Self-Publish And Be Dammed?

We read today of rise of self-publishing and the claims that ‘Self-publishing boom lifts sales by 79% in a year’ made by industry analysts Neilson and published in the Guardian.

Steve Bohme, Research Director at Nielsen, claims that of the 80 million ebooks sold in the UK at a value of some £300 million, 18 million were self-published at an average price of £1. So whilst the volume of self-publishing was a little under 25% of the UK ebook market the value of the sales was only half that at some 12%.

There are many questions about these and other self-publishing statistics. How much of the research is qualitative and how much is quantitative? How much is actual sales of all self-published books and how much is restricted to tracking industry identified book units (ISBN)? It is easy to be subjective, but the actual detail often remains inaccessible and therefore any statements and predictions often carry a word of caution. The time old practice of measuring the market by number of new books published a year, is becoming meaningless in this new virtual world, where multiple renditions often exists and the front list, or ‘new’, is increasingly hard to define. The industry failed to adopt the ISTC (standard work identifier) and as a result relating different renditions can be a challenge. Separating out the self-publishing titles is even harder as digital self-publishing is also not restricted to authors and is being used by agents and small publishers and we must not forget that it also includes print on demand channels such as Create Space and even audio.

We are however where we are and it is hard not to appreciate the massive explosion in digital self-publishing. This has been enabled via no cost and self service programmes such as Kindle Digital Publishing (KDP). The number of titles now taking this or similar routes to market is hard to accurately measure and therefore too are the sales.

We understand some of the self-publishing drivers, but we often lack the actual sales that are actually being achieved. Whilst some authors claim huge sales, some works sit on the shelf untouched. Prices fluctuate from free to a few pounds, but owners are often continually manipulating these prices in order maximise visibility and sales. As a result prices, although low, are all over the place, which in turn put pressure on the pricing of more traditional works.

Traditional publishing has developed, honed and established processes, relationships and practices from the author to the reader over many years. Although these characteristics may vary from sector to sector, in many sectors the prevailing model still remains largely one based on spread betting that is controlled by the publishers, where the winners compensate for the losers. Some bestsellers may be manufactured and according to their marketing spend be hits before they have hit the streets.

However, publishers are increasingly becoming risk adverse and in doing so are potentially now shrinking the number of wild punts they take.

For many readers the publication date has not been the buying driver and ‘latest’ often only means the newest to be discovered, not latest to be published. However, the publishers remain front list focused with what some would see as a mission to discover the next ‘50 Shades’, ‘Harry Potter’ and Christmas celebrity blockbuster etc. In the physical world the promotion and development of the backlist does not always generate the returns offered by a new bestseller. However in the digital world a strong and visible backlist can provide stable and sustainable income with little cost. This potential quick win is not lost on authors who have often got reverted backlists that are potentially waiting to be rediscovered.

The size of the content of a title is still being driven by the economics of the physical rendition. The distribution and metadata is still conforming to the physical supply chain needs. The rewards, rights and royalties remaining locked in a time warp as if digital never happened. We still think in terms of library and bookshop shelves and not virtual ones and restrict how we describe works to filling in predefined boxes. Digital books are still often restricted to sitting on limited shelves even though their appeal may be applicable to many genre. We are managing ebooks as if they were pbooks which again is opening up opportunities for self-publishers to self-publish and appear more relevant and focused.

The market share of digital to physical continues to be an industry obsession and in part is driven by the majority of the physical book content remaining identical to the digital with the physical content merely being poured into the digital container. We have created a cannibalising engine which although like other media will not entirely replace the physical, could seriously undermine the supply chain economics on which it works today. However, this is not the case with much of the self-publishing market which now sidesteps the often uneconomic print rendition. So despite Amazon’s Create Space print on demand service digital self-publishing is growing disproportionately to traditional digital publishing.

Self-publishing is being championed by those who control virtually all current ebook sales. The likes of Amazon, Kobo, Nook not only assign their own identifiers and do not make the ISBN mandatory for ebook self-publishers they actively promote their services for free with royalty rates that make even the best publishing digital royalties look miserable. Yes, publishers can add value by promotion, marketing, and generally help raise the visibility of their works and that may be appropriate for front list titles and those released in print but doesn’t always apply to back list, mid list which now find themselves fighting for attention alongside increasingly more professional looking self-publishing titles. It is very questionable why any author should allow publishers to simply digitise their back list without term time break clauses and a revision of royalty terms. The ebook services also add value to authors in showing current sales activity, royalty earnings and even pay on a monthly basis.

If we finally accept self-publishing is a growing force and segment within the market, how do we relate to it, measure it and respect what it offers authors and readers alike. Merely brushing it under the carpet or closing one’s eyes to it is not the answer as this will only deliver aftershocks and surprises. Locking authors into perpetual contracts for their backlist as well as front list will surely only come home and bite hard. Paying authors poor digital royalties that look to some greedy and to others just stubborn will only increase the flow to self-publish digitally.

It is often one thing to identify the threat and another to focus on the opportunity. Publishers are not structured to absorb self-publishing and by their nature are selectors and curators. We now live in an environment where anybody can publish a video on YouTube, perform their music in the social network arena, review whatever, write blogs, stories etc. This is to be embraced and supported and even though many still see it as a threat self-publishing actually compliments and can enrich traditional media publishing.

