| The proceedings got off to a rocky start on Monday, with Apple’s attorneys questioning in their opening remarks whether or not this particular judge could give Apple a fair trial, practically accusing her of being biased against the company. This mild accusation came from a remark the Judge Denise Cote made that the evidence was stacked against Apple in this case. However, Cote gently reminded the attorneys that she is quite capable of doing her job, and that it was Apple who requested that she review the evidence before the trial began in an effort to speed things up. According to the Department of Justice, who is bringing this suit against Apple, there’s a reason Apple is the last player standing in the years-long court proceedings that brought in five of the then-Big Six publishers as well as Apple. The tone of yesterday’s court session made it appear as though the publishers, fearful of what Amazon’s growing market power could do to the price of books, were lured in by Apple’s plan to make sure its newly launched iPad stood a chance with consumers. Yesterday’s evidence brought in a plethora of emails and correspondence between various players in the entire issue, demonstrating an “out to get them” mentality lobbed at Amazon, and the willingness of the publishers to go along with it. One document filed in court actually showed Penguin CEO David Shanks admitting that Apple served as the go-between for the alleged scheming to take control of prices away from the book retailers, something that has been in practice for hundreds of years, and give that pricing power back to the publishers. One of the more interesting turns of events in this case is the testimony expected later this week from Barnes & Noble. While more than a few eyebrows went up that the producer of the Nook tablets–which struggle in the marketplace to keep up with the iPad–would offer its support of Apple in court. Some sources have even openly stated that this is nothing more than B&N’s siding with Amazon’s enemy. But those who remember some of the proceedings in this case last summer may remember that B&N filed an amicus brief in the suits, stating in court that all book retailers potentially stand to be hurt if the terms of book pricing contracts revert back to what they had been prior to 2010. B&N made a very impassioned and eye-opening point that Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major retailers won’t ultimately be damaged by handling this lawsuit badly, but that communities will lose very valuable smaller and independent bookstores if agency pricing is overturned
Apple Survives Day One of DOJ Lawsuit Trial is a post from: E-Reader News |
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Apple Survives Day One of DOJ Lawsuit Trial
Monday, June 3, 2013
e Ink Unveils new e-Paper Display Screen for Watches
| e Ink has experimented with watches in the past with Seiko, a Japan based company. Pebble has really captured the mainstream imagination with their watches that sync with your most major phones on the market. This has prompted this emerging segment of the display screen industry to all work on solutions. Today, e Ink has announced a new business deal with Sonostar to release a new line of watches using a 1.73-inch display. The new watch will be unveiled at Computex, in Taiwan later this week. It is designed to be a smart watch, and will be able to connect to your Android or iPhone. You need to download the companies official app to pair it to your watch via Bluetooth. Likely, you will be able to receive Google Now and Facebook updates pushed to your watch, to curb the reliance on pulling out your phone all the time. The essence of this new 1.73 inch e-Paper display is the new Mobius technology that is found in the new Sony 13.3 inch e-Reader. The resolution will be 320×240 and will be able to display 16 levels of grey. It is said that this watch will last for a full month, before needing a recharge. E Ink's Director of Product Management, Giovanni Mancini, said: "The joint development between Sonostar and Transmart is the perfect example of the how E Ink can help its customers get their product to market. E Ink displays enable unique products that capture the customer's imagination. Our business development team has the expertise to help our customers design the displays into their products in ways never before thought possible." E-Paper watches will be the next major trend in the wearable technology industry. SID Display Week in Vancouver had both Mirasol and e Ink showcasing a new breed of technology, designed specifically for watches. This will allow for more of a mainstream adoption of e-Paper in general, chiefly due to the synergy between a smartphone and a secondary device. Smart watches are an emerging trend and it remains to be seen if customers will adopt it in significant droves to drive the manufacturing cost down. Developer support will also be a key component, to make exclusive apps for the growth of an industry. It will interesting to watch, no pun intended, if Pixel Qi, Neonode or Liquavista will also develop small screens also. e Ink Unveils new e-Paper Display Screen for Watches is a post from: E-Reader News |
Adobe PDF Reader Now Available for Windows Phone 8
| Adobe has been the literal pioneer of PDF Reading and now Windows Phone 8 users have something to cheer about. The seminal document reader is now available for download for those who have the latest Windows Phones to have hit the market. The Windows 8 phone platform is starting to attract major developers, something Blackberry has been unable to do. The new app will allow people to search for specific text within the app and also copy & paste. If you need to zoom in on images or specific text entries, there is a robust feature to aid you in that quest. Nokia is now seeing 75% of their entire revenue stream stem from Windows Phone sales. The operating system has a whole, barely has 6% of the entire market, but is growing. Microsoft has had some troubles with Mango and previous iterations of the operating system, but they seem to be committed to the Windows 8 platform. Adobe PDF Reader Now Available for Windows Phone 8 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Interview: Otis Chandler of GoodReads Talks about Amazon
