Archive for the ‘Ebook Publishing’ Category

Amazon recently introduced the Kindle Fire, an Android-based tablet computer that they are selling for $199 each. The pricing is a great deal for consumers – it’s $300 less than the least expensive iPad 2 and $50 cheaper than Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color — but a loss-leader for Amazon which loses approximately $20 on each unit sold.

While there are no figures from Amazon on the number of units pre-ordered so far, the retailer reportedly took 95,000 pre-orders on the first day, and other reports say they’ve been selling approximately 50,000 a day since then.

Putting the Kindle Fire in so many hands is a great move if all the folks who buy them are tied to Amazon’s books, music and apps, but is that really going to be the case?

The Kindle Fire is an Android tablet, and while it may be an Amazon-modified version of the operating system, users are going to want to put their own apps on the device. If this isn’t possible out of the box, within a few days of shipping, some enterprising hacker will make it possible.

The problem isn’t new. Even Amazon’s e-ink ebook readers can display content not purchased at Amazon, but at least with the dedicated readers all you can really do with the device is read books.

Not so with a tablet. Amazon isn’t going to make money off users who only bought the tablet to have a portable YouTube and Facebook screen. Even if someone buys a few cheap apps, it’s going to take a while for Amazon to get back its investment, if it ever does.

Likewise, they’re not going to sell ebooks to someone who bought the tablet to load up free videos from the Web and keep their kids amused on long trips. And if it’s possible to add random apps, what if they load a competing ebook reader and use the tablet for reading books bought at B&N or Sony?

Michael Norris, senior analyst of Simba Information’s Trade Books Group, has noted that their data suggests that, “the more multimedia capabilities some devices have, the less likely the consumer will be to purchase e-books on that particular device.”

Simba has also reported that 40 percent of iPad owners have never used their tablets to read or purchase an ebook. I didn’t find that statistic terribly surprising either. After all, you’d have to be a pretty dedicated reader to choose a book over YouTube, Facebook and Angry Birds, and even die-hard readers can get distracted by the bright and shiny bling that you can get on your tablet.

Maybe Amazon is crazy by selling so many tablets at a loss. But maybe not. After all, one third of all US e-commerce sales happen on Amazon. If that statistic holds, maybe it doesn’t even matter that the Kindle Fire can read non-Amazon books and play non-Amazon apps… Amazon is pretty much guaranteed a certain percentage of those digital sales anyway. And getting their online store front-and-center on that many portable devices can only help boost their percentage of sales overall.

Whether the move is good for the book industry, and for Amazon, is soon to be seen, as the Fire is slated to begin shipping on the 15th.

Amazon has announced that it is dropping .mobi formats for it’s Kindle ebook readers and the upcoming Kindle Fire, and moving to a new format — Kindle Format 8 — KF8.  The new file format is HTML5-based will include more formatting tags like embedded fonts, drop caps, fixed layouts, sidebars, SVG graphics, and more.

A new set of publishing guidelines will be available to authors and publishers soon, but in the meanwhile, a list of the HTML and CSS available in KF8 can be viewed here.

More information from Amazon here.

A recent report by media and publishing forecast firm Simba Information found that even though bookstores have lost some of their customer base over the years, the channel feeds into the e-book universe by serving as a ‘book showroom’ for the roughly 10% of U.S. adults who buy e-books.

“Believing that adults will begin taking to e-books in large numbers because of Borders’ liquidation is a dangerous assumption,” said Michael Norris, senior analyst of Simba Information’s Trade Books Group, commenting on the report. “Since most adults buy books from multiple channels and enjoy using bookstores for browsing, the loss of a ‘book showroom’ can impact print books and e-books in unexpected ways.”

Data from Simba indicates that the more channels a consumer uses, the more likely he or she is to buy — even though bookstores are sometimes cut out of the action. In a Simba survey of over 110 bookstores across the country, 38% indicated that their (former) regular customers who own a Barnes & Noble Nook or an Amazon Kindle ‘often or very often’ return to browse without buying anything. 43% of the same booksellers also said non-regular customers often or very often come to browse before leaving to buy from another retailer.

“Publishers should be working around the clock to find ways to make chain and independent bookstores stronger, and not for reasons having to do with sentimentality,” Norris said. “If the only retailers left selling books are those that don’t need to, publishers will lose their power and relevance overnight. I genuinely worry that books may follow the same dreadful path of music, where gadgets like the iPod spring up to make consumption easy, the showrooms for media discovery close, piracy becomes a cultural expectation and the market shrinks by billions as more people buy less.”