Some previously related articles:

Digital Warming and Self-Publishing , Feb 2014

Self-Publishing is Just Going to Get Bigger Embrace it, March 2014

Another Day at the Races, Feb 2014

Consumers Discover Self-Publishing, June 2013

Midsummer Maddness Book Royalties

Does anybody know where to find Raymond Buxton?

It must be Summer and the heat must be sending some barmy with thoughts of erecting new toll booths to collect money every time a book gets sold.

Yesterday the news that secondhand reseller Bookbarn had entered into some sort of convoluted pact with the Authors’ Licencing and Collecting Society (ALCS) to effectively pay a royalty to authors on the sale of the used books. Someone at ALCS was obviously dreaming of a huge new revenue stream and a potential new role in life, or some misguided people believed that there was any quick win and a pot of gold without thinking through the implications. Bookbarn‘s motive for doing it is not known.

The ALCS has always been actively looking at ways to increase their members’ earnings but the practicalities and economics of the scheme should be seriously questioned and its potential impact evaluated within the industry and across the value chain.

First of all can we define a secondhand or used book and when is a secondhand, thirdhand or even more? What is the difference between rare and antiquarian and used paperbacks? Are public domain works to be included or excluded and who will identify which qualify? What happens with foreign works and editions? Is the toll based on individual resale value or retailer’s revenues or some sort of honesty box? What happens with the sale of orphan works and how are these to be identified? Do charity shops and car boot sales have an exclusion or are they to be included? When a return is resold is that still mint or now deemed secondhand? Defining degrees of used is itself going to be a challenge.

ALCS may be good at collecting photocopying revenue but this is a different and far more complex world.

The book is still under the copyright ownership of the author but it has also been produced by the publisher who currently only earns on the initial sale. Unlike artworks, there are others who have been involved with the production and development of the book being resold. Should any collection agency succeed in collecting used sales revenues could the publishers also lay claim to some of the bounty? Should the agent who facilitated the original deal also be rewarded? Is the money collected to be shared just between ALCS members?

There are many more questions which we presume all have thought through and have answers for.

It is not clear whether the sales to be recorded like artworks as unit sales or managed as collective sales and revenues spread by percentage sold, like PLR lending’s across members? What is the administrative overhead of the operation and is the revenues exclusive to ALCS members and what happens with international authors who don’t belong to ALCS?

Anyone familiar with the music collection services such as Performing Rights Society (PRS) would appreciate that their approach to collecting money can sometimes be viewed by some as intimidating and somewhat arbitrary and that the administration costs of such collections can outweigh the benefits given to individuals.

The Artist’s Resale Right, or Droit de suite became an EU directive in 2001, and was enacted in the UK in 2006 but todate has delivered questionable benefits to artists and it is claimed that instead of tens of thousands of artists benefiting, only 1,104 artists benefited, of which only 568 were British”.

So instead of creating a questionable and some would say unworkable sledgehammer to crack a nut, why don’t we address the basics and first establish a rights registry and identify exactly who owns what.

Blame it All On Amazon

The papers are full of anti-Amazon rhetoric which some may suggest is being whipped up into a feeding frenzy within the publishing marketplace. Amazon is being portrayed as the biggest bully ever to have stepped into the publishing arena. But is this the case or is it another attempt by the publishing majors to wrestle back some of the control they happily gave the Seattle company, or a genuine grievance? How do consumers feel about the latest public spat, do they really care and how do they actually perceive Amazon? Do authors side with the retailer who has more than any single entity extended their market, or do they side with the publishing majors and those A list authors  who may be suffering in this conflict? 

The issues facing the ebook publishing marketplace are wide ranging and often interrelated, but often these only get raised and discuss as individual issues. Some would suggest that the book supply chain is adversarial by nature and can often be seen not as a supply chain, but as a ‘blame chain’. Yesterday it was the book chains and their greed to secure additional discounts, today it is Amazon’s same battle at a time when some major publishing houses are declaring profit rises due to digital sales and growth. It’s somewhat ironic to wind to the clock back just a few years to when publishers were claiming the true costs of digital were far greater than many envisaged and they were losing out and couldn't pay authors more.

The digital market has shifted significantly and mainly thanks to Amazon and its continual exploration of the marketplace. They have given us and invested in Marketplace, Creative Space, KDP, Audible, ABE, Goodreads, Singles, Kidsspace and much more. They have raised the bar re author royalties and whilst many publishers have started to raise the digital royalties, they all too often pale into insignificance compared to those offered by Amazon and followed by their competitors. Publishers claim that they can make the difference and ‘make a book happen’, but although this may be true in the physical market the digital one is effectively owned by Amazon. Interestingly Amazon have also opened up the digital honesty box through KDP and in doing so have given authors transparency on daily sales by title and region and paid them monthly, again with total transparency.

If we step back and look at some of the digital issues some would suggest that we often have little appetite to change and more easily accept the status quo, often letting others take the risk and waiting to see if they fail or succeed. We have lurched from knee jerk to knee jerk with the likes of the ill-conceived Google book Settlement and Agency moves. Some would suggest that these were primarily aimed at bringing in Google and Apple to compete with Amazon but on their terms.

