TOC Evolvers: WingedChariot Press

Neal Hoskins and the wonderful world of picture book apps

Kat Meyer
August 17, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

WingedChariot is a young publisher of international, multi-lingual picture books. Founded in 2005 as a print publisher, WingedChariot made launched into digital in 2009--and were the first paper publisher to bring out a picturebook on the iphone. Winged Chariot's founder Neal Hoskins, interviewed below will be presenting on app development and marketing October 5 at TOC Frankfurt.

Why apps (as opposed to other digital book options)?
Apps allow for the experience of touching, playing, drawing, reading and that's something kids love. We don't want to restrict that experience with formats, especially with children's picture books, why limit digital with just one format?

The user interface for your picture book apps is very intuitive. Was that intentional?
Yes and no. It grew out of our book publishing. The design aesthetic that we ascribed to in print was very simple and clean. When it came to digital, we gravitated toward simple and clean in our user interface as well -- we went with what best served the book, and in the process we learned that kids "get" it. They don't need a lot of instruction, or arrows, or highlighted objects. In fact, if you have to use lots of icons in your user interface, you've probably failed. You shouldn't need two pages of instructions on how to read a book.

What do you say to the argument that book apps are potentially more distracting to children than they are educational?
I'd say there's no clear yes or no. Some kids might do better with paper and text, others might learn better with an interactive book app, and some kids who might never have otherwise taken interest in books, might find a love for reading via apps. Literature can be accessed different ways. The bigger question might be: if a device does more than one thing, how tempting is it for a child to pop in and out of that book, and attempt to multi-task? But maybe kids grow up with that around them and learn to deal with all that.


Read more…

APPSTART

Of books as experiences and the ever-increasing need for "unlibraries."

Chris Meade
August 17, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

A good book at bedtime helps a child to wind down, to float away into their imaginations and from there, drift off to sleep. Reading books together help parent and child to bond, to relax, to share. In contast TV and computer games have traditionally been thought of as winding children up, cutting them off from their inner selves and intimate relationships. Isolated? Alienated?
 
And that may be a crass generalization, but now that we can find stories on mobiles as well as on pages, we realise that a book isn't an object at all but an experience. Meanwhile the mainstream literary community has been so fixated on defending paper books, they've failed to find other ways to define what they most want to preserve about our literary culture.
 
Bookstart is one amazing project which slips books into children's lives in the most elegant way. All parents in the UK having their beloved newborn checked over by the Health Visitor at eight months are given a linen bag by this trusted agent of wellbeing. The bag contains two beautifully written and illustrated board books plus an attractively illustrated booklet for parents on the pleasures and benefits of sharing books with babies.  The book stays in the toy box of the child who may not have any other book in the home. The scheme promotes the library as a free, family friendly place to go, and, whether or not parents can read well themselves, all can enjoy showing the pictures to a gurgling babe who will point and laugh merrily. Mums and dads like to be seen with the Bookstart bag, proclaiming their love of books and baby, and the reading habit is embedded in family life. This scheme is run by Booktrust of which I was CEO until 2007.
 
Read more…

What publishers can and should learn from "The Elements"

Theodore Gray, author of "The Elements," on interactivity, apps vs. ebooks, and the future of print.

Mac Slocum
August 12, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (5) | Listen

"Gorgeous" isn't often associated with ebooks. "Useful," perhaps. "Easy," certainly. But most of the time, ebooks are decidedly utilitarian.

That's not the case with Theodore Gray's "The Elements." The iPhone and iPad editions are a significant milestone in the marriage of text, photos and deep interactivity.

Gray recently fielded a host of my questions. The full interview is after the jump -- and I recommend giving it a read because Gray's perspective is quite valuable -- but I also want to call out three important points he made:

1. The level of interactivity and multimedia included in a digital edition must be decided on a case-by-case basis. "There were a whole lot of ideas for interactivity that we didn't put in, because they didn't pass the test of actually making the book better," Gray said, discussing the iPad edition of "The Elements."
2. Truly useful interactivity requires skill sets beyond those commonly found in publishing companies: videography, audio, programming, etc. If you want to produce a great ebook (or app), you need to bring in people who can make that happen. "Programmers need to be treated as top talent, just like authors," Gray said.
3. Gift giving is directly related to the physical nature of print books. "A gift code for a copy of the ebook is really just not the same thing," he said.

You'll find the full interview and lots more insight below.

Read more…

TOC Evolvers: OR Books

John Oakes shares a bit about OR Books

Kat Meyer
August 7, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (3) | Listen

This marks the first entry in our "TOC Evolvers" series wherein we shall profile folks who are doing something different in the world of publishing. If you know of a forward thinking, publishing-related business, organization, or individual who might make for a good TOC Evolvers profile, please let us know!

ToC:What does OR Books do? When were you established? How many employees do you have?
John Oakes: OR Books is driven by two concepts. Well, three. One: the current system of distribution and production, returns and discounts, in publishing doesn't work for stores, authors, or publishers. Two: we will publish politically progressive and culturally adventurous work. Three: the classic rules of publishing still hold true: you need good editing, design, and marketing.