| Otis Chandler is the CEO of GoodReads founded the company in 2006 and launched the first iteration of the company in 2007. Recently, he sold the company to Amazon for $100 million dollars and delivered a keynote speech at IDPF, talking about the growth of the platform and the future. He then spoke exclusively to Good e-Reader, talking about the future of GoodReads and alleviating concerns about the Amazon acquisition. GoodReads is an online bookclub where users can rate and review books they have read and create their own collections. There are over 18 million members that participate in the culture and over 570 million books are currently on users shelves. Every single month 11 million books are flagged as “Want to Read” and every single second 250 more are added. Reviews are off the charts right now with over 857,000 currently in the system. Authors are attracted to the GoodReads ecosystem, mainly because this is where the users are and the entire interface is fairly intuitive. Over 74,000 authors are registered in the system and engage in Q/A and address questions from their fan base. James Patterson, Margaret Atwood, John Grisham, Nicolas Sparks, E.L. James and Neil Gaiman are a few examples of the more active names. One thing that GoodReads does very well, is organize collections of quotes by famous authors and from specific books. You only have to Google for a specific author and likely the first result is from GoodReads. Over 1 million quotes are currently in the system and more are added every single day. Before GoodReads ever got bought out by Amazon, they used to do business with them. They used their API to gather book cover art, the number of pages and other critical metadata. In early 2012, they switched over to Ingram, who is the largest book distributor in the world. GoodReads also developed their own public API that allowed companies such as Kobo and Sony to use their rating system and reviews. I asked Otis, does the Amazon acquisition mean the end of the public API and what should the bookstores do that depend on it. He mentioned “We have no plans to discontinue our API for the foreseeable future, we know companies depend on it, and while I am in charge, it will be status quo.” Still, companies are worried about the future of their metadata and Sony has recently switched from using GoodReads to dealing with Sony and formed a partnership with iDreambooks to tap into their wellspring of ratings and critic reviews. Their business model centers around the aggregation of literary reviews from publications like the NYTimes and Washington Post and recommends books that were given a positive rating by 70% of critics. It functions a bit like RottenTomatoes or Metacritic in terms of eBooks and mainly focuses on bestsellers or perennial favorites. Currently the company is adding reviews from all top-tier publications going as far back as 2008 in the next couple of weeks. They have thousands available right now, and tend to add more every day. Otis mentioned that “GoodReads was originally developed just to share my reading lists with my friends and to recommend books to each other. In 2007, the landscape was radically different and there were only a few scant message boards with any kind of book recommendation going on. Honestly, at first when people I did not know started to join, I was ready to shut it down, or limit the people who could join. In the first year, 10 million books where shelves and we knew we were on to something.” What does the future of GoodReads hold? Otis said that “Amazon is letting us run the company autonomously, similar to Audible and Zappos. Of course, I now have a boss, but they are fairly liberal at letting us run the company the way we always have. We now have access to a larger network and shared technologies to expedite our growth and implement new features.” GoodReads is also building more functionality into Facebook and working on a number of new of initiatives. The general consensus at IDPF this year was that Amazon merely bought GoodReads so they did not have to compete with them. Amazon has their own VERY extensive user rating and review system and basically had no need to acquire GoodReads for this type of metadata. Most people believe that in a few years, if Amazon did not buy them, someone else would. It was a preemptive decision to buy the only massive book community that mattered on the internet and decide what to do with it later. Interview: Otis Chandler of GoodReads Talks about Amazon is a post from: E-Reader News |
Good e-Reader Radio – Post BEA and IDPF Wrapup
| Over the last week the entire Good e-Reader staff was in New York for IDPF and Book Expo America. This is the first year our website was one of the major sponsors of the largest digital book event in the world and we talked to a number of major players in the industry. Today, we have a few audio interviews we did at the show, where we spoke to Kobo and Overdrive about a myriad of issues. This year was very light on news for Book Expo America. It seems now, more then ever that companies are staging their own private events, instead of using BEA as a platform to announce new products or services. Many of the statups in attendance did not have booths, but were pounding the floor, talking to the bigger companies. In this post show edition, I get into the major trends of the event and what we all took away. Good e-Reader Radio – Post BEA and IDPF Wrapup is a post from: E-Reader News |
Mitch Albom announced as the Digipalooza ’13 Keynote Speaker
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Mitch Albom, perhaps best known for his all-time bestselling memoir 'Tuesdays with Morrie', is the author of five consecutive New York Times best sellers. His works have collectively sold over 35 million copies in forty-two languages worldwide. Albom is also a screenwriter, playwright and nationally-syndicated columnist and appears on ESPN. His new novel, ‘The First Phone Call from Heaven’ will be on sale 11/12/13.
