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Sony-Google Deal Adds 500k Public Domain Books to E-Reader
Sony is adding 500,000 public domain EPUB-based titles to its Reader catalog through a partnership with Google. Paul Biba at Teleread examines Sony's rationale:
Sony's apparent intent, meanwhile, beyond adding value to the Reader, will be to use public domain books in ePub to entice people to install its software and in time buy its reader devices.
In the exclusive TeleRead interview, Steve [Haber, President of Sony's Digital Reading Division] emphasized that this program is part of Sony's commitment to an open platform, as opposed to the closed platform of its major competitor (hint, hint, the name starts with an A). The ePub conversion is being done by Google itself, as noted; and Sony and Google are exploring ways to make copyrighted ePub material available.
Catalog expansion and mobile devices are propelling recent ebook/e-reader announcements. Google Book Search opened mobile access to its archive of public domain books in February, and Amazon recently made its Kindle titles available to iPhone and iPod Touch users through a free iPhone app.
Sony-Google Deal Adds 500k Public Domain Books to E-Reader
One-Question Interview at BookNet Canada Tech Forum
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the 2009 BookNet Canada Technology Forum in Toronto (motto: Even colder than you expected!), and Mark Bertils caught up with me on my way out for a quick video interview:
Two follow ups on what I said, now that I have my del.icio.us feed handy:
- The Peter Drucker reference is from his 5 Deadly Business Sins: "Cost-driven Pricing. The only thing that works is price-driven costing. The only sound way to price is to start out with what the market is willing to pay--and thus what the competition will charge--and design to that price specification."
- It was Mike Shatzkin (referencing Michael Cader) who made the recent point about the relative low cost of experimentation for publishers around pricing digital products: "You can't get rich or go broke whether you price the ebook 50% too high or 50% too low. Try everything. You'll never have a cheaper opportunity to experiment."
One-Question Interview at BookNet Canada Tech Forum
Coming to Grips with the "Unthinkable" in Publishing
While much of the Twitter chatter this past weekend was about the annual South by Southwest festival and conference, there was quite a bit of "retweeting" of links to a post by Clay Shirky:
During the wrenching transition to print, experiments were only revealed in retrospect to be turning points. Aldus Manutius, the Venetian printer and publisher, invented the smaller octavo volume along with italic type. What seemed like a minor change -- take a book and shrink it -- was in retrospect a key innovation in the democratization of the printed word. As books became cheaper, more portable, and therefore more desirable, they expanded the market for all publishers, heightening the value of literacy still further.
That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn't apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can't predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.
And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won't break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren't in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.
There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.
I'll second Tim O'Reilly's reaction to the piece:
This is a piece that anyone concerned with the future of publishing simply MUST read.
It's a long post, but well worth a close read (and re-read). Though Clay's talking about newspapers, much of what he has to say applies to book publishing in particular, as well as media in general.
More on Shirky's post from Mark Bertils (@mdash) over at indexmb.com:
Journalism is the act. Newspapers are the artifact. The infrastructure around the artifact is imploding, never to be replaced.
Coming to Grips with the "Unthinkable" in Publishing
Jakob Nielsen: Kindle Content Must be Kindle-Specific
Jakob Nielsen offers an in-depth look at Kindle formatting best practices:
For Kindle, it's certainly unacceptable to simply repurpose print content. But you can't repurpose website content, either. For good Kindle usability, you have to design for the Kindle. Write Kindle-specific headlines and create Kindle-specific article structures. [Link included in original post.]
(Via Joe Wikert's Twitter stream)
Jakob Nielsen: Kindle Content Must be Kindle-Specific
Jakob Nielsen offers an in-depth look at Kindle formatting best practices:
For Kindle, it's certainly unacceptable to simply repurpose print content. But you can't repurpose website content, either. For good Kindle usability, you have to design for the Kindle. Write Kindle-specific headlines and create Kindle-specific article structures. [Link included in original post.]
(Via Joe Wikert's Twitter stream)
Jakob Nielsen: Kindle Content Must be Kindle-Specific
Is Print a Preference or a Habit?
