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Category: The E-book Industry

Opinions/rumors/news in the world of digital publishing.

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AOFM here.

As an old guy who has followed technology since cell phones resembled my BFF, I was more than a little shocked when the news broke that Apple had become bigger than Microsoft.

I really shouldn't have been all that surprised.

The three big things that Apple always did while Steve Jobs was in charge was innovate, innovate, and innovate. While Jobs has had failures both inside (Lisa, Newton) and outside Apple (NeXT), he always manages to learn things from them and, most importantly, to keep the good stuff. In other words, Apple doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Since Microsoft inherited its 800-pound gorilla status from IBM back in the late 80's/early 90's, it hasn't innovated as much as it has... ahem... "borrowed". Which isn't necessarily a bad business model - hell, it's how Apple got a little kick-start from Xerox. But innovation wasn't the most important component of Microsoft that got Bill Gates his billions upon billions. What was important was making sure Windows and other Microsoft products were an indispensable part of affordable computers.

...continue reading "AOFM-MWU – The Apple Cart Upsets Microsoft"

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Published on 2 Comments on Konrath Sieges The Castle

Joe Konrath,  author of the Jack Daniels thriller series and of the new resource for indie writers - The Newbies Guide to Publishing - has inked a deal that sieges the Publishing Royals' Castle.  It also charts the course, showing the Royals, authors and agents where the future lies.  The deal itself and the fact that it is with the biggest, baddest ebookseller AND bookseller on the planet has traditional publishing Royals hunkering down in the castle in the futile hope that they can survive the coming indie siege.

Konrath signed a publishing deal with AmazonEncore for the newest JD thriller, Shaken. Under the deal, Shaken will be available in the Kindle store this October and will then be available in print about four months later, in February 2011.   The deal turns the traditional arrangements around 180 degrees and has the Kindle version released first with the print book following several months later.  Some of the Royals have been trying to kill the  upstart ebook industry by releasing their "big" books only in paper form for several months.  That would force loyal fans to buy the paper version and discourage the fans from investing in the future.  Or so the Royals thought and the Royals are used to deciding what we will read, when we will read it and how we will read it. 

...continue reading "Konrath Sieges The Castle"

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Giving a digital reading device to a devoted and addicted long time romance reader is a lot like giving a kid a lifetime pass to Disneyworld.  It's also like giving the reader's family a new lease on life.  My house has romance novels in nearly every nook and cranny.  See, I don't just read the books - I save them.  

If I get a yen to read a particular book, the search through the stacks will first send books flying around a couple of different parts of the family room. Then it'll send them headed out the door of my youngest son's walk-in closet.  Finally, in desperation, it'll even cover the macho floor of the male holy land - our garage.   I haven't touched one of the paper books since Christmas - but I haven't replaced them all (yet) with digital versions, so one day it'll happen again, I'm sure.  But it'll happen a lot less often.

My very first ebook purchase was of a single title.  It helped me try out the device.  I have a Sony Pocket Reader which is an excellent way to enter the market.  It doesn't have wi-fi or a 3G wireless function so I can't surf the web or check my email.  All it does is display ebooks but it does that very well.  One thing I adore is that it is sized so that it fits right in my purse.  One day, I may upgrade to a wi-fi or 3G enabled device, but that market is shaking out so much now that it constantly reminds me of how smart my hubby is.  My computer guy spouse says never adopt a new platform or technology (or software) until the kinks have been worked out and the price settles down.

...continue reading "The Lure of Ebook Bundles"

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Published on 5 Comments on Smash It Again Mark!!!

Once upon a time, a handful of publishing companies decided what Americans could read.  Those companies lived in the great literary castle.  No common writers were admitted to the castle.  The publishing royals would periodically admit certain citizens that they deemed worthy to petition them on behalf of the common writers. By and large, most of the worthy citizens had either worked in the castle in years gone by, or they had worked for other worthy citizens that the royals had known for years. It was an insider’s paradise and no outsider need apply.   

The worthy citizens had the loathsome job of dealing with the commoners in the Kingdom.  Someone had to do it and it wasn’t going to be the royals themselves.  After all, the royals couldn’t dirty their hands by working directly with those who created the products that paid for their castle.  No, let the worthy citizens deal with the rabble.  Best of all, the worthy citizens not only protected the royals from the rabble, the royals didn’t even have to pay the worthy citizens.  The worthy citizens took their fees from the rabble’s proceeds.  A cut of the bounty paid by the royals to the rabble rightly belonged to the worthy citizens. ’ Twas a small enough price for their having to deal with the commoners and sort through their barrage of products to find the work that worthy citizens thought would be deemed acceptable by the royals.