Digipalooza is held at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel August 1-4. While spots are limited, registration is still open so be sure to sign up today to hear Mitch Albom's keynote speech as well as Steve Potash's Crystal Ball report, library best practices and the newest titles coming from publishers from around the world. You can register here and go to www.digipalooza.com for more information. See you in August!
Adam Sockel is a Marketing Communications Specialist at OverDrive.  |
ASUS Announces New 7″ and 10″ HD MeMO Pad Tablets
| Today Asus unveiled two new Android tablets with high resolution screens ideal for ereading. There’s a 7-inch model and a 10-inch model; both are upgrades to Asus’s MeMo Pad line of tablets. The 7-inch Asus MeMo Pad HD 7 is what the original MeMo Pad 7 should have been: It has an upgraded 1280 x [...] |
Penguin and Random House Merger to Complete in July
| Penguin and Random House have cleared the last hurdle with their proposed merger with China giving their blessing today. These two companies will officially join forces in July and will account for 1/4 of all books to be published globally. The new publishing merger will have 53% controlling interest by Bertelsmann and 47% by Pearson. When the merger is complete, it will encompass all of Random House and Penguin Group's publishing units in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa, as well as Penguin's operations in China and Random House's publishers in Spain and Latin America. Pearson and Bertelsmann believe that the combined organization, the world's leading consumer publishing company, will have a stronger platform and greater resources to invest in rich content, new digital publishing models and high-growth emerging markets. Basically, this merger will allow for stronger negotiating power with Amazon and other online eBook stores. Libraries should also benefit, as many people within the American Library Association think that a more unified digital lending strategy may be employed. Penguin and Random House Merger to Complete in July is a post from: E-Reader News |
Introducing the New Out Of Box Software (NOOBS)
| If you’re a beginner with a Raspberry Pi, things just got a whole lot easier. We started this project with the premise that throwing people in at the deep end and making them jump hurdles, to mix my sporting metaphors, is a good way to get them to learn stuff. It is: but it can also put some people off, sometimes terminally. And we don’t want people to put their Raspberry Pi down in horror after five minutes. So with this in mind, we’d like to introduce you to NOOBS. NOOBS is a way to make setting up a Raspberry Pi for the first time much, much easier. You won’t need network access, and you won’t need to download any special imaging software. Just head to the downloads page, grab a copy of the NOOBS zip file, and unpack it onto a freshly formatted 4GB (or larger) SD card. When you boot up for the first time, you’ll see a menu prompting you to install one of several operating systems into the free space on the card. The choice means you can boot the Pi with a regular operating system like Raspbian, or with a media-centre specific OS like RaspBMC.  The main OS selection menu. Once you’ve installed an operating system, your Pi will boot as normal. However, NOOBS stays resident on your card, so by holding shift down during boot you can return to the recovery interface. This allows you to switch to a different operating system, or overwrite a corrupted card with a fresh install of the current one; it also provides a handy tool to let you edit the config.txt configuration file for the currently installed operating system, and even a web browser so you can visit the forums or Google for pointers if you get stuck.  Editing config.txt.  Viewing the forums in the Arora browser. Thanks to Rob, Gordon, Dom and Floris (of BerryBoot fame), who together developed NOOBS from scratch in less than a month. Also, thanks to our army of volunteer translators for the localisation; and to the operating system maintainers, most notably Alex, for producing updated images in time for integration into the final zip file. Our partners will be offering SD cards pre-installed with NOOBS in the near future, but until then please download, have a play, and let us know what you think. |
Amazon Slashes Kindle HD Tablet Prices for Fathers Day
| Amazon is reducing the investment cost of the Kindle Fire HD 7 and 8.9 tablets for Father’s Day. You can now get a $20.00 savings on both models by using the coupon code DADSFIRE at checkout. The Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7 features a seven inch IPS display with 1,280 x 800 pixels. It offers an amazing viewing experience and the ability to watch 720p movies right on the unit. Underneath the hood is a 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP4460 processor and 1 GB of RAM, which makes accessing media, books, and other content very fast and easy. Meanwhile, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 features the highest resolution touchscreen display panel Amazon has ever produced. You are looking at a very respectable 1920 × 1200 pixels, compared to the 1280 × 800 showcased in the Kindle Fire HD 7. The enhanced colors really make more graphic-heavy content very vibrant. The big hyping factors behind these two devices are the Surround Sound speakers, which gives you the best sound experience ever found on a tablet. Freetime is also a solid program that lets you limit the amount of things your child can do with the tablet. For example, you can set the web-browsing, gaming, and reading sessions. This way, you do not have to take the tablet away from them, you can merely establish how much time they can play games, before the tablet shuts the games down. Amazon Slashes Kindle HD Tablet Prices for Fathers Day is a post from: E-Reader News |
