E-Reads

Who is Alex and Why is He Suing the Nook People?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:55:00 +0000

Spring Design's lawsuit against Barnes & Noble for misappropriating its Alex e-book reader caught us doubly flatfooted. On the one foot, we were shocked to learn that colossus B&N might have released its Nook without clearing its business relationship with a firm it had allegedly been consulting. On the other foot, we'd never heard of the Alex, and believe me we've been covering the field for years. In the words of a blogger for tech website Gizmodo, "When the Alex was released in October,`I thought that Spring Design was the copycat, but based on the lawsuit they filed for violation of intellectual property, it may be the other way around." Here are Alex (l.) and Nook (r.) side by side.

Every year lawsuits are filed by opportunistic companies alleging that their original invention - "A means of cooking food by application of a flame" - has been stolen by someone who fried onions on a stove. Most such suits are without merit. Spring Design's suit, on the surface, appears to have some respectable merits. The firm is not fly-by-night, having been founded in 2006. Its Duet Navigator� dual screen design is trademarked and a patent is pending. According to the writeup reprinted in Gizmodo, Spring Design "has been working with major book stores, newspapers and publishers over the last two years, sharing the vision and the capabilities of the dual screen device."

Below is a video demo of Alex and on it certainly looks pretty Nookish from where we sit. More importantly, it might look Nookish to those sitting on a jury one day. The dual screens (b&w e-book reader on top, full color nav bar below) are similar and they both utilize the Android operating system. But let's give B&N every benefit of the doubt and say it was a coincidence - an example of two independent firms racing to get their product on stream first. That leaves only one question to be settled: The NDA.

"NDA" stands for "Non-Disclosure Agreement", a common practice used in business to protect a firm sharing trade secrets with another firm interested in establishing a business relationship. According to Barb Dybwad of Mashable.com, "Spring Design had apparently been working with Barnes & Noble since the beginning of this year under a non-disclosure agreement, with the original intent of collaborating on the device. Barnes & Noble executives reportedly praised the innovative features of the device without mentioning their plans to incorporate similar functionality into the Nook device they publicly disclosed last month." The lawsuit will probably hinge on whether B&N violated Spring Design's NDA.

A smoking NDA would certainly be compelling support for Spring Design's claim but not necessarily decisive. How do we know for instance that Spring didn't have NDAs with a hundred other firms, some of which breached the covenant and shared Spring's corporate secrets with B&N?

We'll be following this case raptly. Meanwhile, amusingly - no, hilariously - when you click on the Inside PR's article about the Nook lawsuit you'll see an ad for...Kindle! Proving that not everybody loses in a lawsuit.

Richard Curtis

How to Get a Human on the Phone

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

What do you think about while you're on hold waiting for customer service or tech support or trying to follow vocal instructions that will take you to the appropriate extension? Do you think about all the productive and pleasurable things you could be doing instead of listening to elevator music or self-serving company ads? Do you calculate how much money you're losing while you endure this nightmare? Or do you think black murderous thoughts along the lines of, "God bestowed the precious gift of life upon me and I'm pissing it away listening to a canned message listing my f*****g options?"

Wait - you have one one more choice, and this one may have you murmuring a blessing. It's called Get Human, and it's one of those Why Didn't I Think of That? websites.

Its creators have aggregated a list of phone numbers of big corporations (1356 of them at this writing) and tips, shortcuts and pathways to reach flesh and blood humans at such frequently sought destinations as technical support and customer service. The site even tells you how long the average wait is, so you can perform some other tasks while waiting to be connected. Get Human also rates the services and provides customer reviews (which, it will come as no surprise, are mostly anonymous for poorly rated companies).

Here's an example of a voicemail system rated Excellent. Guess who it belongs to?

Phone number 800-201-7575
Steps to reach a person - Dont press or say anything.
Available hours: 24 hours, 7 days
Average wait: 1 minute
Average user rating: 4.6 out of 5: Excellent
Communication rating: 4.4 out of 5: Good
Most recent reviews:
"excellent service, sent a replacement order immediately..." -atomicda..., 1 mo ago
"Got me started on how to deal with possible incorrect..." -JoeFH73, 2 mos ago
"great service, but took two tries to connect " -michael p..., 2 mos ago

The answer? Amazon.com. Now for one that didn't fare as well:

Chase Home Finance
Phone number: 800-848-9136.
How many steps to reach a person? At the prompt, press 4; then press 1; then press 1 again.
Available hours? 24 hours, 7 days
Average wait? 29 mins
Average user rating? 2.3 out of 5: Poor
communication rating 2.2 out of 5: Poor

Why the poor ratings? Customers say...
"automative service didn't work, could not reach ..." -Anonymous, 1 mo ago
"PLEASE hire people who are native English speakers..." -Anonymous, 2 mos ago
"the wait time was short, the lady spoke ok english..." -chris, 2 mos ago
"Can't get to a human PERIOD" -EstateEx..., 2 mos ago

Aside from providing invaluable information, Get Human is entertaining reading. So, turn ye away from your wrath. Next time you need to speak to a human being at a big company, visit Get Human and just follow the prompts.