Today we have a marketplace that is still fixated with front list in a digital world of virtual shelves that provide equal space to all content, irrespective of its age. We have no, or few price points that are recognised by consumers and this just promotes discounting across titles that should not be discounted. We have continue to pour the physical into the digital container and believe the job is done and in doing so undermine the physical product and marketplace. We have generally failed to create new digital content that encourages reading and compliments the physical book as Charles Dickens and others did in the early age of mass reading and have choosen instead to stick with the 256 page model fits all?

There are only two entities that truly matter in the value chain; the author who puts in the creative content and the consumer who puts in the cash. All the others have to add value and not just cost but also have to often co-exist to maximise the efficiency across the chain.

Why is eBook Metadata So Hard?

Today many continue to pour the physical book content into the digital container and believe that they have addressed the digital opportunity. However many have also adopted the same approach to contextural data, metadata, bibliographic, burbs etc. It’s as if we think that what works in the physical world is equally applicable in the digital one.

Is this blind faith approach down to a conscious decision to do as little as necessary and incur as little cost as possible, or is it a fundamental misunderstanding of the digital environment? Some would suggest that it’s like continuing to distribute AI sheets like confetti via a fax machine in the email and internet age.

Way back in the eBook dark ages (the late ninties) we were part of the highly acclaimed publishing research series edited by Mark Bide and Mike Shatzkin, ‘Publishing in the 21^st Century’ and one of the reports we produced was simply titled ‘From N to X’ and was about the growing importance of Context (metadata) over Content. What was clear then was that discoverability was as important, if not more important than the content and finding that digital needle in the Internet haystack was going to be a challenge to all.

Interestingly, the industry choose to retain their physical taxonomy of classification and apply restrictions often that only applied to the physical world. It as if all we could see was physical shelves and we had to place the titles thus. ONIX which did much to provide structure for the physical B2B supply chain started to become increasingly irrelevant in the B2C ebook supply chain. The major ebook retailers all adopted their own classification taxonomies some permitting many genre classifications others a few. Keywords became important but the response was varied. The important blurb was often just the physical one again merely poured into the digital description. Some indexed the first chapter, others the whole book, but searching index words often then became highly subjective and often irrelevant to the intended search. As seen with some generic search engines today even your individual profile may present different search results to others.

Some battled with the semantic tagging of the likes of illustrations. Some sectors recognised the importance of citations, references and continued to support those established to manage these in the physical world.

The point is that we have a very rich bank of potential information that can aid discoverability and qualification. The richest source of content metadata being in the book itself. Some 95% of all contextual data is available via the book with the remaining being often available via hyperlinks.

The other source of information comes from our own profiles on our tastes, preferences and habits. Some will say that one of the reasons why social book sites work well is that they aid discoverability, recommendations and thereby add context. Its little surprise therefore that Amazon bought Goodreads and have just launched their Twitter relationship. Book recommending social services have mushroomed but  have they actually increased sales to the same proportion or are they just an extension of today’s ‘me too’ social dating society?

We therefore need to rethink what we give away to promote, aid discoverability and add value to drive sales. Merely to continue to pour the same physical information into the digital boxes is not going to work. Equally waiting for the white knight to provide the solution may well now carry a health warning.

Never Mind the Ethics - Get Children Reading

Today we are alarmed at the report in The Bookseller that Kobo and Fast food chain McDonald’s are teaming with, Hodder Children’s Books and National Literacy Trust (NLT) to give away ebooks to children when they buy a Happy Meal Box at the fast food chain.

Every Happy Meal box will come with an e-book voucher, which will allow customers to download a Famous Five book by Enid Blyton from Hodder Children’s Books. This new promotion is in addition to the existing one, where boxes contain one of six of Blyton’s Secret Seven stories and a £1 voucher that is redeemable to buy a Secret Seven or Famous Five book at WHSmith or Eason.

The World Health Organization (WHO) regards childhood obesity as one of the most serious global public health challenges for the 21st century. The latest UK National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) figures, for 2012/13, show that 18.9% of children in Year 6 (aged 10-11) were obese and a further 14.4% were overweight. Of children in Reception (aged 4-5), 9.3% were obese and another 13.0% were overweight. This means almost a third of 10-11 year olds and over a fifth of 4-5 year olds were overweight or obese. Results from the Health Survey for England (HSE), claim that some 28% of children aged 2 to 15 were classed as either overweight or obese. However, it should be noted that imbalanced diet is only one cause of the steep rise in childhood obesity

Early this week we wrote 'Do we continue to have Ketchup on our hands today?' referred to the article on the content of McDonald’s Hamburgers 'Hamburger Chef Jamie Oliver Proves McDonald’s Burgers “Unfit for human consumption”' and questioned the industry’s continual support of promotional the ‘free book’ programmes via McDonalds.

Kobo is probably getting used to controversy.

On a separate ethical note, last month, we raised in our article 'Does Rakuten Deal In Blood eCommerce?' the exposure by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), of Japanese retail giant Rakuten, who own the likes of Play.com and ebook operator Kobo. Their report claims that Rakuten is the world’s biggest online marketplace for elephant ivory and whale meat products. 

On a further separate ethical note, last year Kobo, WHSmith's eBooks partner also had to quickly respond to complaints that pornographic e-book material appeared alongside children’s literature on the W H Smith website. Kobo said this was as a result of “a select group of publishers and authors violating the self-publishing policies of our platform". John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee at the time, said it was “it is unacceptable that anyone could access this material within a click of a mouse.”