To address the first concept, we decided to scratch the Byzantine rules that surround the distribution and production of books: we sell straight to consumers, do intensive marketing, and then license the book to "traditional publishers." We generally do not sell to wholesalers or booksellers, be they independent, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. We are "platform agnostic," offering consumers their books as ebooks or in physical, printed form. They choose.

We started operations in the fall of 2009, and had a riproaring debut with GOING ROUGE: Sarah Palin, an American Nightmare. Since then, we've signed up a number of really exciting authors, including Norman Finkelstein, Doug Rushkoff, Chris Lehmann, Eileen Myles, Bill McKibben, Laura Flanders, Sue Coe and others.

We're a total of four people, plus one intern.

ToC: What drove you to create OR Books?
JO: Colin (Colin Robinson, co-found of OR Books)  found himself expelled from Simon & Schuster, and I, after two decades working in independent presses, became convinced there had to be a better way to do business. This all coincided with our discovery of something called "the Internet," which holds the promise of zooming in on interested consumers wherever they may lurk. Publishing is like the weather: we all talk about it, but no one's doing anything to fix it. So we decided to give it a try.

Read more…

Links of Interest

Publish books with WordPress, Cheap and lazy in abundance, new stats on how we use mobile

Kat Meyer
August 6, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Another week comes to an end and once again I offer up items I've stumbled upon over the past few days -- some are so-called news, others are more or less just stuff you might find interesting, but all are somehow or the other related to this thing we currently call publishing.

Anthologize and "One Week, One Tool"
The tool is cool-- the process of creating the tool? Even cooler!
From the Anthologize website:

Anthologize is a free, open-source, plugin that transforms WordPress 3.0 into a platform for publishing electronic texts. Grab posts from your WordPress blog, import feeds from external sites, or create new content directly within Anthologize. Then outline, order, and edit your work, crafting it into a single volume for export in several formats, including--in this release--PDF, ePUB, TEI.

From Dan Cohen's blog: "Thoughts on One Week, One Tool"

If you haven't already done so, you should first read the many excellent reports from those who participated in One Week | One Tool (and watched it from afar). One Week | One Tool was an intense institute sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities that strove to convey the Center for History and New Media's knowledge about building useful scholarly software. As the name suggests, the participants had to conceive, build, and disseminate their own tool in just one week. To the participants' tired voices I add a few thoughts from the aftermath.

#FF  (click here for a list of the folks involved with "1 Week 1 Tool" and their twitter IDs)
Read more…

#FollowReader: Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading

Kat Meyer
August 4, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Note from the editor: #FollowReader is a weekly Twitter-based conversation focusing on topics of interest to the the book and reading community. Co-hosted by me (@KatMeyer), and Charlotte Abbott (@CharAbbott), and sponsored by NetGalley (@NetGalley), #FollowReader features guests from all over the book publishing world. In partnership with NetGalley, TOC will be cross-posting summaries of the weekly #FollowReader chats each week both here on the TOC blog, and at the FollowTheReader site. ~ Kat

On last Thursday's #FollowReader, we welcomed Kelly Gallagher, VP of Publishing Services at RR Bowker (@DiscoverBowker). Kelly oversees the ongoing study, "Consumer attitudes Toward E-Book Reading" with the Book Industry Study Group, and during Thursday's #FollowReader chat, Kelly previewed some of the results from their most recent survey. The study itself is the result of surveying thousands of ebook readers, several times during the year (first in November 2009, then in January 2010, and most recently in July 2010). The survey respondents answer questions such as: Read more…

TOC Call for Participation Now Open

Kat Meyer
August 4, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

The O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference, happening February 14-16, 2011 at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, is an inclusive meeting ground for exploring the options, a gathering place for collaboration, and an unparalleled opportunity for in-person inspiration. At TOC, stake holders from across the book publishing and tech industries will share ideas, engage in lively debate, and consider the many issues we face individually and collectively.

Want to contribute to the discussion at a higher level? If so, you're invited to submit a proposal to speak at TOC 2011.

On Covers

James Bridle
August 2, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (10) | Listen

I've been thinking about covers for a while now. One of the many great debates around the ephemeralisation of music has been the lamentations for the loss of cover art: now, we are reaching the same point with books.

I say ephemeralisation rather than digitisation because it's not just a physical transformation we're going through, it's a cognitive one. I've been repeating Walter Pater's famous quote in my head a lot: "all art aspires to the condition of music". Pater argued that "For while in all other works of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it." One way of seeing this 'condition' of music is that it is abstract, it is all around us, it is ever-present and always available, but intangible. Literature, cloud-based or electronically present, accessible on this or that device, encountered in differing forms and extractions, quoted and misquoted, has been separated from the physical book, with all the dissonance this implies.

Anyway. Covers.

"Don't judge a book by its cover" has never been more true. This is not good:

But this is the way most of us see covers now: as blurred little icons; nothing like the designer / art director / marketing dept. envisaged, and no use for their intended purpose.