Page to Screen: eBooks on the Big Screen
| From Shakespeare to Stephen King, the box office this year is jam-packed with literary tales hitting the big screen. Encourage readers to get the whole story by adding these eBooks and audiobooks to your collection to tie in with movie releases through the rest of the year. To help grab users' attention for some of the most popular titles, hang our book to movie flyers in your library branches or around your community. The editable URL will allow you to add a link to your OverDrive collection.  Download the book to movie flyers to display in your library or share in your community to promote your digital collection.
June "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare
"The Bling Ring" by Nancy Jo Sales
"World War Z" by Max Brooks
July "Despicable Me" (an audiobook novelization of the motion picture) by Annie Auerbach The sequel is set to be released: July 3
August "The Spectacular Now" by Tim Tharp The movie is scheduled for limited US release: August 2
"Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan
October "The Last Apprentice" series by Joseph Delaney Movie, renamed The Seventh Son, scheduled for release: October 18
"Carrie" by Stephen King Movie release date: October 18
November "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card Movie release date: November 1
"Catching Fire", The Hunger Games Series Book 2 by Suzanne Collins Movie release date: November 22
December “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkein The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug movie is scheduled for release: December 13
Movie release dates are subject to change and are for the U.S. market. Title availability may vary by geographic region.
To shop for these titles and more, visit the Content Reserve Marketplace. For additional marketing resources, check out our Partners Portal.
Melissa Marin is a Marketing Specialist at OverDrive.
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Red Shelf, Story Sticker Start Ups Showcasing their Companies at BEA
| BookExpo America is still one of the premier publishing events in the world, and it has many facets. Authors will be on hand to autograph their books, publishers will display advanced copies of their upcoming titles, and even very real business meetings will take place between publishers and booksellers or librarians. It’s an all-encompassing showcase for everything book related. In the last few years, this event has grown to include ebooks, and one of the most interesting sections of BEA is the Digital Zone. While ebook mainstays like Amazon and Kobo will set up massive eye-catching booths and have featured authors drop by, it’s really the smaller, out of the way booths from the new startups that can be the most interesting to watch. This year’s event saw two particularly interesting startups bring their concepts to the event. The first, Red Shelf, was born out of a virtual document storage and sharing concept, Virdocs. The business model isn’t really all that new a concept. It’s a cloud-based ebook retailer that lets anyone read anywhere, on any wi-fi capable device.While the company isn’t only aimed at authors but actually caters to any business that has documents to store and share, it’s publishing concept is profound. At first glance, it’s tempting to think, “Do we really need another ebook retailer?” But just as the current movement of indie authors decided to take more control over their work and publish their own books, Red Shelf enables authors with the right know-how to sell their content on the Red Shelf platform or the authors’ own websites at a fairly unheard of royalty. With plans ranging from free with a 20% cut, to as much a $199 per month with additional features and benefits, it just might be the answer to major ebook retailers and the lack of control over pricing that authors and publishers have felt. The second was a company that GoodEReader has been watching eagerly: Story Sticker. This company creates QR code stickers in the shape of a darling teddy bear, and sells the stickers. Each sticker is activated by the Story Sticker app, allowing parents, grandparents, teachers, everyone to turn any book into a read-aloud story. The purchaser of the book and sticker records his own voice via a smartphone or tablet (Android coming soon), and gives the book to its recipient. Now, when the recipient of the book scans the QR code bear with his device, he hears the voice of the person who recorded it for him. Story Sticker might seem like a sweet way to make a treasured keepsake, but the educational implications of this company are staggering. Apart from the very obvious applications of this product for low ability level readers or small children, the possibilities it presents for special education and ESL (English as a Second Language) students are vast. Interestingly, this year’s BEA Digital Zone also featured a few startups whose products were still in development, but who had come to the event to display their “coming attractions” for ebooks and digital publishing. Part of the discovery aspect that makes major events so enticing is the ability to envision what’s coming next, especially in the world of publishing.
