The barriers to high bandwidth start to tumble with the announcement that a PhD student in Melbourne has developed technology to increase broadband internet speeds up to 200 without having to install expensive fibre optic cables. The technology can deliver internet speeds up to 250 megabits per second, compared with current typical speeds of between one and 20 megabits per second.
Dr John Papandriopoulos, who has patent applications for the technology being processed in the US and Australia, won one of Melbourne University's top academic prizes yesterday, a Chancellor's Prize for Excellence in the PhD. He states that interference similar to the old cross-talking interference impedes the broadband services. He solution uses mathematic modelling to reduce the interference that slows down downloading.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
EInk to go Colour
The current e-readers such as Sony and the Kindle are not unlike the initial print on demand services - only available in black. However E-paper pioneer EInk -the company whose technology underpins them and others is now prototyping electronic ink that is bright enough to support filters for vivid colour displays, and that have a fast-enough refresh rate to render video. This could offer a significant boost to the current one dimensional pretenders.
It all sounds so simple, ‘The basic technology uses a layer of microcapsules filled with flecks of sub micrometer black and white pigment chips in a clear liquid. The white chips can be positively charged, the black chips negatively charged. Above this layer is a transparent electrode; at the base is another electrode. A positive charge on the bottom electrode pushes the white chips to the surface, making the screen white. A negative charge pushes the black chips up, rendering words and images.’
E Ink has been refining the total mix; the ingredients, the electronics, and the mechanics of that process. By achieving a higher level of brightness E Ink can use transparent red, green, or blue filters affixed above the picture elements and render colour. In addition E Ink have found s ways to improve the speed at which the particles can move. The results is a e-reader that can display vivid colour images and another a video clip from the animation movie ‘Cars’.
E Ink is working with display manufacturers to develop flexible bendable and even rollable displays.So the future looks very different to today and the change looks as potentially as dramatic as that between the original mobile phone bricks and today’s iPhone.
Open US Mobile Market
The biggest disappointments this year was not that England didn’t make the soccer European Finals or that they didn’t win the rugby World Cup, it was that Apple decided to launch the iPhone in the US with ATandT and in the UK with O2. Many were put off by the hassle of changing networks, or having to find a man who could make it happen but in spite of this the launch was a huge success and set the design bar for all to follow.
It appears that Apple wanted to break the carriers’ stranglehold on handsets, so that Apple could sell iPhones on any network. Verizon has now announced that next year it would be allowing any phone and any application on any phone, to be used on its network. This legitimately will start to open up iPhones to all.
The question now is whether Apple is already on a solution so the phone will work seamlessly on the different Verizon CDMA network. A mere five months after the launch of the iPhone changes are happening and those subsidised handsets are looking increasingly venerable and the US market starting to resemble those in Europe and Asia, where a carrier’s customers can use any compatible phone and take their phones with them when they switch companies.
Next we must watch Google both in terms of the open software it aims to push at the market and of course its own gPhone. If Verizon’s effort is successful, then content creators, software developers and device makers, who have been restricted under the control of the wireless companies, will have fresh opportunities.
Glass Half Empty or Full?
On the back of the announcement from Picador the press vultures are now signalling the death of the hardback.
There are three issues; use, price and content.
The use is simple. Hardbacks are more tactile, easier to lay flat and read and more robust. Libraries require a robust product that can be lent to many and that will continue to look good and survive the handling. The collector wants books that look good after reading and don’t have creased spines. But currently it may be at a price to high for many to differentiate the benefit between the hardback and the paperback. Prices have often risen to accommodate the current discount-mania but leave the hardback out priced. When you look at the likes of Folio Society you see different packaging and targeting of a collector proposition. So why does the hardback often even the same artwork? It’s hardly a collector item or differentiated consumer proposition.
The hardback has for a long time been a great trick. You simply wrap the same content in a hard wrapper and charge twice as much for the privilege. Yes they look nicer, they are more robust and less prone to damage but let’s be real it’s exactly the same content!
The digital issue is in effect exploding the spine and releasing content from the physical cover that was in effect a ’straight jacket’. Even the music business, with its track record of disasters, recognised how to play this game. You now find various different packaging of the music but with different supporting materials. They understand that the collector wants a different package to the regular buyer and are willing to pay for it. There is a whole host of new collector packages hitting the market that will sell and sell at a premium. The video market has long used the ‘out-takes’ that used to go in the bin to enhance the DVD over other channels.
In an age where digital and physical bundles can exists and where there is such a wealth of additional material to support and enhance the offer why on earth do we believe that two pieces of card will continue do the trick? Worse still why do we believe that the issue is so hard to think about its easier to just stop doing it?
The wealth of marketing materials are exploding. We have author podcasts, book video promotions, search inside, etc why do we have to drop hardbacks ‘because they don’t work’?
Hello, why not take the glass half full approach and fill it to the brim?
There are three issues; use, price and content.
The use is simple. Hardbacks are more tactile, easier to lay flat and read and more robust. Libraries require a robust product that can be lent to many and that will continue to look good and survive the handling. The collector wants books that look good after reading and don’t have creased spines. But currently it may be at a price to high for many to differentiate the benefit between the hardback and the paperback. Prices have often risen to accommodate the current discount-mania but leave the hardback out priced. When you look at the likes of Folio Society you see different packaging and targeting of a collector proposition. So why does the hardback often even the same artwork? It’s hardly a collector item or differentiated consumer proposition.
The hardback has for a long time been a great trick. You simply wrap the same content in a hard wrapper and charge twice as much for the privilege. Yes they look nicer, they are more robust and less prone to damage but let’s be real it’s exactly the same content!
The digital issue is in effect exploding the spine and releasing content from the physical cover that was in effect a ’straight jacket’. Even the music business, with its track record of disasters, recognised how to play this game. You now find various different packaging of the music but with different supporting materials. They understand that the collector wants a different package to the regular buyer and are willing to pay for it. There is a whole host of new collector packages hitting the market that will sell and sell at a premium. The video market has long used the ‘out-takes’ that used to go in the bin to enhance the DVD over other channels.
In an age where digital and physical bundles can exists and where there is such a wealth of additional material to support and enhance the offer why on earth do we believe that two pieces of card will continue do the trick? Worse still why do we believe that the issue is so hard to think about its easier to just stop doing it?
The wealth of marketing materials are exploding. We have author podcasts, book video promotions, search inside, etc why do we have to drop hardbacks ‘because they don’t work’?
Hello, why not take the glass half full approach and fill it to the brim?
Friday, November 23, 2007
Is 'Free to Consumer' the New Model?
Free is becoming a new business model that is causing many established players in many media sectors to rethink life.
The music sector certainly is starting to adopt the free, ‘advertising paid’ model with producers such as EMI and Universal licensing their total catalogues out to the likes of Spiral Frog and others. They didn’t have lots of choice being outmaneuvered on all fronts by both pirates, and consumers.
The newsprint world has long had the ‘free local rag’ but these are now seriously growing in terms of circulation and ad revenues. The Metro is generating in excess of £8m profit a year and it is claimed by its MD that it will overtake the circulation of the Daily Mirror within 12 to 18 months. We only have to see the litter on the underground to believe that claim. By increasing its distribution it copies circulated rose to just under 1.4 million in October, an increase over the previous month of 10.6%. In contrast, the Daily Mirror, Britain's third biggest-selling daily, sold an average of 1,525,477 copies a day in October, a fall of 4.68% year on year.
We have recently seen the wall Street Journal declare the end of its highly successful online subscription model. It is hard to envisage the subscription online model surviving.
Then we have Joost and the free over internet TV. We highly recommend you download the beta an experience the next TV generation on the Internet it is very impressive even if the content today is limited. It is free and brought to you by those smart guys who invented Kazza and Skype, so they probably know a thing or two.
In China we have written about BookGG and their free ad paid books. It may not work in the West, especially with moral rights but is an example of the ‘free to consumer’ model.
So what will happen moving forward? What is certain is the business models are changing and the only thing that is certain paying for digital content by traditional models is under threat.
The music sector certainly is starting to adopt the free, ‘advertising paid’ model with producers such as EMI and Universal licensing their total catalogues out to the likes of Spiral Frog and others. They didn’t have lots of choice being outmaneuvered on all fronts by both pirates, and consumers.
The newsprint world has long had the ‘free local rag’ but these are now seriously growing in terms of circulation and ad revenues. The Metro is generating in excess of £8m profit a year and it is claimed by its MD that it will overtake the circulation of the Daily Mirror within 12 to 18 months. We only have to see the litter on the underground to believe that claim. By increasing its distribution it copies circulated rose to just under 1.4 million in October, an increase over the previous month of 10.6%. In contrast, the Daily Mirror, Britain's third biggest-selling daily, sold an average of 1,525,477 copies a day in October, a fall of 4.68% year on year.
We have recently seen the wall Street Journal declare the end of its highly successful online subscription model. It is hard to envisage the subscription online model surviving.
Then we have Joost and the free over internet TV. We highly recommend you download the beta an experience the next TV generation on the Internet it is very impressive even if the content today is limited. It is free and brought to you by those smart guys who invented Kazza and Skype, so they probably know a thing or two.
In China we have written about BookGG and their free ad paid books. It may not work in the West, especially with moral rights but is an example of the ‘free to consumer’ model.
So what will happen moving forward? What is certain is the business models are changing and the only thing that is certain paying for digital content by traditional models is under threat.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Mixed Music Messages - But What's New
According to the UK industry trade association, the BPI, and the Official Charts Company the 150 millionth download was sold last week. This figure has been achieved over the last three years. So are things picking up for the industry are retailers happy at a time when pre-Christmas sales make up 40% of its revenues?
The digital sales actually amount to an average of less than one 79p per download per head of population per year. Recorded music companies have seen the slide in CD sales not being offset by growth in digital music.
So what is the answer and does one exist? Some blame DRM (Digital Rights Management) for the slow take-up of legal digital services and now more companies are starting to experiment with the DRM-free MP3 format. This charge was started in February by Apple’s Steve Jobs and has been followed by many including the major producers Universal Music, EMI who offer consumers a premium for DRM-free versions of its music on Apple’s iTunes store
At the moment, DRM is clearly seen as putting consumers off and the added confusion about formats results in driving people toward illegal downloads. BPI research this month that found consumers were almost four times as likely to choose an MP3 file as a DRM-protected track when the two were offered alongside each other.
