga, Japanese comics of all kinds, “offer a larger potential as e-books than text books. Text is limited but its possible to make manga available globally.” Tamblyn had a long list of international e-book accomplishments (one day Kobo sold books in 174 different countries) and a wish list for the category going forward: simpler territorial rights, simultaneous global release of print and e-books, more ePub in more places and global metadata with multi-territorial pricing and rights data.

Twitter (as RTd by @digibookworld):

RT @susanmpls: Today’s #DBW webinar is about the various ebook formats & the impact on book design. Fascinating topic.

RT @babetteross: #dbw slide showing the large array of logos/devices currently competing for ebook attention. Its confusing pre detail dive

RT @lizcastro: #dbw roundtable paraphrase “we don’t embed fonts or do complicated formatting because ereaders overwrite” @BookDesignGirl

RT @babetteross: #dbw ePub is not one size fits all. It doesn’t work for manga or reading right to left @jtallent

RT @girlsofair: ePub as a standard has a lot of potential – on the design side, too – i.e. http://epubzengarden.com #dbw

RT @babetteross: #dbw costs of conversion are high, pubs converting backlist slowly. huh, thought e=nearly free <- read that w/ scarasm.

RT @susanmpls: High conversion costs to epub all point to xml workflow. Can save costs if can create epub at composition phase #dbw

RT @babetteross: #dbw need standards for components in book, like bisac is a standard for shelving, proper identifiers affect SEO @ljndawson

RT @babetteross: The most important thing is for publishers to talk to one another and work out standards. @ljndawson #DBW <—-YES FTW

Topic: Live from BEA 2010

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live from the NetGalley Booth (#3905) at BEA at 1:30pm EDT on Thursday, May 27, 2010.

Subscribe to the audio podcast here. DBW Members can access the interactive video archive of The Roundtable here.

Featuring:

Laura Dawson, Publishing Industry Consultant, LJNDawson.com
Pablo Defendini, Interactive Producer, Open Road Integrated Media
Kate Rados, Dir. of Digital Initiatives, Chelsea Green
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Special Guests:

Bethanne Patrick, Blogger, book reviewer, author interviewer, author –but above all, a reader
Susan Ruszala, Director of Marketing, NetGalley

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

Publishing and Perishing: The Book Industry Struggles With the Future – Sarah Weinman

Watching the panel brought to mind the feeling of passengers trapped on a speeding train headed for a wall that might be made of solid brick or soothing transparent liquid. Nobody knows what that wall will be, and the fear of brick is doing battle with the possibility of the more permeable stuff. Whatever happens, that train is going to crash, creating a kind of chaos, either for good or for ill. In the end, Newberg proved the most pointed — and funny — about publishing’s future. “I’m scared to death,” she said at one point. “One of the only good things about being old is that I’m not going to have to deal with this for long.”

BookExpo America 2010: Publishing in the Age of Abundance – Andrew Albanese

Copyright may not be dead, but it is irrelevant, noted Cursor’s Richard Nash at a Wednesday morning panel entitled Rights, Royalties & Retailers: What Works. In his opening remarks, Nash spoke about publishing in the “age of abundance,” telling attendees that success in the digital age is no longer about securing lifetime monopolies associated with copyright, or controlling the content pipe, but about “your moxie.” Nash, who announced his upstart Cursor model in PW last year, showcased the centerpiece of his business: three-year deals. “That doesn’t mean after three years, you lose your author,” Nash noted. “You renegotiate.”

BEA: are ebooks good for authors? – Paul Biba

Publishers have experienced an explosion in the amount of work they have to do. It seems likely that publishers are facing higher costs for less revenue. Three new kinds of digital opportunity: ebooks, apps and web based. For an author they represent a huge opportunity for an author, but it also represents a complete retooling of what a publishing company does. Need to become much more involved in consumer marketing and it will become part of every job function.

Topic: The Amazon Effect

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, May 20, 2010.

Subscribe to the audio podcast here. DBW Members can access the interactive video archive of The Roundtable here.

Featuring:

Pablo Defendini, Interactive Producer, Open Road Integrated Media
Kate Rados, Dir. of Digital Initiatives, Chelsea Green
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Special Guests:

Jason Allen Ashlock, Founder, Movable Type Literary Group
Jason Pinter, Best-selling Author and Former Editor

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

Is Konrath’s SHAKEN Change You Can Believe In? – Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Konrath makes several interesting points in explaining his decision that every publisher should take note of:

1) “I signed a print deal with a company that can email every single person who has every bought one of my books through their website, plus millions of potential new customers.” Publishers with direct connections to their readers are better equipped to compete in a digital book world than those who only sell through intermediaries.