Is Print a Preference or a Habit?
Over on the O'Reilly Radar blog, Dale Dougherty posted on students increasingly prefering the sound of MP3 over higher quality music:
[Jonathan Berger] has them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality. He described the results with some disappointment and frustration, as a music lover might, that each year the preference for music in MP3 format rises. In other words, students prefer the quality of that kind of sound over the sound of music of much higher quality. He said that they seemed to prefer "sizzle sounds" that MP3s bring to music. It is a sound they are familiar with.
I remember wondering what audiophiles were up to, buying extremely expensive home audio systems to play old vinyl records. They put turntables in sand-filled enclosures with elaborate cabling schemes. I wondered what they heard in that music that I didn't. Someone explained to me that audiophiles liked the sound artifacts of vinyl records -- the crackles of that format. It was familiar and comfortable to them, and maybe those affects became a fetish. Is it now becoming the same with iPod lovers?
It sounds a lot like the complaints leveled against digital books, which often turn into litanies of the sensate qualities of print: touch, feel, smell, sound. I hear those comments all the time, unsurprisingly from people for whom printed books have been their primary means of reading for most of their lives. But in about 30 years, no one who's not eligible for AARP membership will remember a world without the Web. Print will always have a place, but by then I doubt it will be a primary format for many, many readers.
What do you think?
O'Reilly Ebooks Now In Stanza Online Catalog
Just in time for Read an Ebook Week O'Reilly's 400+ ebooks are now available for direct purchase and download on your iPhone or iPod Touch from within Stanza's Online Catalog. Buying ebooks this way gives you the same flexible, DRM-free ebook bundles as buying through oreilly.com (because you are buying from oreilly.com via Stanza). That means 3 ebook formats and free lifetime updates (and did we mention no DRM?).
To celebrate the Stanza news (and Read an Ebook Week) you'll automatically get 40% off any ebooks purchased on Stanza through March 15.
If you have Stanza on your iPhone or iPod (it's free -- click here to get it), here's how to get to the O'Reilly Ebook Store. From your Stanza Library, click the Online Catalog link:
From there, select "O'Reilly Ebooks" to browse by Bestsellers, New Releases, or All titles:
Select the title you want to see a description:
Press "Add to Cart" to buy the ebook, which will take you through to the O'Reilly shopping cart to complete the transaction (you'll need to create an O'Reilly account if you don't already have one). We're working to make the purchase experience a bit more mobile friendly, but wanted to roll this out right away. There is an awkward step when you'll see what appears to be some gibberish in a confirmation dialog -- go ahead and click download:
We're working with the Stanza folks to try and make that a little cleaner.
If your download is interrupted -- or if you ever want to re-download an ebook you've already purchased -- you can always return to your purchased ebooks by visiting the "My Bookshelf" link from the O'Reilly Catalog in Stanza (or by pointing your iPhone to oreilly.com/e or visiting members.oreilly.com from any web browser):
We'll be adding new titles, free samples, and more ways to browse, search, and sort in the coming weeks.
O'Reilly Ebooks Now In Stanza Online Catalog
Kindle Comes to the iPhone
Users of the iPhone and iPod Touch can now tap into Amazon's Kindle store with the free Kindle for iPhone application. From The New York Times:
The move comes a week after Amazon started shipping the updated version of its Kindle reading device. It signals that the company may be more interested in becoming the pre-eminent retailer of e-books than in being the top manufacturer of reading devices.
Amazon is positioning the iPhone app as a gap filler: nibble on book content while waiting at the airport, in line, at a restaurant, etc., but settle in for deep reading with the original Kindle (or, presumably, the printed edition). Toward that end, the Times says Amazon is using a bookmark feature that keeps a reader's spot as they switch devices.
Reaction to the Kindle iPhone App
I'll be adding to this list over the next few days as more coverage appears (I highly recommend following the real-time Kindle trend on Twitter). Please share additional links and your own Kindle/iPhone analysis through the comments area.