Richard Curtis

Get the Drift

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Check out Lit Drift, which describes itself as "a brand-spanking new blog, resource, and community dedicated to the art & craft of fiction in the 21st century."

Besides editorial content, the website carries daily short stories and a weekly free book giveaway every Friday. Lit Drift also accepts reader submissions, which they have offered to showcase on their website.

E-Books on iPhone: From "People don't read anymore" to Most Popular App

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:25:00 +0000

About a year ago we posted a blog entitled: Will Steve Jobs Eat His Words with Ketchup, Mustard or Mayo? We wrote: "Perhaps Apple boss Steven Jobs' declaration that 'People don't read anymore' does not rank with Neville Chamberlain's 'Peace for our time' speech in 1938, just before Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. But it is not out of line to mention both in the same breath to exemplify how colossally wrong smart people can be."

On the strength of a report by an analytics firm called Flurry, we think Jobs should eat his words with ketchup, mustard and mayo. It seems that e-books have overtaken games as the most popular category of iPhone application.

Emma Barnett of Telegraph.co.uk writes that Flurry's report "shows that games were the number one category of apps downloaded on the iPhone every month from August 2008 until August 2009. However, in the last four months, book apps have exceeded the popularity of games apps � with one out of every five new apps launching in October having been a book. In September, games apps were overtaken by book apps for the first time."

Wrong though Jobs was, with news like that we in the e-book business will be happy to join him at the feast. Pass the condiments!

Here's Barnett's article:Book apps overtake games on iPhone

Richard Curtis

Secret of Amazon's Wealth: Settle Bills in 72 Days, Says WSJ

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:45:00 +0000

"Take the cash and let the credit go."
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Of all the factors contributing to the crisis in the publishing industry, slow settlement of bills by the major bookstore chains might well be considered the most grievous. It was bad enough they stalled beyond the traditional 30-day lag adopted by retailers in every sector, but they added another wrinkle that drove many a publisher to the verge of desperation:they paid for new stock by returning slow-moving books for credit. This practice added to the anguish of publishers already starved for cash and drove some into bankruptcy, forced merger or vulnerability to acquisition.

The advent of Amazon.com raised publishers' hope that cash would flow once again. Unlike conventional bookstores, which collect from customers only after books are in the store, Amazon collects from customers in advance. It stands to reason that Amazon could easily settle with publishers within the normal 30-day window.

It comes as a disturbing surprise to learn from Wall Street Journal's Martin Peers that Amazon's settlement time currently runs 72 days. The glacial payment of bills, says Peers, contributes to Amazon's stupendous reserves of working-capital. "Free cash flow has risen to $1.36 billion in 2008 from $346 million in 2003," he points out. It certainly makes Amazon's book value look 9Solomon's mines."But investors shouldn't get too used to it," he adds. "Amazon can't keep extending payment terms with its vendors indefinitely. When it stops, one source of free cash-flow growth will disappear."

Here's the story in full. (As a matter of disclosure, Amazon.com is a retailer for E-Reads print editions and e-books.)

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The Wall Street Journal.

Darn It, Santa, I said Leave a BOOK Under the Tree, Not an E-Book

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Last summer a survey website, Teenreads.com, conducted a poll of some 4,000 people 18 years old or younger about their reading habits and preferences, and many of the results will come as a surprise. For parents who fret that their children text or yak too much or immerse themselves day and night in YouTube or Facebook, the surprise will be a pleasant one. As for those of you who believe that youth are in the vanguard of the e-book revolution - well, you're in for a shock.

You can read a summary of the survey here, or read it in depth in What Do Teens Want?. For now, let's just focus on e-books:

While we hear that teens have embraced all things digital and thus have a large interest in reading e-books, our findings didn't support this claim.

When we asked about their affection for a digital reading device for fun reading (not schoolwork) if the price were affordable, 46% said they preferred printed books. Another 38% said they would like one, and 16% indicated they were not sure how they felt about this.

When asked if they'd like to read textbooks as e-books, they were evenly split, with 36% saying yes, 33% saying they were not sure, and 31% saying they would not be interested.

Nearly one-quarter (24%) have read an e-book, while 27% would like to read one. Almost half (49%) said they have no interest in reading e-books.

When asked how they have read an e-book, 26% have done so on a computer while 33% used a dedicated digital reading device and 5% used another method. Seven out of 10 (71%) say they have never read one.

To keep things in perspective, the surveyors state, "We recognized that we were surveying an exceptional group, what we call �ber readers. So the results reflect teens who are already drawn to books; we are not studying what keeps nonreaders from picking up a book."

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by Publishers Weekly.

