Posts tagged eBooks

Introducing Readlists: Your Reading, Unbound and Remixed

Jeffrey MacIntyre on the Arc90 blog:

We are pleased to release a new experiment today: Readlists, a free and incredibly convenient app for collecting, sharing, and enjoying bundles of articles, poems, recipes—you name it. It’s as simple as cutting and pasting links to ordinary web pages, that are then transformed into a clean reading view, but with the power to send them as specially tailored collections: to email, to Kindles, even as ePub-standard iBooks on your iPhone and iPad devices.

This is pretty nifty. Could be great for when you’re going away for a weekend or on holiday. It gives you an easy way to gather together a series of articles and have them automatically bundled together as an eBook on your iPad or Kindle. Works really well.

Waterstones deal with Amazon puts Kindle and ebooks instore

Zoe Wood, The Guardian:

Waterstones said it was planning a digital revolution in its stores, with Kindle ereaders on sale for the first time and free wifi, so customers can choose between buying a physical book or downloading it then and there.

This deal is being met with increduility by many in the media, but I think this is a pretty sensible move by Waterstones. I know that I enjoy wandering around Waterstones and browsing through the physical books. I find books that way that I don’t find any other way. But more often than not, having found a book that I want, I then look it up on my iPhone/iPad and download it as an eBook.

If I’m reading this correctly, this deal would seem to imply that when that happens, Waterstones will get a percentage of the sale. So whereas before they got nothing when people like me bought eBooks whilst browsing their physical shelves, now when that happens they will get paid.

They might not get paid a lot, but the last time I checked not a lot is still more than nothing.

The future of eBooks: DRM free?

Charlie Stross:

It doesn’t matter whether Macmillan wins the price-fixing lawsuit bought by the Department of Justice. The point is, the big six publishers’ Plan B for fighting the emerging Amazon monopsony has failed (insofar as it has been painted as a price-fixing ring, whether or not it was one in fact). This means that they need a Plan C. And the only viable Plan C, for breaking Amazon’s death-grip on the consumers, is to break DRM.

If the major publishers switch to selling ebooks without DRM, then they can enable customers to buy books from a variety of outlets and move away from the walled garden of the Kindle store. They see DRM as a defense against piracy, but piracy is a much less immediate threat than a gigantic multinational with revenue of $48 Billion in 2011 (more than the entire global publishing industry) that has expressed its intention to “disrupt” them, and whose chief executive said recently “even well-meaning gatekeepers slow innovation” (where “innovation” is code-speak for “opportunities for me to turn a profit”).

DRM - for those of you who aren’t aware - stands for Digital Rights Management and is essentially a security lock on every book that you buy from Amazon (or Apple) that means that it is locked to you as a user and the eReading device you have. It is what prevents you sharing or giving the book to anyone else. The eBook files are secure and will only work with your username and password on the device (whether Kindle or iOS) you use. It also means that, if you buy a book from Amazon, it won’t work anywhere except on a Kindle or inside a Kindle app. Likewise if you buy a book from Apple; it’ll only work within iBooks.

The publishers demand for DRM on their books has, inadvertently, ended up giving Amazon even more power. If the publishers were to remove DRM from their books then it would break one area of control that Amazon has. It would mean that users would no longer be tied to any particular device; users would simply own the digital version of the book and be free to use it on any device they choose. And they would be able to purchase those DRM free books from a much wider array of sources; it wouldn’t have to be via the Amazon Store.

Update

John Gruber has added a response to the original article:

I think he’s right, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. DRM is a religion for old-school media executives. Rational thought could, but won’t, lead them to this solution because they’re starting with an unshakable irrational bedrock assumption: that there can exist a technical solution to defeat piracy. Their belief in DRM is a matter of faith, not logic.

If I’m wrong though, and the publishers see the light of day and start selling DRM-free ePub books, I think that’d be a win for Apple, in the same way that dropping DRM from music has helped, not hurt, Apple’s music business. Amazon is the one whose Kindle devices and apps do not support DRM-free ePub books.