This particularly sprung to mind this week with the arrival of Andrew Wylie's Odyssey Editions, an ebook-only classics imprint designed and built by my old employer Enhanced Editions. The covers are, of course, beautiful:

The covers are typographic, and hark back in particular to the famous Pelican cover for John Berger's Ways of Seeing, where the text starts on the front cover. But it struck me that they are not covers in any traditional sense: they have nothing to cover. They are icons. Signifiers. And more crucially, they're not there to sell the book directly; they are marketing material separated from the point-of-sale.

Cover art only sells physical books. In an ideal world we would get rid of cover art altogether. This is probably what JD Salinger desired, in his refusal to countenance any imagery at all on his book covers (a request that continues to be honoured, notably in Hamish Hamilton and Seb Lester's beautiful new editions).

If we're going to continue to use "covers" as marketing material, which presumably we will as long as digital texts have physical counterparts, we need to recognise that their reproduction is out of our control: they will be copied, linked, and reposted, at different resolutions and sizes (there's long been a muttering desire from publishers for the ability to supply Amazon with different covers for different size displays: this is one option, but not one Amazon seems happy with). We might also recognise that there are potentially many different jobs for the cover to do.

What do covers do now? They appeal aesthetically (something hard to do at 120 pixels high). They give space to blurbs and plaudits (it's OK, we're not space-limited any more). And they recommend (this is why all thriller covers look the same; why there is a blood-spattered crime vernacular; why every historical novel features a bodice and ruched velvet).

Text-based covers are one approach. Alongside Odyssey's, I've long been a fan of Melville House's novella series, and Reclam's uncompromising non-fiction:

This is recommendation through publisher branding: possibly the strongest icon-based approached.

But could we represent this recommendation somehow? Is there a better way? I'm not sure, but I like, for example, Stefanie Posavec's "representations" of OK Go's album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky", which formed that record's cover art:

I know I've been talking a lot about visualisation lately, and perhaps it's a passing thing. But it feels like we're missing an opportunity here, before book jackets go the way of album covers. To encode some of our knowledge of books in a way that's both attractive and useful to readers. To remake the cover in the service of the digital book. Representation and recommendation are two possible approaches. What others are there?

About James Bridle
James Bridle does things with books, mostly. With a background in both computing and traditional publishing, he attempts to bridge the gaps between technology and literature, whether that takes the form of writing about the publishing industry, consulting to leading international publishers, or actually being a publisher.

James created Bookkake, a small publisher using new technologies to bring new life to independent publishing, and Bkkeepr, an attention data service for bibliophiles. He writes about books and the publishing industry at booktwo.org and runs a series of websites including Quietube, an accidental anti-censorship proxy for the Middle East. In 2009 he helped launch Enhanced Editions, the first ereading application with integrated audiobooks.

 

(Note: this article originally appeared at booktwo.org)

Notable Bookish/Techy News, Links and Tweets: (you know - a roundup)

Kat Meyer
July 30, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Such a week. The prevailing theme this week was low, low prices! Yes, in a flurry of well-placed PR, Amazon took the e-reader pricing wars to new lows. Read all about it here.

Also newsy, but receiving considerably less fanfare (or, at least far fewer national talk show appearances), SkyRiver filed an anti-trust suit against Online Computer Library Center.

Some of my favorite blog posts this week:

Delusions, Illusions, and the True Costs of Digital Publishing by Kent Anderson at the Scholarly Kitchen:

Why I recommend it: It's about time we started acknowledging that digital does not equal cheap and/or easy, and in this post, Kent Anderson does a very nice job of explaining why.

Just this year, Clay Shirky invoked the "marginal cost" argument in his most recent book, "Cognitive Surplus," stating that, "Information can now be made globally available, in an unlimited number of perfect copies, at zero marginal cost."

However, for those of us inside the belly of the beast, just the opposite seems to be happening. That is, digital publishing seems to be getting more expensive while we wring costs out of print as we draw it down.

Vending Machine Library Hits the Spot by Joanne Chianello, The Ottawa Citizen

Leave it to the Canadians (why are they so darned cool?) to come up with something charmingly hip, yet undeniably good for the world -- library vending machines!

These library kiosks -- there are two of them in the foyer of the Hunt Club-Riverside Community Centre -- are the first of their kind in Canada. They work just like regular vending machines, except that users swipe their Ottawa library cards instead of inserting coins into the machine. And instead of buying a pack of gum, the user is borrowing a library book or DVD. The printed receipt tells the library customer when the item is due back.

At last count, almost 1,700 items have been checked out since the program began in April. One machine stocks children's materials, while the other offers items for teens and adults in both English and French. The selections are chosen by library staff from the most popular, in-demand titles. Between the two kiosks is a return bin, where residents can bring back not just items that they borrowed from the kiosks, but from any library in the city.

It's been such a hit, says Councillor Maria McRae, that she once saw a little boy hugging the machine.

Kickstartup: Successful fundraising with Kickstarter.com
& (re)making Art Space Tokyo
by Craig Mod.

