eBooks

2010: Year of the eBook?

Posted Mon, 02/01/2010 - 12:43 by Greg

Huge developments in the eBook world over the course of last month. First, Amazon opened up their 'Digital Text Platform' service (ie. publishing Kindle books) to international publishers. Next, they announced a reversal of their previous profit distribution percentage from 30% publisher/70% Amazon to 70% publisher/30% Amazon (though with a number of rules attached, including that the book be priced below $10), beginning after June 30. A week later, Apple dominated news headlines with the announcement of their would-be Kindle-killer, the iPad, and the news that they would offer their own 'iBook' store with a 70/30 split of income as well. Then, to finish the month, Amazon and MacMillan (one of the 'big six' publishers) got into a spat over the sub-$10 pricing of eBooks, with Amazon removing MacMillan's books from sale, until later 'capitulating' with a passive-aggressive letter to consumers (in which Amazon hilariously described MacMillan as having a 'monopoly' over their titles). Read more »

The Rise and Rise of e-Readers

Posted Wed, 12/02/2009 - 04:48 by Greg

Amazon's Kindle eReader continues to go from strength to strength, with the company announcing that device was the best selling item in their catalogue for November. While it must be remembered that this is helped by the fact that Amazon is the *only* place you can get the Kindle, it's still a notable moment in the eBook industry. Though Amazon doesn't offer numbers, an industry analyst has estimated that they will ship around 550,000 Kindles in 2009. Added to that is Amazon's claim that they now sell 48 Kindle books for every 100 physical books, up from 35 per 100 mid-year. By those numbers, Kindle books are now sneaking up on 33% of online book sales.

It's not all about Amazon though. Barnes and Noble's Nook is apparently selling so fast that any orders after November 30 will not be fulfilled until January. While this is good news for B&N (and the eBook industry) in general, it would seem to be a bad error of judgement in not being able to ship for Xmas throughout December.

Kindle Books on Your Computer

Posted Thu, 11/12/2009 - 00:12 by Greg

For those that want to purchase Kindle books rather than print versions, but don't have a Kindle reader: salvation is at hand. Amazon have released a Beta version of their new PC software package, "Kindle for PC". Head to Amazon to download the program. If, like me, you're better than that and have an Apple Mac, you'll have to wait - but apparently it's on its way.

Look at the Nook

Posted Thu, 10/22/2009 - 04:16 by Greg

Barnes and Noble have entered the eBook market with their own reader, the Nook. Here's the promo video:

The Nook runs on Google's Android, and supports PDF and e.pub formats. I haven't been able to find a lot of details at this stage (apart from this article), but I'm sure we'll hear much more in coming weeks.

Ebooks Boosting Reading?

Posted Thu, 10/22/2009 - 03:58 by Greg

The New York Times has a news feature suggesting that eBook devices are leading readers to up the number of books they consume. Amazon says that people with Kindles now buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before owning the device, while Sony says that its Reader users download about eight books a month. Of course, someone had to say that people aren't likely to read more in the modern age of movies and the Internet...but you'd think it wouldn't be a publisher...

“Given the fact that people now have the Internet, almost 24-hour football entertainment in the fall, tennis matches from around the world, TV shows out the wazoo, and movies, do you really believe that people are going to be reading more because they can get it on a screen?” said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, owner of imprints like Farrar, Straus and Giroux and St. Martin’s Press. “I don’t see the scenario.”

Way to sell the book industry John.

Cheaper eBooks

Posted Thu, 07/30/2009 - 02:03 by Greg

Here's a fine little article on the idiocy of pricing eBooks the same as 'real' books: "10 Reasons that eBooks Should Be Priced Lower Than Paper Books". Not much else to be said really, except I think a key issue is the 'disposable' nature of modern culture. People are happy to buy lots of things at cheaper prices, because to them it won't matter if they don't get good value. Cheaper eBooks will mean greater volume, I am sure.

Kindle Under Fire

Posted Tue, 07/28/2009 - 11:23 by Greg

For the past week I've been learning how to publish on the Kindle. Which basically amounts to stripping away all the nice typesetting a layout you did, and coding it as best you can in HTML. So nasty.

And to suit my mood, the Kindle itself is drawing fire from all sides. Here's some links:

After the pain of the past week, working my butt off to make my book look crappier, all I can say is that I hope eReaders eventually move to supporting PDFs properly (or some other format equally as good at preserving print layout).

Kindle Diversifies

Posted Fri, 06/19/2009 - 09:24 by Greg

Recent developments seem to show that Amazon is moving away from a tight bonding between the Kindle book formats and the Kindle reader - the new Kindle DX features support for PDF files, rather than just Mobipocket and AZW, and the new 'Kindle for iPhone' program lets Kindle book buyers use the iPhone as their reading device if they prefer. Indeed, Jeff Bezos has now explicitly said that Kindle books and Reader are two separate businesses:

The device team has the job of making the most remarkable purpose-built reading device in the world. We are going to give the device team competition. We will make Kindle books, at the same $9.99 price points, available on the iPhone, and other mobile devices and other computing devices

Can't help but feel that the unexpected success of the iPhone as a reading device, using third-party apps, has swung Amazon's strategy somewhat...

Digital Future Roundup

Posted Fri, 06/05/2009 - 02:31 by Greg

Miscellaneous links with interesting reading pertaining to publishing's digital future...

Who wins, who loses?

Kindle Bows to the iPhone

Posted Tue, 05/12/2009 - 04:20 by Greg

Amazon seems to have acknowledged the ongoing 'adoption' of Apple's iPhone as a portable reading device, indicating a growing acceptance within the book retailing behemoth that multi-platform Kindle reading will not damage their growing domination of the eBook market: they've released an iPhone-friendly version of the Kindle bookstore.

This optimized Kindle store offers iPhone and iPod touch app users quick and easy access to the Kindle Store’s 280,000 books, including 106 of 112 New York Times Best Sellers and most New Releases that are available for $9.99 or less.

The Kindle for iPhone application was released on March 4 and within days became the most popular books app in the iPhone App Store. iPhone users can shop Kindle’s massive selection of books on the iPhone and iPod touch using Apple's Multi-Touch user interface. Amazon's Whispersync technology saves and synchronizes Kindle customers’ bookmarks across Kindle, iPhone and iPod touch, so you always have your reading with you and never lose your place. Kindle customers can read a few pages on their iPhone or iPod touch and pick up right where they left off on their Kindle.

Apple has to be happy about this development, strengthening the claim that the iPhone is not only a phone, personal organizer and iPod, but a book reader as well.