The news from the US is no better. Even though, according to a Jupiter Research report, digital music spending is expected to grow to $3.4 billion over the next five years, and account for more than a third of U.S. consumer music purchases, it will not compensate for the anticipated lost in CD sales. They predict that the music download business will serve as an alternative, but not a replacement to CDs. JupiterResearch president David Schatsky reflects that, "One size does not fit all when it comes to acquiring music and consumer behaviour toward the variety of formats available reinforces that claim."
So even in a digital market such as music the physical product is still holding an attraction. Does this mean will still be enjoying the book for many more years than Mr Gates wildly predicted?
The digital sales actually amount to an average of less than one 79p per download per head of population per year. Recorded music companies have seen the slide in CD sales not being offset by growth in digital music.
So what is the answer and does one exist? Some blame DRM (Digital Rights Management) for the slow take-up of legal digital services and now more companies are starting to experiment with the DRM-free MP3 format. This charge was started in February by Apple’s Steve Jobs and has been followed by many including the major producers Universal Music, EMI who offer consumers a premium for DRM-free versions of its music on Apple’s iTunes store
At the moment, DRM is clearly seen as putting consumers off and the added confusion about formats results in driving people toward illegal downloads. BPI research this month that found consumers were almost four times as likely to choose an MP3 file as a DRM-protected track when the two were offered alongside each other.
The news from the US is no better. Even though, according to a Jupiter Research report, digital music spending is expected to grow to $3.4 billion over the next five years, and account for more than a third of U.S. consumer music purchases, it will not compensate for the anticipated lost in CD sales. They predict that the music download business will serve as an alternative, but not a replacement to CDs. JupiterResearch president David Schatsky reflects that, "One size does not fit all when it comes to acquiring music and consumer behaviour toward the variety of formats available reinforces that claim."
So even in a digital market such as music the physical product is still holding an attraction. Does this mean will still be enjoying the book for many more years than Mr Gates wildly predicted?
Does Digital = Wild West?
Ok Amazon creates an ebook reader to sell digital book and its now followed by Dymocks in Australia who have launched a website with 120,000 titles and now plan to announce in the next week a deal to line these up with a ebook reader. We understand that it’s not Sony and its obviously not Kindle and given its European, it narrows to possibilities down considerably.
So what‘s next, WHS, Waterstones, Borders, Banes and Noble?
Do we have al the usual suspects all line up against a brand and format wars?
All this posturing and competitive testosterone is not good for consumer confidence and leads to uncertainty which is the mother of all inertia. We already have debates over Adobe, Mobi, Sony, Microsoft formats, now we have battles to tie ereaders to retailers. All at a time when we are trying to create consumer confidence and a market in a content deprived vacuum.
Please we beg all retailer to think collaboration and co-operation and not short term false competitive advantage. After all we now have publishers fighting to create direct digital markets and brand and for this to spill into retail is just inviting someone to enter left field as Apple did in music.
So what‘s next, WHS, Waterstones, Borders, Banes and Noble?
Do we have al the usual suspects all line up against a brand and format wars?
All this posturing and competitive testosterone is not good for consumer confidence and leads to uncertainty which is the mother of all inertia. We already have debates over Adobe, Mobi, Sony, Microsoft formats, now we have battles to tie ereaders to retailers. All at a time when we are trying to create consumer confidence and a market in a content deprived vacuum.
Please we beg all retailer to think collaboration and co-operation and not short term false competitive advantage. After all we now have publishers fighting to create direct digital markets and brand and for this to spill into retail is just inviting someone to enter left field as Apple did in music.
The 40% Broadband Challenge
The Uk has established a clear divide between the connected and the unconnected this divide shows little sign of change according to information gathered by National Statistics (ONS) for September. A staggering nine out of 10 UK net users are connect via broadband services whereas only a far back as 2003 8 out of ten connected by dail-up and only 17% had broadband access.
The statistics show that almost 50% of broadband connections are for services advertised at two megabits per second or faster. So fuelling the video and high bandwidth services.
However the divide between the haves and the unconnected is a challenge with around 10 million homes with no net access and sticking. It is estimated that this is around 40% of Uk households and clearly presents a challenge to information and economic progress and opportunities.
The statistics show that almost 50% of broadband connections are for services advertised at two megabits per second or faster. So fuelling the video and high bandwidth services.
However the divide between the haves and the unconnected is a challenge with around 10 million homes with no net access and sticking. It is estimated that this is around 40% of Uk households and clearly presents a challenge to information and economic progress and opportunities.
Book Videos need to introduce Sizzle
BookVideos.tv and now includes titles from, Bantam Dell, Chronicle, Hachette Book Group, MacMillan, Thomas Nelson and W.W. Norton as well as the original publisher Simon & Schuster.
Its interesting in the day of the widget to see where the video is today and how the YouTube effect is moving the opportunity forward. Other contenders such as Meet the Author and Bookwrap have been around for some time and although the former has built a healthy collection of takesthey look clunky and ‘Book TV’ish.
What is clear is that the video can promote books but that merely sitting the author in front of a camera and expecting sizzle can often lead to disappointment. Some of the meet the author videos certainly lack sizzle and look clunky. BookVideo.tv certainly puts effort into the visual experience and also shows complimentary footage and stills with background music where applicable. We certainly enjoyed the clip on Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book. If we were basketball folk we would certainly buy it.
The new videos engage with the audience the sell the book - they introduce sizzle. They must look at movie and music promotions and recognise the need to fully use the medium. We all want to know why the author wrote what they did but lets make it exciting and less dull and BookVideo is moving in the right direction.
Its interesting in the day of the widget to see where the video is today and how the YouTube effect is moving the opportunity forward. Other contenders such as Meet the Author and Bookwrap have been around for some time and although the former has built a healthy collection of takesthey look clunky and ‘Book TV’ish.
What is clear is that the video can promote books but that merely sitting the author in front of a camera and expecting sizzle can often lead to disappointment. Some of the meet the author videos certainly lack sizzle and look clunky. BookVideo.tv certainly puts effort into the visual experience and also shows complimentary footage and stills with background music where applicable. We certainly enjoyed the clip on Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book. If we were basketball folk we would certainly buy it.
The new videos engage with the audience the sell the book - they introduce sizzle. They must look at movie and music promotions and recognise the need to fully use the medium. We all want to know why the author wrote what they did but lets make it exciting and less dull and BookVideo is moving in the right direction.
Where do library books go for Winter?
We wrote in October in our blog about ‘Library Dumps Books’ which referred to Wiltshire County Council, decision to send hundreds of library books to be dumped in a landfill site, ‘because it is not viable to recycle them’.
Today we read about Waltham Forest’s ‘lost’ 250,000 books which appear to have gone into the skip and buried in landfill. A Unison union representative was reported in the local Guardian paper, "I know for a fact lots of them were taken to the tip, at least two van loads. There were all sorts, but I know there were brand new books."
Apparently all the borough's non-recyclable rubbish is taken to the London Waste depot at Edmonton to be burned. And anything not already sorted for recycling is destroyed along with the rest. Nearly 75,000 books vanished during January and March this year alone.
David Brangwyn, a former librarian at Walthamstow Central Library, is quoted as saying that staff had spent weeks packing and labelling books worth thousands of pounds before the library was refurbished but no-one knew where they went. "They were perfectly good books and there was no reason to throw them away."
Its amazing that in this day where library funding is constantly under question and recycling is such a hot subject that books are thrown into the skip and buried in landfill. What also is interesting is that these sales are outside the returns and publisher’s pulping programmes. We note that what was probably common practice yesterday, is fast becoming socially unacceptable to many today. How many more libraries are following this practice?
Today we read about Waltham Forest’s ‘lost’ 250,000 books which appear to have gone into the skip and buried in landfill. A Unison union representative was reported in the local Guardian paper, "I know for a fact lots of them were taken to the tip, at least two van loads. There were all sorts, but I know there were brand new books."
Apparently all the borough's non-recyclable rubbish is taken to the London Waste depot at Edmonton to be burned. And anything not already sorted for recycling is destroyed along with the rest. Nearly 75,000 books vanished during January and March this year alone.
David Brangwyn, a former librarian at Walthamstow Central Library, is quoted as saying that staff had spent weeks packing and labelling books worth thousands of pounds before the library was refurbished but no-one knew where they went. "They were perfectly good books and there was no reason to throw them away."
Its amazing that in this day where library funding is constantly under question and recycling is such a hot subject that books are thrown into the skip and buried in landfill. What also is interesting is that these sales are outside the returns and publisher’s pulping programmes. We note that what was probably common practice yesterday, is fast becoming socially unacceptable to many today. How many more libraries are following this practice?
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Kindle Thoughts
So we now have the Amazon Kindle and Bezos has at last put his own personal ‘Midas touch’ behind the ebook. Does this mean we have an ‘Oprah moment’ and the kiss that turns the ugly ebook reader into a Prince and the ebook into a commodity?
The Kindle’s greatest strength is its greatest weakness. The wireless EVDO connection may appeal to the US market, but will not migrate without change to other markets. It’s like going backwards to the old SIM card days. But will the great free offer of wireless connectivity make the difference in a US market that is gradually going community wireless anyway?
So you have just bought an iPhone and now ask yourself, do I want the Kindle at an extra $399? It can’t be used as a phone, doesn’t play videos or games, or audio and is basically tethered closely to Amazon. You can read newspapers and documents but you can do that on any PDA and decent phone today. The new Amazon interface may appeal but at $399 and $9.99 a book it doesn’t stack up. It may hold 200 books but will cost you $2,400 with Amazon to get there!
It is just not sexy in its design and although better than the prototypes, it shows its 3 year germination period. It reminds us of that Michael Douglas film, where he is walking down the beach talking into a mobile phone that resembles the brick - clunky. We have all seen the convergence of technology which has forced even narrow players such as Blackberry to widen their offer. We have seen the design of the iFamily and frankly this is not even in the same park.
Those who argue that ‘if Amazon can’t make it work, no one will’ are both right and wrong. We would agrue that Bezos is not Midas and does not have divine authority he is also not a manufacturer or designer. We must also remember that Bezos is a long game man and believes in commitment to long-term plans, so his nerves are a lot more resilient in the short term than the current ebook market watchers.