Herein, Craig provides a very thorough reporting of how he used Kickstarter.com to fund the reprinting (and digitization) of his OP book Art Space Tokyo. Read it and learn!

The Technology of Reading: A Long View (pts i and ii) by Sheila Bounford, Off The Page.

Sheila has been doing some history reading, and connecting a lot of dots between publishing of the very distant past, and publishing in the here and now.
 

The technologies of reading and publishing have entwined and evolved since writing was first invented - often in response to the available resources and the cultural pressures in play as societies have changed. So over the next few days I'm planning a sequence of short posts on some of "eureka" moments I've experienced while reading the book.

Also of Note:

Jeff Bezos, Charlie Rose & a $139 Kindle: eBookNewser Live Blog by Jason Boog, eBookNewser

My favorite part of the Amazon news this week - it unseated Andrew Wylie as most over-discussed topic in publishing of late. Well, leave it to Jason Boog of eBookNewser to turn the tables on us with his live-blogging/tweeting of the Jeff Bezos/Charlie Rose interview.

Yes, Jason (who is surely the hardest-working man in publishing blogalism), faithfully live-tweeted the interview, dutifully reporting throughout the absence of Wylie mentions:

11:42 STILL NO MENTION OF WYLIE/AMAZON DEAL!!!!

11:44 Publishing journalist Sarah Weinman is still awake. "Favorite part of @ebooknewser liveblogging Bezos on Charlie Rose: 11:42 STILL NO MENTION OF WYLIE/AMAZON DEAL!!!!"
 
11:42 STILL NO MENTION OF WYLIE/AMAZON DEAL!!!!"

11:55: Show wraps. No mention of Wylie deals and very little attention focused on eBook pricing.

Doh!

And in wrapping, I offer you one Liza Daly (@Liza) with a few words of wisdom regarding Amazon and their real ace in the hole:

Metadata, Not E-Books, Can Save Publishing...

Nick Ruffilo
July 29, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (13) | Listen

Metadata is king. I will repeat this as it is important. Metadata is king.

I need not go through the barrage of articles and statistics that show that publishing is in a minor state of panic. Revenues are down and until recently (past 1-2 years) many publishers were unsure how they should play with e-books (many are still not completely settled in their e-strategy). The reason that e-books will not save publishing is that all they are is another format. E-books will not revolutionize reading, nor will they change the content. I've seen some social reading projects (copia) but they are in beta and I cannot make a prediction if readers are willing to accept a completely new reading experience.

Some statistics:
* There are roughly 230MM adults in the US.
* US Literacy rate is 99% - leaving 227.7MM adults in the US who can read.
* 28% of US adults are avid (5+ hours/week) readers [Verso] - 64MM Avid reader
* 20% of book purchasing happened online [PW 2007] This has grown, but is still under 30% (have heard via word-of-mouth from some book stats people but cannot quote them).

Why won't e-books save publishing?
E-books represent a format, just like hardcovers and paperbacks. Because they are a different format, they require different pricing. Things that are consumed and priced differently do open themselves up to a new market but unless that new consumption method is revolutionary, the growth (new readers) to the market cannot be large. E-readers will never be purchased by non-readers in the hopes of becoming readers (until they reach an extremely cheap price-point). The iPad is one such device that can create new readers. Its conceivable that someone who would buy an iPad and is not a book buyer, but because they can do so while sitting in their La-Z-Boy, will buy a book. If they like that book, they may even buy another. Ok. Now re-read that last statement. "If they like that book, they may even buy another." If they don't like the book, their sentiment of "this is why I don't buy books" will be solidified. Another non-book-buyer remains a non-book-buyer.

According to the Wikipedia bestselling books chart Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code sold over 80 Million copies. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows sold at least 44 Million copies. Does that mean that nearly every avid reader bought the last Harry Potter book? Does that mean that every avid reader bought 1.25 copies of Da Vinci Code? No. It means that people who normally don't read books opened their wallets to buy and read a book. That means that 163 million non avid reader Americans are potential readers.

How to capture some of those 163 million and get avid readers to buy more.
Simple: Give them what they want and more of it. How do we do this? Metadata. It's that simple. Tech people love metadata. We eat it up and beg for more and build amazing utilities around it. In fact, Pandora is an amazing example of what metadata can do for music. But, a limiting factor of Pandora is their selection and their metadata gathering techniques (they have to do it manually). How does metadata sell? Let me start with an anecdote.

The book Paradox of Choice talks about how people tend to shut down when shown too many options. If you're a seasoned book buyer, when you walk into a bookstore (or are browsing Amazon or another online retailer) you know exactly where to go for bargain-bin books, where your favorite genre is located, and where the new releases section. If you're new to reading, a bookstore is extremely intimidating. Don't believe me? Go wander into an electronics expo, the car audio section of a Best Buy, or some sporting goods store (assuming you're not a tech-geek, car tinkerer, or sportsperson). You'll soon see that there are 14 different types of cables or gloves and all at different prices. How do you make your decision? Thankfully in those stores there are sales people who are trained to spot people like this and offer their help. Brick and mortar stores offer an information booth at best. Online you're left to your own devices...

