Day: October 26, 2010

Go Read This | Ugly rumours | theBookseller.com

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 2 Comments

Sara Lloyd is great and to an extent, she is on the money with this column.  The problem is that she’s only right to the degree that we accept the current model is permanent.

We still have an eye to the future, of course. We still ask each other: “So . . . what do you think is the Next Big Thing?” We still geek out and ponder the impact of HTML5 on epub. We feel the need to prepare for that, but we’re feeling better and better equipped to do so.

The fear factor is abating. A sense of “business as usual, but different” is descending. Books are not being killed off. We’re simply adjusting to an additional format. Of course, this is exactly the time that we should all give ourselves a great big poke in the ribs, sit up straight and pay attention.

I tend to think it isn’t and while the book is in no danger (although it will certainly change and adapt and morph), publishers very much are. Which is why it’s nice to see here last lines:

Necessity is the mother of invention, but relaxation is the mother of a short sharp shock, so let’s not rest on our laurels. Not yet. Not for a long time

via Ugly rumours | theBookseller.com.

Go Read This | Publishers should set e-book prices, says FutureBook survey | theBookseller.com

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

I’m a fan of publishers taking charge of their own destiny, especially when the future is so uncertain.

That said, I just don’t think publishers have the right skill sets right now to actually set prices for consumer facing products.

They need to work very hard to get those skills though, because, as long as they are setting prices without knowing what they are doing, the longer they’ll make bad decisions and probably hurt themselves in the long term.

More than three-quarters of people working in the book trade believe e-books should be priced at current street prices or less, according to early results of a FutureBook survey into digital thinking. The majority of respondents indicated that publishers are best placed to set this price, even though they don’t believe the agency model has a long-term future.

via Publishers should set e-book prices, says FutureBook survey | theBookseller.com.

Go Read This | Coming Soon for Kindle – kindle Discussion Forum

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

Bank Holiday’s being what they are, I was a little slow in seeing this, but it is a pretty interesting move by Amazon.

Firstly the fact that they are pushing newspaper and periodical content to the apps suggests to me that their strategy of becoming less and less about the Kindle and more and more about everywhere is working, why else would they need to do this or bother?

Secondly it shows that haring, something B&N took a risk on and haven’t really had enormous success with yet, might just become  a much bigger part of the ebook market in the next few years.

First, we are making Kindle newspapers and magazines readable on our free Kindle apps, so you can always read Kindle periodicals even if you don’t have your Kindle with you or don’t yet own a Kindle. In the coming weeks, many newspapers and magazines will be available on our Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, and then we’ll be adding this functionality to Kindle for Android and our other apps down the road. Our vision is Buy Once, Read Everywhere, and we’re excited to make this possible for Kindle periodicals in the same way that it works now for Kindle books. More details when we launch this in the coming weeks.

Second, later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable – this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.

via Coming Soon for Kindle – kindle Discussion Forum.