Break Up Google? Into What?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Can the government break up a colossal corporation simply because it's colossal? Some people think it can and should. In the photo Google CEO Eric Schmidt doesn't seem to be too perturbed standing beneath an abbreviated logo. If the company's operation were curtailed, though, he definitely wouldn't be too happy. Is a breakup really a possibility?

Joe Nocera, business columnist for the New York Times, thinks it is. Nocera, taking a sabbatical to write a book, has noted a few column ideas he hopes to explore in depth when he returns. Some are more fanciful than others, but about one of them, speculating on whether the government will target Google for antitrust violations, Nocera is deadly serious. "The allegation that a monopolist is using its monopoly power to squelch competition is catnip to trustbusters." he writes. "It was the basis for the Microsoft antitrust trial a decade ago �and I�ll bet the rent that sooner or later it�s going to be the basis for a Justice Department inquiry into Google�s business practices."

What exactly has Google done to deserve to be broken up? Nocera quotes Ken Auletta, whose book Googled � The End of the World as We Know It, is published today: �The issue is going to be concentration of power.�

Auletta cites the attempt by the federal government to break up Microsoft, an action that almost succeeded until an appeals court overturned a judge's decree in 2001. Auletta reminds us that Bill Gates thought his company was a benefactor of humanity, just as Google, whose motto is "Don't Be Evil", believes now. (See
A Corporate Colossus That Loves Dogs.)

But is the comparison a fair one? The action against MS stemmed from a single product, the Windows operating system, that was being used to suppress competition. But the products and services offered by Google far more diverse than Microsoft's, and a number of them, like the Android operating system, offer open platforms.

So? What's the gripe? That Google is, simply, big? Are the trustbusters thinking of splitting the Googleplex up like phone monopoly AT&T was chopped into seven regional phone companies? Will we have autonomous corporations for gmail, e-books, Chrome, AdWords, Picasa, Android, Blogger, Google Maps, YouTube etc.? Will "Goog" be forced to go one way and "le" another? And does anyone seriously think the sum of the parts will be better than the whole, or that less evil will be done by a dozen separate companies than by one huge one?

Read Auletta's book to see if he makes his case. And wait for Nocera's future column to see if he makes his. But while you're defining colossal, keep things in perspective: Microsoft's 2008 revenues were over $60 billion, about three times as big as Google's!

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times

Google Sports a Few Stretch Marks. You Would Too if You Went From $0 to $22 Bil in 11 Years.

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Google has been characterized by its critics as a one trick pony. Its CEO Eric Schmidt wryly admits it's true. "You should think of Google as one product," he says. The product? Customer satisfaction.

That's the essence of an article by Ken Auletta in the October 12 2009 issue of The New Yorker about the behemoth corporation. Auletta cites some growing pains. We should all have such growing pains! Google's revenues in 2008 were $21.795 billion, placing it ahead of the gross national product of 90 nations! Four out of every ten dollars spent on online advertising is collected by Google search.

Still, on its way to becoming the first $100 billion corporation in history it has experienced some aches and pains. Chief among these is its shift in its relationships with other giants like Apple and Amazon. For years Google was their ally; now it's their rival.

As we pointed out recently, Google's biggest problem is its scale. But is that fatal?

For at least one observer thinks it is. See tomorrow's posting...

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The New Yorker.

What Can Publishers Learn from Cory Doctorow?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

The short answer? Everything.

Doctorow, whose brash and sometimes subversive-sounding publishing strategies have made him a folk hero to his fans and generated intense controversy in the mainstream publishing community, has laid siege to the very ramparts of that community by wagering that he's at least as good a publisher as they are. Maybe, even, a better one. And he's thrown down the gauntlet in the industry's very own trade publication, Publishers Weekly.

Doctorow describes his undertaking as an experiment. The book is a collection consisting almost completely of reprints of previously published stories. It's called With a Little Help and it's his third collection. "It will," he declares, "be available for free on the day it is released."

"Free" notwithstanding, what he hopes to accomplish is, simply, to make money publishing his book, or at least not lose any. He will achieve this by using the same contrarian (or at least counterintuitive) tactics that have succeeded with previous books, including giving them away.

How will we know if the experiment is a success or failure? Doctorow will chronicle it as it unfolds in a monthly column for PW, the first of which appeared in the October 19th issue. His entertaining article is a canny template for a publishing program that utilizes both print and digital media. Of course, this is something that every traditional publisher is trying to do, but here's the problem with every traditional publisher: they're all hobbled by a brick and mortar mindset (and overhead) that makes it impossible to achieve what one determined individual can do - at least, one bold and determined individual named Cory Doctorow. Though he acknowledges lots of help from his friends, he also, obviously, holds with Rudyard Kipling's observation: "Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne, He travels fastest who travels alone."