2) “Amazon is smart, savvy, and pays attention to my suggestions. The Kindle version of Shaken is going to be released for $2.99.” Not $9.99 or $14.99, but closer to the $1.99 he had so much success with on his own.

SHAKEN Shakes Things Up – Lee Goldberg

I woke up this morning to a bunch of emails asking me why this is a significant development in publishing. How is this any different, they ask, than what Joe is already doing self-publishing  his unpublished work on the Kindle?

In essence, Amazon Encore is a publisher that has picked up Joe’s mid-list series from Hyperion. They are publishing the book first as an ebook then later as a trade paperback. The difference here is that the publisher is also the largest bookstore on earth and will put their considerable promotional and marketing might behind his book. But there’s a bit more to it than that.

Amazon as Book Publisher May Change the Game for the Industry – Sarah Weinman

In other words, if James Patterson wakes up and realizes he can get even richer by dealing directly with Amazon (or Apple, or Google, or Barnes & Noble, or all of them), and cuts out his longtime publisher Little, Brown, then and only then will the game change drastically — and it will also be game over for publishing as we know it.

The Konrath Effect: Will New Technology Ruin Talented Authors? - Jason Pinter

Amazon and other online retailers have made it incredibly easy to publish books on their servers. They give each author the ability to format books price them how the authors themselves see fit. There is certain freemarket sensibility here that is inspiring, and in a way each author becomes the proprietor of their own small business. However, I feel that the example of Konrath will inspire other, less successful and even less talented authors to publish their works online. They might see the Kindle as a bypass, a way to showcase their works that the Evil, Stupid Publishing Overlords in New York were too blind to realize are, in fact, literary masterpieces.

Barnes & Noble Announces PubIt!™, an Easy-to-Use Digital Publishing and Distribution Platform for Independent and Self-Publishers

The announcement marks Barnes & Noble’s latest move to continue to build one of the world’s largest digital catalogs, spanning eBooks, journals, periodicals and other types of reading material. PubIt! titles will be distributed through BN.COM and Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore, which currently offers more than one million digital titles to millions of dedicated customers in-store and online.

Face It – In Music, Devaluation Is The New Reality – PaidContent: UK

Actually, Rhapsody and Napster – and labels – have been asking this very question since the early part of last decade.  When digital music conferences were packed and billions were at stake, subscription success was almost viewed as a future truism by some.  A matter of time.  So many songs, so much access, how could it not make sense?

Maybe the new rule is that, if it looks good on paper, it’ll never work.  If it seems like an obvious winner, maybe it’s destined to lose.  But the seemingly-illogical consumer reaction can be dissected.

Twitter (as RTd by @digibookworld)

RT @jasonashlock: Konrath deal w/ AMZN is not a gamechanger, but it is a harbinger. @pablod #dbw

RT @babetteross: major authors are likely to stay with pubs to take advantage of the larger distribution/rights benefits @jasonpinter #dbw

RT @pa4culture: #DBW Pubs letting go of midlist authors – Amazon has positioned itself to scoop those authors up, utilize backlist for Kindle

RT @deegospel: Patterson’s web presence is about satisfying the reader, creating a community, which keeps him in current and wanted #dbw

RT @MissAdventuring: #dbw Healthy competition among tech and publishing will create some very interesting solutions tbd.

RT @tstcpublishing: and, as well, you have to wonder/worry about a vertical monopoly with Amazon #dbw

RT @pa4culture: #DBW In last moments @jasonpinter: 1st mention of bricks/mortar. Not liking the sustainability of B&N. @glecharles: B&N.

RT @muttinmall: Can’t count out a brand w/ 750 stores that are performing just fine. I think @glecharles is right; sales will be up. #DBW

RT @pa4culture: #DBW Good luck with figuring out who will be out in front by Jan 1. Oy. Managing the mishmash indeed.

Topic: Accentuate the Positive

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, May 6, 2010.

Subscribe to the audio podcast here. DBW Members can access the interactive video archive of The Roundtable here.