Hands on: Kindle for iPhone a great Kindle companion
(Chris Foresman, Ars Technica)
Clicking on the "Get Books" button on the Home screen instructs users to got to Amazon's Kindle Store via a computer for "the best shopping experience." And they aren't kidding; while there is a link that will open the Kindle Store in MobileSafari, browsing and buying books this way is just plain frustrating. The Kindle's own integrated buying is far simpler in comparison. Apple presumably has this restriction in place so that developers don't abuse the App Store system, giving away free apps on Apple's dime and then selling content elsewhere. Perhaps Amazon can build an iPhone-browsable version of the Kindle Store and display it via an embedded browser, or better yet, perhaps Amazon and Apple can come to some sort of agreement to allow in-app purchasing.
First Impressions of Kindle on iPhone
(Walt Mossberg, AllThingsD)
... it is a solid basic app for reading books, and is especially valuable if you already own a hardware Kindle, as I do. In my brief tests, the iPhone app synchronized rapidly and perfectly with my purchased library of Kindle books on Amazon's servers, and allowed me to retrieve a previously purchased e-book, without paying again, just as my hardware Kindle does. It also synchronized to the furthest page I had read in that book on my Kindle. After reading for awhile on the iPhone, I performed that process in reverse, and my Kindle took me to the same spot where I had quit reading on the iPhone.
Kindle for iPhone Review
(Perrin Stewart, 148Apps)
... it's worth having the app on your device for the access to Amazon's virtual library alone. In many cases, the pricing on Kindle versions of books are much cheaper than other ebook stores (compare the Kindle version of "The Graveyard Book" for $9.99 to the Fictionwise version which is $17.99 and the stand-alone iTunes store app which is $17.99, for instance), and they often have books that other stores do not.
Comparing Kindle 2 with Kindle's iPhone app
(Nicole Lee, Crave/CNET)
If you don't read that much, or if you plan on using the e-book reader as merely a complement to your reading, the iPhone Kindle application is probably enough for you. But if you want something that will not only complement, but replace, a lot of your reading material, the Kindle is a much better bet.
Kindle iPhone app off to promising start despite eBabel/DRM and page turning annoyance
(David Rothman, TeleRead)
I can use the scroll bar to navigate my way through the whole book all the way to end. No need to go back and forth constantly to a chapter-by-chapter menu that provides just a certain range of pages at a time. Here's rooting for Stanza and others to catch up! Granted, the Kindle iPhone/Touch app is sluggish when you use the scrollbar on an entire book. But I suspect this will get better with time. What's more, you can go to individual pages by typing in their numbers.
Amazon launches Kindle app for iPhone, iPod touch
(Charles Starrett, iLounge)
Like the Kindle itself, the Kindle iPhone app is only available in the U.S. iTunes Store, and Kindle content is likewise only available to Amazon U.S. customers, differing from competing iPhone apps eReader and Stanza, which seem to have no country-based distribution restrictions on their apps or their content.
Amazon Extends Book Sales Beyond Its Kindle to iPhone
(Geoffrey A. Fowler, Wall Street Journal)
Mr. [Ian] Freed [Amazon vice president] said he is "not at all concerned" that making e-books available on other devices will cannibalize sales of the $359 Kindle. Instead, it will increase sales of digital books and the Kindle, he says. Amazon says it plans to release applications to read Kindle books on other devices, but declined to specify which ones.
Kindle iPhone App Launches, E-Book Sales To Jump? (AAPL, AMZN)
(Dan Frommer, Silicon Alley Insider)
So what will this mean for Kindle sales? And e-book sales? Reading a book on an iPhone isn't ideal, but we think it could suffice for some people. So there could be some cannibalization of Kindle device sales, and the e-book sales that go along with Kindles. Or perhaps people will try one Kindle book on their iPhones and rush to buy a Kindle. Either is possible. We also think -- based on the fact that there are likely 10-15 million iPhones and iPod touches in the U.S., and fewer than 1 million Kindles -- that Amazon could see a boost in e-book sales from this app.