What remains an issue, is content. Even with 200,000 titles the volume remains small in comparison to the printed world. Unlike music there is not easy digital tap to be turned in the book market and today we talk about ebooks in a vacuum of content. This will change, but it will be several versions of the Kindle before the volume is there.
Finally we would suggest that the Kindle is for those that bought a Sinclair 5 and those who are already are ebook evangelists and those who believe we are close to the tipping pointy.
Monday, November 19, 2007
The News from Barnsley
Today’s news will be disheartening to many booksellers and yet is a step forward to understanding tomorrow’s world. There are three items we refer to; Victoria Barnsley’s interview with the Independent, The report on Informa in The Times and the predicted announcement today of Amazon’s Kindle reader.
What these collectively tell us is that digitisation is here today and we should stop thinking inside the spine. The focus is still on the channel to market and using digital conent to promote physical books. It will change but slowly. In terms of ebooks we have yet another ‘pretender’ to the tipping point crown but a pretender the Kindle will be.
Our hat goes off to Victoria Barnsley as she clearly covered so much ground in such a small article. Unfortunately the issue that she and the article will be remembered for is that to do with direct market.
‘... one of the most exciting aspects of the brave new world of digital publishing is that it has allowed her company to become a "direct consumer business"...
In the past, publishers had to rely on persuading a bookseller to stock their product, in the hope the right reader would stumble across it. Now, internet search engines mean that people can immediately identify books on subjects that interest them...We've got to embrace the fact that we're becoming a direct consumer business. We have a website and we can have a direct dialogue with our readers. We can capture your name and ultimately sell you something. That's a complete change..’
The Brave New World report stated that direct marketing will work for some and will impact traditional channel, but that it will fail to offer rich choice and only convenience. Even the HarperCllins brand isn’t there today and even though money can buy most things in marketing, we remember the ‘fire and water’ brand campaign. If however the publishers were to form a co-operative … but the track record in cooperation and branding does not support such a thinking.
What we must remember is that the existing channel will still generate the majority of revenues and cannibalising it for a few dollars more, may seem attractive, but may long term end up to the detriment of all. The music business may be significantly different, but when they woke up they found that the high street channel and all but gone. The point is to stick to what you are good at and let others do what they are good at. This is the true discipline of market leaders.
Which brings us to Informa, who through some shrewd acquisitions and publishing programmes, have risen to be a major publishing force today. We often hear about publishers who have a couple of thousand digital titles and estimates of a couple of thousand by next year. These are small steps compared to Inform’s academic Taylor and Francis division, who have some 18,000 titles fully digitised and available not just as PDFs but in all ebook flavours today. Importantly they are now seeing significant growth and spin offs through this wise investment. We agree with the Times that they are certainly worth an investment. Interestingly although their market is better suited to direct B2C trade they make the money in the B2B channel.
Finally will Bezos announce the Kindle or not? Frankly it will raise the noise levels and consumer awareness, but we don’t see it introducing the iPod or iPhone factor.
As we wrote in our report, booksellers need to embrace and not fear the digital world and the channel should be made available to all to fully participate.
What these collectively tell us is that digitisation is here today and we should stop thinking inside the spine. The focus is still on the channel to market and using digital conent to promote physical books. It will change but slowly. In terms of ebooks we have yet another ‘pretender’ to the tipping point crown but a pretender the Kindle will be.
Our hat goes off to Victoria Barnsley as she clearly covered so much ground in such a small article. Unfortunately the issue that she and the article will be remembered for is that to do with direct market.
‘... one of the most exciting aspects of the brave new world of digital publishing is that it has allowed her company to become a "direct consumer business"...
In the past, publishers had to rely on persuading a bookseller to stock their product, in the hope the right reader would stumble across it. Now, internet search engines mean that people can immediately identify books on subjects that interest them...We've got to embrace the fact that we're becoming a direct consumer business. We have a website and we can have a direct dialogue with our readers. We can capture your name and ultimately sell you something. That's a complete change..’
The Brave New World report stated that direct marketing will work for some and will impact traditional channel, but that it will fail to offer rich choice and only convenience. Even the HarperCllins brand isn’t there today and even though money can buy most things in marketing, we remember the ‘fire and water’ brand campaign. If however the publishers were to form a co-operative … but the track record in cooperation and branding does not support such a thinking.
What we must remember is that the existing channel will still generate the majority of revenues and cannibalising it for a few dollars more, may seem attractive, but may long term end up to the detriment of all. The music business may be significantly different, but when they woke up they found that the high street channel and all but gone. The point is to stick to what you are good at and let others do what they are good at. This is the true discipline of market leaders.
Which brings us to Informa, who through some shrewd acquisitions and publishing programmes, have risen to be a major publishing force today. We often hear about publishers who have a couple of thousand digital titles and estimates of a couple of thousand by next year. These are small steps compared to Inform’s academic Taylor and Francis division, who have some 18,000 titles fully digitised and available not just as PDFs but in all ebook flavours today. Importantly they are now seeing significant growth and spin offs through this wise investment. We agree with the Times that they are certainly worth an investment. Interestingly although their market is better suited to direct B2C trade they make the money in the B2B channel.
Finally will Bezos announce the Kindle or not? Frankly it will raise the noise levels and consumer awareness, but we don’t see it introducing the iPod or iPhone factor.
As we wrote in our report, booksellers need to embrace and not fear the digital world and the channel should be made available to all to fully participate.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Ask.com gets smart over music
Every now and again you stumble onto a web site and experience a Wow factor and forget to add it to favourites and spend ages try to find it again. Quite by accident we found Ask.com’s music search site. You put in your favourite musician and the result is perfect.
The layout is simple but effective and there before you are not only search results but also videos, tour dates, lyrics, albums, tickets, wikipedia, tracks etc but look for yourself http://uk.ask.com/web?q=U2&qsrc=93 It just a pity its so hard to find!
Just think if we had a books site that was constructed on the same basis it would be very impressive and a great place to go.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Brave New World; Chapter 2
News is often binary in that it is either good, or bad. Today as we celebrate bringing you our good news - our 250th blog, last night there was also good news when we were honored to be celebrating the 75th birthday of the industry backbone and vital service National Book Tokens. Well done Stuart and team and we look forward to the announced new electronic token.
However, yesterday brought bad news too. After 32 years, Macmillan is to close the iconic Chelsea Pan Bookshop. Pan didn’t resist change and was often first to exploit it. We remember fondly their early adoption of PubEasy, Batch and the larger than life June Formby. Pan Bookshop had been acclaimed by all and duly rewarded a Nibbie.
When we started writing this blog we wondered whether there would be enough to write about and the variety and volume speaks for itself. In the last year the changes within publishing have continues at a pace. The diversity of change is also growing and the convergence of technology increasing, people are now starting to realize that Digital publishing is publishing and this can impact not just what is sold but all the relationships, processes and even the works themselves. There will still be physical books well into the future but they may not be the same as we know them today and may not exist in all genre. The reality is that the only thing we can confidently predict about the future is that it will be different than today and it is about change. The Brave New World report was about defining the future role for bookshops such as Pan in this digital environment its sad that they will not be around to benefit, but we are sure others will be.
We feel that it was timely to again focus our thinking on the impact of these digital changes and are pleased to announce that we intend to produce another report next year, ‘Brave New World: Chapter 2’ Having looked at the issues from the existing channels and retailer perspective the aim this time to review the same landscape but from the author’s perspective.
The author is critical to publishing and is the person who creates the rights, provides the input to the process, is an integral part of its development; helps sell, promote and market the work. The relationships, involvement and processes differ between sectors and markets but are all being increasingly impacted by digitization. At a time when the opportunities to write are exploding through social network, print on demand and long tail economics we are seeing potential changes to the existing author model.
We will keep you abreast of progress and welcome your thoughts and insights and hope this new work will help all.
However, yesterday brought bad news too. After 32 years, Macmillan is to close the iconic Chelsea Pan Bookshop. Pan didn’t resist change and was often first to exploit it. We remember fondly their early adoption of PubEasy, Batch and the larger than life June Formby. Pan Bookshop had been acclaimed by all and duly rewarded a Nibbie.
When we started writing this blog we wondered whether there would be enough to write about and the variety and volume speaks for itself. In the last year the changes within publishing have continues at a pace. The diversity of change is also growing and the convergence of technology increasing, people are now starting to realize that Digital publishing is publishing and this can impact not just what is sold but all the relationships, processes and even the works themselves. There will still be physical books well into the future but they may not be the same as we know them today and may not exist in all genre. The reality is that the only thing we can confidently predict about the future is that it will be different than today and it is about change. The Brave New World report was about defining the future role for bookshops such as Pan in this digital environment its sad that they will not be around to benefit, but we are sure others will be.
We feel that it was timely to again focus our thinking on the impact of these digital changes and are pleased to announce that we intend to produce another report next year, ‘Brave New World: Chapter 2’ Having looked at the issues from the existing channels and retailer perspective the aim this time to review the same landscape but from the author’s perspective.
The author is critical to publishing and is the person who creates the rights, provides the input to the process, is an integral part of its development; helps sell, promote and market the work. The relationships, involvement and processes differ between sectors and markets but are all being increasingly impacted by digitization. At a time when the opportunities to write are exploding through social network, print on demand and long tail economics we are seeing potential changes to the existing author model.
We will keep you abreast of progress and welcome your thoughts and insights and hope this new work will help all.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Wall Street Journal to be Free Online
Rupert Murdoch today confirmed that he is planning to drop subscription fees for the digital version of the Wall Street Journal. The plan as we reported earlier this year would be to substitute subscription revenue for a larger audience that will drive greater and more sustainable advertising to the financial news site.
Instead of having 1 million subscribers generating around £25m revenue a year, the objective is to have at least 10 million to 15 million in ‘every corner of the earth’ and generate significantly higher numbers.
WSJ.com has long been the most successful example of a paid-access news site, attracting a wealthy readership that values the site's influential markets news.
It si interesting that only 23% of News Corp's existing revenues were generated by advertising and this obviously leaves significant scope in many areas of the empire…
An Alternative to Trees?
We talk about eco friendly paper and saving trees and were somewhat taken aback to discover an alternative via Vision Paper (www.visionpaper.com). They work with U.S. farmers to produce tree-free alternatives to paper fiber based on kenaf-based papers.