Most of the commoner’s notions got rejected by the worthy citizens.  Those esteemed folks worked and socialized directly with the royals and knew what the royals would and would not deem worthy.  Or at least, they believed that they knew.  And the worthy citizens did not, as a rule, challenge the royals to accept something too new or too different.

And thus was born — the sacred system.

...continue reading "Smash It Again Mark!!!"

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Hey guys. Mary Anne's busy with work on top of work, so she asked me to write a blog entry. Everyone always says to write what you know, and I'm a technology guy, so this is going to be about my take on digital publishing technology and some of the changes in store for books because of it.

First off, I don't think paper books are going to completely go away. There's something comforting about the physicality of a book. The smell and feel of the pages, the easy-to-see contrast of the ink on the paper, the order of the vertical lines on a filled bookshelf - it all adds up to an experience you can't get from any digital device. At least, not yet.

A good model that we can use to see where books are headed is music. Saying that the e-book will eliminate paper books is like saying the MP3 song has eliminated concerts. Obviously, that hasn't happened. There are sights, sounds, and other stimuli you get at concerts that you just can't get from iTunes.

...continue reading "An Angry Old Fat View of E-Book Technology"

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(Upset Hubby Alert - I can't remember where I read it!)

Read somewhere (hence the hubby alert above) that some of the editors at the big publishing houses are now looking for contemporary romances.  Actually, I think I read in a couple of different places over the last week or two, news that contemporaries may be the next hot thing.  What do I say to that?

THANK GOD, THE GREAT GREEN TOAD FROG AND ALL THE RE-FRIED CLAMS IN THE UNIVERSE!!!

I like historicals and I write historicals, but there are times, many times, when only a contemporary will do.  Some of my favs from that genre are folks like Diana Palmer, Linda Howard, Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jayne Anne Krentz.  I can curl up in a chair and watch hours pass like minutes while I read one of theirs in paperback form,  or - as I add more to my Sony Reader - in ebook form.  I'm eyeballing a purchase of a Diana Palmer and a Brenda Jackson Westmoreland anthology for my e-reader as we speak. 

I also love contemporaries.  I also WRITE contemporaries.  I previously published Email Enticement, a contemporary set in my home town of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  I just published Griffin's Law, a contemporary set at the University of South Carolina's Law School in Columbia, SC.  Both books take place at that interesting mental spot where love and the law intersect. So, does my gratitude about the return of the contemporary contain some amount of self-interest?  You bet'cha.

But, keep in mind, that I write contemporaries because I read contemporaries.  I write contemporaries because I love contemporaries.  I don't agree that you have to write what you know.   I do agree that you have to write what you love.   Enthusiasm and joy and a page turning experience will never happen for a reader if they didn't first happen for the writer.  Fun is contagious. 

...continue reading "Will Vampires & Zombies Exit Stage Right?"

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Amazon announced that it is capitulating to Macmillan's demands. The e-tailer essentially says it has to capitulate but that its customers will make the ultimate decision at the cash register.

Maybe I've been a lawyer too long, but this looks a lot like a marketing ploy cooked up at the end of a negotiation. Kindle users get upset at e-books priced over $9.99 because they feel that's their bargain with Amazon. So how could Amazon give in and still come across as being on the Kindle owners' side? They could play a giant shell game but not run it for long enough to do any serious damage to Macmillan or Amazon.

Was this a real dispute or a giant pacifer to Kindle owners? Either way, it opens the door and all the other publishers can now walk through. It's the beginning of the end of that $9.99 ceiling.

I'm an indie publisher so the publishers big prices can only help my bottom line. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Amazon's customers.

I doubt that Kindle owners will feel terribly pacified.

Published on

E-books have arrived.  There's no longer any doubt about that because in the wake of the plethora of e-readers, Apple's iPad is about to enter the market.  The bigs have stopped throwing down over whether e-books should exist.  Now they're throwing down over how much they should cost.  The journey from whether to how much marks the milestone of an industry change.

This week Amazon and Macmillan locked horns over price point.  At the iPad announcement, Steve Jobs indicated that Apple would only take a 30% commission off the sale of each e-book.  Under the Apple scheme, publishers would set the price.  Boy, howdy, that would suit the publishers just fine but the public - not so much.  After the iPad was out and about and had established itself with a sales history, the pricing structure would have given publishers leverage over Amazon.  Note that I said AFTER. 

One publisher didn't want to wait.  Before the stories from Job's launch announcement had gone to print, John Sergent, CEO of Macmillan, decided to go all Godfather on Amazon.  Sergent told the e-tailer giant to adopt Apple's price structure and abandon its pricing insanity ($9.99 as the max for an e-book) OR Macmillan would do "extensive and deep windowing of titles".  In other words, Macmillan said, give us control of pricing or lose the right to sell our newest and most popular books. 