Imagine you just finished reading a book. We'll take the Da Vinci Code. After putting it down you filled out a short survey which asked you what qualities you liked out of the book (lets call them tags). For me, I liked that it was a suspense novel, that it was a religious mystery, and that it took place in present day. Now, assume that this tag data was available for all books and that I could walk into a bookstore, hand them my little survey and they could show me 6 books. That would be much easier to chose from. In fact, if you showed me only 3 books, I may even buy all three. In the current environment, the best I could do was to buy more of Dan Brown's books (Author is the #1 reason why people buy books) and hope that he's written more than 1 book, or attempt to use the recommendation engines provided by online retailers. Recommendation engines are OK, but they are based on purchasing habits or in rare cases "those who liked also liked" which is fairly arbitrary and not nearly as good a predictor as metadata.

That is giving a user more of what they want. They read a book, extract from it what they liked and you give them books with similar qualities. Next is giving them what they want in the first place.

Giving a user what they want.
The best metadata we have in mass is category data. This data isn't exactly easy to wade through, but if you like romance, you can click on the "romance" category and see a list of books that are considered romance. For new readers, the amount of books within the romance category is daunting, plus what is "paranormal" and how do I know if I'll like it? Categories are also boxes that have connotations. Yes, books can live in multiple genres, but can a book have a vampire in it and not be a book about vampires? Can a book be a love story with an intimate scene without being romance? Tags help narrow down specific traits of a book. Some tags are already gathered but below are a list of tags I feel are important to gather:

• Page numbers (or word count). Its important for readers to know if this is a short read or long one.
• Time Period. (1990s, 1870s, future). Some people love historical fiction. Some people hate a specific time period.
• Categories. A category is a specific tag. But they don't live in hierarchies. A book can have the category tag "romance" and "vampires" independently. For non-fiction themes make great categories for example: "war" "history" "1900s" "war of 1912″
• Writing Style. Is this a 3-act play? Is this done in 3rd person or 1st person? Is this dialog heavy?
• Series. Is this part of a series? What number in the series? Is this an ordered series or just a collection of fiction built around a specific world?

I could go on and on with more data, but these are what I believe is the core. If every book had this data, you could essentially have an eharmony for books. You fill out a small profile of your likes and dislikes and now are shown a much smaller set of books to chose from. The best part of these selections is that there is a very good chance you'll like them. If you like a book, you're more likely to buy more books turning new readers into avid readers and avid readers into, well, hyper-avid readers.

To bring it all together, if you want to grow the market, you must do things better and in a new way. E-books aren't a new way to sell, just a new format to sell the same old books you've been selling for years. Make readers happy by providing them with the books they want.

About Nick Ruffilo: In 1998, Nick Ruffilo help to found CheatWorld.com and online video game cheats website that utilized early forms of metadata for recommendations. Afterward, he worked in helped to defining metadata standards for the financial industry from 2001-2008.

In 2008, he joined BookSwim and has worked to aggregate multiple sources of data as well as gather internal data to redefine the internal recommendation engine of BookSwim.

Book Publicity and Marketing: How Soon was Yesterday?

Kevin Smokler
July 28, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (17) | Listen

I spoke to a touring author last week who repeated this phrase about 9 times over a one hour coffee date.  "Everything's changed."

• She wasn't talking about digital pricing, vanishing review coverage, closing independent bookstores or KindlePadNookKobos (KPNK's) although I'm sure they had crossed her mind plenty. No, this afternoon she was a single-minded author/chief salesperson with a book to promote and a long road ahead staring immovably back at her. 

The "everything" therefore pressed up against her nose like store window. Around the publication of her last novel....

• There was still some debate over how much promotion authors did on their own vs. fulfilling marketing obligations set up by their publisher. That authors must promote, often on their own, is now an accepted reality.
  

• Authors promoted their books as long as their publicist worked on them, typically 3 months, longer if the book is a knockout success. Now, the time authors devote to book promotion, again often on their own, has increased dramatically. A year spent on events, conferences and festivals and maintaining a social media presence is no longer madly obsessive, but professionally responsible.

• Authors still wrestled over whether they should be using social media tools or not. Now authors debate not "whether" but "which." Is Twitter or Facebook or Blip.tv better for my promotional efforts? The answer is no longer "should I even bother?" 

• Marketing efforts were largely geared at review coverage or a guest spot in major media outlets. Those still matter but smaller media covering books has increased dramatically. The ubiquity of book-minded blogs, online radio stations, videocasts, and avid twitterers means an author can feel at once empowered ("There's always something I could be doing for my book!") and demoralized ("I will never be able to do enough.") 

Given that list, I figured it had been a solid 10 years since my author friend's last book. It had been 4. Her last novel hit shelves in 2006. 