Doctorow's template for success includes:

Low overhead: My capital expenditures have to be as low as possible. In the ideal world, every object I make available will either cost nothing to produce or will be physically instantiated only after it has been ordered and paid for.
E-book: free, in a wide variety of formats: I have always released my books in three formats (text, HTML and PDF formatted for two-column portrait printout), and my readers have always followed up by converting them to an astonishing long tail of other formats for their preferred readers.
Audiobook: free, in a wide variety of formats: I've always taken great pleasure in reading my works aloud. I've done 150-plus installments of a podcast of me doing just that. But I'm no pro. However, many of my friends are pro voice actors, and I've called on them to each record one of the stories from the book.
Donations: whatever happens: I have never solicited donations for my works before, despite the urgings of True Believers who would like to see my publisher cut out of the loop, because I wanted to be sure my publisher was in the loop. This time around, I'm the publisher, so let's see what people are interested in giving.
Print-on-Demand trade paperback: $16 (approximately; price TBD) Lulu.com produces beautiful books, objects that look every bit as good as the Lightning Source trade paperbacks that Ingram will sell you, provided you know what you're doing when you design them. A designer, I am not. But John Berry, who designed my essay collection, Content, for Tachyon, is.
I'm also offering a custom-cover package for people running events or giveaways: for a setup fee (I'm thinking $300, but that's not fixed in stone), I'll sell you as many copies at Lulu's cost as you'd like with your own cover on it.
Premium hardcover edition: $250, limited run of 250 copies:My office is in Clerkenwell, in London, close to several artisanal binders and some damned fine printers. My favorite binder is the venerable, family-owned Wyvern Bindery, which has agreed to bind a fine limited edition of With a Little Help for �20 a copy, in quantities of 20.
Commission a new story: $10,000 (one only):I probably underpriced this, but it's too late now. The idea was to give my readers the chance to commission a story to be added to the collection at a later date�thus benefiting from an additional burst of publicity and possibly selling a second copy of the �expanded edition� to people who wanted to get the compleat text.
Advertisements: TBD: Since the paperbacks are print-on-demand, and the electronic files can be trivially modified, I'm going to sell a single ad unit on a time-limited basis: a half-page, or 500 pixels square, or five lines of text (depending on the image), at a price to be determined, in month-long increments.
Donations of books: TBD: Since the publication of Little Brother in spring 2008, I've run a donation program for my books wherein I ask librarians, teachers and people who work in other �worthy� institutions (halfway houses, shelters, hospitals, etc.) to put their names down for free copies. I publish this list online and mention it in the introductions to all the digital copies of the works.

Doctorow sometimes seems to have a chip on his shoulder, and some skeptics will try to knock it off. In fact blogger Michael Stackpole has spilled gallons of e-ink to do that very thing, including calling Doctorow a "snake-oil salesman" and his experiment "rubbish". Entrenched establishmentarians will also try to take Doctorow down. That would be a mistake. They would be far better off studying his strategies and learning from them, something he makes easy to do with his wit and articulateness. I wish him not only to not lose money but to make a bundle. Maybe that will take the starch out of some publishers that are not just stuck in the last century but are proud of it.

Bravo to Publishers Weekly for offering Doctorow a forum. Read Doctorow's Project: With a Little Help. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

Richard Curtis

You Too Can Wink Like Sarah. Misty Glasses Prevent E-Book Eye

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Why does the eyeglass manufacturer Masunaga sound familiar? Ah, that's right - that's the outfit that designed Sarah Palin's distinctive glasses. What are they up to lately?

Well, they've developed a set of glasses that monitors how often you blink.When a sensor detects that you haven't blinked for more than five seconds, a liquid crystal display is released in one lens causing it to fog up and gradually turn opaque.

Okay, remind us - why do we need this again?

Actually, there's a very good reason. People who gaze intently at a computer screen or read an e-book for prolonged periods of time often develop ocular dehydration - dry eye. By being forced to blink, your eyelid coats your eyeball with a thin layer of moisture. The blink immediately clears the mist on your eyeglass lens.

Probably not the best thing to wear while driving on a highway, one would imagine.

The name of the product? Wink Glasses. If you've got 40,000 yen to burn, pick up a pair. That's $430. Read New Japanese glasses bring tears to the eyes.

A much cheaper if somewhat grosser way to moisten your eyes may be seen in the below video.

RC

RC'S HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:02:00 +0000

Never Seen The Loch Ness Monster? Here's a Chance to Do It Before You Die

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

The Romans said, "If you would live, prepare to die."

Bestselling author Dane Sherwood's 2001 Things to Do Before You Die will help you live realize the Roman ideal. Sherwood offers his list of things you always wanted to experience but never took time to live through. From taking a cross-country train ride to sending a message in a bottle, this book tells you how to immerse yourself in life to the fullest while also offering wisdom from Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, Pearl S. Buck, and more. Tasks stretch from the simple ("Play with clay" and "Bake brownies") to the challenging ("See the Loch Ness monster" and "Sleep with a ghost in the room").

