| CARVIEW |
home page: August 2008
News Roundup: Amazon Acquires Shelfari, Hyper-Local Author Events, The Myth of the Level Digital Playing Field
Mac Slocum
August 29, 2008
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Listen 
Amazon is turning its investment in Shelfari, a book-centric social network, into a full acquisition, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Financial details haven't been released, but Shelfari CEO Josh Hug confirmed the acquisition on Shelfari's blog:
We've got some big plans ahead. With more resources and Amazon's expertise in building a platform where people come to share ideas, there are a lot of new opportunities in the future that will benefit each of you. In the meantime, you'll continue to have access to the great community and tools that you've always known and used on the site. (Continue reading)
BookTour and IndieBound Make Author Events Hyper-Local
BookTour, which provides author-generated pages and a listing of author tour events, has integrated their database with IndieBound. This is an interesting model, which obviously could expand in its breadth. From the BookTour blog:
... the trouble is neighborhood bookstores are all different (that's what makes them great). That made it hard to dump all their data into our hoppers in one go ...
Now, throughout BookTour, events taking place at IndieBound-represented bookstores will be added automatically to our database. Equally important, on both author and venue pages, when an event is taking place at an IndieBound-repped store, you'll have the option to purchase the book directly from that store.
The Myth of the Level Digital Playing Field
In response to Kassia Krozser's post about authors and electronic publishing rights, Joe Wikert notes that the sources of digital content influence discoverability:
One of the myths of the e-publishing world is that all books are on a level playing field, so you'll sell just as many with publisher X as you will with publisher Y. This simply isn't true, at least not in most cases. This is very similar to the complicated world of Google search results. Just because you love chocolate and you launched a website all about chocolate doesn't mean you'll immediately climb to the top of the Google results for a search on "chocolate."
Related Stories:
[TOC Directory] Recent Additions
Mac Slocum
August 26, 2008
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Listen
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.
News Roundup: The Crowdsourced Cat Book, Infinite Permutations of the Digital Book, EBay vs. Amazon (Round 2)
Mac Slocum
August 22, 2008
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Listen
Amazing but True Cat Stories is a 38-page coffee table book born from the combined efforts of Mechanical Turk contributors. The creator/editor of the book, Björn Hartmann, describes the genesis of the project on his blog:
The idea for this book was born in Terminal A at Washington Dulles, where I was stranded for some hours in late July 2008. To spend my time, I posted the following two tasks on MTurk:
1. What's the craziest thing your cat has ever done? Write at least one paragraph about a funny, unbelievable or otherwise memorable incident involving your cat. This should be a real story that happened to you or your family.
2. Sketch a cat. With or without an environment and toys. The cat can be drawn in software or on paper. Do not upload photographs of cats. Have fun! (Continue reading)
Infinite Permutations of the Digital Book
James Bridle discusses the near infinite malleability of digital books. From booktwo.org:
Imagine a book that told a different story every time it was opened. The story might change depending on the gender of the reader, or the sex. It might depend on the location of the reader, or the position of the book in time; the time of day, or time in years. Centuries might pass before the book tells the same story again. (Continue reading)
EBay is moving into Amazon's territory. Citing reduced consumer interest in online auctions, eBay is refocusing on fixed-price "Buy It Now" products. From the New York Times:
Among the changes being announced Wednesday [8/20/08] is a new pricing plan for sellers who offer fixed-price items in eBay's "Buy It Now" format. Starting in mid-September, sellers will pay only 35 cents to list an item for 30 days, a reduction of about 70 percent in upfront fees. EBay also announced that it would no longer allow most customers to pay by check or cash, a change aimed at curbing fraud. Users will need to pay with a credit card or through eBay's PayPal online payment service.
Direct competition between eBay and Amazon is nothing new. Amazon tried to capitalize on eBay's success by launching its own auction business in 1999, but by 2001 it had scaled back its auction efforts.
Related Stories:
[TOC Directory] Recent Additions
Mac Slocum
August 19, 2008
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Listen
20 new listings have been added to the TOC Directory in the last week, including:
- Wheatmark Book Publishing
- iPub
- University of Arizona Press
- USPublishing Jobs
- Arnica Publishing & Creative Services
Visit the TOC Directory to add your own listings and events.
News Roundup: B&N; Won't Buy Borders, Kindle Roadblocks and Sightings, Pirates Convince Game Developer to Drop DRM
Mac Slocum
August 15, 2008
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Listen
Report: No Borders Bid for Barnes & Noble
It looks like Barnes & Noble won't acquire Borders after all. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) says B&N; is changing course from earlier this year and will not submit a bid for Borders.
Kindle Projections, Roadblocks and Sightings
Theresa Poletti from MarketWatch comments on the relative absence of Kindle sightings, particularly in Silicon Valley:
The biggest problem is the fact that the Kindle is only available online, via the Amazon.com Website. For many consumer electronics products, potential buyers need to touch and feel the device, to pick it up and play with it, before making any kind of purchasing commitment ... (Continue reading)
Pirates Convince Game Developer to Drop DRM
"Why do people pirate my games?"
Game developer Cliff Harris recently posed this question on his blog and the onslaught of responses caught him (and his blog host) by surprise. Harris offers some interesting conclusions, but most notable is this passage on digital rights management (DRM):
People don't like DRM, we knew that, but the extent to which DRM is turning away people who have no other complaints is possibly misunderstood. If you wanted to change ONE thing to get more pirates to buy games, scrapping DRM is it. These gamers are the low hanging fruit of this whole debate.
Harris says his company will no longer use DRM on its games.
Related Stories:
[TOC Directory] Recent Additions
Mac Slocum
August 12, 2008
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Listen
21 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.