Kenaf is a 4000 year old crop that originated in Africa, and is now being farmed in many parts of the U.S. A member of the hibiscus family (Hibiscus cannabinus L), it is related to cotton and okra, and grows well in many parts of the U.S. and requires no fertilizers or pesticides for growth. It offers a way to make paper without cutting trees. Kenaf grows quickly, rising to heights of 12-14 feet in as little as 4 to 5 months. U.S. Department of Agriculture studies show that kenaf yields of 6 to 10 tons of dry fiber per acre per year are generally 3 to 5 times greater than the yield for Southern pine trees, which can take from 7 to 40 years to reach harvestable size. Kenaf fiber papers are energy efficient to process, while using fewer chemicals and no chlorine compounds.
It may not prove a viable solution to the demands of the industry but does demonstrate that alternatives to trees are around.
New York to Collect Affiliate Tax
Ok you operate out of New York but list books internet retailer affiliate under ABE, Amazon etc. Sounds familiar and has been very successful for many who could not reach the larger audience.
New York state's Department of Taxation and Finance has now stated that anyone with an Internet "Affiliate" will have to collect NY Sales Tax. Last week they stated a "requirement to register as a sales tax vendor for out-of-state companies soliciting sales through representatives." As a result any "affiliate" in New York, even, a person selling as an Amazon Associate, must, where tax is applicable, pay sales tax on all sales.
According to the report in Publishers Lunch, the state has implied that the policy is not subject to challenge, and is "intended to clarify current policy and does not reflect any change in requirements for vendors doing business in New York State." Businesses have until December 7 to register and begin compliance without facing penalties.
It throws up interesting questions about affiliate programmes, taxation rules within a global economy, and the location of business registrations and offices. What would be the impact if every state adopted the same rules?
We frankly leave taxation rules to those who know best and don’t always understand the implications of what you sell to who and where and the rules that are applied. However there are many who are building businesses on affiliate programmes and aiming to benefit from local pull, increased noise and alternative offers. It is unclear how this will pan out or whether it is merely teething issues that just go away.
New York state's Department of Taxation and Finance has now stated that anyone with an Internet "Affiliate" will have to collect NY Sales Tax. Last week they stated a "requirement to register as a sales tax vendor for out-of-state companies soliciting sales through representatives." As a result any "affiliate" in New York, even, a person selling as an Amazon Associate, must, where tax is applicable, pay sales tax on all sales.
According to the report in Publishers Lunch, the state has implied that the policy is not subject to challenge, and is "intended to clarify current policy and does not reflect any change in requirements for vendors doing business in New York State." Businesses have until December 7 to register and begin compliance without facing penalties.
It throws up interesting questions about affiliate programmes, taxation rules within a global economy, and the location of business registrations and offices. What would be the impact if every state adopted the same rules?
We frankly leave taxation rules to those who know best and don’t always understand the implications of what you sell to who and where and the rules that are applied. However there are many who are building businesses on affiliate programmes and aiming to benefit from local pull, increased noise and alternative offers. It is unclear how this will pan out or whether it is merely teething issues that just go away.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Publishers' Benchmark
A new publisher’s Forum has been launched by that dynamic publisher Emma Barnes of Snowbooks. First she gave us her Second Life experience now the acclaimed small publisher has started a forum where publishers large and small can exchange ideas, compare takes on the market and swap tricks.
The Publishers Benchmarking Forum www.pubbench.com aims to enable all to compare notes and judge what you are doing right or wrong. It has been called ‘The Pub Bench’ to reflect that pastime of swaping notes, confidentially over a pint in a pub. It is only available to members of publishing companies registered at Companies House and the site is subscription based with the first month free and a charge of £12.50 thereafter. Those who sign up are given a randomly generated username upon subscription in order to safeguard anonymity.
It may be a great forum for everyone learn and exchange notes ‘behind closed doors’. It certainly is a welcome entrant to the market and something that should have been started a long time ago. Hopefully it will attract input from those who genuinely have something to share and help everyone get to grips with the myriad of issues and challenges we all face today but are often to embarrassed to admit we don’t have a clue about.
No Exclusive iPhone Deal at HarperCollins
Last Friday we followed up on a page 3 news piece from ‘The Bookseller ‘ 9th November, 2007 that stated ‘HC in exclusive iPhone Deal’. We closed by stating that ‘we hope that logic prevails and the exclusive agreement is short lived.’
Well it would appear that there is no exclusive deal and that logic does prevail. We are pleased to correct anything we get wrong and many thanks to our friend Graham Bell at HarperCollins who emailed us:
Quite simply, HarperCollins has not inked any deal with Apple to provide book content for iPhone users. There is no 'exclusive'. There is no 'free'. In fact, there is no deal...
What HarperCollins and NewsStand HAVE done is create a website and JavaScript 'application' that allows iPhone and iPod Touch users access to our Browse Inside online book previews -- and in part because of the impressive touch-screen on those two devices, it looks great. One thing you didn't mention is that you can also preview a few minutes of the audiobook versions of many of the titles. I am pleased Apple chose our website as a 'staff favourite' to feature on its directory of iPhone-compatible websites, but the fact is that ANYONE can create their own iPhone-friendly website and submit it for inclusion in the Apple directory.
But if you don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can preview samples of the same books -- and thousands of others -- via our main consumer website at http://www.harpercollins.co.uk. So we see the iPhone version of Browse Inside as a way of extending the reach of our existing digital marketing. The idea of exclusivity arises from the fact that HarperCollins appears to be the only publisher that has done this for the iPhone and iPod Touch, not because of any deal with Apple. And we certainly aren't preventing other publishers doing something similar.
We continue to add both backlist and frontlist books to Browse Inside, and we will extend the selection of titles available on the iPhone too. But we're also discussing with booksellers the ways they can put Browse Inside on retailer's own websites. HarperCollins really doesn't want to keep this all to itself.
There's no exclusivity here...
Second, it's worth emphasising that like our main Browse Inside, and indeed like similar widgets from other publishers, the previews can be downloaded to an iPhone or iPod Touch only for viewing purposes.
They can't be saved, extracted, printed... You can read the first few pages of the first couple of chapters, but that's all.
Rough Guides to...
Following on from the acquisition of Lonely Planet by BBC Worldwide, Rough Guides has tied-up with TV broadcaster Channel Five to air a series of travel shows next year that are to be made by independent production company, Lion Television.
The shows will be weekly, based on the Rough Guide books and explore the top five destinations in a number of holiday categories. Each episode will be branded ‘The Rough Guide to ...’ and is planned to be 30 minutes long.
TV is becoming a place for publishers to build brand, extend reach and develop content.
Monday, November 12, 2007
DRM is not the People's Choice
U.K. music download store, 7 Digital, reports that its DRM-free music downloads are outselling other formats by a factor of four to one. Given the choice, consumers prefer MP3 DRM-free formats. They claim that 78% of downloads are MP3 with no DRM. They also announced that over 60% of its 3 million strong catalogue is now available DRM free in MP3 format and is expecting this to increase to 100% in the next 18 months. 7 Digital do sell audiobooks and although the range is small they do have MP3 audiobooks.
The shift towards MP3 would appear to show the consumers prefer non proprietary formats that offer true interoperability. The shift towards DRM free clearly demonstrates the direction consumers which to follow and the increased size of the DRM free catalogue is given them the necessary choice.
Audiobooks may continue with a DRM proprietary format from Audible but if music continues to move it is hard to see this as sustainable. The question is whether Audible will move or entrench. What is becoming clear is that DRM as we know it today is transient technology and may well be replaced by an open ‘honesty box’ approach potentially supported by less restrictive technology such as watermarking.
The shift towards MP3 would appear to show the consumers prefer non proprietary formats that offer true interoperability. The shift towards DRM free clearly demonstrates the direction consumers which to follow and the increased size of the DRM free catalogue is given them the necessary choice.
Audiobooks may continue with a DRM proprietary format from Audible but if music continues to move it is hard to see this as sustainable. The question is whether Audible will move or entrench. What is becoming clear is that DRM as we know it today is transient technology and may well be replaced by an open ‘honesty box’ approach potentially supported by less restrictive technology such as watermarking.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Is it Wise?
The Iphone launches in the UK today and HarperCollins has announced that it has signed an exclusive deal with Apple to provide free book content that will enable all iPhone users to download content. The content is of samples of titles that includes Nicola Barker's ‘Darkmans’, Lewis Hamilton's new autobiography and ‘The Dangerous Book for Boys Yearbook’.
The problem is that the deal is exclusive and although it may well boost HarperCollins sales of their titles it does not promote or encourage the wider market. It could be regarded by some as ‘I am all right jack’ attitude and counter productive with respect of the wider audience and market. If digital content is to get the attention span then the trade has to learn to work together for the good of the trade. It is often better to have a slice of the larger pie than all of a smaller one.
Collaboration and consistancy of user offer is important and exclusive deals may work in commodity markets such as mobiles but it is questionable whether they will work in diverse ones such as books.
We hope that logic prevails and the exclusive agreement is short lived.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Jammin
It would appear that the world of James Bond is available to all. The array of devices may not all be a sophisticated as Q’s but the range is sufficient for the average spy. Having written so much about mobile technology and its pervasive nature and growth it is interesting today to read about another device that is freely available to buy – the cellphone jammer.
As a prankster or grumpy old man, you can at a flick of a switch silence all those around you. Imagine silence on the train and bus, or when you are enjoying you latte or eating a meal. No more having to listen to the most numbing of dull conversations. As a owner of a store you can now fully engage with the customer and not vie for their attention with someone in their ear. However as with everything the good can also be bad. It can block out emergency calls and other important calls.
London based www.phonejammer.com that claims to ship around 400 jammers a month to the US.
Book TV Forget it?
We were very interested to read Daniel Kalder’s article in yesterday’s Guardian Unlimited, ‘Literary TV to put you off reading forever’. Anyone who has suffered weekend stopovers in the US will probably share the views that he expressed that US Book TV needs a wake up call and is actually doing the industry a disservice.
You may think that a TV station dedicated to books is a good thing. However he claims that the production, 'could not be more amateurish', book readings ‘dull and pointless affairs’. He also claims that although there are authors who can ‘chat entertainingly, perhaps even informatively, and tell amusing stories’ they never appear on Book TV. View for yourselves at www.booktv.org and watch their clips - they make many YouTube videos look proffessional.
