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The Oprah Effect and the Kindle
Mac Slocum
October 24, 2008
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Chris Nuttall from the Financial Times says Oprah Winfrey will likely "endorse" the Kindle on today's show:
Amazon is featuring a trailer of her Friday show on its site with Oprah talking about her new "favourite gadget" which is "life changing for me." From a side-on view, the product she is talking about looks very [much] like a Kindle.
In an email to subscribers, Amazon says its founder Jeff Bezos will be appearing on Oprah to talk to her about her new favourite gadget.
This report technically qualifies as a rumor, but there's an awful lot of supporting evidence.
It'll be interesting to see if Oprah's influence extends to a $359 device (or a $309 device, after application of the Oprah-approved promo code). And if the Oprah effect leads to a Kindle spike, will Amazon finally reveal sales figures?
(Via the Reading 2.0 list and Teleread)
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How Should Authors Promote Themselves Online?
Kate Eltham
October 23, 2008
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As the director of an organisation for writers I was curious about the announcement of Random House's new Web toolkit to assist RH authors to set up and maintain their own Web pages.
booktrade.info reports:
... the toolkit allows authors to customise their pages with a choice of backgrounds, fonts and colours. Authors can then select different types of content to add to their pages, such as profile or biography information, links to favourite sites, audio and video clips, book reviews, bibliographies, photo galleries, blogs and newsletters.
The web pages will be hosted on a community-based website called AuthorsPlace and once authors have created their web pages they can choose whether to interact with other authors on the site, or whether to use their pages as a standalone website.
There's a couple of things worth discussing here. Firstly, a system that allows users to set up their own page and add content such as audio, video, images, etc. sounds awfully like a blog platform. If the goal is to put this power in the hands of your authors, why bother to build your own, possibly expensive, proprietary Web architecture instead of educating your authors to use Wordpress, Movable Type or Blogger for themselves?
The obvious answer would be to control the platform. No matter how much customisation users can achieve with colours, fonts, images, etc., the pages will ultimately be constrained by the limitations of the platform. This could have both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, if Random House wants to drive attention to their authors' Web sites they only have to concentrate on doing it for the one online community instead of dividing their efforts among titles or writers. If Random House gets good at SEO this could be a powerful benefit to RH authors. On the minus side, it would presumably be very costly to keep a platform like that up to date with relevant features. Why bother to invest in the software development cycle when other companies are doing it as their core business and a lot faster? Some, like The Lazarus Corporation, are even offering artist-tailored solutions free and open source.
Secondly, I'm interested in the idea of the AuthorsPlace, because alongside Authonomy, this is another example of a community where writers talk to other writers. I question the value of this to Random House and to its authors, at least in terms of book sales. Obviously there are a lot of benefits to writers who can be supported by professional communities of interest. But I think publishers' efforts are best spent on assisting authors to connect with readers. That's a much harder task. It means you have to understand and be good at search. You have to to stick with the conversation long after the book is launched. You have to be open about, and even encourage, sharing and spreadability of digital content, even when that content is the book. (See what Paulo Coelho thinks about that.)
Finally, all this raises the much broader question of how authors should be promoted online for best outcomes. I'm a firm believer that nobody can do this better than the author themselves, but what is the role of the publisher in online promotion of their authors and titles? How long can they realistically commit resources and energy to any one particular title or writer? Who controls the message? Given that, as Mac suggested in this post earlier this week, the shift is towards two-way conversation, it would seem that the best results will be achieved by authors who are genuinely prepared to put in the time to engage in that conversation.
What do you think authors should do to promote themselves online? How much should publishers get involved?
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Sulzberger: "Be of the Internet, Not on the Internet"
Peter Brantley
October 23, 2008
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Arthur Sulzberger Jr. indicates he is willing to consider radical change to continue the New York Times' relevance in the digital age. From News.com:
Sulzberger would brand this not as a crisis, but rather as change that requires adaptation. "It's important for traditional companies to adopt strategies that enable us to be of the Internet, not on the Internet," he said. "There must be an institutional commitment to engage in reinvention, especially as the information revolution picks up steam."
That's why, he said, the Times has undergone some digital initiatives unusual for the print media business. It launched bookmarking and sharing service TimesPeople earlier this year. Soon, it will launch TimesExtra, which integrates acquisition Blogrunner onto the publication's home page to provide related links from across the Web. And it has also announced an API for developers to work with one of its most popular online features, the "Most Emailed" list.