Red Shelf, Story Sticker Start Ups Showcasing their Companies at BEA is a post from: E-Reader News |
Danish Mofibo eBook Subscription Service Launch Expected this Summer
| The Copenhagen Post published an article this week about an ebook startup idea that seems to have already come and gone in the minds of other consumer markets. Again, being compared to Netflix and Spotify, Mofibo plans to be an ebook subscription service to serve the needs of Denmark’s reading customers. And just like other models that never really took off, the same promises of allowing readers to access bestselling titles from the major publishers, the same comparisons to the movie and music industries, etc. So why is this service going to be any different? It might work this time because it’s taking off in a market that isn’t known for being major ebook consumers yet. “We are the first in Denmark to offer this kind of service for e-books and publishers have been very positive," said Strunge in the CPH Post article. "In the US, 30 percent of reading is done on tablets and I am sure the same will happen here. I believe the market is ready for this service." According to the article, ebooks still only account for a tiny portion of book sales in Denmark. At the same time, Mofibo founder Morten Strunge isn’t trying to change the way consumers read their ebooks, he’s aiming at getting consumers to read the digital books at all. And by rolling out a subscription service in a market that isn’t already overrun with ebook retailing options, there’s an excellent chance that as readers take to reading on their smartphones or tablets, that they will incorporate the subscription concept at the same time. In other attempts to launch subscription-based ebook platforms, some of the major hurdles involved the pricing and compensation. The companies had to be able to guarantee that the publishers and authors were duly paid, but still had to be able to convince the subscribers that they were actually getting a good deal. There’s no incentive to pay to borrow a book if it’s not a better financial choice than simply buying it. Strunge stated that not only are the publishers he’s spoken with on board with his concept, but that the public libraries are excited about this as well. “I think Mofibo will be a benefit to the public libraries by creating a stronger overall market for e-books and other digital materials," said Pernille Drost, president of the librarian's union, Bibliotekarforbundet, in the article. Drost’s aim is for publishers to see how beneficial Mofibo could be in terms of book and author discovery, then apply that same forward thinking to library ebook lending. When launching something new, there’s bound to be some buzz generated by the early adopters, but in Denmark’s case, it might just be that the entire country takes to book subscriptions at the same time that they evolve into ebook consumers. Hopefully, Mofibo will enjoy some level of success that can be applied to other e-reading markets.
Danish Mofibo eBook Subscription Service Launch Expected this Summer is a post from: E-Reader News |
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Digital Magazine Usage Growing via Tablet Users
| Digital Magazine usage is growing with people who have adopted tablets into their lifestyle. Recently a survey polled 1,293 people on how they have adopted digital magazines into their daily reading habits. 26% of the respondents prefer reading on their tablets, rather than the printed variants. One of the most interesting aspects of digital magazine of the survey was the fact that tablet owners tend to spend more. This is partly attributed to the higher population of users who have purchased the iPad.62% of all respondents own an Apple branded device, while 26% use the Kindle Fire. 47% of tablet owners have spent between $1 and $99 in the last 12 months, but 39% have spent $100 or more. Given the current subscription cost of a yearly subscription, most people are subscribing to 2 or 3 different magazines a month. In essence, they are saving money, reading more, on a tablet, rather then buying it from a magazine or book store. At the same rate of growth, Mequoda predicts the number of digital magazine subscribers will rise dramatically to 77% by 2020, as the industry embraces digital and the prices of the hardware decrease further. Digital Magazine Usage Growing via Tablet Users is a post from: E-Reader News |
MagPi issue 13: out now, and free to download!