Interestingly author Jeanette Winterson writing in the Times last month wrote on the same topic and described book programmes on TV ‘to be as dull as racing sloths’. She says of Mariella Frostrup’s ‘The Book Show’ that it is ‘still stuck with the usual sofas facing across a table…how do we communicate the kinetic power of books while sitting on a sofa?’. She went on to compare the passive nature of book programmes to other entertainment which were better served.
The digital age requires fresh thinking we have all witnessed the raise of the widget, the video and the growing multi media exposure we now have on the Internet. The Internet is just another broadcasting channel and as TV and the internet converge then so does how we project books.
One of the largest success stories of recent times is the growing interest in literary festivals which succeed on the basis of diversity, community and proximaty of readers to authors. How do we transfer this to TV and retain the buzz?
It was recently rumoured that a major UK trade publisher was to step into TV and we wondered wether it was wise and they have a formula that would work. We have seen the growth in interest in video clips from publishers, author and companies such as, ‘meet the author’. But what is the format that will spark the difference do what ‘The Tube’ did for music, ‘YouTube’ did for video, 'Film XX' did for movies? We take our hats off to those brave enough to say its not right today. Let's a least remove the sofa and coffee table and give it a shot of adrenaline.
Keep on Running
This year 38,000 runners started the New York marathon. The press may have focused on the achievements of Paula Radcliffe and other front runners but among the rest was a 47 year old, Andre Ditto who was on his own personal mission. Unfortunately Andre was forced to quit after 17 miles due to a fall and swelling knee and you may well ask why we mention it at all?
Andre ran wearing a backpack loaded with 30 lbs. of textbooks and was sponsored by CaféScribe (http://www.cafescribe.com) to pay for a year's worth of textbooks for his daughter, Blaize Buckley, a biology major at Howard University. Ditto, choose for his pack "Art History," at 1,292 pages, "Principles of Economics" (896 pages), "Introduction to Drama" (1,872 pages), and "Essentials of Marketing" (576 pages) the equivalent in weight to 16 bricks!
CaféScribe who sell ebooks, sponsored Ditto to highlight that the adoption of electronic textbooks would both reduce costs and be easier on the back as well. So who will carry the torch and who will sponsor the load in London next year?
Friday, November 02, 2007
Author Connect
We have seen author videos and heard their podcasts. The sometimes work and sometimes don’t but they should all be applauded for trying to move forward and engage with the market.
We watched a video today of Prue Lieth talking about her new book the Gardner. It wasn’t on Amazon, or a bookchain or even an independent bookshop’s site but on a small provisional newspaper’s site – Newbury Weekly News’ www.newburytoday.co.uk . It may not be new but it was refreshing.
The video is based on a talk she gave to a packed audience at Donnington Valley Hotel on the book which was originally published by Penguin in 2004. The book was then called ‘A Lovesome Thing’ and apparently suffered the then distribution centre crisis at Penguin with only 6,000 of a 35,000 print being sold, and the rest being pulped. Transita has since republished it with a new epilogue and Lieth is out promoting the revised work.
The ability to tie communities through newsprint, bookshops, reading events to authors is exciting and will help bookshops develop in the community. Newbury is certainly ahead of the curve when it comes to use of video within provisional newspaper sites.
We watched a video today of Prue Lieth talking about her new book the Gardner. It wasn’t on Amazon, or a bookchain or even an independent bookshop’s site but on a small provisional newspaper’s site – Newbury Weekly News’ www.newburytoday.co.uk . It may not be new but it was refreshing.
The video is based on a talk she gave to a packed audience at Donnington Valley Hotel on the book which was originally published by Penguin in 2004. The book was then called ‘A Lovesome Thing’ and apparently suffered the then distribution centre crisis at Penguin with only 6,000 of a 35,000 print being sold, and the rest being pulped. Transita has since republished it with a new epilogue and Lieth is out promoting the revised work.
The ability to tie communities through newsprint, bookshops, reading events to authors is exciting and will help bookshops develop in the community. Newbury is certainly ahead of the curve when it comes to use of video within provisional newspaper sites.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Expresso on the High Street?
The Espresso Book Machine, has been coming to publishing for some time and in the last year we have continued our updates on the machine’s progress. To-date it has been deployed in five installations and now On Demand Books announces that it is ‘in advanced talks with a well known London-based bookseller to bring one to the UK on early 2008’.
Is this the way it will work, as an additional facility within an existing bookstore? Will the machine drive sufficient traffic and volume within a bookstore? Will demand such that the machine is idle 80% of the time and very busy during the 20% when the store is also busy? On demand implies ‘just in time’ not ‘can you come back later’ and if it where drop shipped then why do it locally?
The library opportunities to offer much potential in terms of width of offer, economics of digital over inventory, a more consistent foot flow and the potential for titles to be ‘always available’.
Stores such as Foyles would appear to be the perfect fit, offering both footfall and destination pull. However, what will they sell on demand and will these sales compliment or cannibalise existing sales? Will the facility generate new footfall and incremental revenue? Will the machine be at front of store or hidden away in a corner where few tread?
It certainly is an interesting venture and one we certainly wish the ‘London based bookseller’ well with.
We return to Starbucks or Starbooks and what would appear at first a better fit. However, who will do the serving, selling and take the money and what will come first the latte, the POD book? Importantly when they have paid for the machine, supplies, space and the titles will there be sufficient margin to make it profitable and more than a loss leader. The mini ‘expresso’ may be more viable when and if it arrives.
Kelko, Rymans, Prontoprint all offer a clearer offer, after all their business is paper and copying. However, will they know anything about the works and be able to select and sell and would a book buyer expect to go there to get a book?
Supermarkets are an interesting option. They are often open 24 x 6 and always need new product lines and could even accommodate a venture on a franchise basis. Imagine your local Waterstones on demand within your local Tesco. The footfall certainly would not be a problem and they often have cafes and sell commodity. However can they afford the square footage and would it deliver the required return?
The list of potential players is only restricted by the service package and their commitment. We have already written about the likes of BookGG, one of many in China using similar technology and new business models to bring ‘just in time’ production to their customers on the High Street. Localised POD offers much in negating book miles, reducing stocked units and offering other formats such as large print.
The challenge is finding a way in which communities and existing channels can effectively participate and that is exactly where the Brave New World report came in.
Serialised Publishing Returns
Hats off to Solaris Books in planning to serialise Chris Roberson’s next fantasy novel on its website for free.
‘Three Unbroken’ will be published at a rate of two chapters per week and the text made available for download at www.solarisbooks.com. The project will start in November with the book not being published until 2009.
So the Dickens model returns and interestingly in a genre that probably will work well. Many are staringto think about books differently and outside of the spine that has for so long restricted them.The interesting aspect is how and if the seralisation approach will change how the work is written and the role of the editor in shaping it. After all you can’t go back and rewrite a chapter once it has been ‘published’.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Democratisation of Ads
Today we read about a young student Nick Haley, at the University of Leeds, England. He created a commercial for the iTouch, posted in on YouTube, which was viewed by thousand and got discovered by Apple marketing execs, and was commissioned by Apple’s ad agency to collaborate on a “professional” version of the ad. Watch the original ad by usingthe link below or clicking on the icon in the screen.One its impressive,two Wow!, three we want an iPhone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKQUZPqDZb0
What is relevant is that people are finding ways to express themselves via community sites and also are offering ideas to those who would not normally see them. Is this the new way to promote content and creative ideas? – Yes. Will there be some hidden gems? – Yes. What is important is the ownership of those ideas and ensuring that IP is rewarded and not abused.
We have already commented on Lego, Chris Anderson and what we call the democratisation of literature, now here is the democratisation of advertising.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKQUZPqDZb0
What is relevant is that people are finding ways to express themselves via community sites and also are offering ideas to those who would not normally see them. Is this the new way to promote content and creative ideas? – Yes. Will there be some hidden gems? – Yes. What is important is the ownership of those ideas and ensuring that IP is rewarded and not abused.
We have already commented on Lego, Chris Anderson and what we call the democratisation of literature, now here is the democratisation of advertising.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Library Dumps Books
Wiltshire County Council, which encourages people to recycle, has been attacked by environmental campaigners and charity workers. This is not over twice monthly, or roadside collections, but their decision to send hundreds of library books to be dumped in a landfill site, ‘because it is not viable to recycle them’. Last week fiction and children's books deemed surplus to requirements, were openly dumped in a skip outside Chippenham Library.
Derek Quinn, Director for the Wiltshire Wood Recycling group, is reported as saying. "When I went to look in the skip it was full of books and some were brand new. I took some home with me because they were in great condition. It is not only books going into the landfill - it's my council tax as well."
Shelia Veech, of Friends of the Earth, said: "I am horrified that they would throw these books out - surely someone must want them.”
The council's stock manager David Green said they had no choice but to dump the consignment because at the moment they had too many books to recycle. He claims that the council only had one contractor to deal with this sort of recycling and at present it isn't a viable solution.
Its amazing that in this day where library funding is constantly under question and recycling is such a hot subject that books are thrown into the skip and buried in landfill. What also is interesting is that these sales are outside the returns and publisher’s pulping programmes. We note that what was probably common practice yesterday, is fast becoming socially unacceptable to many today.
Phoney Wars
The long awaited entry of the iPhone into the UK market is now only days away. On 9th of November the fashion icon that has started to redefine mobile phones enters the UK via an exclusive O2 service. Beware, they will be seen everywhere and O2 is bound to be inundated with service transfer enquires. More than 1.4 million units have been sold in the US since it was introduction on 29th June this year.
In an move to stop its resale in the US, Apple has now announced that it will no longer accepts cash for iPhone purchases and it is reducing the unit limit per person, from five units, down to two. The new policy will ensure that there are enough iPhones for people who are shopping for themselves or buying a gift and discourage unauthorized resellers.
Apple’s other issue is that it estimates that 250K of the iPhones sold to date are to people with multiple iPhones and include those looking to modify, or unlock, the phones so they work on networks other than Apple’s US partner, AT&T. Apple’s attempts to prevent that unlocking activity, include a software update that blocks hacker’s workarounds.