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- paidContent.org: "Will The NYT Go The Way Of The Dinosaurs? Sulzberger Responds"
- ReadWriteWeb: "First New York Times API is Live - Here's Why it Matters"
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- Processing the Deep Backlist at the New York Times
- Guardian Blazes New Media Trail with paidContent.org Acquisition
Libraries Embrace Urban Lit
Peter Brantley
October 23, 2008
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Great story in the New York Times on the embrace of urban lit by the Queens Public Library, and others. By the way: most of the young, and many of the old, librarians that i know are not ... ur ... prim:
It's not the kind of literary fare usually associated with the prim image of librarians. But public libraries from Queens, the highest-circulation library system in the country, to York County in central Pennsylvania, are embracing urban fiction as an exciting, if sometimes controversial, way to draw new people into reading rooms, spread literacy and reflect and explore the interests and concerns of the public they serve.
Urban fiction's journey from street vendors to library shelves and six-figure book deals is a case of culture bubbling from the bottom up. That is especially true in New York, where the genre, like hip-hop music, was developed by, for and about people in southeast Queens and other mostly black neighborhoods that have struggled with drugs, crime and economic stagnation.
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The Analog Hole: Another Argument Against DRM
Liza Daly
October 23, 2008
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Digital rights management (DRM) might be unpopular with the public and plagued with social and technical challenges, but at least it's a guarantee that digital books can't be pirated — right?
Not so fast. Experienced computer crackers will find weaknesses in any encryption scheme, but regular folks with basic computer skills can exploit the one weakness found in all DRM'ed media: the analog hole.
What is the Analog Hole?
The "analog hole" reflects a basic principle of physics: before humans can consume any digital media, the ones and zeroes that computers understand must be converted into an analog format that our senses can perceive. For music, it's sound waves; for video and for digital books, it's patterns of light.
If you've ever visited a major metropolitan city you've probably seen the analog hole in action: street vendors selling pirated copies of popular movies, often months before they're officially released on DVD. Most of these are "cam" films, shot in real movie theaters using camcorders. Even without access to a physical copy of the film, pirates are able to capture its analog expression: the sound and pictures as perceived by a theater-goer.
In music, the analog hole is often used to get around software preventing digital copying. A user simply plays the the desired song on their computer using the legal DRM-enabled software, and records the audio coming out of their computer. Now they have a copy of the sound recording, which can be re-imported into the computer and digitally-encoded, with the original DRM stripped out. (A similar principle is at work when DRM systems go defunct and users are told to pirate their own music, although the industry uses the euphemism "making a backup.")
Film and music companies are painfully aware of the analog hole and have taken steps to close it, either by monitoring patron behavior (as in movie theaters) or by petitioning to legally limit the recording features of consumer electronics.
Because reading is a visual experience, there is the possibility of an analog hole exploit. Unlike with camcorder copies or re-burned MP3s, there is a potential for no loss in quality. And with a little ingenuity, the process can be completely automatic.
One example: Ebooks and Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Here's a sample digital book as displayed in Adobe Digital Editions. (This book is public domain and isn't technically covered by DRM, but the principle is exactly the same.)

I hid as much of the Digital Editions menus as I could and took a screenshot of this first page of Pride and Prejudice.
Next I downloaded some free optical character recognition (OCR) software. OCR programs can "read" images and output the words in them as plain text. It's a normal part of digitization projects, in which archival printed material is first scanned and its text is automatically extracted. At the consumer level, OCR software is often bundled with commercial scanners and fax machines.
I took my screenshot and fed it to the OCR software. Here's what I got without any special fine-tuning or spell-checking. Note that all typos are from the OCR software.
Chapter 1
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession ofa large fortune must be in want of a wife, However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
...and on through the entire first page. This output was in HTML, ready to be posted to the Web for anyone to read.
The OCR isn't 100 percent accurate, of course, but neither are the widely-available pirated ebooks created by laborious scanning of physical books, page after page. I was also using free software that requires careful fine-tuning to get working optimally; commercial OCR software is much better, especially when combined with spell-checking.
It wouldn't be difficult to automate the process of advancing one page in Digital Editions, taking a screenshot, and passing that on to my OCR software. Once the workflow was in place, I could strip hundreds or thousands of books of their DRM in a matter of minutes.
Another Possibility: Speech Recognition
My local library is kind enough to allow me to check out digital audiobooks. Naturally they're also secured with DRM (so much so that I can't actually play them, as they require Windows Media Player and I have only Mac and Linux computers). But assuming I could play them, I'd have available to me a nice stream of professionally-produced audio.
You're using speech recognition software every time you call a customer service line and an automated voice prompts you to speak your credit card number. If that's happened to you, you also know that speech recognition isn't 100 percent accurate yet, but under certain conditions it can be quite good. Automatic speech-to-text transcription isn't nearly as far along as optical character recognition, but it's another analog hole exploit that will eventually become trivial to perform.