Some may suggest that the apparent lack of an ethical code by some would lead others to question the true price being adopting in getting people reading.

HELLO! Books Are Digitally Different

So what will be the next technology must have and what will drive its adoption? Will media come second and merely follow new technology?

In the last decade we have seen the transition from fixed location desktop PCs, through luggable laptops, the life and death of the notepad, the ‘air’ laptops and the explosion of the tablet. We have seen single functional devices such as the eink ereaders come and almost go, the transition from games only consoles to games anywhere, the death of the music only iPod and Zune and those video movie players. Home entertainment devices and interoperability has been redefined. The app, the cloud and streamed media services have arrived. Today the smartphone, or computer in your pocket, has taken over all our lives.

It has been a decade of significant technological and culture change and is unlikely to stop or even slow down as the technology shrinks, gets more powerful and anytime, anywhere and at high speed continue to drive our thirst to be connected. Our interface with technology is becoming more intuitive and although we may still be some distance from Pranev Mistry’s sixth sense world, it’s coming.

So how are the media and creative industries responding? What can we expect to see soon and what is still stuck some way off?

If we just look at film, music and books we see that although technology has increasingly impacted the development of the stuff, the output is the same. Films are still 90 to 120 mins long and apart from some 3D and computer aided technology the majority remain as they were. Music still retains the same length of tracks and although the technology has dumbed down the quality of content, a song is still a song. Books remain books with the vast majority of ebooks being straight digital renditions of the physical book.

However, there is a significant difference between books and the other two media. Film does not exist in a native technology free form, Unless you count the theatre and live music performances, both Film and music are very different cultural experiences and consumer purchases and not something you can put on the shelf and replay at will. Music has evolved through a series of disruptive technology changes, from vinyl, cassettes, 8track, CDrom, to today’s streamed MP3 on demand. Vinyl may be enjoying a small and limited renaissance and success in clubs, but for the average consumer it’s only like discovering a pile of old 78s and then looking for the device to play them on. The gramophone players, Walkman, ghetto blasters have gone and today we have the personalised earpiece connected to the smartphone and the cloud.

Books are different. Books remain and ebooks are a competing new rendition like the paperback was to the hardback. This difference challenges the ebooks ability to be a disruptive rendition and to kill off its previous forms. Book technology and the reader goes back hundreds of years and isn’t broken, nor is it made obsolete by the new form or its evolving technology. Therefore eBooks over pBooks is not a straight binary decision choice.

When we first grappled with the ebook in the 90s we often tried to enhance and exploit the content with the technology. Many fingers got burnt and so when it returned under the eink revolution, many kept it simple and also found that the eink technology didn’t exactly encourage content enhancement. However as tablets, mobile and smartphone technology become ubiquitous some may now return to enhance the content. Others may choose a different route and abridge it, or even play to the strengths of the technology and embrace the obvious – the short form.

Whatever the route taken the stupid thing would be to continue to merely pour the same content into a digital container. This logic is flawed as it not only creates competition where competition is not needed and can be counter-productive, but it fails to understand the technology, the cultural changes that are happening and the opportunities that are available for the two that matter - the author and the reader.

Buy, Read and Then Return Your German eBook?

When we look at the Amazon dashboard we are often confused as why, or how, there can be the odd one ebook return. After all you can see everything you need on the screen, make your mind up and even sample the content before you buy, so why is there a refund. The official Amazon policy on returned eBooks is: 'Books you purchase from the Kindle Store are eligible for return and refund if we receive your request within 7 days of the date of purchase. Once a refund is issued, you will no longer have access to the book. To request a refund and return, visit the Manage Your Kindle page. Click the Actions tab for the title you'd like to return, and select "Return for refund"'

Some would suggest it reflects Amazon’s customer-friendly return policy and others that it’s easier for them to do than other services where the horse has literally bolted out the stable door and isn’t coming back. Some go as far as to suggest that it's like going into a restaurant, buying your meal, eating it and then getting your money back.

Barnes and Noble state that 'Once purchased, eBooks cannot be refunded.' and this also is the policy of Sony who state 'Please confirm all purchases before you complete them as all sales are final. There are no refunds for digital content.' Kobo Books doesn't provide information on their refund policy and consider all sales are final and once the services commences, customers cannot cancel the contract or payment. The iTunes Store Terms of Sale, also state that all purchases made on the iTunes Store are final. This policy matches Apple’s refund policies and provides protection for copyrighted materials.

However, we now read in eBook Fieber.de bout a change to German consumer law that potentially gives everyone a no quibble return window of up to 14 days on digital products. These new regulations come into effect in June this year and will require online retailers to offer refunds for ebooks and other digital downloads under an extended “right of withdrawal”.

So you buy the ebook, quickly read it, then return it within 14 days and you get your money back. The question is how will retailers stop abuse especially with respect to services which don’t synchronise activity post download?

Retailers will have the option of trying to get consumers to waive their right to a refund and no doubt the small print may be about to get even longer and smaller.

We had to look twice to ensure it wasn’t April 1st, or a spoof by the German equivalent to The Onion, but it appeared not, so someone in the German legislature must be just having a laugh.

Do We Continue to Have Ketchup on Your Hands Today?