| Team MagPi have wiped their bleary eyes after celebrating their first anniversary issue, and come up with a magazine for June that will have you playing the Archimedes version of Elite on your Pi, writing racing games in Scratch, and making music with Schism. You’ll learn how to solder up a LED matrix, find out about the growing number of expansion boards available for your Pi – and this month, there’s a very special cover feature. You might remember reading about Amy Mather here a few months ago. She’s thirteen, and she’s a super-articulate, super-smart young coder, who we think is one of the best advocates for computing we’ve come across. You can read an interview with Amy in this month’s magazine, where she talks about what resources are available for parents, about young people and coding, and offers us at the Foundation a few ideas for design changes. They’re good ones, too – and much more practical than some of the suggestions that adult readers make. (You, the chap who wanted us to move all the ports onto one side of the board. I’m looking at you.) As always, there are plenty of type-in listings for you to get your teeth into, a competition, details on Pi events near you, and much more. As always, we at the Foundation would like to say a HUGE thank you to the MagPi team. They’re all volunteers, they don’t get any help from us, and they produce a free magazine every month that we think shows the very best of the Raspberry Pi community. Thanks, guys – we’re looking forward to next month’s issue! |
Video: Interview with Bestselling Author Sylvia Day
| Sylvia Day is one of the best examples of an author who publishes on her own terms. She self-publishes and has a line of bestselling books dubbed “The Crossfire Trilogy.” Her stories have been translated into several languages, she’s been honored with the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the EPPIE award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, the Readers’ Crown, and multiple finalist nominations for Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA Award of Excellence. We caught up with her at Book Expo America and talked about always having to always be “on” in the world of social media and how she handles interacting with fans on her website and Twitter. We also talk about how she goes about writing a book and the best environment to make it happen. Video: Interview with Bestselling Author Sylvia Day is a post from: E-Reader News |
CBS Acquires Majority Stake in TV Guide Digital
| TV Guide Digital has been operating as a joint venture between CBS and Lionsgate. Not only do 16 million users visit the website every month to check out what’s on the boob tube tonight, but they also read the Android and iOS apps. CBS has announced that it has purchased the 50% equity stake that Lionsgate owned, and now is in complete control of the entire digital property. “TV Guide is one of the most-enduring and iconic brands in the world of television and video, and we’re proud to welcome TV Guide Digital to the CBS Interactive family,” said Jim Lanzone, President of CBS Interactive. “TVGuide.com and TV Guide Mobile have the biggest and most-engaged audiences in the valuable TV information category, making them a perfect fit for our portfolio of premium content brands.” CBS interactive is a juggernaut when it comes to strategically purchasing significant digital properties. It currently owns CNET, GameSpot, TV.com, Last.fm, and Metacritic. All of these companies represent some of the most visited sites on the entire internet. The addition of the TV Guide into its portfolio will make the broadcasting company a digital force to be reckoned with, with the vast majority of them being reading related. CBS Acquires Majority Stake in TV Guide Digital is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Amazon Hosts BEA Roundtable to Get KDP Feedback
| Several industry experts were invited to a closed event at BookExpo to meet with Amazon executives about the state of self-publishing. Three notable self-published authors were there, including Stephanie Bond, CJ Lyons, and Hugh Howey. Along with GoodEReader, several other well-known contributors to digital publishing participated: Jane Friedman from Writer's Digest, IndieReader.com president Amy Edelman, Justin Boog from GalleyCat, Jane Litte of Dear Author, David Vandagriff of The Passive Guy, Len Edgerly of Kindle Chronicles, and Porter Anderson of Publishing Perspectives. Amazon's Nader Kabbani and Libby Johnson McKee hosted the event to gain insight into what authors and readers have to say about digital publishing and self-publishing. Litte started the discussion with a question about readers' perceived value in both pricing of ebooks, and how an ebook fares when a print book is available as well. That quickly turned the discussion to how readers perceive the work of self-published authors. Lyons and Bond both spoke about their past experiences with traditional publishing, and both seemed to feel that the largest criticism for the industry is the snail's pace of publication. Both recounted how their fans regularly reach out to them demanding more content, sometimes only a matter of months after a new book was released. For his part, Howey spoke from the perspective of not having been traditionally published, but having to make a key decision about relinquishing control and a significant portion of the royalties in order to accept a contract. Rather than focusing on wider reach to a broader audience or how the contract can be beneficial to him, several publishers were too focused on the advance and royalties. "How much are you going to pay me for saying I'm published with your company?" Howey asked in jest. From a reader standpoint, the participants weighed in on compatibility issues and piracy concerns. While most felt that piracy was not a huge issue, what was important was