Give yourself credit for what you've done so far and inspiration for what you can try next. Whether you're looking for an excuse to do the little things you've dreamed about, or hoping your zaniest goals are within your reach, 2001 Things To Do Before You Die will start you on your way to finding fulfillment every day of your life.

Sherwood's book may be downloaded or you can order a paperback edition.

RC

Music Biz Whistles Past Graveyard as Google Eyes Digitune Market

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

John Murrell has his ear to the ground in Silicon Valley, and he thinks he's detected tremors of a Google play on the music domain dominated by iTunes.

"Everyone currently involved in the digital music biz" he writes, is"waking up with nervous stomachs over word from multiple TechCrunch sources that Google is close to launching its own music service, possibly called Google Audio, that would offer downloading, streaming or both. According to the rumor, the company has spent the past few weeks making content deals with the major music labels. Depending on how it's structured, priced and executed, such a service, especially tightly integrated with the Android mobile platform, could be a thorn in the side, or worse, for established outfits from Rhapsody and Spotify to Amazon and iTunes."

Murrell cautions us against betting the house on Google tunes. He cites CNet's Greg Sandoval as surmising that "possibly as early as next week, Google will announce a service called One Box (for now, at least) that will offer song previews, artist bios, graphics, video, and the opportunity to buy music from featured sites like LaLa and iLike."

Here's Murrell's blog. We'll be waiting to see which way the Google cat jumps.

RC

Two Heavyweights Duke It Out over Micropay for Content

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

PBS.org's MediaShift recently hosted a two-part debate by two men with big credentials and even bigger opinions. The issue was whether newspapers should charge for online content.

Moderator Mark Glaser did his best to keep the dispute civil. Taking the pro-micropay position was David Carr, who writes the "Media Equation" column for the business section of the New York Times. In the other corner, opposing micropayments - virulently opposing micropayments - was Mike Masnick, an outspoken and influential blogger and founder of the Techdirt website. The photo at right not them.

Read The Great Debate on Micropayments and Paid Content, Part 1, then Part 2.

RC

Macmillan Issues New Contract Boilerplate for All Divisions, E-Royalty Lower than RH, S&S, Other Majors

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:24:00 +0000

Agents are poring over a new contract boilerplate issued by Macmillan, parent company of St. Martin's, Farrar Straus and Giroux, Henry Holt, Picador, and Tor among others. The contract files were emailed to agents on Monday (October 26th) with a covering note from Macmillan CEO John Sargent (link at bottom of this post).

Sargent highlights key elements in the homogenization of the contract forms, namely: 1) a new across-the-board (all Macmillan divisions) e-book royalty; 2) a new across-the-board direct-to-consumer royalty; and 3) enhanced promotional and Internet marketing initiatives.

The e-book royalty will come as the biggest surprise to e-book royalty watchers, as it goes contrary to the trend (which some think is a polite word for something darker) among major publishers to pay 25% of net e-book receipts to authors. Unfortunately, Macmillan offers even less than that - 20%.

It will be interesting to see if Macmillan will hold the line at an e-book royalty below that of its playmates such as Random House and Simon & Schuster, who in the last year have reduced their e-book royalties to 25% of net receipts. It will be even more interesting to see if the agents fall into the trap of accepting 25% as the "standard" e-book royalty. Who says that's all it should be? (Full disclosure, E-Reads pays 50% of net receipts to its authors, and always has.)

As for direct-to-consumer sales, the new royalty is 10% of net receipts on the first 10,000 copies and 15% thereafter. The standard for as long as anyone can remember has been 5%. That low number was created in an era of mail order of hard copies, a cost-intensive process that was often generated by full color magazine ads, coupons, and other expensive forms of solicitation. This process will now yield to cheaper Web solicitations and streamlined delivery systems.

Buried deep in this change of royalty is the intriguing prospect that Macmillan might be moving toward a more aggressive approach to selling its books direct to consumers, a strategy from which many publishers have shrunk out of fear of upsetting Barnes & Noble and Amazon by competing with them. There is good reason to shrink, as Penguin discovered in April 2008 when Amazon threw an elbow at them over this very issue.

Nevertheless, if Macmillan is any bellwether, publishers may be gearing up for a push on direct-to-consumer sales. The prize? Nothing short of survival. See Direct Sales: Publishing's Last Stand.

Here's the link to Sargent's letter, reproduced in full.

Richard Curtis

Wired Editor Lehrer Thinks Brain Will Get used to E-Books

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Jonah Lehrer, a cognitive neuroscientist and contributing editor at Wired, is sympathetic to those who have recently expressed concern that the focused, immersive experience of reading paper books will be compromised by e-book reading. (See The Medium is the Screen, The Message is Distraction). In fact, he confesses he himself recently struggled with a Tolstoy epic in print format and even fell asleep a few times. "In a world oversaturated with information." he says, "I wonder if it's increasingly hard to savor the languid process of reading a really long book."

That said, he's confident that "after a few years, the technology is tweaked and our brain adjusts and the new reading format is read with the same ventral fluency as words on a page."