The Justice Department just made Jeff Bezos dictator-for-Life

Jordan Weissmann in The Atlantic:

By shackling publishers, the Justice Department is only ensuring one half of a free market. It’s hard to imagine that bodes well for anyone long term, even if it means low prices today. 

It’s seems the real consensus is that the only winner from the US Government suing Apple and the big five publishers is Amazon. Who knew a government would go so far out of its way to aid a company who already holds a monopoly.

US government is ensuring Amazon have an even stronger monopoly over books

David Steitfeld in the New York Times:

As soon as the Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it was suing five major publishers and Apple on price-fixing charges, and simultaneously settling with three of them, Amazon announced plans to push down prices on e-books. The price of some major titles could fall to $9.99 or less from $14.99, saving voracious readers a bundle.

But publishers and booksellers argue that any victory for consumers will be short-lived, and that the ultimate effect of the antitrust suit will be to exchange a perceived monopoly for a real one. Amazon, already the dominant force in the industry, will hold all the cards.

This is my concern. In the short-term, the DoJ’s suing of Apple and five major publishers is a win for both Amazon and consumers. Amazon are free to charge whatever they want, and consumers will pay less for books as a result. But the long-term outcome of this is that all the power will end up in Amazon’s hands. And that puts them in a position to manipulate and bully. Which, interestingly, has already started to happen with a growing number of independent publishers complaining about how Amazon has been treating them.

So whilst the behaviour of Apple and the big five publishers may have been wrong, the problem with the route the DoJ is taking is that it plays completely into the hands of Amazon and only serves to increase the power and influence of the company which already has the most power and influence.

In other words, the DoJ, by suing Apple et al for anti-competitive behaviour, is going to make the industry far less competitive, not more. And that won’t be good for us consumers further down the line.

U.S. Sues Apple, Publishers Over E-Book Pricing

Chad Bray and Brent Kendall reporting for the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. filed an antitrust lawsuit Wednesday against Apple Inc. AAPL +0.89% and five of the nation’s largest publishers, alleging they conspired to limit competition for the pricing of e-books.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, alleges Apple and the publishers reached an agreement where retail price competition would cease, retail e-books prices would increase significantly and Apple would be guarantee a 30% “commission” on each e-book sold.

I’m somewhat torn over this. I want books to be as cheap as possible and yet I also want a sustainable publishing industry.

Also, it seems somewhat ironic that the one company with a real monopoly when it comes to books and ebooks - Amazon - is not being looked into at all. Amazon’s power meant that it was able to keep forcing prices lower and lower and this deal the publishers made with Apple was their way of regaining some control.

The truth is that neither position is ideal. The publishers shouldn’t be able to remove all pricing power from retailers but, at the same time, neither should Amazon be able to force the value of books lower and lower and eventually completely undermine the book publishing industry.

Amazon trying to rewrite the rules of publishing

This is an interesting article that doesn’t put Amazon in a very good light. It’s both a fascinating and uncertain time for books and publishing and Amazon’s tactics - and their fast approaching monopoly - should be something that makes all book lovers nervous. Amazon don’t seem to have had much close, investigative reporting done by the media, and very little negative reporting at all. They’re still somewhat of a media darling. But I for one hope that they don’t get a free, unchallenged waltz into a position of monopoly status when it comes to books. We need there to be healthy competition.

Apple refuses carry Seth Godin's latest book

Seth Godin:

I just found out that Apple is rejecting my new manifesto Stop Stealing Dreams and won’t carry it in their store because inside the manifesto are links to buy the books I mention in the bibliography.

Quoting here from their note to me, rejecting the book: “Multiple links to Amazon store. IE page 35, David Weinberger link.”

This is crazy. I really hope Apple backtracks and drops this kind of policy.