the ability for readers to find indie authors' works and be able to read them without a lot of hassle or hoop jumping, as well as how to make it possible for readers to choose to read on a variety of devices—even those from different retailers—without sacrificing their existing ebook libraries. Edelman highlighted an interesting perspective on the self-vs-traditional status of authors, in terms of saying that readers enjoy the knowledge that they helped an unknown author get discovered. "When people first started talking about Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, my readers were saying, 'Please, I read that six months ago.'" Both Lyons and Howey added to that awareness on the part of readers with fans who would reach out to them to ask where they should buy the next book, meaning, "Where will my purchase get you the highest royalty?" That discussion demonstrated that readers are actually quite aware of the finer points of the publishing industry in terms of how authors get paid. While there was never a feeling that either the self-publishing or the traditional models will die away any time soon, Anderson made a vital statement about the status of authors: "The slush pile is visible now and the best rise to the top." That sentiment, echoed by others in attendance, makes it clear that the readers now have more control than ever before over what books get taken farther, and it is quality and value that will get them there.
Amazon Hosts BEA Roundtable to Get KDP Feedback is a post from: E-Reader News |
The Big Library Read and Its Initial Success
| GoodEReader sat down with Steve Potash, CEO of OverDrive, and Dominique Raccah, CEO of Sourcebooks, at this week's BookExpo America event to talk about the early results of their joint experiment in ebook lending, the Big Library Read. This experiment made one Sourcebooks title, The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone, available simultaneously to all patrons of over 3,500 OverDrive partner libraries. "OverDrive has been working with a lot of very forward-looking publishers and for many years has appreciated the important role of the public library with connecting readers with books and authors," explained Potash. "We've had a few major trade houses that claimed there wasn't good information, there wasn't enough experience, and I felt for many years that was wrong. It's been now ten years that public libraries have been lending ebooks from HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, Harlequin, and Sourcebooks. "There are a lot of so-called industry experts who don't know the library market and don't the value that libraries bring to authors. I said 'Let's try an experiment.' I naturally called Dominique, who is an entrepreneur on 360-sides of this book business. I came up with a check list to demonstrate very quickly how libraries are helping readers connect with authors and get authors discovered." There were some key considerations for the Big Library Read. Potash approached Raccah for an author who had an established book, who had other titles available, and for whom Sourcebooks had worldwide rights. It also depended on finding an author who was willing to give up a lot of potential income from letting so many readers access his work at once. Potash believes that Sourcebooks' involvement in this experiment was akin to a donation of hundreds of thousands of dollars. "Tens of thousands of people have read this book, and the libraries and patrons got it at no cost, thanks to Michael Malone and Sourcebooks," said Potash. "Michael did an incredible job," said Raccah. "He's a remarkable guy. Michael really got it." Raccah pointed out that the speed of developing the project ended up hurting the participation in the project, estimating that only roughly one third of the libraries invited to participate actually did so. But from OverDrive's perspective, that only added to the value of the data. "Not every library book is going to get a two-month pre-release marketing campaign with press releases and posters," said Potash. "This book just showed up, and I'm trying to show that just by being there and being merchandised on the libraries' home pages that this book got over seven million cover impressions (views), and from that we're getting over ten thousand people a day looking at the title detail page and the description. We're getting thousands of people looking at the free sample. Even people who don't have a library card." That last consideration is vital in this experiment. Not only did patrons discover an author through the Big Library Read, individuals who found the title online due to increased traffic and sharing went to their local libraries and requested cards, increasing overall library traffic. Was the project a success? With over 40,000 public library patrons currently reading the title, it would seem so. Libraries are already ordering a copy of all of Malone's other works, but Potash predicts that sales to libraries are going to take off. "I want to be very clear," said Raccah. "Fundamentally, you're not going to see an uptick right away. If you see one, it will be after the promotion. We're already seeing an increase in sales, but the big increases are from a very small base. I'm more interested in seeing what happens at the end of the promo, and what happens in an on-going basis. That's what we're looking for." For now, a few things are fact. This title had modest weekly sales before the promotion, and its ranking on Amazon has gone up due to patrons purchasing the book or sharing the information about the book. The author, who had a very limited social media presence, has seen a significant increase in fans. Most importantly, the libraries who participated are all now being invited to participate in future projects of this kind and to serve on advisory panels for how lending needs to extend its reach.