With book marketing, everything has changed. We are now in the uncomfortable middle of not knowing what will work or what that even means. Does a successful marketing campaign mean increased sales (an effort that's "working" in the traditional sense) or does that ignore the intangible equity produced by social media and an author's raised profile? If an author has 50,000 twitter followers but can only sell 400 books, does that mean a) it's a lousy book b) the author is compelling but obnoxious c) those 50,000 followers mean nothing or d) publishers need to rethink their business model and value proposition if they can't convert someone who follows an author into someone who reads them? 

We don't know. An Uncomfortable Middle needs then to be a time of great fear leading to passionate experimentation. The genetically-quotable Clay Shirky put it best when he said "Nothing will work. Everything might." 

The "everything" Mr. Shirky refers to is a lot of little experiments which when tossed together may result in gumbo instead of sludge.

Is there a "what do to?" during the Uncomfortable Middle other than wait the experiments out? I've taken note of the following adjustments we as an industry can make right now.

• Education. Authors recognize they must promote their books themselves but don't know how or even where to begin. This means first a culture of openness and honesty must develop between publishers and authors, guided by a clarity of whom is responsible for what class of marketing efforts. Second, if publishers must spend limited time and resources on promoting a particular title, they owe it to the author to educate or at least pair them with the proper tools and materials on how to market for themselves.
  

• Conversation.  Smaller homegrown media makers enjoy hearing from authors, particularly in conversation with the author as fellow lover of literature and not simply a salesperson with soap flakes to push. Speaking personally and all other things being equal, I am more likely to recommend or buy the book of an author I find friendly and engaging on Twitter, in my favorite podcast, or at an informal live event. I am much less likely to do the same if I find the author wooden, standoffish, or seemingly uninterested in their readers attentions expect at high-priced, ticketed on-stage interviews. 

That doesn't mean that every author can or will be a sparkling conversationalist. But it is incumbent upon those that are to participate in the conversation; those that are less so to get over their shyness and simply be kind, generous people to their readers; and their publishers to loop proper reader/author interaction, in both real world and online setting, into the pre-pub process.

• Retention. We live in a loud, crowded world. It is far too easy for an author and their book to get lost if success depends too heavily on a single kind of media effort, on too limited a geographic reach, on too little time to get traction, on too much time spent in promoting to readers instead of in conversation with them. A hybrid model--live events, a social media presence, traditional media and conference appearances, publisher support--that empowers author to continue on after the traditional publicity window has closed seems the only logical way forward. 

Does that mean that publishers and authors will be working twice as hard to get half as much? Most likely. But we also need a larger definition of "much." If all marketing efforts--from lead title down to self-published author--are ultimately and only measured by sales, then we are tacitly saying that in fact nothing has changed, which we know isn't true. Naturally we shouldn't market books for our health. But perhaps there is another way to win, to have sales generate from deepening relationships with readers and books and authors a more consistent presence in the entertainment fabric of our lives. That's an "everything's changed" worth trying for.

About Kevin Smokler
Kevin Smokler is an author, journalist, speaker and entrepreneur. He's the editor of the anthology Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times (Basic Books, June 2005), which was a San Francisco Chronicle notable book of 2005. His writing has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The LA Times, Fast Company, and on National Public Radio.
 
In 2007, Kevin Smokler founded with Chris Anderson (editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine) BookTour.com, a complete set of online tools to help authors promote their books at a reasonable price, and the world's largest online directory of author and literary events. Kevin now serves as the company's CEO, regularly speaking at publishing industry conferences and book festivals throughout North America. In April of 2008, Amazon purchased a minority stake in BookTour.com.

Four Short Links (and One Semi-Short Ramble)

Kat Meyer
July 23, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

This is a round-up of sorts. Not all of these links have been bandied about in the book-o-sphere, and not all of them are even from this week, but they're all interesting to me. And, I hope, of interest to other folks with a penchant for publishing and tech and related.

First up - a nice take from Kassia Krozser on news that is only a few days old, and is nowhere near being played out...The Wylie Affair. Yes, it appears an agent has gone and done a crazy out-there thing and licensed some digital rights. Okay, so the rights were exclusive to Amazon/Kindle, and the print publisher thereof seems to think that they own the rights to the rights in question, but the madness that has ensued has convinced me of one thing only: Andrew Wylie knows how to get media attention. All else, remains to be seen.

BookSquare's Kassia Krozser makes more salient observations, and more elegantly. If only to to witness Kassia's talent for taking a topic that has elsewhere devolved into pure snarky speculation, and present it with a cool calm collectiveness, you should go and read: Today in a Publishing War.

Next on the agenda, CNET's David Carnoy gets a shout out for asking the media to take a closer look at the Kindle emperor's new clothes in his post,  "What Amazon Didn't Say About e-books." Along with some nice factoids and numbers, Carnoy offers those who might be a bit quick to gobble up a well-polished press release some good advice, "remember who's trying to control the narrative here. Amazon has an agenda. It wants to sell e-books. And lots of them."