Don’t Self Publish, Self Preserve

Good advice from my brother-in-law, Russell Thompson:

Before you get overwhelmed by the excitement of seeing your book for sale on Amazon, take a deep breath and consider whether it’s good enough. It’s been the experience of almost every novelist that the first book comes to nothing. Maybe even the first two or three books. The response is that you hone your skills, build your determination, learn a lot more, and write another book.

A writer’s career has the potential to be long and successful. You don’t want your first book coming back to haunt you. The conventional route of sending your novel to every agent you can find and collecting rejection letters can be a painful experience. But perhaps it’s a necessary one.

The Future of the Book Is the Stream

The Atlantic:

What Netflix’s Watch Instantly has done for movies, and what Spotify has done for music, Audiobooks could do for books. The service has the potential to reframe book-buying as a transactional thing, making it less about purchasing an object, and more about purchasing an experience.

Interesting look at how the way we buy books could change completely.

Apple to announce tools, platform to "digitally destroy" textbook publishing

“Apple is slat­ed to announce the fruits of its labor on improv­ing the use of tech­nol­o­gy in edu­ca­tion at its spe­cial media event on Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 19. While spec­u­la­tion has so far cen­tered on dig­i­tal text­books, sources close to the mat­ter have con­firmed to Ars that Apple will announce tools to help cre­ate inter­ac­tive e-books—the “Garage­Band for e-books,” so to speak—and expand its cur­rent plat­form to dis­trib­ute them to iPhone and iPad users.”

This makes a lot of sense for Apple. If Apple creates an easy-to-use yet powerful tool for creating great ebooks, then it could really shake things up.

Apple’s War On Amazon Starts Thursday

Intriguing look at how Apple may be about to change the future of book publishing and tackle Amazon at its core business.

Luxembourg VAT cut set to hit UK book trade

I for one would love to see the UK follow suit and drop or at least reduce VAT on ebooks.

Some thoughts on kids learning to read in a world of iPads and eReadersghts on religion, atheism and morality

My friend Ollie shared an article by Lisa Guernsey today on eReading and kids. It had the somewhat scaremongering title of, ‘Why eReading With Your Kid Can Impede Learning’.

On many levels I do get much of what she was saying. But it seemed like more a critique of parents rather than eReaders and iPads in and of themselves. She talked about how, when parents are reading with their kids with eReaders, instead of ‘talking with their children about the content of the books, parents end up spouting “do this, don’t do that” directives about how to use the devices’.

So, in essence, she’s saying that parents are getting in the way of their child learning to read because they’re focussing on the devices rather than the book and the story. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the device nor that we should be afraid of using them with our kids. It’s simply a case of parents needing to learn how best to utilise these new devices in such a way that will maximise their child’s ability to learn to read. Ultimately, it strikes me that it will be (as it’s always been) good parenting and teaching that will lead to a child learning to read - regardless of the medium.

Like so many things, I think its best to simply encourage common sense. Physical books or electronic books are merely mediums. How we use each medium and teach our kids to use them will determine the development of a child’s reading abilities - not what specific medium we do or don’t use.

Let’s not scaremonger people about technology that - for better or worse (I think better) - is here to stay. I know that I want my daughter Eloise to love, enjoy, and learn to read via multiple mediums. And it may well be that, for the emerging generations, reading is a more interactive thing rather than the more passive approach that most of us have grown up with. I’m ok with that. The important thing is to learn to understand and enjoy the written word and how that enables us to experience life in much richer ways.

So I say let’s encourage people to embrace every medium that brings words and stories and language in front of our kids and at the same time ensure we are helping and equipping parents and teachers to know how best to help our children learn, understand and appreciate the written word.

Seth Godin on books and publishing

Seth Godin reflects on his book publishing venture, the Domino Project, as it publishes its last book and offers lots of interesting thoughts and insights on the future of books, ebooks, publishing, and being an author. Well worth a read.

sethgodin.typepad.com