The report, “Trends in Trade Book Retailing 2011,” also shows the interconnected world of retailing with thorough profiles of the bookstore, online and other major retailing channels, outlining key demographic details and trends unique to each, including the gender, age, household income, education level and purchasing habits of the buyers. The significant influence of non-bookstore physical store retailers like Walmart and Target and the influence of e-book sellers like Amazon.com are also covered.

SOURCE: Simba Information

Entertainment studio The Shadow Gang has unveiled “GoBZRK,” a groundbreaking interactive story experience built around BZRK, the upcoming young-adult book series from best-selling author Michael Grant. Turning the traditional book publishing model on its head, GoBZRK was visualized and developed by The Shadow Gang and Michael Grant, from storyline inception, to be a transmedia experience that deepens and enhances the narrative adventure well before, and beyond, the launch of the book series. GoBZRK reaches across community websites, character blogs, interactive games, graphic novels, mobile apps, social networks and online video, culminating with BZRK the book. Targeted at young adult science fiction, mystery, gaming and adventure enthusiasts, the story will unfold and draw fans into the strange, gritty and compelling world of GoBZRK through the release of BZRK book one on February 28, 2012 from publishing house Egmont.

In the coming months, the GoBZRK plot will be uncovered at NexusHumanus.com, SocietyTwins.com and DeathOrMadness.com, and other story-related sites, via character blogs, videos and embedded clues that guide players deeper into the mystery of Nexus Humanus, an international organization that claims to be dedicated to fostering world peace through the creation of “sustainable happiness.” A comprehensive out-of-fiction hubsite, GoBZRK.com, provides continuity for the entire experience. A GoBZRK mobile game for iOS and Android-compatible devices is also in development and will be available in October.

“GoBZRK was specifically designed to appeal to an audience that has grown up with technology seamlessly intertwined into their lives. These digital natives are open to and excited by a new model of narrative distribution that lets them choose how they want to interact with the experience and how engaged they want to be,” said Alex Lemay, CEO and founder of The Shadow Gang. “By partnering with Michael Grant and Egmont, before pen was set to paper, we have been able to craft GoBZRK as the most ambitious, detailed and fully formed interactive story experience ever to be built around a book. As a result, we’re able to provide virtually unlimited in-game potential for the audience and let fans ultimately decide how robust and interactive they want their experience to be.”

The multi-layered GoBZRK experience quietly kicked off in August with a social media whisper campaign and has already created an enthusiastic fan base that is eagerly awaiting the full gameplay, which begins in earnest today. Following the release of book one, GoBZRK will continue to cultivate the audience across the release of two more books in the BZRK three-book series, with new social and gaming components helping to keep the story alive between installments.

Michael Grant, BZRK’s author, and writer of the best-selling GONE series of young-adult supernatural books said: “I’ve been fascinated for years by the challenges I saw coming for publishing. And at the same time I was determined to find new ways to tell a story. I saw my own kids reading my manuscripts on their iPhones and thought: Wow, I need to go there. So the idea with GoBZRK is to create a story that stretches across multiple platforms. GoBZRK is a fictional universe that lives in a role-playing game, and as an iPhone/Android app and on multiple sites — and of course in the actual books that will be coming in February from Egmont Press. It was very important to me that each element contribute, that they not be just copies of the books. I wanted each element to be unique, to stand on its own, and yet enhance the books, and then to pick up the story and carry it on between books. I took this concept to The Shadow Gang and, working together, we are hoping GoBZRK will entertain and amaze.”

Last night I read a chapter of a new book to my son before bedtime. I read a chapter of some book or other every night. It’s a comforting ritual for both of us, and I hope he’ll let me continue for a few more years before he decides he’s too grown up for it.

But last night was different, and it was a change I had resisted for quite a while. Last night, instead of breaking the spine and reading ink on paper, I read from my Kindle.

And do you know what? Despite my misgivings, my fear of losing some of the magic of bedtime reading, it was just about perfect. The story was no less intriguing, the moment was no less cozy and comfortable, and reading to my son was no less perfect than it has been every night for the past eight years.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Luddite. I love my Kindle and take it with me nearly everywhere. I’ve bought books for my son to read on it, and I’ve told everyone within earshot how wonderful it is for traveling.

I also love print books. I have a library instead of a living room, my nightstand is overrun with books, and nearly every flat surface of my home (except my stove) has at least one book on it.

And not all my e-book experiences have been flawless. In fact, just last week my son and I checked out David Macaulay’s Mosque from the library as an Adobe Digital Edition e-book, and no matter what size screen or what device we viewed it with, it was just awful compared reading the same book in print.

So I know that some things just aren’t the same in digital, and I was worried that bedtime reading was one of them. Perhaps if my son were still reading picture books, it would be.

But for us, at his age, it’s the story that intrigues, and the company that brings comfort, the location that makes the mood, and the format doesn’t intrude on any of those things.