We first wrote over a year ago and asked, 'Does Publishing have Ketchup on its Hands?' The article was about about the fast food give away of books to children by MacDonald's. We were told by some that it was the parent's choice, the food was not that bad and it was important to reach children.

Well  since then we have all read many reports about how childhood obesity is getting worse and is being part fuelled by the fast food outlets, but last week an equally important and alarming article was published by  the Mind Unleashed organisation entitled 'Hamburger Chef Jamie Oliver Proves McDonald’s Burgers “Unfit for human consumption”'.

We will not say any more except to ask why the publishing industry continues to support promotional programmes which would appear to be at odds with any reasonable corporate ethics and moral policy?

Making Reading Fit Today's Lifestyle

Is it a surprise that men read less in today’s channel hopping, multimedia, time poor environment? Are we really shocked to find that some 63% of men polled in a recent UK survey said that they prefer to spend time on the internet or watch the big screen version of a book? Many claim to blame a lack of time, whilst 20% stated that they find it difficult or don’t enjoy reading.

So what is the industry response and reaction to the news from the study commissioned by the Reading Agency conducted by OnePoll which polled some 2,000 UK men and women?

Some believe that the answer lies in more of the same assisted by that great give-away event, World Book Night. It’s as if they believe that all can be converted to reading by a freebie and that they can somehow like King Canute, control the tide from coming in. The reality is that social culture is changing and is being driven by many competing demands. The internet and mobile technology is having a significant impact on what we all do, how we do it and where we spend or effort, time and money and although books have significantly benefited from the exposure they have been given, they remain wedded to the physical world and yesterday’s culture. Many still believe that it’s just a case of pouring the finished physical book content into the digital container. They have failed to grasp the opportunity or understand the difference between physical and digital consumption. Some also believe that it is a case of adding more to what already exists and by doing so enrich the physical book with multi media. They have often failed, or ignored the lessons of others and from the often disastrous CDRom days of the late 90s.

To get more people reading and enjoying the experience you have to encourage them by giving them something that fits their lifestyle, habits, time windows and technology today. Some will not take up the offer, others may migrate to the physical book and time commitment and some may remain at the entry point. But trying to force feed them with something that they already have rejected and doesn’t fit their culture is very questionable.

So it’s no surprise to many who have read our previous articles that we believe that the digital offer now requires serious and radical overhaul. Merely pouring that physical content into the digital container is naïve, as it undermines the physical product and makes it a substitution sale, assumes that the experience and appeal is the same and importantly reduces opportunities for authors to reach new audiences.

If we want to grow reading we have to adapt what we expect people to read. We have to give them something that is digestible. Some would suggest that what we are doing to today is like expecting, in the early age of mass literacy, the Victorian masses, to rush out and read War and Peace as their first book. We may learn from other media sectors but we can also learn a great deal from history too.

Making reading relevant to today's lifestyle is different from making today's lifestyle adjust to reading. Giving away books is relatively easy, getting people to change their habits is a lot harder and without change some would suggest that it is relatively easy to predict the results of next year’s Reading Agency survey.

Does Rakuten Deal in Blood eCommerce?

Japanese retail giant Rakuten who own the likes of Play.com and ebook operator Kobo has been exposed by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) as the world’s biggest online marketplace for elephant ivory and whale meat products. The EIA in conjunction with Humane Society International (HSI) have issued a joint report “Blood e-Commerce: Rakuten’s profits from the slaughter ofelephants and whales” which reveals that Rakuten’s Japanese website carries more than 28,000 ads for elephant ivory products and some 1,200 whale meat products ads. Japan's controls continue to fail to comply with requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in the control of raw ivory tusks and worked ivory

Rakuten is a global retail operator which owns e-book reader Kobo, was formerly Buy.com in the US, owns Play.com in the UK, PriceMinister in France, and has shopping sites in Germany, Austria, Brazil and other countries, owns chat app Viber, and is a major shareholder in Pinterest. However, its Global sales are now being undermined by its Japanese trade in products which are outlawed in the majority of the countries it which operates and earns its revenues.

Up to 50,000 African elephants are poached each year and the EIA claim that Rakuten's actions are worsening the situation and are help drive the demand for ivory from Japan and China. EIA and HSI research identified that over 90% of the ivory products sold on Rakuten Japan as “hanko” which are the name seals used to sign official documents. Large amounts of ivory hanko are known to have been produced from illegal ivory in Japan.

“Blood e-Commerce: Rakuten’s profits from the slaughter of elephants and whales” also states that ‘Japanese hunters continue to slaughter internationally protected whale species, and the country imports the meat of endangered fin whales from Iceland. Large numbers of small whales and dolphins are hunted around the Japanese coast, which often contain high levels of toxic mercury; eight of nine products offered for sale on Rakuten were tested by an independent lab and found to contain dangerous levels of toxic mercury.’

EIA President Allan Thornton said: “Rakuten’s ads are effectively as deadly as giving bullets to elephant poachers and harpoons to whalers. Rakuten must act immediately to ban all ads selling elephant and whale products or its global brand will be irrevocably tainted with the ongoing mass slaughter of these species.”

Would you buy an ebook from someone who has so little regard for endangered species and the environment? Would it pass the ethics code of your or many US and UK companies? Are we all, in supporting the likes of Play.com., Kobo and Pinterest, now getting the blood on our hands?