Does This Mean Publishers Shouldn't Produce Ebooks or Audiobooks?
No! What I hope to convey is that DRM is not a true safeguard against ebook piracy. (It is, however, a known deterrent to ebook adoption.) I've heard a lot of passing the buck on DRM: publishers claim authors want it, booksellers claim publishers insist on it. These days it's hard to find someone to publicly state that they're actually for it.
I think of DRM like this: years ago my apartment was broken into and I called a locksmith to replace the door. My landlord had authorized me to get "the best lock possible," and the locksmith obliged with a four-foot steel bolt. It was almost too heavy to turn but made a very satisfying noise when it snapped shut.
I asked the locksmith, "Is this really unbreakable?"
"The lock is, sure." He slapped the door frame. "But this is made out of wood. If I really wanted to get in I'd just kick out the door. That's why I'm honest about what I sell." When I looked puzzled he handed me his business card. It contained his name, phone number, and company slogan: "A feeling of security."
Authors and publishers should be compensated for their talent and their hard work, and the desire for DRM is understandable. Book lovers, too, want their favorite authors to succeed. But digital books are a form of technology as much as they are literature, and technologies that are successful adapt to people's needs. Is just a "feeling" of security worth the ire of good customers who want to read their books wherever and however they like?
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Apple is Now a Phone Company
Peter Brantley
October 22, 2008
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Apple reported stunning results for the last quarter, and it has clearly become a dominant phone company in a very short space of time. John Gruber from Daring Fireball has the real punchline, but his analysis of the results is excellent reading as a whole:
The entire iPhone platform is only 15 months old. The cheapest model still costs $199. The room for growth in this market is unlike anything Apple has ever seen. So the question is: Despite continuing strong iPod sales and record-breaking Mac sales, how long until the iPhone is undeniably the primary product and platform made by Apple?My answer: Not long.
Related Stories:
- New York Times: "Advertise on NYTimes.com Even AT&T; Is Startled by Cost of iPhone Partnership "
- Commentary: Apple Could Own the Ebook Category
- Amazon and Google Challenging iTunes through Mobile
- Q&A; with Developer Who Turns Ebooks into iPhone Applications
- Open Question: Do You Read Books on a Cell Phone?
The Economic Value of Trust
Mac Slocum
October 21, 2008
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Philip Meyer looks at the connection between consumer trust and publishers' viability. From the American Journalism Review:
The best publishers have always known that trust has economic value. In "The Vanishing Newspaper," I reported that advertising rates increased by $3.25 per Standard Advertising Unit (SAU) for each one percentage point increase in the persons who said they believed what they read in the paper. And papers with higher trust were more successful in resisting the long-term decline in household penetration.
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[TOC Webcast] Tomorrow: Why Publishers Should Care About SEO
Mac Slocum
October 21, 2008
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Tools of Change for Publishing will host a free webcast tomorrow at 1 p.m. eastern (10 a.m. pacific). Our presenter will be Jamie Low, founder of SearchEngineMarketing.com and an expert in search engine optimization (SEO).
Topics Jamie will discuss include:
- how publishers can get ranked for specific queries related to their content
- why some pages earn top spots in search listings and others fail to advance
- how to evaluate SEO strategies that will support real-world business objectives
Slots are limited, so register for free today.
Web Publicity Grows Up, Learns the Value of Conversation
Mac Slocum
October 20, 2008
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Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, co-authors of the upcoming book Trust Agents, share a few ideas for drumming up pre-publication interest in a title. Some of their suggestions are straight from the Web publicity playbook (ebook previews, blogging during the writing process), but they're also exploring engagement through online events and workshops -- two things that usually happen after publication.
I hadn't considered this until reading Brogan's blog post, but many social media publicity techniques aren't particularly social. Podcasts, blog posts and Facebook groups are technologically progressive, but there's a significant difference between a publicity update and an open invitation.
Twitter serves as an example here: The best Twitter users engage their audience through curated links, retweets, commentary and discussion. This stands in contrast to the auto-generated Twitter blasts employed by many media organizations (they're easy to spot -- look for the abrupt truncations).
Brogan's post -- and efforts from people like Seth Godin -- show that Web-based publicity is following the same developmental trajectory as blogging (and Twitter, although it hasn't reached puberty just yet). The top-down messaging that marks the early days of a Web effort eventually matures into a two-way conversation -- and that's when things get interesting.