Do not miss a gem of an article over at The Atlantic wherein Peter Osnos examines the ever-"about-to-debut" Google Editions. What Is Google Editions? asks Osnos. And while for many of us who follow such things, a more pressing question might be, "When is Google Editions?"-- I have to give Osnos major props both for nicely breaking down the potential "what," and for capturing my favorite quote of the year from the American Booksellers Association's Len Vlahos: "Now you can buy e-books from someone you love." (And Len, I hope now happens soon because I heart my indies!)

So here's where I start coloring outside the "weekly roundup" lines even more. This next one is a bit of a nuisance as one must register to read it, but it's well worth it (and really, as a techish pubby you ought already to be registered at the MobileRead Forums). In the latest addition to a discussion about Spanish ebookstore consortium Libranda, "Logesman" sheds some light on how Libranda does (or does not) work. If you have not been following the Libranda launch, this is a good place to get some background. Also, I truly dig the title of the post, so go and check out: "Libranda: the Spanish Armada, or how NOT to sell eBooks."

My final offering also falls well outside the weekly publishing roundup lines (a. it's not from this week; and b. it's not about publishing, exactly), but I think I can make a case for you to read it anyway. It's Digital Trends' profile of the music site Pandora. 

"Pandora Breaks the Odds, Has Bright Future Ahead" might be a little on the puffy PR side, but there is much that authors, book sellers (online and off) and publishers can learn from the trials and errors of Pandora. Among what seems to be working: innovative ideas including sharing ad revenue directly with artists; offering exclusive content; and creating customized listening lists that continually improve based upon algorithms AND customer input. In fact, it looks like the user data being gathered by Pandora might prove to be more valuable to Pandora (and to the artists and ad companies with which Pandora works) then the ad or subscription revenue itself. My personal favorite takeaway: Pandora founder Tim Westergren's traveling town hall meetings - in person events that are making Pandora not just a radio station, but an In Real Life community that Pandora users seem to love being a part of. Just some food for thought bookish friends...just some food for thought.

See(k)ing Opportunities

Mark Nelson
July 14, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

As someone in the retail channel for physical books, it might be hard to believe that book retailers have much to offer publishers in the way of advice about digital. Indeed, many have already written the physical channel for books off as a quaint piece of history about to go the way of record stores and newspapers. That does not have to be the case. Most of us would not give up our light bulbs for candles, but candles do still have a place. So too, retailers (and in my case, collegiate retailers - i.e., college bookstores) have great opportunities to be the purveyors of light bulbs and candles, digital and print. That is also true for publishers and those opportunities are ours to win or lose as we approach the future. Those of us thinking about that future have spent a great deal of time scanning the environment and talking with our customers (who are also your customers), and some of our observations might prove useful to publishers as well as the channels they use.

Observation 1: You can learn things from books.

Yes, a bit obvious given this audience, but sometimes the best observations are hidden in plain sight. As a former faculty member with interest in how organizations respond to large-scale technology-based change, the pending transformation of publishing and related industries is fascinating. Of course, I turn to books to try to help understand the trends and changes we are observing. In this case, I am thinking specifically of a particular book - Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation by James Utterback (Harvard Business School Press, 1996). This book may perhaps seem dated by publication year, but few references are more relevant to the forces affecting our industry today. I will use some of the concepts from Utterback's book to frame some of my subsequent observations.

Observation 2: Seeing waves of innovation for what they are.

Utterback talks about innovation occurring in waves across phases. There are two key waves: product innovation and business model innovation. Typically, product innovation occurs first. A new product or technology innovation emerges. As the product matures, companies tend to replicate and expand on the core features that consumers like. To gain critical mass for adoption, as well as economies of scale for suppliers, we begin to see the emergence of standards, and ultimately what might be seen as the "dominant design" upon which the emerging technology or product category is based.

The second wave of innovation focuses on business model innovation. In other words, once we have a better sense of the emerging product or technology, what business models will make that technology commercially successful? This is the window of opportunity for traditional and new players in a market to seize upon an emerging technology and define the future channels. The battle at this point is about market share - gaining enough share of mind and market to direct standards, business models, and shape the new channel for the emerging product.

Observation 3: We see the shift from one wave to the next.

E-readers are converging on a pair of dominant designs: the e-ink, dedicated reader device represented by examples like the Kindle or the Sony Reader; and, multi-function devices, perhaps best represented at this moment by the Apple iPad, or comparable devices like the Entourage Edge or the Kno tablet. With each of these technologies we see migration toward a standard set of features that replicate or enhance the intended reading experience over print books. At the same time we are seeing movement toward standard formats for e-books, such as EPUB.

Over the past six to eight months in particular we have observed a shift away from companies talking about their devices, and instead talking more about their platforms. The companies are as interested (or sometimes more interested) in selling the content than selling the device. As a dominant design emerges among content formats and device capabilities, they tout device agnosticism and push their platform as the business model of choice for capturing the customer flag. We are seeing the late stages of early device wars, and the first volleys of the platform wars.

Observation 4: Sometimes it takes a long time for change to happen quickly.