The Big Library Read and Its Initial Success is a post from: E-Reader News |
Kobo Explains Aura HD Design and International Expansion
| The Kobo Aura HD is the most recent e-Reader the Toronto based company has produced. It certainly buckles the trend of the standard six inch device that seems to be the industry standard. In a very short period of time, the Aura now accounts for over 25% of the companies overall hardware sales, and is poised grow even more, as the availability in international markets starts to increase. Sameer Hasan, head project manager of the entire hardware device line gushed about the severe departure from the standard design Kobo employed with the Aura. He mentioned “if the Kobo Glo was compared to a paperback novel, the Aura is much akin to a hardcover. Customers seem to identify with this larger display, and despite the premium price, it is selling very well.” One of the things that makes the Aura HD unique is the back of the case. In the first few generations of the Kobo line of e-Readers they used to do most of the design in-house, and now they have started to sub-contract it to an American company. The Aura, certainly bears no resemblance to previous iterations of hardware, that all used a quilted back. Sameer mentioned “the design we were going for in the Aura, was pages of a book, if you look at the way it flows, its very much like paper.” Kobo has consistently stayed in the media limelight due to its aggressive strategy of international expansion. Michael Tamblyn, the Chief Content Officer at Kobo explained their strategy. “Normally when we enter a new market, we start off with the local publishers, small presses and top publishers that market eBooks in that country. We then send over key personal that have at least 20 years experience in book rights and have a well established connection base to tap into. Once we have publishers on-board that offer eBooks in whatever local language we are going after, we go where the book buyers are. It does not make sense to offer our hardware in tech electronic stores, because our base of customers are book buyers. I would much rather sell 1 e-Reader to a book lover, than 3 to a tech enthusiast. This is why we normally partner with bookstores, and put our e-Readers side by side with physical books.” Shortcovers was the digital book ecosystem that was apart of the Indigo organization around five years ago. It was established to give the bookstore chain a viable entry point to start selling eBooks. The company transformed into Kobo and had millions of dollars invested into them by Indigo and a few other partners. Last year, the Company was picked up by Japanese e-commerce website Rakuten. How much say does Rakuten have in the business practices of Kobo? Michael explained “the main reason why the Rakuten deal made sense is because our vision of the company fell in line with theirs. We don’t receive mandates from them and they mainly let our business run autonomously. One of the ways we benefit is the sharing of technology to really allows us to grow up fast. They have poured millions of dollars into features like Search, and various databases that really help us manage our company more effectively.” Kobo has since expanded their Toronto headquarters and now has close to 500 employees. There are a few big markets that Kobo is very interested in expanding into next, but present a myriad of challenges. India, is one big market they are trying to break into, but the publishing market has not embraced digital yet. This challenges Kobo to educate the publishing community on the merits of digital and uses their own metrics and statistics on how similar markets have blossomed by embracing eBooks. The bigger the market, like India and China, the longer it takes to break into. Kobo certainly has the eBook ecosystem nailed down, with over three million titles and thousands of graphic novels, comic books and manga. The obvious next step is digital magazines and kids books. Many people use the Kobo ARC, the companies second iteration Android tablet, but many more use the Kobo app for iOS, Blackberry and Android. This gives the company an established base of people who use a full color screen, which makes the prospect of magazines extremely viable. This is a new market for Kobo, and presents challenges in talking to a new segment of the industry, but by this summer we should expect a new section of magazines in the Kobo bookstore. Kobo Explains Aura HD Design and International Expansion is a post from: E-Reader News |
