Sunday, October 26, 2008

What If Amazon Bought Borders?...

Be honest. Isn't that a question you've asked yourself a time or two over the past several months? I read this New York magazine article again last night and when I hit this part I wondered about it all over again:

Recently William Ackerman, a major Borders shareholder, suggested they should sell to Amazon instead (of B&N). That probably won't happen, but his reasoning is clear. Barnes & Noble is old news. Amazon is the future.

So humor me for a moment while I speculate about what a Bordazon world might look like...

First of all, finally, we'd see Kindles in a brick-and-mortar outlet. Hooray! I tend to think the lack of Kindles in physical stores has been one of the device's biggest adoption obstacles. That and the $350 price tag.

Next, do you want to see some technology in a brick-and-mortar store? Amazon would probably have tech kiosks on every endcap, enabling you to order all sorts of (book and non-book) products right there, on the spot. They'd probably also figure out how to turn the store into even more of a trendy hangout joint. Think Starbucks meets the Apple Store.

This would also be an excellent opportunity to (finally!) tear down the wall between online and physical stores. How about offering the same discounts online and in the store? You want three books and two are in the store but one isn't? No problem. We'll get the third one to you tomorrow, not when our distributor can get it to us sometime next week! You're ordering a book online? We'll check your zipcode to see if that title is at your local store for immediate pickup -- why wait till tomorrow when you can get it today?

OK, I know the chance of these things actually happening is pretty slim. Sure, the brick-and-mortars have all that extra overhead to deal with but hey, I can dream, can't I?

Although I like Joe's entry and agree with a lot of his points, I'm not sure whether Amazon buying Borders would be a good or a bad thing. Amazon has been such a bully of late, that I'm not really a fan of theirs anymore. But perhaps if they bought Borders and therefore had a brick-and-mortar presence, they'd have to deal with the issues that B&N and other bookstores have to deal with, and would therefore become more reasonable. One can only hope...

And speaking of B&N, have you checked out the new "My B&N" feature? Amazon has been more of an interacitve social network all along, so it's about time B&N caught up. They've actually taken their version a step further and incorporated many of the features you see on sites like goodreads.com. But will this get people to buy more books, and buy them on B&N?

What do you think?

Saturday, October 25, 2008

I Own Every Great Book Ever Written and They Are All in My Pocket

Perhaps that is a slight exaggeration, but it feels that way. For years now, I have used my Palm TX as my primary way to read books. The only exception to that reading pattern in the last two years has been the "Harry Potter" books, which are not available in a digital format. When I give my lectures on the future of publishing, I invariably reach into my pocket and tell the audience proudly that my Palm Pilot has four movies and 12 books, among other things.

Yesterday, when I went to get my next book, I was confronted with an offer I couldn't refuse. The offer was 3,000 classic titles for $19.00 at the push of one button. All these titles were actually available for free from www.projectgutenberg.com, but not packaged together and not in the format necessary for my Palm. So I pushed that button and now have ready access to a full library in my pocket.

I now have the complete works of Shakespeare, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and a hundred other authors always in my pocket and ready to read at any time. I know I won't read them all, but I will read some that I might never have gotten to otherwise.

So, my point is that the concept of e-books and portable screens are doing a many things that the printed page just can't do and that digitized words should be perceived as counting for more. It is more than the fact that I can read just one book in my Palm, but it's my ability to read a passage from practically any book that exists, at any time I want to, as well as the ability to click on hyperlinks, use the in-board dictionary for words I am unfamiliar with, experience multimedia, and add notes and share sections of passages with others. That is the future of publishing, and it is in my pocket at any time.

Monday, October 20, 2008

The Textbook Evolution

It's going to happen. It's just a matter of time. Far too many parents and students are up in arms over the cost. I'm talking, of course, about the current state of the textbook industry. Here's a related article I read earlier today from The Christian Science Monitor.

I'm always thrilled to see textbook publishers who are looking to innovate, so I was particularly delighted to see the efforts of my former employer, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., were noted in that article. The free digital textbook program Wiley and the University of Texas have created could produce a great deal of useful information to help shape future initiatives; the article didn't say what sort of monitoring and measurement tools might be used, but I'd like to think the system will provide the metrics required to enable both publisher and university to quickly see what works and what doesn't. It would be even more exciting if the results from this program and others like it were to be shared publicly, so that every publisher and school wouldn't have to work in isolation.

That's a nice segue to the various "open source" textbook model that I keep hearing more and more about. The Christian Science Monitor article refers to one called Connexions, but there's another one called Flat World Knowledge that's been getting a lot of PR too. Can the open source model work here? It won't be easy given all the current textbook ecosystem stakeholders who are so well entrenched and have so much to lose. This is also a sector that tends to move at a glacial pace, so sudden shifts are unlikely. No matter how it plays out I definitely think the open source publishers are worth keeping an eye on and much can probably be learned from their efforts.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Lots of E-Reader News

Flexible E-reader to Be Presented at Frankfurt
Polymer Vision announced that it will present its Readius—the “first pocket e-book reader”—at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which will run Oct. 15-19. The new device will feature a flexible display and a wireless connection for downloading books, magazines and even e-mail. The Readius is about the size of a cellphone when it’s rolled up, and unrolls into a 5-inch diagonal screen, according to Polymer Vision.

