Pinch Yourself its April 1st!

It’s April 1st and time for silliness. Which are a April fool’s ‘free’ joke and is just that and which are serious?

Techcrunch reports that for two day only period, when you buy a Dell notebook or desktop, you get a Sony Reader Pocket Edition free. The ereader is Sony’s cheapest version and has no wireless connection and so you will need the Dell to connect. Its like buying a modem and getting the device free!

US Seton Hill University is to provide all first year undergraduate students at with a 13" free MacBook laptop and an iPad. The students will be able to use the devices for both classes as well as for personal use. After 2 years, Seton Hill will replace the laptop with a new one which the student can keep when they graduate!
http://www.setonhill.edu/techadvantage/

A leading European toy and games reseller is to launch a free ebook programme. When you buy an ebook reader from their stores you get a free bindle of ebooks. The reader is yet another eink ‘lookie likie’ that claims all the usual features, but the epub files downloaded will not be DRM protected. This maybe great news for the users but they are DRM free because the devices don’t support any DRM such as Adobe’s ACS4. The result is the user can never buy their future books from many sources, may be restricted to public domain and vanity titles and of course pirates.

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.

WOWIO is Back!

Platinum Studios, Inc. who own an library of more than 5,600 comic book characters have globally relaunched the digital ebook distributor WOWIO. Wowio gives readers free access to a library of ebooks and now includes new features such as a free browser based viewing capability which allows readers around the world to view the ebooks on their computer and mobile device screens, ability to browse without registering, a simplified registration process allowing consumers to store, share and gift downloadable ebooks, and as you would expect on a free service the ability to download as many ebooks as wanted.

Prior to the relaunch, WOWIO had over 2 million downloads in just over a year.

WOWIO publishing partners include Rosetta Books, Arcturus Publishing, the UK-based publisher of the best-selling 3D Thriller series; Taylor & Francis Group, Soft Skull Press, Dakuwaka Productions, and Arcana Studios, Canada’s largest comic book publisher.

This new accessibility to an international audience positions WOWIO to become a leading global destination for ebook distribution.

The is probably the first serious free content at consumption paid by advertising model for books and although it has many issues to face it is following the steps being taken in the music business and challenging the current book trade business model. WOWIO's founding mission is to increase free access to books worldwide.

Interesting also they have now gone global which for any Internet service is logical and potentially builds not only traffic but brand. The key as always will be content.

Oprah kicks starts Digital

We raise our hats to Nicholas Clee in the Guardian for spelling out succinctly what we have been trying to say here. It’s a pity he isn’t still at The Bookseller. Meanwhile we read in the Times of the usual doom re the death of the book in the Times yesterday. Did the article say anything new or exciting or even positive? Unfortunately just another space filling article by another business analyst.

We then read the biggest non article to get air yesterday on the Atiz Booksnap book ripper. They may as well have used an off the shelf scanner and OCR package. The reviewer thought as little of it as we they colunmn inches it was given.The conclusion that the publishing industry could be Napstered by students and consumers making ‘illigal’ or dubious scans was interesting given the current activities of one certain omnivore at work in libraries around the globe!

It must be the digital silly season or is it a certain pay to speak, exhibit and attend event in New York that is stimulating digital mania in the press?

But then comes a breath of fresh air from that book star and number one bookseller – no not jef bezos but Oprah Winfrey. She has announced that a free downloadable PDF version of Suze Orman's bestselling book WOMEN & MONEY (published a year ago by Spiegel & Grau) is to be available at Oprah.com today and tomorrow. It is to be offered in both English and Spanish and will include a clear copyright notice that reads, ‘This book is copyrighted. You may view and download the file, but you may not copy the file or share or forward it to any other person.’


No doubt we will here much more from the paid speaking slots but its Oprah who knows how to stir an audience and market!