The Digital Devil's In The Detail

One of the most disturbing rulings occurred this week in the court of US Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald and relates to a case of copyright infringement brought by HarperCollins in 2011 against Open Road in relation to the ebook publication of Jean Craighead George’s 1973 bestselling children’s book ‘Julie of the Wolves’.

The judge ruled that the original contract which was signed in 1971 differed to that of the 2001 ruling in Rosetta vs Random House and clearly granted HarperCollins exclusive right to licence electronic publications as then in 1973 and into the future. They still needed George’s permission to make any electronic rendition but they retained the exclusive licence right irrespective of whether George agreed or not. In this case George did not accept the terms and went to Open Road. George sadly passed away in 2012.

The actual wording difference between to Random House and HarperCollins contracts with respect to future technology and electronic rights appears to be clear to the judge and focuses on ‘in the future’. It has probably sent every trade house into a legal frenzy of activity on checking their digital clauses in their key and boilerplate contracts. As to whether this was the standard boilerplate contract term in the day, or a specific one honed for this contract, only the parties know. However, it would appear a very generous open ended clause for the agent to accept in those days and at a time when digital was clearly not even much more than a distant dream.

A contract is a contract and a ruling such as this brings both clarity for some and ambiguity to others. It however raises once again the question of the fairness and equity of contracts and whether they should be in perpetuity, tie both physical and digital to sales and inventory and can be so open as to cover anything and everything into the future. Some would suggest that you acquire as much rights as you can and use as little as is necessary. Today some would claim that excessive rights are demanded and that some subsidiary rights are not being fully exploited as a result. We have long argued that digital rights should be term based, not in perpetually and should apply on a back to back basis to both the agent and publisher contracts.  Also a pbook may not be the same as an ebook in the future, digital ‘sales’ are potentially going to become subscriptions and licences and therefore have different parameters of success and longevity. Digital may be published first with the physical having to justify print. On demand makes a mockery of inventory. It may be wise to contractually cleanly separate digital and physical and not muddy them under ‘published in any format’ catch all’s.

Whatever happens the backlist and orphan works position is probably going to get murkier before it gets clearer. Contracts that were once signed under the understanding of the day may now find themselves being dusted down to face a whole new brave world they were never really designed to cover. Governments may bring in regulated orphan ‘land grabs’ based on some due diligence, but again this doesn’t address the fundamental void of there being no rights authentication database. Books are not alone in this issue and our whole internet infrastructure would appear to be based not on validation and authentication, but on ‘catch me if you can’ and ‘safe harbour’ and take down notices.

iBookstore Sans Nipples

Some will say that a picture paints a thousand words, and that book jackets sell books.

The Deric Longden ebooks we have published which feature cute kittens on their covers have sold better than those without the cats and with just Deric on their jackets. This is despite these some of these catless books having won film and writing awards. We now actually fear that we have made the mistake on his latest jacket, ‘Radio Times: Take 1.’ in that we haven't put a cute kitten on the jacket.

Apple belief that a jacket image can also be offensive, inappropriate and they continue to impose their own moral code on publishers. As reported in Le Monde, the International Publishers Association has now expressed serious concern about Apple's decision to ban the sale of a French novel because of its cover art. ‘La Femme’, by Bénédicte Martin and published by Editions des Equateurs. As we don't see the jacket above inappropriate we have chosen to ignore Apple's moral code and display it. Apple, considers the image "inappropriate" and has withdrawn the book from its online store.

Apple’s has long held this moral high ground on content it feels inappropriate and rather than age range content, or issuing a warning, it takes the view it that it will ban both the jacket and the work.

The question is not whether the retailer has the right to act this way, they clearly have the right to do so, but whether their taste aligns to that of the market and why they take such a heavy handed and dictatorial approach to the way they enforce it?

Could they not have simply greyed out the jacket image, or offending parts? Effectively banning the book doesn’t diminish its appeal but actually increases its notoriety and appeal to people who would have never heard of it or seen the nipples in question. Do Apple ban books with non-sexual but disturbing jackets, or is it just sexual images that they deem inappropriate? What about the work itself and is their censorship over explicit words, acts or whatever they feel is inappropriate on the day? Some suggest that publishers such respect Apple's viewpoint and design their content and jackets appropriately.

However publishers may decide that it is better to ‘publish and be dammed’ and as a result be censored and potentially get the extra publicity. What is clear in a global market, which is controlled by such a few players (Amazon, Apple, Google, Kobo) is this sort of arbitrary censorship may not reflect all cultures, geographies or genre. It is a dangerous and somewhat a foolish pill to swallow and frankly it can simply act in the opposite manner to what was intended.

Meanwhile, we will make up for the omission of feline models in Deric’s new series when we release ‘Radio Times: Take 3’ later this year. The book jacket which will feature both a fully clothed  Deric and ‘Tigger’, a cat wearing a fur coat and no knickers!

Self Publishing Is Going to Just Get Bigger, Embrace It

Today we face the prospect of drowning in tidal wave self-published eBooks, YouTube videos, photos, independent music videos and tracks etc which are loaded onto sites alongside and often more frequently than traditionally produced works. Historically these self-published works have been regarded by many as substandard works, looked down upon by the traditional marketplace who referred to them by the term ‘vanity publishing’. Some would even still argue that if you can’t get a publisher, producer or third party to publish your work, then it must be of questionable quality and of little value.