Sony Introduces Third-Generation Reader Digital Book
Sony has announced the latest edition of its Reader Digital Book. The new model, PRS-700, will be available to consumers along with the previous PRS-505 model.

The new model has the same 6-inch, electronic-ink screen as the previous model, but with added touch-screen capability. Users are able to search terms within a document or book, create notes using a virtual keyboard and highlight text with an included stylus pen. The PRS-700 can store up to 350 digital books in its internal memory, and thousands with a memory card.

The new Reader will be available next month for about $400.

“Readers now have another choice in digital books,” says Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division. “This new model has the eye-popping design and intuitive functionality that people have come to expect from Sony.”

Also this month, Sony will unveil a redesigned page layout, with more prominent book cover art, at Sony’s eBook store (http://EBookStore.Sony.com).

Sunday, October 5, 2008

From Print to E, Some Items To Consider

September 29th, 2008, by Kassia Krozser

Except for the annoying crashes that require hard restarts (which require the acquisition of a paper clip), I’m pretty happy with the Kindle reading experience. It’s not a device that will light the world on fire, nor is it the “iPod of ereaders” (stop with the dumbness, people). It’s a good gateway device, however.

The next generation of ereader will surely be more of everything.

Of course, the fine-tuning of the perfect ereading device is not the issue. The ebook business is building itself without the perfect device. eBooks are not going to be the next big thing; they’re going to be a thing. A part of a complex mix of reading choices. With that in mind, let’s think about ways we can blend ebooks into the publishing culture without pain.

I lied: there’s going to be pain. The pain will come for those (textbook industry, anyone?) clinging to old business models. So let’s play. Here are my thoughts, in no particular order.

  • Rethink Royalties: A few things here. I’ve read a lot of blah, blah, blah about royalties and profitability from ebooks. Most of it makes no sense at all. In keeping with that tradition, I’m going to throw out a royalty rate for ebooks: 30% of wholesale/what the publisher receives. Calculating royalties off retail is a silly artifact of a business that ceased to exist long ago.

    30% might seem high (and it’s a starting point, not a rule), but there’s a bit of logic here. This leaves 70% of every dollar received for the publisher. That amount offsets distributed overhead, including editorial costs, distribution and storage and data centers, knowing that retailers are currently doing most of the fulfillment, and other costs, because there are fare more costs than I can list here.

    Getting hard numbers is, well, hard, so I can’t do a tidy little P&L.

    While I cannot make guarantees, offering a reasonable royalty to authors is a gesture of good will, especially since many authors remain wary of this new business model (even though it’s not really so new). Which leads to:

  • Resist Rights Land Grabs: Maybe it’s because my background is in the motion picture industry, where rights are often granted piecemeal and distribution terms are clearly defined, but enough with the hoarding of rights. It’s a given that the notion of “in print” changes with the availability of ebooks.

    And it’s natural for authors to balk at the idea that a publisher can, theoretically, own distribution rights for decades. While I am not one who believes books will disappear from our lives, I do believe that we’re due for many changes — some of which might even stick — in the publishing business. Of course publishers want to lock down rights to content in order to be positioned to meet new opportunities, but it’s insane for authors to give up their stake in said opportunities.

    Publishers are already seeing a slow trickle from established authors (see: Terry Goodkind) who are seeking better deals outside the traditional industry. It is a dangerous thing, alienating your bread and butter. Rethinking royalties and negotiating rights in good faith are fine starts. You’re not the only game in town.

  • Get Over Your Fear of Piracy: Piracy exists. I mean, we’re still living in an age where pirates board ships and make off with goods (the mind boggles that this is possible, but there you have it). Piracy exists. You can throw up every lock in the universe, but, if someone want to pirate, they’re going to pirate. Stop living in fear. This goes for authors and publishers, but right now, I’m talking to authors.

    Let’s stipulate that a few things are debatable: the number of “lost” sales due to piracy and the actual pervasiveness of true piracy. It’s stealing content, but given the lack of profit motive in most of these instances, shouldn’t we be looking deeper at root causes and reasons?

    For example, look no further than Kirk’s post on reading Thomas Pynchon on the Kindle. Given the number of times he’s purchased various versions of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue (because you need the rare Japanese CD edition), I know that he’d happily pay good money for an electronic version of the Pynchon catalog. There are no legal versions of these books available.

    This is such a pervasive problem that I’m thinking I need to start a new BS feature: Not Available on the Kindle. I was emailing back and forth with an author, and thought, “I should just buy the book now.” Grabbed my Kindle and discovered that this book, published in 2007, was not available in a Kindle edition (it was recently released in paperback, and a Kindle edition is now sold).

    Authors need to be more proactive about getting their books out there. One thing that is absolutely certain is that you cannot make sales if you do not make your books available. I think there’s an economic theory behind this.

    Withholding content doesn’t stop piracy. Withholding content doesn’t increase sales. And withholding content because you have this precious notion of how your book should be read is just plain arrogant.