Elsewhere the businessman’s favcourite toy continues to reinvent itself and add more common mobile technology. Blackberry have announced a deal with Omnifone UK to supply BlackBerry users with an unlimited number of music downloads from Omnifone’s MusicStation service. Omnifone’s MusicStation service claims to be able to supply some 10 million songs across 30 countries and a library of tracks from the major producers, such as EMI, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group.
They are not stopping there and have also launched Facebook software designed especially for its smartphones. This will enable users to browse Facebook, receive notifications and messages automatically and scroll through them quickly just as they do today with their email. Users can also read and compose Facebook messages.
Google Take Two Steps Forward and One Step Back
Google like all major brands spreads its services at an alarming rate.
Today we hear about ‘Google 411’ a free business telephone directory enquiry service in the US. Google 411 uses voice-recognition software, completely eliminating the need for human operators.
Users access the service by calling 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411), and stating the desired state and city, or zip code. The system then asks the user to state the business being sought, and offers a list of results which can be dialed automatically. Users can also have results sent via SMS, or displayed as a point on Google maps on smartphones.
With respect to its ever controversial Google Book Search it appears that they have retreated from plans to include magazines with an ISSN number within the service. Technical difficulties with digitizing magazines due to poor paper quality, a lack of existing archives were cited and that book information was of a higher value to searchers were cited as the main reasons.
It shared to understand some of the logic as magazines are increasingly digitized and serials certainly have been for some time. The question of archive also appears a bit woolly given the efforts of many the digitize their archives. Perhaps the real clues lie in the fragmented nature of the content but again that’s the Internet also. Its hard to see the logic or perhaps it’s down to control, re-usage and revenue opportunities. You may believe that but we couldn’t possibly comment.
However, as one door closes another opens. Google now plan to dominate advertising on the television as well as on the Internet. It has announced a partnership with the Nielsen Company, the authority in measuring television audiences that aims to give advertisers more accurate figures of how many people are viewing commercials on a second-by-second basis and who those people are.
At a time when digital broadcasting is changing and many are viewing ‘offline’ and even bypassing the ads, advertisers are hungry for any data they can get about who is watching, who is bypassing them and where to invest.
Google has been selling ads on EchoStarCommunication’s 125 national satellite channel netwoprk. Google analyzes the data from set-top boxes to determine exactly which ads were watched or skipped, with a second-by-second breakdown. With Nielsen’s help, Google will be able to overlay sampling-based ratings and add a rich demographic layer to EchoStar’s information.
Google TV Ads and Google AdWords both give advertisers the ability to buy, sell and deliver advertisements across media and to evaluate the reach of each ad adding the demographic information from Nielson can then tell them who is watching it.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
If the Omnivore Cap Fits...
Well we couldn’t believe our eyes on reading of the giant who we called an omnivore has actually adopted the name for its new blog site! In Brave New World we alikened some of the activities of the search engines and Amazon to omnivores – they devour all before them and Amazon must have thought the cap fitted. Their new book blog new home is www.omnivoracious.com.
Why did they choose Omnivoracious? They say that their editors are ‘always foraging hungrily for that next great book, wherever it comes from, whatever it's about’. They take after their parent and wake up hungry every day! They also admit that ‘before long, we expect, in the spirit of our name, to expand our appetite to the newest movies and music too.’
Today we also read of Amazon.com's international significant sales rise of 40% in the third-quarter. The company's UK, German, Japanese, French and Chinese sites saw turnover rise 33% to $1.5bn with its operating profit almost doubling over the period, from $50m to $98m. The parent Amazon net sales increased 41% to $3.26bn in the same quarter, compared with $2.31bn in third quarter 2006 with net sales growth of 38% compared with third quarter 2006.
Sales for 2007 are expected to be between $14.3bn and $14.6bn, 33% and 36% comparative growth on 2006 with operating income expected to be between $605m and $675m, or 56% and 74% comparative growth.
Amazon is now much more than books or even entertainment and in just over a decade has built a sustainable business, a global brand and a turnover far beyond anyone’s expectations. In publishing they cover all the based across the value chain from author to reader and have changed consumer attitudes. It is interesting to see the size of the overall publishing market compared to Amazon and to realise that it is now not just a publishing omnivore but a big retail gorilla too.
NewsSpace Democratisation
HarperCollins and MySpace are both part of the Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire. It therefore not surprising to read, that MySpace is getting into the book business and HarperCollins into the social community space. HarperCollins has a MySpace presence for some time has recently announced its Authonomy.com aspiring author community space.
MySpace, are now to collaborate with a children's imprint of HarperCollins on an environmental handbook planned for April 22, Earth Day. "MySpace/Our Planet: Change is Possible," will be written by freelance journalist Jeca Taudte and is rumoured to be about 160 pages and cost about $12.95 with a planned first printing of 200,000.The book will feature ideas from MySpace users, who can post environmental tips on http://www.myspace.com/ourplanet. Following the trend towards the democratisation of literature that we have featured heavily on in recent blogs, MySpace contributors who end up in the book will not be paid, but will be credited by their usernames and geographic locations.
The combination sounds a real winner, social community, environmental issues, children’s focus, two major promotion channels and free contributions from motivated individuals. Now who will do a deal with Facebook or Bebo?
We are not Alone
The driving forces that we see changing publishing may appear to be different but are very similar to those being experienced by others.
In a new book that is to be published next year by Oxford University Press, Richard Susskind argues that lawyers and the legal profession face extinction, or are “on the brink of fundamental transformation”. He sees a future, where “conventional legal advisers will be much less prominent in society than today, and, in some walks of life, will have no visibility at all”.
The driving forces are: information technology and what Susskind calls ‘the market pull towards commoditization – carving up a lawyer’s job into identifiable and discreet pieces that can be outsourced and done more cheaply by others.’
When we step back and think about the roles across our value chain we can see similar forces, the question is which roles survive, which are commoditized and which become extinct through technology?
In a new book that is to be published next year by Oxford University Press, Richard Susskind argues that lawyers and the legal profession face extinction, or are “on the brink of fundamental transformation”. He sees a future, where “conventional legal advisers will be much less prominent in society than today, and, in some walks of life, will have no visibility at all”.
The driving forces are: information technology and what Susskind calls ‘the market pull towards commoditization – carving up a lawyer’s job into identifiable and discreet pieces that can be outsourced and done more cheaply by others.’
When we step back and think about the roles across our value chain we can see similar forces, the question is which roles survive, which are commoditized and which become extinct through technology?
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
GodTube
One of the genre we envisaged diverging at speed under digitisation was religion. Today we read about www.GodTube.com a $2.5 million Christian video site with some 1.7 million unique visitors in August. Visitors at the site stay on average 7.7 minutes and view over 1.5 million hours of video a month.
GodTube isn’t a church and is very much a ‘for-profit’ organisation. Its model includes selling both religious and secular advertising, charging subscription fees to ministries that want to broadcast and selling anonymous demographic data. What you get over the Internet also includes matters like in-depth theological discussion, prayer support, opportunities for confession and the like.
Religion on the Internet is nothing new -- churches have been using e-mail and bulletin board services for more than a decade, and sacred texts have long been accessible via online databases. A decade ago we knew of one major Christian publisher who was providing sermons on demand via email.
GodTube offers a new live video function called GodCaster. This allows churches and ministers to stream live events such as services, concerts, debates and other programming, to anyone in the world. Now worshipers can pick a congregation based more on personal or religious preference than their physical location, and they can participate in Bible studies and social groups without ever leaving their PC.
The site takes extra efforts to ensure that its content is appropriate and every single video must be approved by an administrator before it goes live. Currently, that is 300 to 500 videos a day and growing. In addition , only pre-approved pastors and ministries will be trusted live video providers.
The religious market is not exclusive to Christians and similar sites are emerging to cater for other major faiths. Christian publishers are responding to GodTube and its new and expanding audience with leading Christian publisher, Thomas Nelson being one of its 50 Major partners.
Direct from Manufacturer?
So printers now aim to go after the drop ship market space and offer the Publisher’s a direct market and full margin. Its an interesting proposal but begs many questions.
CPI are launching, www.cpibookdelivery.com a site which will have its titles listed on Google search. When a consumer finds a title CPI will take the money and dispatch the book. They will then pay the publisher the full cover price and in doing so pay on a settlement basis so living off whatever interest can be raised and maximising bottom line profit for the publisher. The aim is to help publishers sell direct to the consumer from point of manufacture and so effectively cut out distributors, wholesalers, ecommerce sites and retailers.
So is the intent to go after the total distribution and wholesale market and deliver both bulk and single shipments from point of manufacture or to just deal with internet drop ship? Are they going to hold significant title inventory or manufacture to order (POD). The issues about operating single shipment operations alongside bulk have been discussed many times and are as we have said an art.
Printers are increasingly under pressures as manufacturing is always shifting to the cheapest location and POD is becoming more economic and moving closer to the channel. So where do CPI want to be? Are they merely trying to plug what they see is a opportunity or are they trying to align themselves as the publisher’s direct fulfilment option for all formats? The cpibookdelivery site is obviously in its early stages and doesn’t give a lot away.
How Many Users Saw Your Ad?
If you were placing an advert you would want to monitor the number of people who saw it and if possible the resultant conversion rate and frequency of spend is achieved. In a direct marketing environment its about conversion and frequency rate and ensuring that the money is spent well, in the advertising mass market it is about ensuring the audience target has been reached and monitoring that the message has been received. So one would think that on the internet life becomes a whole lot easier and precise figures can be collated for each view and where appropriate each conversion.
Anyone who has placed adverts on the web will know that auditing ‘hits’, conversion, individuals and returns can often be as difficult as herding cats. We often find two camps page views versus pay-per-click. The later is basically payment based not on merely viewing the page but on clicking on the ad. This still doesn’t mean the user actually converted just that he clicked through. However, in the advertising world which is expected to more than double the $9.6 billion it represented as recently as 2004 and generate some $20 billion in revenue this year, its more about views than action.
So how many visitors did you receive today? Your web analyst will say one figure but the advertising measurement services such as ComScore and Nielson/Net Ratings a much lower one. Who is right and who is wrong? In the world of advertising the figures mean money! There are a myriad of reasons for the differences. Then there are issues regarding the number of times that advertisements appear on the web site and we have seen the recent purchase by Microsoft and Google of companies such as Atlas and DoubleClick who specialise in tracking this. There are also issues about tracking individuals who may masked behind a corporate or institutional gateway.