Some claim that by 2020 50% of all eBooks will be self-published. We would question that and suggest that it is probably a huge understatement and the figure is more likely to be 75%. However, we have to acknowledge that establishing what is self-published and what isn’t is likely to become even harder as digital tools to create, promote and produce quality layouts become cheaper and easier to use. We also have to accept that there will be a number of new third parties who will assist the creator to be published and although these are not necessarily publishers as we knew them, they are effectively publishers.

Some will point to Anderson’s ‘Long Tail’ economics and say it doesn't work and the head is getting smaller in number and larger in slice of the pie and the tail is now just too long and they will be right MIDiA Consulting have published a new report on the music business titled‘The Death of the Long Tail: The Superstar Music Economy’.  The report states that the total global artist income from recorded music in 2013 was $2.8 billion, down from $3.8 billion in 2000 but up slightly on 2012 and that artists’ share of total income grew from 14% in 2000 to 17% in 2013. It claims that 1% of the total artists and works account for 77% of all artist recorded music income. This reinforced by the ‘Cowell factor’ of manufactured new stars and the charts, but is music just about charts and recorded music or should also not take in music publishing, performing rights and royalties and merchandising. We often just see music through the eyes of the record producers and not the industry and rarely the musicians.

Others will complain that in the book industry earnings for the mid and back list are being decimated by the introduction of masses of self-published material. The earnings will increasingly be different to those enjoyed yesterday and many will not match the author’s expectations. Michael Kozlowski’s recently advocated that in order to address this that ‘Indie eBooks Need to beSegregated’. We would strongly disagree with this reactive and somewhat naïve approach which is aimed at suppressing creativity. Segregation is a false economics move aimed not at segregating good and bad but at protecting yesterday’s financial model and its bets from the new offerings.

The world has changed and the true democratisation of creativity is upon us and this has been enabled by the internet and means that we can all write, make videos, take pictures, create games and make music. Forget the quality issue the fact is that this explosion of material is changing the way we now create, develop, market and value stuff. This genie is not going back in the lamp and we now have to realise that there will be more not less and that new consumer values will change all and that the creator rewards will be different.

Some state that the consumer demands quality and that this can only be achieved through the editorial development process. However there are now many consumer viewpoints and values and these often clash with these traditional binary beliefs. Who would have believed that some low quality YouTube videos would receive the number of viewings they have and gone on to spawn new stars of their own. Who would have expected the global sensation of ’50 Shades of Grey’ and it now being adapted to mainstream film? Would we have ever heard ‘Gangnam Style’ without YouTube? Would performers such as Lilly Allen or the Arctic Monkeys have made it if left to the traditional music business?

We accept that there are millions who don’t make it in both the traditional and self-publishing models but that is no reason to not move on and accept that we are now moving into an era of free expression, creativity and democratisation. 

How Do We Compete With Amazon?

The questions over what the industry can do, or not do about Amazon’s dominance, were raised yet again last week. It was first sparked first by Barnes and Noble's declining interest and funding of its Nook venture, then we had Sony shutting up it US store and handing the keys to Kobo as it battles with many greater corporate issues, then came Kobo itself filing objections to a Competition Bureau agreement impelling four of the biggest publishers operating in Canada to renegotiate their contracts with ebook retailers and finally by an article by Jane Friedman in which she raises the new Amazon policy to drop its escalating royalty rate of 50%-90% on ACX titles sold exclusively to a non-escalating 40% and audiobooks distributed non-exclusively to a non-escalating rate of 25%.

The Kobo filing claims that prior to the Canadian adoption of the agency model it had been ‘losing millions of dollars per year” under wholesale terms and also that when, ‘In the U.S., when Agency Lite was brought into existence, Kobo saw its net revenues steadily decline. Kobo has since stopped investing in marketing in the U.S., closed its office in Chicago and is focusing on other markets. Its market share and revenues are now negligible there.’

The result of these announcements was to further fuel the debate on Amazon and its dominance of the marketplace in both ebooks, audio and the huge US market. It would be wrong to believe that they can be beaten on discounts, as the only winner in a discount war is the consumer and the one with the strongest nerve and deepest pockets. Wishing for a white knight may have been feasible ten years ago, but today it isn’t going to happen and no start-up is going to suddenly change that. Apple is tied to its own Appleworld and will never venture out into Android land, Google, well they may have scanned everything that has been printed, but please be careful what you wish for. Amazon has effectively woven itself into the publishing DNA and is not just at the consumer end but right across the value chain.

We have harped on about books being different till the cows have come home, been milked and gone back to pasture. Yes, books are different, but interestingly ebooks aren’t that different and maybe that’s where we often loose the thread. We have now to accept that we don’t live in a book centric world and that the larger media and home entertainment umbrella has several component strands. Books is the baby among several stronger digital sectors and the networks today are the gorillas. 

We are fast becoming the one sector that still is DRM obsessed, sell through orientated and like King Cunute think we can stop the digital tide sweeping over us. Only last week it was widely reported that the majority of books on our shelves are unread and a recent US poll suggests that some 25% of US citizens didn't read a book in 2013. We continue to think ebooks are just books in a digital container and in doing so we kid ourselves, confuse many and potentially miss the opportunities.