Featuring:

Pablo Defendini, Interactive Producer, Open Road Integrated Media
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Special Guests:

Lizzie Skurnick, Author/Blogger/Critic, LizzieSkurnick.com
Kevin Smokler, CEO, BookTour.com

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

Will the iPad Change Publishing? Ask The Atlantic

The cover of Fiction 2010 offers, to say the least, a provocative vision. To our left glides a gentleman in pegged red pants holding an honest-to-God—positively florid—paper-and-ink book. To our right saunters a young lady fixed on the lambent square of her Kindle. They are shortly to meet cute—heads bent, dogs lightly leashed—near a mailbox at the corner of Publishing 3.0. The attractive pair is surrounded by blooms, sunlight, even a deli’s beckoning door. Their future is plentiful and bright—and there is not an iPad in sight.

Our fictional offerings: Expanded staff! New procedures! Same old quirky fiction!

Tor.com welcomes original short SF and fantasy, broadly defined. We’re particularly interested in stories under 12,000 words, although we’ve made exceptions in the past and will do so again. We pay 25 cents a word for the first 5,000 words, 15 cents a word for the next 5,000, and 10 cents a word after that. Although we try to employ common sense in dealing with edge cases, “original” means original—not previously published. Contrary to some previous reports, we do not want you to query first; to submit to Tor.com, just send us your story.

Project puts 1M books online for blind, dyslexic

The Internet Archive is scanning a variety of books in many languages so they can be read by the software and devices blind people use to convert written pages into speech. The organization has 20 scanning centers in five countries, including one in the Library of Congress.

“Publishers mostly concentrate on their newest, profitable books. We are working to get all books online,” Kahle said.

Rube Goldberg Is Zeksi

EMI supported their first video for the same song, but wouldn’t allow it to be embedded or pulled from youtube. So, OK GO pretty much said ’see ya’ and eventually ended up breaking their contract with EMI, working as independent band and ended up selling a crap load of CDs anyway and got over 12 million hits on YouTube for their new video. It’s easy to apply that same equation to publishers. Go ahead and block that video, lock in that content, close your Facebook wall, lock your Twitter feed. Then we’ll see what happens when frustrated, yet savvy authors move out and create something amazing for their fans and because they are in love with the process, not the business.

Don’t You Wish There Were a Place with Nice Big Chairs and a Fireplace Where You Could Go and Drink and Read Around Other Adults Who Were Drinking and Reading?

You can pass notes to other people if you like; talking quietly is also fine. But there will be no programming. No one will read anything aloud into a microphone. No one will stand up and say something boring. No one will give you a hard time about reading in a public place, or about what you are reading, and if you decide you’re at a stopping place with Netherland or the anniversary issue of The New Yorker or The Collected Poems of Dan Savage and you want to make small talk with someone, there’s an actual bar for small-talk-making in the very next room.

As Google looms, shopping startup Milo moves to mom-and-pop shops

Local shopping search tool Milo is moving past big-box retailers and is starting to track real-time product availability from one-of-a-kind stores. That brings the total number of products the Palo Alto-based company tracks to 2.8 million.

Milo’s vision is to let consumers know which stores have what right now for every product in the country. For example, when a consumer searches for a product on the site, the company returns in-stock results from nearby outlets. With the new addition of 100 small-time stores today, a small neighborhood boutique should get the same billing as a national chain.

Twitter (as RTd by @digibookworld):

@crych: Lizzie Skurnick: Atlantic understands that they must adapt to web, not the web to them. #dbw

@jasonashlock: One advantage of digital pub: word/page count more flexible. See Tor.com’s new call for shofiction @glecharles #dbw

@jimhanas: I think Instapaper is more important for shofiction and long-form mobile reading than has been recognized. #dbw

@Knownhuman: Digital reading is about discovery without time waste. No need to meet predetermined size #DBW

@jasonashlock: It is a “read everywhere, consume everywhere” world. Pubs, make your content available everywhere @pablod #dbw

@deegospel: will the iPad create a new kind of novel? another good question for me to mull over when i should be sleeping tonight #dbw

@emilyw00: #DBW big question: if we figure out accessibility, cross-platform ?s, can we find more (NEW) readers out there?

@muttinmall: I think we’ll find more readers by creating communities that extend beyond just books. Shout out to @GetGlue #DBW

@jimhanas: Agree w/ @lizzieskurnick. People want recommendations from affinity communities, not algorithms or decision charts. #dbw

@jasonashlock: Magazines boast distinct editorial brands. Can book editors do the same, become recognizable for their tastes? #dbw

@vertigobooks: Go To Hellman: The Starbucks Library, Version 1.0 http://bit.ly/9wNasD #dbw

Topic: Facebook – What’s Not to “Like”?

This episode of The Roundtable was webcast live at 1pm EDT on Thursday, April 29, 2010.