"I don't worry too much about the effect of E-Books on the reading brain. I think one of the most interesting findings regarding literacy and the human cortex is the fact that there are actually two distinct pathways activated by the sight of letters. (The brain is stuffed full of redundancies.) As the lab of Stanislas Dehaene has found, when people are reading "routinized, familiar passages" a part of the brain known as the visual word form area (VWFA, or the ventral pathway) is activated. This pathway processes letters and words in parallel, allowing us to read quickly and effortlessly. It's the pathway that literate readers almost always rely upon."

You can see how he reached his conclusion in Reading, E-Books and the Brain, posted on scienceblogs.com.

RC

Can Your Kid Be Sued for Dressing Up Like Harry Potter?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

If you laughed at the question you obviously haven't heard that Warner Bros. banned a Harry Potter theme dinner in London because it the studio considered it an infringement of copyright.

Telegraph.co.uk's Amy Willis writes that "The not-for-profit event, which has been renamed 'Generic Wizard Night', was to have a menu of dandelion wine, pumpkin soup and Dumbledore's favourite - mint humbugs. Guests would have been led down 'Diagon Alley' by the side of the house and been met by a portrait of the 'Fat Lady' who would have demanded a password before they could be let in."

It can be argued that J. K. Rowling's lawsuit against the person who produced The Harry Potter Lexicon had some merit. But Warner's action is hard to understand and almost impossible for reasonable people to condone. Does Rowling even know about the studio's grinchy* pettiness?

Whether she does or not, parents had better start rethinking their children's Halloween costume and trading those Dumbledore outfits for pirate and fairy princess garb.

Trick or Treat, Tiffany and Johnny! You have thirty days to answer this subpoena.

Read about it here.

*And be careful about saying "Grinch" publicly - you may be infringing MGM's copyright.

RC

The E-book Reader That Dare Not Speak Its Name

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Do you know how to pronounce Scribd? Does it rhyme with "scribed"? Or "fibbed"? I've even heard it called "Scrib-dee".

How about Que, Plastic Logic's forthcoming e-book reader? Is it pronounced "Kay"? or "Cue"?

Next is the Flepia, Fujitsu's e-book reader. Is it Fleh-pia or Flee-pia?

Or the UK e-book reader called the Cool-er. As we recently wondered (see Another E-Book Reader with a Dumb Name), is that pronounced "color" (the device screen is black and white by the way)? Or do you pronounce it like the refrigerated water dispenser commonly found in business offices, suggesting it's cooler than the Kindle? Or maybe you come to a full glottal stop, thus: Cool. Er.

If I were a technology company investing millions of dollars to develop a device or service or product, it would make sense for me to ask a focus group to review it. And to make sure that focus group is stocked with people with dirty minds. Like Charles Curtis's.

Charles Curtis believes there is money to be made helping corporations avoid selecting embarrassing names for their products. He would call his service "Double Entendre Consulting". "The concept," he explains, "is this: say you're a startup with a company name, logo, slogan but you're nervous that there's something hidden in it that will make you a laughingstock. So you pay my company a fee and I, along with my fellow gross-minded colleagues, will review your selections and tell you if they're clean or if they will become fodder for viral hilarity on the Internet."

For example? "If Kids Exchange had hired us, we would have informed them that their URL, kidsexchange.net, spelled out something very different from what they intended. Same goes for an outfit called Who Represents? Their URL is Whorepresents.com.

"This idea came up in college when I used to frequent a fast food joint that prided itself on making great salads. Unfortunately, their slogan was, 'The Original Salad Tossers'. If you don't understand why that's so hilarious, click here. When I went back there years later, the slogan on their napkins had changed, so perhaps someone had informed them that sickos such as myself were rolling on the floor every time we mentioned their slogan. And teabagging? The Republicans, should have consulted me before they began advocating that practice. Click here to learn why."

Full disclosure Number 1: I sired this person. Full disclosure #2: if he does go into the double entendre business I intend to become a serious investor, because I think there's a fortune to be made in exposing dumb names.

And that brings us to The Nook.

Charles does not mention what he would have said to Barnes & Noble had they consulted with him about The Nook, BN.Com's newly minted and named e-book reader. But he might consider employing a blogger named Charissa, who wrote the following Open Letter to Barnes & Noble:

Dear Barnes & Noble,

What were you thinking?

Who on earth thought it would be a good idea to name you new E-Reader device the nook? I mean, really? Do you know anything about pop culture and slang from the last few decades? I would love to know what kind of focus groups you used to demo the name and marketing, or did you use focus groups at all? Because I don�t know who wouldn�t have told you this is a bad idea.

And did you even give a thought to what your booksellers are going to have to endure, answering questions about the nook(ie)? Not to mention all the jokes they�re going to be subject to. Trust me, there is an endless supply of nook jokes out there, from the innocent �nook, nook� jokes to more suggestive humor.