    Oops, did I type that?

  • Discourage Proprietary Solutions (or, Support The Reader!): Wal-Mart is shutting down its music servers. Customers who bought into this DRM’d content are being told to burn it to CD or lose it. Imagine, for a moment, that a year from now, Amazon pulls the plug on the Kindle. Decides it was a grand experiment, but too costly in the long run. Imagine that Amazon further decides to shut off access to the Kindle servers, meaning people like me lose access to their purchases. Yes, I know, but it’s a proprietary format, and we all know how well those fare in the long run.

    This is not a far-fetched notion. Wal-Mart is the latest in a string of retailers to do this to consumers. I believe that one of the many reasons music piracy remains so robust is because consumers simply cannot trust the people in the industry to do the right thing by them.

    I hate that I am locked into the Amazon system with my Kindle (though, honestly, given my life schedule, Amazon is generally my preferred retailer for many products). There is no competition for my reading dollar, if I want to do my little part for the environment and reduce the number of physical books coming and going from my home by reading as much as possible on the Kindle. I should be able to buy a book wherever I choose and read it however I choose.

    Of course, this swings the other way: I can’t read my Kindle books on my laptop. Or my iPhone. I am locked into one retailer. Do you really want that to happen? Do you really want your customers owned, lock, stock, and ereader by Amazon?

    The real bottom line is that nobody from publisher to retailer to reader should be locked into anything. It’s a crazy way of thinking when you know full well that tomorrow won’t look anything like today.

  • New Business, New Pricing Model: Now that you’re in league with the publishing devil, you’re understanding why the music business is hating on its bargain with the music devil. The music folks created the iTunes business model, more through aggressive failure than active lobbying. They finally got the business they wanted, but the other side of the bargain was loss of pricing control.

    Granted, nobody in the music business wants to sell songs for less than ninety-nine cents. They’re angry because they want to sell for more. The music industry’s ostrich-like attitudes are the topic of another rant.

    I like the idea of flexible pricing. For example, I see a 2008 edition of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice listed for $7.95 for a print copy, with no Kindle edition available (I do know that I can get free electronic versions of this book from other sources, but follow along with this example. Thanks.). Now I have at least two print editions of this book, including a really old one that I stole from my mother, but I wouldn’t mind a well-formatted version, perhaps with some nifty indexing that helps me navigate the text. And I’d like it to be, oh, in the two dollar range.

    I think one telling sign when it comes to the value of books, versus the perceived value (as defined by retailers), is the used book market. It’s not a slam dunk comparison, but there is some value in noting how these books are valued in this so-called secondary market.

  • Think Beyond The Book, And Don’t Forget Serialized and Subscription Content: I can’t remember where I read it, but someone declared serialized content dead. As providers such as DailyLit have shown, there is a market for serialized content. It’s all about the right content and the right market (and, yes, right marketing).

    Another concept that excites and intrigues me (and also ties into the “think beyond the book meme”) is subscription content. I’m already getting the Los Angeles Times delivered to my Kindle on a daily basis, and, yes, actually reading more of the newspaper because it’s more convenient for me. What about literary journals or other periodical content? I’d love a broader range of subscription content, and I’m happy to pay for it.

    Yeah, this plays into the device/content independence thing. I want a cloud system that lets me control my access to the content I’ve purchased.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

BoSacks Speaks Out: On E-Ink, Esquire and Mankind

I am sitting here with my copy of the October issue of Esquire with the now famous e-ink cover. I thought I would take a moment to reflect on what it is and what it isn't.

So what is it? It is a flashing billboard on the cover of a magazine. It flashes the message "The 21st century begins now." It's somewhat glitzy and underutilizes the real possibilities and significance of e-paper. But it is important to note that it is real e-paper, and it has gone completely through the magazine manufacturing cycle of being printed upon, manhandled, bound, stacked on skids and shipped across the county. That alone is worth several kudos to those who know and understand the manufacturing and distribution process.

I would also like to point out that I went to four large newsstand/bookstores in Manhattan and all were sold out. Kudos again to the PR and press for the coverage of this unique publishing event.

My real disappointment is the exploitation of the product itself. I'm sure there is enough memory on whatever chip is in there to have displayed some actual text in a more creative and expressive way as to why the 21st century begins now, but it doesn't. It only uses large headline type to broadcast and blink its message. E-ink is capable of more, much more. And just to confuse the issue further there is a plastic layer over the e-ink that deadens the contrast of the product. The plastic is there is give the illusion that the e-paper is in four color. It is not. The four color is printed on the plastic overlay. That was an unnecessary "fake out." Why tout the greatness of e-paper and then diminish the final reading results of the product itself? Is it a demonstration of design over function?

I am a patient man and delighted to see this technology finally come into the public's peripheral vision. This is the first time that e-ink is on/in a magazine and as such it is the beginning of something very important for readers and publishers alike. With the success of the Kindle, the Irex Iliad, the Sony e-reader and other new e-reading products soon to be released, it is one small step for e-ink and a giant leap for reading mankind.