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Tracking Amazon's Dominance in the Book Industry
Mac Slocum
October 17, 2008
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Morris Rosenthal says retail figures point to Amazon eclipsing Barnes & Nobles in U.S. book sales this year:
The book selling wars that began four decades ago with the rise of the mall chains, followed by the growing power of the Barnes & Noble, Borders and BAM superstore chains, has been won by Amazon. Amazon sales are on track for double-digit gains again this year, aided in part by high fuel prices discouraging trips to the regional superstores that have replaced so many local bookstores. Amazon's North American growth in media sales (books, music and movies) may exceed the incredible 23% gain they turned in last year. Amazon is on pace to sell more books in the US than the entire Barnes & Noble chain in 2008, even allowing for a higher music and video mix. If you add Amazon's international stores to the mix, they will easily sell more books than Barnes & Nobles plus Borders this year.
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Newspaper Chain Refuses to Renew AP Contract
Peter Brantley
October 17, 2008
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The Tribune Company, owner of 10 newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, has given the required two years' notice to suspend receipt of Associated Press news. Tribune's move follows cancellations from a number of other papers. From Editor & Publisher:
The recent decisions to drop AP service follow the planned AP rate structure change, which was announced in 2007 and takes effect in 2009. The rate change initially prompted complaints from numerous newspapers, including two groups of editors who wrote angry letters to AP to complain in late 2007 and early 2008.
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TOC Recommended Reading
Mac Slocum
October 16, 2008
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In Defense of Piracy (Lawrence Lessig, Wall Street Journal)
The return of this "remix" culture could drive extraordinary economic growth, if encouraged, and properly balanced. It could return our culture to a practice that has marked every culture in human history -- save a few in the developed world for much of the 20th century -- where many create as well as consume. And it could inspire a deeper, much more meaningful practice of learning for a generation that has no time to read a book, but spends scores of hours each week listening, or watching or creating, "media."
Where is everybody? (Joe Wikert, TeleRead)
"If you build it, they will come" only works in the movies. If they really want to succeed Borders needs to do something beyond just making all this technology available in the store. Where are the in-store events (e.g., come let us help you research your family name, come see the latest e-book technologies, etc.)? How about signage in other areas of the store that promotes the tech kiosk area?
Mass book digitization: The deeper story of Google Books and the Open Content Alliance (Kalev Leetaru, First Monday)
Both projects offer the ability to search within a particular work, but only Google offers the ability to search across its entire collection. A search across the OCA archive only searches titles and description fields, not the full text of works. The OCA system thus offers a document-centric model, while Google offers both document and collection-based models, allowing broad exploratory searches of its entire holdings: the equivalent of being able to "full text search" a library. The importance of this difference cannot be understated in the limitations it places on the ability of patrons to interact with the OCA collections.
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Report: No Kindle Launch in UK This Year
Mac Slocum
October 16, 2008
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Europe's complicated mobile landscape will prevent the Kindle from launching in the UK this year, reports The BookSeller:
In an interview with The Bookseller, Brian McBride, managing director of Amazon in the UK, said it was not yet clear when the Kindle would launch in the country ... "In Europe it is a minefield as there are so many [mobile] operators. If you buy a Kindle in the UK and want to read it on the beach on holiday in Spain, unless we have signed deals in Spain it is not going to work on that beach."
Sony's Reader does not include mobile or Wi-Fi connectivity, which may have expedited its recent launch in the UK.
(Via Jose Alonso Furtado's Twitter stream.)
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An On-Demand Night at the Opera
Mac Slocum
October 15, 2008
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The Metropolitan Opera is letting its inner geek run free. Performances will soon be available as pay-per-stream feeds and subscription packages through The Met's Web site. From the New York Times:
For $3.99 or $4.99 per streamed opera, users will have a six-hour window in which to listen to or watch a production, once it has started. A monthly subscription for $14.99 brings unlimited streaming, while a yearly subscription costs $149.99.
On the surface this seems like a no-brainer: serve a passionate audience while expanding the boundaries of "experience." Major League Baseball uses a similar model with its online offerings, and it's done quite well.
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[TOC Directory] Recent Additions
Mac Slocum
October 15, 2008
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20 new listings have been added to the TOC Directory in the last week, including:
Visit the TOC Directory to add your own listings and events.
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From "How Should Authors Promote Themselves Online?" - mac said:
> "Obsession" is dead-on, and I fully admit it.
just because y...
From "The Oprah Effect and the Kindle" - @bowerbird: "Obsession" is dead-on, and I fully admit it. But what I want t...
From "The Oprah Effect and the Kindle" - why the obsession with the kindle numbers? it makes me laugh.
-bowerbird...
From "The Oprah Effect and the Kindle" - it's true that no one was ever fired for recommending x.m.l. :+)
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