Not to mention the fact that within less than 24 hours of the nook�s announcement, some anonymous B&N employees have already begun re-writing Limp Bizkit�s �Nookie� in honor of the nook. Do you realize how obnoxious it is to have the words, �And you can take you Kindle and stick it up your�� stuck in your head all day long?

And it�s really bad that the device itself doesn�t even come out until the end of November and I�m already having trouble using the name in a sentence with a straight face. We still have more than a month of nook jokes to go.

I realize it�s too late to change the name now, but I really hope next time you�re a little more careful when selecting the name of something as monumental to the company as this device apparently is.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen

PS � If you were to, say, give out free nooks to all your employees in an effort to encourage them to familiarize themselves with the device for customer questions, then I would be more than willing to forgive you for this minor naming indiscretion.

We wish the best of success to the makers of the Flepia, Que, Cool-er and Nook. They should be aware, though, that had they hired Double Entendre Consulting they might have avoided becoming, in the words of W. S. Gilbert, "a source of innocent merriment."

Richard Curtis, President of E-Reads (which is pronounced "Ee-Reeds", not "Eh-Reds")

What's the Difference Between Borrowing E-Books and Borrowing Print Books?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Short answer? None.

The procedure for borrowing an e-book from your local library is pretty much the same as borrowing a p-book, except you don't have to travel any further than the distance to your PC. Nor are the economics different. Your library buys an e-book from a publisher. It is then offered for loan to the library's patrons, and there is a waiting list. When your turn comes up you download the e-book and have it exclusively for a limited period of time. When that time expires the e-book disappears from the patron's computer and is offered to the next person on the waiting list. If a book is popular, a library or library system may buy more than one e-book version enabling the library to offer it to multiple borrowers.

We've detailed the process here because many publishers mistakenly believe that they are being asked to donate e-books to libraries for no compensation, and that the libraries' rights are in perpetuity. In other words, they fear that they're giving e-books away for nothing and forever. As a result, the concept of a lending e-library has not yet rung a bell with all publishers. "Simon & Schuster, whose authors include Stephen King and Bob Woodward, has also refrained from distributing its e-books to public libraries, writes New York Times's Motoko Rich in Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending. She quotes an S&S spokesman as saying, �'We have not found a business model that works for us and our authors.'�

It's important that book publishers understand the economics of the e-book lending process, and the go-to guy for a tutorial is Steve Potash, founder of OverDrive, the leading supplier of e-books to libraries.

Another issue hampering e-book lending is that Kindle and iPhone don't observe the practice.Rich writes "For now, the expansion will be slowed in part because, with few exceptions, e-books in public libraries cannot be read on Amazon�s Kindle, currently the best-selling electronic reader, or on Apple�s iPhone, which has rapidly become a popular device for reading e-books. Most library editions are compatible with the Sony Reader, computers and a handful of other mobile devices."

Despite the slow takeoff , e-books are now offered at more than 5000 public libraries, and downloads in 2009 to date exceed 1 million units.

RC

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times.

Is That a Vook You're Screading or Are You Just Kindling?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

While neuroscientists and child development specialists have been delving into the psychology of reading e-books and vooks (see The Medium Is The Screen, But The Message is Distraction), a blogger named Danny Bloom has occupied himself with the nomenclature.

Plain old "reading" simply doesn't seem to cover the various acts necessary to experience a multimedia vook that we have to click, scroll, screen, watch, listen to, and - yes - read. So Bloom, who has been aggregating on his blog a great deal of cogent information and articles about e-books, has proposed the word "Screading", combining screening and reading.

We buy it completely, and from now on, "Screading" it will be.

Bloom also brought to my attention that "Kindle" is now a verb. It may be a while before "Nook" achieves verb status, however.

RC

Two Hundred Bucks for a Textbook? No Thanks, I'll Just Rip It off

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Tom Simpson, who works at San Diego State University's bookstore, may not condone some of the tactics students use to get around the exorbitant prices of textbooks, but he's certainly sympathetic to their plight. He says so in a "Soapbox" guest editorial in Publishers Weekly. What inspired him was a recent sale he made to a student: two books for $325.

"This year," he writes, "the college bookstore where I work has its first books priced north of $200. That price tag is painful in any year, but when people are hurting, it's a travesty."

Textbook prices have made a lot of headlines recently, highlighted by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's initiative to push his state's school system into e-textbooks. (Read Hasta La Vista, Textbooks.)

Is Simpson's store selling e-textbooks? "Digital books have also seen an uptick in sales," he says. "This semester we have 265 titles available in electronic editions, and with prices reduced to around 40% or 50% off the new hardcover price, an increasing number of students are willing to download a book or read it online."

Students will do just about anything to hold down the cost of books, including buying used books and international editions, borrowing, sharing and renting. But when all legitimate approaches have been exhausted, there is always stealing. "Cheap is nice," says Simpson wistfully "but free is better."