Attempting to use the Kindle for iPhone application
(C.K. Sample III, Obsessable)
The application allows you to read any book that you have purchased on the Amazon Kindle Store on your iPhone and iPod touch. You cannot purchase titles directly from the application, but you can do so via Mobile Safari. When you first load the program and set up your account, if you click on the Get Books button it takes you to a page informing you that the best way to do so is to visit the Kindle Store and clicking on the Safari link takes you directly to the store. [Links included in original post.]
Amazon launches Kindle application for the iPhone
(Greg Kumparak, Mobile Crunch)
One of the big features here is WhisperSync, which automatically keeps track of where you left off in each book, allowing you to pick up from that spot from any Kindle-friendly devices you may have. The feature didn't seem too useful when the Kindle 2 was announced (How many people have more than one Kindle?) - but with Amazon stretching Kindle across multiple platforms, it makes perfect sense. Leave your Kindle on the bed side table, pick up where you left off on your iPhone once you're on the bus.
Kindle Comes to the iPhone
Excerpting Best Practices Hinge on Intent
A piece in the New York Times reignites the fair use debate by asking: How much excerpting does fair use cover?
It's a reasonable question, particularly since Google News, the Huffington Post and countless other sites rely on excerpt aggregation to drive traffic and sell ads. But the rules of excerpting are also -- to steal a line from Steve Jobs -- "a bag of hurt."
Fair use is a doctrine, and as much as editors, bloggers and other with an excerpting bent wish for structure (word count, percentage used, image size, etc.), it's not going to happen. Fair use is contextual and case-by-case. That's why Henry Blodget, co-founder of Silicon Alley Insider, has the right perspective:
"To excerpt others the way we want to be excerpted ourselves."
Intent is the key to proper excerpting. If your intent is to single out someone else's work, and drive attention and its associated benefits and detriments to the creator of that work, then excerpts will be short and filled with outbound links. But if your intent is to fool Google, boost your traffic, and use someone else's material to further your own efforts, then excerpts will be long and link-free -- or they'll contain links to your material.
Excerpting is an extension of white-hat vs. black-hat search engine optimization. The white hats understand that search engines are the essential utility on the Web. Gaming them for personal gain erodes value and reduces opportunities for everyone. Black hats care only about short-term efforts, so they do anything they can to turn attention into quick advertising revenue. What black hats don't realize -- or care about -- is the impact their actions have on the structure of the Internet. They're jackhammering the foundation they're standing on.
Sites that push the boundaries of excerpting are engaged in the same self-destructive behavior. They may see short-term traffic and revenue spikes, but the source sites will eventually cry foul and enact their own Draconian countermeasures. Long-term, this doesn't benefit anyone. Sites that rely on excerpted information will lose access, and originating sources will lose attention. To be effective, excerpting needs to be a mutually beneficial relationship that provides value to everyone involved. The only "rule" is intent.
Excerpting Best Practices Hinge on Intent
Hearst Gets Into the E-Reader Game
Hearst Corp. is developing its own wireless e-reader that may debut this year. From Fortune:
According to industry insiders, Hearst, which publishes magazines ranging from Cosmopolitan to Esquire and newspapers including the financially imperiled San Francisco Chronicle, has developed a wireless e-reader with a large-format screen suited to the reading and advertising requirements of newspapers and magazines. The device and underlying technology, which other publishers will be allowed to adapt, is likely to debut this year.
The larger screen size will put the Hearst reader in the same class as devices from Plastic Logic and iRex.
Fortune says Hearst isn't discussing product specs, but the company has a longtime association with E Ink. Last September, Esquire published the first E Ink magazine cover.
Hearst Gets Into the E-Reader Game
TOC Twitter Visualization Contest Winner
The winner of our impromptu contest for best visualization of the TOC Conference Twitter activity is Stephen Smith for his tag clouds and stats over at toctweet.com:
Congrats to Steve, who gets a free full pass to TOC 2010! (With an honorable mention to @thewritermama for banging out 720(!) tweets during the show.)