Sergent made the worst of all negotiating errors - he made a threat he couldn't or shouldn't back up.  And Amazon took him at his word.  The e-tailer didn't just give a verbal response, it gave a real world response.  Amazon removed the buy button from all of Macmillan's titles, e-books and print.  Now Amazon sells a lot of e-books, but it doesn't out and out dominate the market because that market is too new, it's evolving daily.  However, no bookstore on the planet sells the number of print copies that Amazon does.

Now Macmilian is in a corner without a fallback position.  It overlooked the fact that even after the Apple launch, it will still need Amazon.  Macmillan reacted by issuing a "letter" to its authors/illustrators and the literary agent community.  As the blog Dear Author noted, the letter missed its most important audience -- the readers. Macmillan wants to make money on its product, Amazon wants to sell a lot of its product, and the readers want to buy books and e-books at a fair price. 

The delicate balancing act of marketing/price structure can't work if total control is given to the publisher.  Amazon talks about anti-trust and in response, Macmillan cites a US Supreme Court decision legalizing retail price maintenance for luxury goods.  Common sense and the free market can imagine more practical reasons for not giving a producer control of the price of its goods.  What would Wal Mart or Dollar General have to charge for goods if the manufacturer set the price? 

If Amazon wants to make money on volume instead of price margin, that helps the consumer.  If Macmillan weren't so short sighted, it would realize that it helps the publisher and its authors too.  People all over America (like me) are caught like rats in the trap of the economic crunch and we can't afford to pay big prices for books.  But the crunch won't last forever (please God) and when it passes, readers will be able to pay more for books. 

Macmillan forgot the most important lesson of the Godfather - if you're making the other party an offer it can't refuse, first you better be sure it can't refuse.  Amazon could and it did.  Be careful what you ask for publishers, because you might get it. 

...continue reading "Marketing Madness & The Price War of 2010"

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Okay, America, I can now reveal a closely guarded secret. Santa's name is John.

No? You disagree? Well, maybe John is just MY SANTA. Come to think about it, he is my Santa. And he rocks it big style. So ladies (especially you redheads out there - you know who you are) hands off. In addition to my hubby's myriad and too numerous to list other amazing qualities (in addition to putting up with me), he's a smart and generous man who got me an e-reader for Christmas.

On Christmas morning, my hubby handed me my gifts in a very specific order. First up, I unwrapped an organizer for all those knives, forks and spoons that have been wadded up and tossed randomly in a drawer for years. Then he handed me a box containing a Hamilton Beach Brewstation Coffeemaker to replace ours that died a few months ago.  (As a rambling aside, I'll note that the Brewstation is a temperamental machine with a shorter lifespan than other models. But I forgive it and will replace each Brewstation with another because nobody in the price range comes close for quality and convenience).

When John handed me the first box, with the drawer organizer, he said it would make me smile. It did, because after over 20 years of marriage, he knows full well my rule that Christmas gifts should cater to wishes and wants rather than needs and necessities. I've ranted often enough to him about my ire for men who present their wives something like a vacuum cleaner as a Christmas gift. I'd hope that wives who receive something like that got their hubbys a set of pots and pans because they'd get the same hurt, lost expression when the gift got open. Men of America, your wife may clean and manage your household but listen to me very closely - your wife is not your house.

So the first gift, the organizer, was a "gag" gift of a sort. My hubby is a smart man with a sharp sense of humor and he could be a comic for a living if he didn't have a family dragging him down and grounding him. The coffeemaker was a better gift, although it still catered to need rather than want -- I consider coffee to be necessary for survival. Both the first two packages were very big. The third package was smaller, much, much smaller. And ladies, don't we know that the best holiday gifts come in the small packages?

...continue reading "Did Santa Bring You An E-Reader Too?"

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THREE CHEERS FOR AMAZON!!!

I've given the company a hard time for its failure to clean out its Mobi closet, but people aren't perfect so I can hardly expect a company to achieve perfection.  Lord knows, I'm the poster child for flaws.  So I'm not saying that Amazon is perfect, but this week it took huge strides in becoming close enough to perfect for me.  Amazon just proved once again that it is the indie writer's best friend. 

This week, Amazon's indie writer's subsidiary, CreateSpace, entered the publishing biz.  CS has signed distribution deals with Ingram's Lightning Source and Baker & Taylor which will make books widely available to retailers and bookstores as well as to schools and libraries.  It's a big, big deal done quietly, almost under the radar. 

This quiet deal promises to change the face of publishing.   

...continue reading "Amazon Attacks Again – There’s A New Publisher On The Block"