Exclusive Digital Bundling To Sell More Tin

Bundling a ebook reader to an exclusive ebook launch is a bit scary, as it sets yet another ‘exclusive’ deal and feeds on scarcity and demand.

Sony UK has announced another of its spray paint limited edition models of their Reader Pocket Edition™. Remember the John Lewis and the Mills and Boon Romance ones, well we now have the thriller one. They appear to have have now found some midnight blue paint for the reader and created a ‘premium case’ with an embossed Alex Cross logo on the front. Obviously that by itself would not generate much interest, so they have thrown in The James Patterson’s best selling Alex Cross novel, ‘Cross Country,’ selected excerpts from two James Patterson books and a letter from the author. However the real offer really revolves around every customer who purchases the bundle being able to download a new James Patterson novel ‘Worst Case’ from Christmas Day. The hardback and eBook will go on general sale from January 21st 2010. The bundle will be available from 30th November. So unless you are a Patterson freak or like very expensive books the deal looks a bit weak.

So the ebook is not only coming out on first, which we fully support, but exclusively to Sony for some 3 weeks, which we feel is a bundle too far. At a time when we are trying to combat piracy and grow the digital market, it is questionable whether creating scarcity and bundling demand in a clear exclusive deal, is good for the industry or merely good for Sony. Why should other buyers who have invested in supporting the ebook movement be penalised so blatantly so Sony can ship more tin at Christmas? More importantly this sort of exclusive deal just encourages pirates to break the restrictions which will not be hard to break and therefore merely feeds the very people we are all trying to restrict.

We hope Random House will see sense and respect that James Patterson’s readers do not just want a midnight blue premium ticket reader to enjoy their reading.

Are Free eBooks Wise?

There is no such thing as Free and you can offer so much free content that the consumer starts to believe all content is free. Remember Napster and Kazza they created ‘free’ and music never really recovered, iTunes created the $0.99 track and prices only went one way.

Irrespective of the jacket price, we are now close to establishing the $9.99 price point in ebook retail, but even more alarming, some publishers now appear to be hell bent on using the ebook as a promotional release and giving them away free.

James Patterson's latest ‘best seller’, The Angel Experiment, was published some 4 years ago. Readers are getting it from the likes of Amazon’s Kindle site and at a price which is very good even for an old title - free. Patterson is taking the ‘mega author’ big picture perspective and is happily introducing readers to one book free, in order to promote the sales of another. Thousands have been given away. After all, he has probably made his money on the original, so what does he care?

This ‘priming the sales of one book by giving away another’ may be good for big publishers and young marketing wiz kids, but it is bad for smaller authors and publishers who don’t enjoy the ability to give books away!

The problem is that we haven’t established the ebook market and already some have decided they know best and are smart marketers. Promotional ebooks may work for some, but will effect all and some would say that its madness and would urge them, to be careful what you wish for.

The Random House Group Explodes the Digital Spine

The Random House Group has launched its first list of ‘enhanced’ ebooks. ‘Book and Beyond’ is aimed at extending the content past the text that was in the print work and truly exploding the spine. Readers can now enjoy additional content such as videos, games, quizzes, photos, author interviews, interactive graphics and the option to listen to or read the text at the start of each chapter.

Ten ebooks are being used the create the experience and for once a publisher has taken the bold step of using popular authors such as James Patterson, Danny Wallace and Derren Brown. More enhanced ebooks are planned and include Katie Price and the word ‘enhanced’ must be the operative one here. Meanwhile fans of Jacqueline Wilson My Sister Jodie can play a ‘catch the ghosts’ game on her My Sister Jodie.

The ‘Book and Beyond’ list is available from Waterstones.com, WHSmith.co.uk, and rbooks.co.uk.

Everyone recognises that the one dimensional eink ebook readers can’t play the additional rich media content, but that it can be played on PCs, Macs, netbooks and laptops. If the features were to take off and be copied by others it would raises serious questions of the future of the ebook readers as we know them. We can envisage the extras being able to port to the mobile and would expect someone to create a special app to accommodate this.

Well done Random for breaking out of the straight-jacket and being brave enough to do it with popular authors.