Amazon watches, learns, then acts and changes consumer behaviour in ways that many in the book industry have failed to grasp. At a basic level they offer, used books, marketplace, KDP, Goodreads, Book Depository, publishing, audiobooks, self publishing, on-demand and that is without its other media and technology arms. Just think it was just a little old internet shop in 1995, which right up to the turn of the century many predicted it would not survive. This last week they started to roll out their fresh food delivery service in the US and it is widely predicted it will soon come to Europe and some are already trying to protect the giant supermarkets, who ironically, have been often demonised for their destruction of the High Street. 

The Amazon is a huge river that is fed by many large tributaries and supports many ecosystems and is very important to the ecology of the world. Amazon the business is now no different.  

We have to analyse and think differently just punching the biggest kid in the schoolyard is futile and you just get hurt. Amazon’s weakness and its strength maybe is that it acts as a lone wolf. Some would suggest that It often buys to take out the competitive threat, or like with its audio market purchases, sets out to quietly corner the market.

Yes publishers need to develop their own direct business,but apart from the few this isn’t going to be a major channel to market, is only aimed at the consumer end  and some would suggest is too little too late.  Niche players may carve out a healthy living but the minute they get on the radar they are themselves vulnerable.

So where is the answer? It is almost certainly not within the book market by itself. Amazon crosses other media sectors and is competing for a strong position in many but it is a lone wolf. It rarely hunts in packs. It may have a federal approach to those it owns, but it retains a tight strategy grip over them. Perhaps its strength is its weakness? Perhaps a joint ventures that cut across current boundaries and create something that is not easily replicated is the answer. Last week we wrote about Nubico and although that is not necessarily the answer it starts to point in the right direction. People belong to very large subscription bases who all face threats and an everchanging power struggle. Lining up the ducks may appear hard today but if they create something of real value then maybe, just maybe there is an alternative.

Getty Lifts Restrictions on 35 Million Images

When Getty Images, the world's largest photo agency, effectively opens its picture vaults to make them library free to use, you have to stand back and realise that access to use restricted stuff is radically changing.

Getty combating piracy not by locking up the images with restrictive watermarks or DRM but making 35 million images, including iconic images of Marilyn Monroe and famous ones of John F Kennedy and Barack Obama available without cost to blogs and social media sites. However Getty Images is not the most user friendly site and searching and establishing what is allowed is still often a mare.

The photos will be tagged through an embedding tool with a code that links back to Getty's website but they effectively have decided to combat abuse by bringing the offenders inside and encouraging the use of the images by all. Images cannot be resized and they will all incorporate a Getty Images logo, as well as a credit for the photographer.

There has been some backlash from photographers who are opposed to their images being given away but the reality is that they are all over the Internet anyway and currently there is no attribution or provenance. Trying to ascertain whether a picture is in the public domain or restricted and who owns its rights is like trying to chase down the rights to orphan work books – difficult.

Commercial users of Getty's library, which include TV, newspapers, publishers and advertisers will continue to be charged. Exactly how the Getty economic model now works remains unanswered today but this move is a significant one not just for images but for all media.

Mapping the Internet

we stumbled across a site Telegeography which hosts visual and interactive maps of the Global Internet and Network infrastructure.

The maps are not only pretty impressive they also show the areas that are 'connected' and our continued reliance on cables under the sea.

Why Was CourseSmart Offloaded?

This week’s news that the publishing educational joint venture CourseSmart has been acquired by Ingram’s Content Group should be not a surprise, but raises some interesting questions about publisher's joint ventures.

Some six years ago whilst speaking at the National Association of College Stores (NACS)  conference in Minneapolis, I was drawn to a cluster of delegates who were busy taking notes and sat apart from the delegates. I spoke to them afterwards and discovered that they were all from CourseSmart and they were obviously sent to press the delegates’ flesh. On being asked what the CourseSmart service was and what it wanted to be when it grew up I found I got different answers. Maybe that is where their problems lay. Later there were several rumours that some members of the joint venture want to go their own way. I also remember presenting to an industry group in the UK who were looking for an alternative to CourseSmart, but many were being reined in to supporting it by their larger brothers and sisters in the US. It is interesting that some members of the venture spread their bets and also backed competitive services as well as their own offers.

The big question is why publisher digital joint ventures either wither or get passed on? Maybe they feel that they are not core business, or that they don’t have the skill base, or maybe they bleed cash? Recently we have seen ventures such as Bookish and Anobii fail. Unlike others CourseSmart had the perfect parentage, access to the content, potential direct to market sales channel, yet it moves on.

CourseSmart was formed in 2007 by Pearson, Macmillan, Cengage Learning, John Wiley & Sons, McGraw-Hill Education and Pearson. It started off as a digital inspection service then quickly morphed into a providing digital textbooks in the higher education market and lately has offered its content and platform to a wider audience. It’s technology was driven be Pearson and some say that was probably the start of many of its internal challenges. Others will say that the base technology was restrictive and did not meet many of the market’s demands.  

In Ingram Content Group's Vital Source Technologies, Inc., it has probably found a good home and it clearly offers Ingram extended reach under the Vital Source platform as well as potential increased access to and opportunities with publisher digital distribution.