News Roundup: iPhone Apps Developer Shocked by Windfall, Author Reaps Rewards of Web Openness, Comcast Buys Web Publisher for $125 Million
Mac Slocum
August 8, 2008
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Listen
iPhone Apps Developer "Shell Shocked" by Outsized Payday
Seth Weintraub over at 9to5Mac reports on the outsized success of at least one iPhone Apps developer, Eliza Block, who's now earning an unexpected $2,000 a day from her crossword puzzle app, 2Across. Noteworthy certainly, but also instructive about the platform Apple has created for what can certainly be called "self publishing":
But, she deserves it...her app is the best of the breed, filling a need that many people want. The amazing thing is that Apple has taken care of everything from the development environment to the transaction services to the distribution to the marketing. You can be a great software developer on your own without having a huge company to back you up. This is truly a game changing play for Apple and the development community. (Continue reading)
Author Paulo Coelho Illustrates the Upside of Openness
Budding authors may not be able to duplicate the success of Paulo Coelho, but Coelho's willingness to experiment across mediums is certainly worth studying. From Jeff Jarvis' Guardian column:
Coelho is the thoroughly modern author. But he still believes in print. For him, this isn't a matter of print v digital. It's a question of what comes when you add digital to print. What does it bring him? "It gives me a lot of joy," he said, "because writing is something you do alone." He recalled the night in 2006 when he read that he had become the second best-selling author in the world. He was bursting. "My God, my wife is sleeping. How can I share this news with anybody?" Now he can shout it from the mountaintop of his blog. (Continue reading)
Comcast Pays $125 Million for Lifestyle Web Publisher DailyCandy
Comcast is buying shopping/lifestyle Web publisher DailyCandy for $125 million. From the New York Times:
... the company, driven by a small army of contributors providing breezy tips, has grown to encompass 13 daily and 8 weekly newsletters, reaching 2.5 million subscribers in 11 American cities and London. (Continue reading)
Related Stories:
[TOC Directory] Recent Additions
Mac Slocum
August 5, 2008
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Listen
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.
News Roundup: Digital Text App Uses Facebook, Subject/Author Sites Better than Brands, Saying Goodbye to Audiobook Cassettes
Mac Slocum
August 1, 2008
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Listen
App Mashes Up Digital Text on Facebook Platform
Digital Texts 2.0 is an interesting application for Facebook that lets you group and share digital material. It's intriguing to see cutting edge development occurring in this space. From the Digital Texts 2.0 about page:
Digital Texts 2.0 was undertaken by Dr. Stéfan Sinclair as an initiative to experiment with applying the principles of Web 2.0 to the realm of electronic texts. We intend to preserve and expose all of the existing qualities of digital texts (rich hypertextual associations, refined encoding practices, analytic affordances, etc.), while enhancing them with additional characteristics provided by Web 2.0 and social networking. Thus, it is a preliminary attempt to better understand the phenomenon of social networking and how it might be adapted to benefit the ways in which humanities scholars interact with electronic texts.
Build Sites Around Authors and Subjects, Not Publisher Brands
Michael Cairns at PersonaNonData expresses a desire to see publishers include a more comprehensive picture of authors and works:
Publishers are best placed to build author-centric and subject/theme-oriented websites -- not sites oriented around a "brand" that isn't relevant, but those that focus attention on segments of the business that remain relevant to consumers. Envision the Spiritual segment at a site supported by Harpercollins which has a unique, appropriate and relevant focus far apart from the current 'corporate' approach. All segments are valid candidates for more of a silo approach to marketing publishers' products. And I would go further in recommending that publishers consider marketing within these silos all titles available, rather than just those produced by the publisher. What better way to condense a market segment and become a destination site for Self-Help, Spirituality, Mysteries, Computer and any number of other book-publishing segments. Consumers aren't dumb. Amazon's main attraction is that all the titles in any one segment are available in one place. As long as publishers continue to ignore this fact, they will under-serve the market and under-perform given the investment in their sites.
Last Days of the Audiobook Cassette
In the wake of Hachette's last cassette-based audiobook, the New York Times eulogizes a format many thought was already long gone:
Cassettes have limped along for some time, partly because of their usefulness in recording conversations or making a tape of favorite songs, say, for a girlfriend. But sales of portable tape players, which peaked at 18 million in 1994, sank to 480,000 in 2007, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. The group predicts that sales will taper to 86,000 in 2012.
Related Stories:
- Stay Connected
-
TOC RSS Feeds
News Posts
Commentary Posts
Combined Feed
New to RSS?
Subscribe to the TOC newsletter. 
Follow TOC on Twitter. 
Join the TOC Facebook group. 
Join the TOC LinkedIn group. 
Get the TOC Headline Widget.
- Search
-
- Events
-
Tools of Change for Publishing Conference
Thanks for making TOC 2009 a success! Visit the TOC conference site for session videos, presentation slides and show coverage.
- TOC In-Depth
-
Impact of P2P and Free Distribution on Book Sales This report tests assumptions about free digital book distribution and P2P impact on sales. Learn more.
The StartWithXML report offers a pragmatic look at XML tools and publishing workflows. Learn more.
Dive into the skills and tools critical to the future of publishing. Learn more.
- Tag Cloud
- TOC Community Topics
-
Tools of Change for Publishing is a division of O'Reilly Media, Inc.
© 2009, O'Reilly Media, Inc. | (707) 827-7000 / (800) 998-9938
All trademarks and registered trademarks appearing on oreilly.com are the property of their respective owners.
O'Reilly Media Home | Privacy Policy | Community | Blog | Directory | Job Board | About