Subscribe to the audio podcast here. DBW Members can access the interactive video archive of The Roundtable here.

Featuring:

Kate Rados, Dir. of Digital Initiatives, Chelsea Green
Bridget Warren, Former Co-Owner, Vertigo Books

Special Guest:

Kevin Smokler, CEO, BookTour.com

Moderated by:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Dir. of Programming & Business Development, Digital Book World

Links:

Should Publishers “Like” Facebook’s Open Graph?, by Shiv Singh

Publishers will have a lot more information about Facebook users, too. The 24-hour limit on holding Facebook data will be lifted. Publishers will now know a lot more about users (basically all their profile information) as soon as they click the “Like” button, and they’ll be able to hold onto this data. Just imagine the CRM implications when a publisher is able to marry Facebook user data with its own customer databases.

Closing the Gap Between Publishers and Readers, by Tim Brandhorst

As I was writing this post yesterday, others were spreading the word about Facebook’s new “like” strategy: you will soon see little “like” buttons all across the Web, and every time you click one data about you and your preferences will flow back to Facebook, to be aggregated with everything else Facebook already knows about you. I’ll leave it to others to debate whether Facebook is turning the Web inside out, co-opting the Web, invading everyone’s privacy, etc. The interesting possibility here is that Facebook is apparently willing to let user data flow back to the web sites supplying it–at least that appears to the be case with Pandora and Yelp, two of the initial pilot sites that have already implemented the “like” buttons.

What would a publisher need to have in place to take advantage of this, assuming it eventually will be a two-way data sharing street with Facebook? At a minimum, a community–one that’s engaged enough to be willing to click the “like” button often enough to supply meaningful data. Content for that community to consume, either publisher-created or community-created or both. And preferably, a direct-to-consumer sales mechanism.

One Week After Open Graph Goes Live, Facebook Faces Its Death Panel, by Catharine P. Taylor

“None [emphasis theirs] of your information-your name or profile information, what you like, who your friends are, what they have liked, what they recommend-is shared with the sites you visit with a plugin. Because they have given Facebook this ‘real estate’ on their sites, they do not receive or interact with the information that is contained or transmitted there. Similarly, no personal information about your actions is provided to advertisers on Facebook.com or on the other site.”

This gap in understanding (and I’m going to leave open the possibility that even my own research is leaving something out) is why Facebook is now facing its “death panel.” Like the misinformation in the healthcare debate that turned end-of-life consultations with doctors into a belief that the government would decide when to off Grandma, the belief that Facebook just opened its databank to third-parties is taking on a life of its own. And, unless Zuckerberg & Co. hire a translator, this belief is going to persist. In fact, it’s even possible that “Facebook privacy” has become an oxymoron to so many people by now that hiring all the translators won’t make a difference.

Location Infatuation: Where’s the Publishing Angle?, by Marian Schembari

“Overall, I think it’s definitely the ‘new thing.’  It’s the new way to connect,” says Kate Rados, Director of Digital Initiatives for Chelsea Green Publishing. “Publishers are going to have to get very creative to find a way they can use LBS to connect with their readers. Libraries and bookstores are the ones with the most immediate opportunity here: create special tips, offers for people who check in, rally around events, etc.”

Facebook Sends Window Decals to Local Businesses, by Jennifer Van Grove

Facebook may not have made any big announcements about local business marketing at last week’s f8 conference, but the company is certainly stepping up its efforts in that area. Today, we discovered that Facebook is sending out window decals with text-to-Like SMS instructions to select local businesses.

Twitter (as RTd by @digibookworld):

@Knownhuman: #DBW I’ve always been apprehensive about Facebook – esp in terms of account privacy. Ask yourself, what’s their biz model?

@babetteross: #dbw your privacy has become the fee for Facebook

@MaryFramer: http://twitpic.com/1jex1m – just got this personalized @framenation sticker in the mail from facebook. I feel special! #DBW

@Knownhuman: #DBW if you can’t trust Facebook on privacy, why do you think you can trust them on data?

@babetteross: “won’t this be another way for pubs to ignore getting to know readers, doing market research & communicating.” @weegee #dbw

@pa4culture: “pubs need 2 get serious abt interacting w/ readers, not just depending on 3rd party intermediaries 4 data” @glecharles #dbw

@pa4culture: irony in the fact that leveraging soc med for hoovering mktg data compromises the very community that publishing needs. #dbw

@Knownhuman: #DBW Final thought today – publishers, welcome to the data firehose.