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by Publishers Weekly.

ABA to Justice re Price War: Do Something!

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:07:00 +0000

Publishers Weekly just issued a bulletin that "the board of directors of the American Booksellers Association requested that the government begin an investigation into what the organization believes is the illegal predatory pricing policies being carried out by Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target in selling 10 hardcover titles for as low as $8.98. The ABA requested a meeting with officials as soon as possible, arguing that left unchecked, the predatory pricing policies 'will devastate not only the book industry, but our collective ability to remain a society where the widest range of ideas are always made available to the public.'�

PW's Jim Milliot writes:

"The letter charged that the big box retailers are using predatory pricing practices to 'attempt to win control of the market for hardcover bestsellers.' By selling books below cost, Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target 'are devaluing the very concept of the book. Authors and publishers, and ultimately consumers, stand to lose a great deal if this practice continues and/or grows,' the letter stated. Furthermore, the letter noted, the companies involved in the price war are not engaged primarily in selling books, yet their fight could result in the entire book industry becoming collateral damage.

"The letter added that the price war over hardcovers was precipitated by Amazon�s decision to price e-books at $9.99. �We believe the loss-leader pricing of digital content also bears scrutiny,� the letter stated."

From time immemorial, loss-leader pricing has been an instrument to drive competitors out of business. But with so many retailers and big-box stores joining in the sale of books below cost, the ones being driven out of business are publishers, authors and independent booksellers. We don't know if ABA has a case but kudos to them for trying.

Richard Curtis

David Pogue Thinks Window 7 May Be a High-Fiver

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:58:00 +0000

New York Times tech columnist David Pogue gives Microsoft's Windows 7, released today, a close assessment that MS-watchers will take as a green light, as long as they are aware that the new system carries with it some built-in issues that are inherently Windows-oid.

"Now, Windows 7 is still Windows," writes Pogue. "It�s still copy-protected, it still requires antivirus software and its visuals still aren�t consistent from one corner to another.

"On the other hand, it�s still Windows in a good way, too, meaning that it�s your ticket to a world of choice � a huge catalog of software and computer options. This Win is a win if you�re in the market for a new machine, or if you�re running Vista now and you�re not thrilled by it.

"Above all, Windows 7 means that Microsoft employees can show up in public without avoiding eye contact. Looks like 7 is a lucky number after all."

Pogue could have simply said that anything would be better than the Vista OS that 7 replaces, but he went much further, saying that "if the programmers at Microsoft have any strength left at all, they are high-fiving."

Read Pogue's analysis here.

RC

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times.

August '09 eBook Sales Triple Previous August

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

It's IDPF time again, that happy moment when the International Digital Publishing Forum and Association of American Publisher release their latest sales stats for the e-book industry. The news, as it has been all year (knock wood), remains glorious: trade e-book sales went from $5 million in August '08 to $14.4 mil a year later, a few dollars shy of tripling the earlier figure. Equally impressive are the totals for the first two months of Q3-09: they are more than double the same period of '08, namely $30.6 million as compared to $13.9 million.

The true sales numbers may be even higher than the above chart indicates. Michael Smith, Executive Director of IDPF (International Digital Publishing Forum) reminds us that:

* This data represents United States revenues only
* This data represents only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts.
* This data represents only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers
* This data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales
* The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers
* The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is "All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices"

RC

Que Es Esto? Esto Es Un Que! Plastic Logic Device Name Revealed (We Think)

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Curtis) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:30:00 +0000

We can't stand it. Today we learned the names of not one but two e-book readers that had been kept tightly under wraps. The first, revealed earlier today, was BN.Com's Nook. But we were not prepared to win the bifecta. The announcement of the name of Plastic Logic's forthcoming device, which we've been begging to learn, came today hard on the heels of the Nook. The name?

QUE.

The full formal name is QUETM proReader, the "tm" standing for "trademark".

Gadgetell details the features of the long-heralded reader which will be launched on January 7 2010 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas:

Feature wise we can expect the QUE to have a an E Ink display that is both shatterproof and capacitive. Additionally that display will be the size of a regular sheet of paper, 8.5 x 11 inches with the complete unit coming in at less than a 1/3 inch thick.

Additionally, the QUE will also be Wi-Fi and 3G equipped with the 3G coming courtesy of the AT&T network. However it looks like it will not only be books that users will be downloading and reading as the press release also notes that the QUE will be able to offer �professional newspapers, books and periodicals� as well as read �PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents�.

We assume it's pronounced "Kay" and not "Cue" but we haven't heard anybody actually utter it aloud. In any case we are hereby retiring "Teasle," the provisional title we assigned to it after wearying of calling it "Plastic Logic's unnamed e-book reading device." However, given the ambiguity of the term Que, we have to wonder if "Teasle" isn't actually the more memorable term.

Read all about it in Plastic Logic unveils and teases us with the QUE proReader ebook reader.

RC