The wider adoption of Web analytics, as a discipline, may hold the answers in the web 2.0 world. This technology has evolved and the latest ‘page tagging’, is aimed at capturing business metrics such as the unique user, the visit, and the page view. However, until everyone counts the same way the true potential of Internet advertising may not be fully realised.
Anyone who has placed adverts on the web will know that auditing ‘hits’, conversion, individuals and returns can often be as difficult as herding cats. We often find two camps page views versus pay-per-click. The later is basically payment based not on merely viewing the page but on clicking on the ad. This still doesn’t mean the user actually converted just that he clicked through. However, in the advertising world which is expected to more than double the $9.6 billion it represented as recently as 2004 and generate some $20 billion in revenue this year, its more about views than action.
So how many visitors did you receive today? Your web analyst will say one figure but the advertising measurement services such as ComScore and Nielson/Net Ratings a much lower one. Who is right and who is wrong? In the world of advertising the figures mean money! There are a myriad of reasons for the differences. Then there are issues regarding the number of times that advertisements appear on the web site and we have seen the recent purchase by Microsoft and Google of companies such as Atlas and DoubleClick who specialise in tracking this. There are also issues about tracking individuals who may masked behind a corporate or institutional gateway.
The wider adoption of Web analytics, as a discipline, may hold the answers in the web 2.0 world. This technology has evolved and the latest ‘page tagging’, is aimed at capturing business metrics such as the unique user, the visit, and the page view. However, until everyone counts the same way the true potential of Internet advertising may not be fully realised.
Monday, October 22, 2007
The Cat will not be put back in this Bag
Audio books appear to be in a digital tug of war.
On one side stands the music industry who are rapidly changing business models, are digital and desperately trying to make money with artists, consumers and the market shifting the ground from under their feet. The Radiohead ‘honesty box’ and recent giveaway CDs are now competing with DRM free music. It’s inevitable that watermarking will prevail over DRM and that its days are clearly numbered. On the other side sits an uneasy book industry claiming, with some justification, that ‘books are different’ but at the same time watching the audiobook increasingly being digitally aligned with music.
It is not surprising to read today that Penguin has withdrawn its 150 titles from its audiobook experiment with eMusic’s unprotected MP3 file initiative. Publisher Dick Heffernan is reported in the NYT, "At this moment we're not going to have our titles on eMusic or with anyone else who sells non-DRM until the landscape shakes out and we feel very comfortable and confident that our titles will not be pirated." Interestingly he added that, "We wanted to take a chance and see how it would work out, and our very senior management at this moment decided that we didn’t want to do that."
On the other hand eMusic stated that they are achieving 500 audiobook sales a day under the DRM free initiative which is double the projections. Random House Audio have reported that they are monitoring their participation but have found no piracy to date and that sales were "really encouraging."
So what will prevail? Naxos and Silksoundbooks are available DRM free today for download in the UK. Naxos have signed up to Gardners Digital Services so will have an additional channel to market. Silksoundbooks have placed a price point of £7.99 a download which certainly raise further questions.
Some may sit on the sidelines and wait, but the market and the channels are starting to appear and with it those cracks in the audiobook world, that has so long been restrained by Audible and restrictive DRM.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Scanning The Library World
Whose library is best and which collection offers the richest content when digitised? We have seen the giant hover that is Google making a land grab for any library that will play and now we see the national and international divides.
The Library of Congress has announced its plans to expand its World Digital Library Program and has signed an agreement with UNESCO. The project is a joint venture with other national libraries and is modelled on the Library of Congress’s vast American Memory project. The digital library will hold digital versions of rare and specialised materials such as manuscripts, maps, books, films, sound recordings and photographs, will be free to access over the Internet and is currently available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese languages.
The project started 2 years ago with a $3million grant from Google and assistance from Apple and they are currently discussing further funding alliances with Nokia and Vodaphone, as well as gathering commitments from countries.
You would think that one project was enough, but European libraries are separately developing their own digital collections and the European Digital Library will release its prototype next year. The French National Library has already developed a test project, Europeana, for the European library and is in the process of digitizing 300,000 books.
Today we also read that several major research libraries including a large consortium in the Boston area, have rejected offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they were put off by restrictions these companies wanted to place on the new digital collections. They are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort to make digital material as widely accessible as possible.
However many libraries including the New York Public, the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford and Oxford have accepted the offer. Google expects to scan 15 million books from those collections.
The issue for some is that Libraries that agree to work with Google do so on Google's terms, which involve access to the material only through the Google search engine, as well as restrictions on how much of it can be downloaded.
There are now two library camps; one is shaped by commercial concerns, the other by a commitment to openness, and which one will win is not clear.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
The Man eBooker Prize
The Man Booker Prize is taking a bold step to reach the widest audience and are in negotiations with the British Council and publishers over digitizing the novels and making them available for all to read online for free. The objective is to engage with readers and non readers worldwide.
The are many questions not least whether the exercise will cannibalize sales or like recent music experiments with honesty boxes, boost sales and interest and engage with a new audience. If the digital copy is only a taster will readers then be induced to buy the book? Will they buy the book irrespective? Will it be only available online or to be downloaded to a reader? Will the files be DRM protected or open?
It strange that they seem to have waited until after the event to announce their intentions. We would have expected the agreements, process and mechanism to have been agreed with all parties before the event. As it stands it looks like a last minute ‘good idea’ that has not been fully thought out first. Think of the impact if it had been announce before the result and was there ready to go, the minute the result was declared.
We predict that others will now follow the idea through and it will be interesting to see where it goes next.
Democratisation or Self Publishing
So where do aspiring new authors go to get published?
They can try a publisher or an agent, but the slush pile gets bigger and the rejections more automated year on year. They can try projecting themselves on MySpace, Facebook and the social network scene, but again that is getting crowded and popularity doesn’t always reflect talent. They can become a celebrity and even get the book it written for them, or they can take what many once thought was the ultimate ego trip and self publish.
Does self publishing provide an easy route to fame and fortune or is it just another slushpile? Are there now new publisher alternatives?
We now read HarperCollins UK is to launch a new community site that is focused at encouraging new writers. Authonomy.com is set to launch in early 2008 in the UK, with the intention of developing it in other countries in the future. The aspiring writer uploads their work onto the site and others can read, make comments on it and also make recommendations. The objective appears to test the popularity of the works and the writers and cherry picking those that rise to the top for consideration for publishing. There are obvious questions about the protection of the authors’ ideas and ownership of the works posted. Will the works be exclusive to HarperCollins or become another source for others to trawl? Will the works be fully protected and how long will they be posted for? Who will be allowed to comment? We wait for the launch and the rules to be announced but given the Spinebreaker site we commented on earlier this week are we seeing the the democratisation of literature?
Its interesting to also read that at a time when publishers are reaching out to create social sites such as Authonomy and Spinebreakers the self publishing world is still not at that tipping point predicted by so many. IUniverse, one of the first digital self publishing ventures, is now being acquired by a competitor Author Solutions. There are many sites and services to self publish which offer a variety of services from editorial and design through to distribution but all have to be paid for by the author and none offer any guarantees. The list is significant; Grosvener House, Lulu, Publish and be Dammed, Trafford, Cafepress, etc. However even with open channels such as Amazon and cheaper POD technology success is hard to find. It’s unlikely that the investment is too much, or the actual process too complex, but more likely that selection, shaping, publicity and marketing are still key attributes to publishing.
Someone recently described publishers as venture capitalists and perhaps it also a case of who takes that risk that really counts.
They can try a publisher or an agent, but the slush pile gets bigger and the rejections more automated year on year. They can try projecting themselves on MySpace, Facebook and the social network scene, but again that is getting crowded and popularity doesn’t always reflect talent. They can become a celebrity and even get the book it written for them, or they can take what many once thought was the ultimate ego trip and self publish.
Does self publishing provide an easy route to fame and fortune or is it just another slushpile? Are there now new publisher alternatives?
We now read HarperCollins UK is to launch a new community site that is focused at encouraging new writers. Authonomy.com is set to launch in early 2008 in the UK, with the intention of developing it in other countries in the future. The aspiring writer uploads their work onto the site and others can read, make comments on it and also make recommendations. The objective appears to test the popularity of the works and the writers and cherry picking those that rise to the top for consideration for publishing. There are obvious questions about the protection of the authors’ ideas and ownership of the works posted. Will the works be exclusive to HarperCollins or become another source for others to trawl? Will the works be fully protected and how long will they be posted for? Who will be allowed to comment? We wait for the launch and the rules to be announced but given the Spinebreaker site we commented on earlier this week are we seeing the the democratisation of literature?
Its interesting to also read that at a time when publishers are reaching out to create social sites such as Authonomy and Spinebreakers the self publishing world is still not at that tipping point predicted by so many. IUniverse, one of the first digital self publishing ventures, is now being acquired by a competitor Author Solutions. There are many sites and services to self publish which offer a variety of services from editorial and design through to distribution but all have to be paid for by the author and none offer any guarantees. The list is significant; Grosvener House, Lulu, Publish and be Dammed, Trafford, Cafepress, etc. However even with open channels such as Amazon and cheaper POD technology success is hard to find. It’s unlikely that the investment is too much, or the actual process too complex, but more likely that selection, shaping, publicity and marketing are still key attributes to publishing.
Someone recently described publishers as venture capitalists and perhaps it also a case of who takes that risk that really counts.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Zero email Friday
The email has had a significant impact on all our lives and has made communication both a pain and a pleasure. Even with spam and junk email filters the volume is still growing. Research company IDC estimates that 40 billion personal emails, 17 billion alerts and a further 40 billion spam emails are sent each day. We are all return from holiday to a mountain of emails and spend valuable time trawling through them. So is there finally a backlash, a reawakening of how we should work and communicate on the horizon, or are we destined to sit at screens and stare with thumbs ready on our Blackberry and mobile phones.
A number of US firms have taken the bold step of extending the ‘dress down Friday’ to the ‘zero email Friday’. 150 engineers in Intel turned off their machines for 24 hours and opted to use the phone and as a result Intel will now repeat the initiative for the next month. US Cellular went further fining rebel users $1 for each email sent and had ‘wanted ‘ posters put up on the office walls and even required them to wear nametags with a big scarlet ‘E’ on them.
The ‘talk not type’ movement has also spread to Georgia based mail order company PBD Worldwide, accounts Deloitte & Touche and Pennsylvania State University, where students are pledging to take a day off emails. Students are apparently getting panic attacks from trying to keep up with their email. We all know that feeling.
I remember the first time I met Nigel Newton , CEO of Bloomsbury and the first five minutes were a tirade about the volume of email he received. That was ten years ago! It is claimed that the average US office worker receives about 140 emails a day, reads only half of them and responds to less than a quarter. A new habit is referred to as ‘email twitching’, or reading every email as it arrives. We are all guilty, we all need email and maybe the only escape is to get someone else to read the email for you!
A number of US firms have taken the bold step of extending the ‘dress down Friday’ to the ‘zero email Friday’. 150 engineers in Intel turned off their machines for 24 hours and opted to use the phone and as a result Intel will now repeat the initiative for the next month. US Cellular went further fining rebel users $1 for each email sent and had ‘wanted ‘ posters put up on the office walls and even required them to wear nametags with a big scarlet ‘E’ on them.
The ‘talk not type’ movement has also spread to Georgia based mail order company PBD Worldwide, accounts Deloitte & Touche and Pennsylvania State University, where students are pledging to take a day off emails. Students are apparently getting panic attacks from trying to keep up with their email. We all know that feeling.
I remember the first time I met Nigel Newton , CEO of Bloomsbury and the first five minutes were a tirade about the volume of email he received. That was ten years ago! It is claimed that the average US office worker receives about 140 emails a day, reads only half of them and responds to less than a quarter. A new habit is referred to as ‘email twitching’, or reading every email as it arrives. We are all guilty, we all need email and maybe the only escape is to get someone else to read the email for you!
Monday, October 15, 2007
A Democratisation of Penguins (Puffins? -ed)
The man who gave us the ‘long tail’, Chris Anderson, is now giving us the democratization of technology. An approach, which effectively extends the boundaries of innovation, out past to the enterprise and onto the web. Companies such as Lego and Proctor and Gamble are actively using the resources of people who are interested in what they do in order to enhance, develop and create new product. Best of all it can often cost them nothing and certainly less than having R&D staffers!
Anderson, along with his 8-year-old son developed a airborne surveillance device using Lego Mindstorm’s kit as processing and control foundation. They added a gyroscope, infrared vision for stability, GPS capability, a cell phone-based coordinate input scheme to guide the model and a basic imaging system to conduct "reconnaissance" at the destination. The data was then sent back over the same 3G network to the cell phone communications system.
This extension of technology enables organisations to think outside of their box and tap into enthusiast who will take them to a different place. The cost of Anderson’s UVA was only $1,000 compared to the multi million price tag for military UAVs. Lego effectively get the intellectual property for providing the Mindstorm kit.
So we then visited www.spinebreakers.co.uk, a Penguin owned web site which had been reviewed by Booksquare. We opened the site with some trepidation and found it ‘different’. This Penguin site has obviously been designed to appeal to youth and is edited by 13 to 18 year olds. The graphics are certainly hip, grey and lime green colours with clever image shots make an engaging feel, but why go here and not onto Bebo, Myspace, Facebook etc?
Children can become one of the team and to do so need to submit a review or short story and 50 words about why they want to be involved. It certainly offers something for everyone from book reviews to designing jackets.
For once the Penguin branding is discreet and if you blink you may miss it. So why come here and what’s in it for the young aspiring writer? Perhaps Penguin has found a way to democratise literature and harness new creative blood , monitor trends and hopefully not for free.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
LongPen Reaches Across Restricted Borders
It was interesting to read today in the Times of some very insightful words about writing from Margret Atwood. She has recently added a new line to her cv: inventor. This inclusion is as a result of her much reviewed device called the LongPen which enables authors to appear virtually at book signings, through Internet technology which reproduces their writing in real time.
How ironic that we also read the same day that another less loved Canadian is using the same technology to perform his own remote book signings. Conrad Black is not allowed to leave the US while he awaits sentencing for fraud, but has been signing copies of his biography of Richard Nixon for a Toronto bookshop. What next, ‘The Prison Diaries’ from behind bars? What would Mr Archer have done with such an opportunity?
How ironic that we also read the same day that another less loved Canadian is using the same technology to perform his own remote book signings. Conrad Black is not allowed to leave the US while he awaits sentencing for fraud, but has been signing copies of his biography of Richard Nixon for a Toronto bookshop. What next, ‘The Prison Diaries’ from behind bars? What would Mr Archer have done with such an opportunity?
Monday, October 08, 2007
50 50, Ask the Audience, or Call a Friend?
On the eve of the Frankfurt Book Fair comes an interesting survey by them, that were published in today’s Bookseller.com. They surveyed 1,300 publishers, retailers, agents and libraries from around the world and came up with some interesting results. The results like so often lack clarity and relevance. 25% believe High street bookselling will not exist in 50 years, but that means 75% do. 4% believe publishers will be obsolete, but the term ‘publisher’ is very vague and can mean many things to many people. 11% thought the printed book will vanish, which means 89% again didn’t.
However, the most interesting results were over the size of change faced and who the dominant geographic force would be.
55.5%, thought that the industry would continue without any "catastrophic change". This majority obviously have not been watching the music industry’s value chain and previous business models fall apart. We are witnessing unprecedented changes in broadcasting, telephony, music, films, audio, education and all content and rights related industries, but still 55.5% believe books are different! It is not so much about the physical versus the digital book, it is about business model, relationships and in certain genre the opportunity to think outside the jacket in this digital age. Predicting who will thrive and who will survive is difficult and the only certainty is that there will be authors and readers and all between are up for grabs.
36% thought Europe would dominate the industry in the next decade whilst 32% said America and 26% China. The question one has to ask is, where was China ten years ago or even five years ago? What is relevant, is not who will dominate, but the impact of the shift towards true globalisation and potentially global ownership. Will China and emerging economies tolerate external ownership, or step up to take ownership themselves? China and India are clearly in the ascendancy. What happens when we also finally accept that territorial rights become unmanageable and global pricing starts to bite. The final interesting point here is one many have long known and that is the recognition that there is a publishing market outside the US.
However, the most interesting results were over the size of change faced and who the dominant geographic force would be.
55.5%, thought that the industry would continue without any "catastrophic change". This majority obviously have not been watching the music industry’s value chain and previous business models fall apart. We are witnessing unprecedented changes in broadcasting, telephony, music, films, audio, education and all content and rights related industries, but still 55.5% believe books are different! It is not so much about the physical versus the digital book, it is about business model, relationships and in certain genre the opportunity to think outside the jacket in this digital age. Predicting who will thrive and who will survive is difficult and the only certainty is that there will be authors and readers and all between are up for grabs.
36% thought Europe would dominate the industry in the next decade whilst 32% said America and 26% China. The question one has to ask is, where was China ten years ago or even five years ago? What is relevant, is not who will dominate, but the impact of the shift towards true globalisation and potentially global ownership. Will China and emerging economies tolerate external ownership, or step up to take ownership themselves? China and India are clearly in the ascendancy. What happens when we also finally accept that territorial rights become unmanageable and global pricing starts to bite. The final interesting point here is one many have long known and that is the recognition that there is a publishing market outside the US.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Turning a Negative into a Positive
The selling of review copies has long been a practiced the world over. A good friend of ours, Fred Bass, the owner of that iconic bookstore The Strand in New York, has a whole basement full of them. Some even still have the letters from the publisher in them, or a stamp that says not for resell. Let’s be honest, these are unsolicited and the equivalent to some of junk mail.
So we read again of the beating of chests and fury, this time by the PMA in the US, at sites such as Abebooks, who are said to be carrying some 200,000 galleys and advanced reading copies for sale.
Digitisation offers an easy solution to this issue, but it is dependant on acceptance of digital files and also digital files being available. Will these be DRM protected and or water marketed? Will they be track able? Will they offer a two way dialogue, or just be scattered like corn seeds as is the practice today? Will the reviewers want to be auditable? Will the reviewer still want a physical copy? Many question and we are aware that these are now been discussed and pursued by some.
Given that some academic publishers accept that the volume of review, inspection, and advance reading copies could be 10% of a print run, it’s is also a question of reducing waste.
So we read again of the beating of chests and fury, this time by the PMA in the US, at sites such as Abebooks, who are said to be carrying some 200,000 galleys and advanced reading copies for sale.
Digitisation offers an easy solution to this issue, but it is dependant on acceptance of digital files and also digital files being available. Will these be DRM protected and or water marketed? Will they be track able? Will they offer a two way dialogue, or just be scattered like corn seeds as is the practice today? Will the reviewers want to be auditable? Will the reviewer still want a physical copy? Many question and we are aware that these are now been discussed and pursued by some.
Given that some academic publishers accept that the volume of review, inspection, and advance reading copies could be 10% of a print run, it’s is also a question of reducing waste.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Zune Revamp
Microsoft is ramping up its ‘iTunes and Apple competitor’ Zune offer. The question are whether it is merely following in the shadows and whether it has something new and special to offer?
They have unveiled two new Zunes with redesigned ‘Zune Pad’ controllers and styling.They are offering a $250 enhanced version of the old model, with a 80GB hard drive and a smaller, lighter flash memory-based model with 4-GB for $150 or 8-GB for $200. The Zune's wireless networking can sync a Zune wirelessly to a PC, and if you send a song to another Zune owner, the song will not now automatically vanish from the other Zune after three days. The recipient can also send this song on to still other Zune owners,but can still only play it three times.
The Zune Marketplace will now sell DRM-free MP3 files, stock music videos, but will still not have TV shows or movies and a new online-community site called Zune Social will also enable file sharing.
Microsoft claim to have shipped 1.2 million units last year but these have little visibility and are far outnumbered by Apple’s growing iWorld. They even had to roll out Bill to support these announcements.
Instead of fighting the market on an open and multi entertainment platform they have continued their proprietary route, even to the point of being incompatible with their own ‘PlaysForSure’ format for purchased audio and video downloads, and have retained their own ‘Microsoft Points’ payment system.
So what’s special? Not a lot unless you can find another Zune user within sight to share files with and although a great feature not one to build a product around. Zune social doesn’t present that ‘must join’ factor and there are too many competitors who have better offers or stronger communities. Sorry the Zune lacks a USP and we can’t see being high on the Christmas list to Santa this year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)