The emergence of a dominant design is critical. Typically it precedes the rapid adoption of a technology by the early majority of consumers. This point is sometimes referred to as the "knee of the curve" or the point where compound exponential or geometric growth begins to produce real numbers. More importantly, it usually immediately precedes the definition, or redefinition, of the channel and signals to the market that there is a defined window of opportunity. In other words, if you see a window of opportunity spanning the next five years, you do not want to wait four years and 11 months to do something about it. If you do it will be too late and you will have lost all potential market share in the channel to someone else. It is this point in the emergence of e-readers and e-books that we are seeing today.

Publishers, as suppliers of content to emerging platforms, have immense opportunity at this point in time to drive future business models and define their future distribution channels. That opportunity is not on a limitless time horizon. We must pick our partners wisely. We must experiment and pilot, and learn as much as we can, while still acting in a sufficiently expedient manner to have influence over and in fact shape our futures - whether as publishers or retailers, new entrants or incumbents. Our collective choices over the next few years are likely to have strategic implications far beyond our individual organizations. That is one window we cannot afford to leave closed.

Dr. Mark R. Nelson is the Digital Content Strategist for the National Association of College Stores (NACS), and VP for Strategy and Development for NACS Media Solutions. You can follow his blog on Course materials, Innovation, Technology, and Education (The CITE) at thecite.blogspot.com.

Indie ebooktailers and the Agency Model: Where Are They Now?

Kat Meyer
July 13, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (2) | Listen

"Even though the big five has been a small part of our bottom line, we do want them back and I don't want to do anything at this point to jeopardize our relationship with any of them. I definitely don't want to see a market where only Amazon, Apple,  and B&N are selling those titles." ~ anonymous indie ebook retailer

"It's ironic that the publishers who were going to level the playing field amongst retailers pretty much now only have their titles available on B&N and Amazon."  ~ anonymous indie ebook retailer

In the fast-paced news cycle generated around publishing and technology, the Agency Model discussion may seem like old news, but for indie ebook retailers, the story is still (rather slowly) being played out.

Just where do the indie etailers currently stand in regard to getting Big 5 titles back into inventory, and how has not having Big 5 titles available affected them? We asked these questions and more of Diesel ebook store's Kelley Allen. (Actually we asked a few other etailers and distributors, but only Kelley was brave enough to answer us on the record!)

ToC: When the Agency model contracts came into play, what was your plan of action?
KLA: Batten down the hatches and ride out the storm! We immediately informed our customer base about the changes and took all the titles down. That was all we could do in the meantime.

ToC:What were the implications for your business and for your customers, and how did you deal with it?
KLA: We posted a nice little blog called The Agency Model - Diesel's POV amid all the chaos and drama that we wrote when the whole A5 thing first went down in early April.

We were rather bummed since all the large multi-billion dollar corporate stores got all their A5 titles up rather quickly.  

As a result, we wrote a funny little melodramatic blog called JILTED that captured how we felt / still feel:

ToC:  Have publisher and distributor partners been good about communicating with you regarding where things stand/whether progress is being made?

KLA: No comment since we are negotiating with three of the A5.

Our other distributor, Mobipocket, just wrote a very short e-mail to all their distribution partners instructing us to pull all their A5 titles.  We posted on our blog about Mobipocket pulling their A5 titles.

ToC:  Where do you currently stand in terms of access to Big 5 titles? 

KLA:  We are currently selling HarperCollins and Penguin.  Penguin was the first go back up on the site on May 10^th (Day 40) and HarperCollins on May 13^th (Day 43).   

The new contracts all have confidentiality clauses and thus we are not at liberty to disclose terms. 

 

ToC:  Given that the wholesale pricing and terms will be changing (and possibly will vary according to publisher), how much work will it require to make programming changes on your site?

KLA:  Quite a lot of programming changes!  Matter of fact, we heard that a few of the smaller eBook retailers decided to just drop out since it was too much for them. 

We have a blog posted here about the implications of Sales Tax

We had to install a very comprehensive tax table to our backend system.

In addition, A5 allows for no discounts and thus we had to modify our entire system to identify any A5 and prevent discounts on the site. 

ToC: How is this affecting your bottom line? Are you losing customers? Are customers being supportive/ buying titles that you DO have?

KLA:  Our sales are down as a direct result.   However, we have been relatively vocal about any updates to our customer base and thus our customers are supportive. We also found that sales of titles for the Indies are increasing by large numbers.

ToC: A lot of the indie online ebook retailers, and their distributors, are reticent to talk about how the Agency Model disruption has affected their businesses. Do you worry that being vocal about the subject might offend your publisher and distribution partners?

KLA:  It's crossed our mind.  

 

ToC: So why the industry-wide silence? And why are you willing to talk when others don't seem to be?

KLA:  Well, basically our distributor needs to sign individual contracts for each retailer for each A5.  That means there could potentially be hundreds of contracts as a direct result of this.  So, you better be extra nice to your distribution partner and their publishers!

Scott and I decided that we wanted to be vocal about all this despite any potential repercussions (and there have been!)  

 
ToC: Have you been in discussion with non A5 publishers as to whether they are planning to go to agency model? 

KLA:  Yes.  I have been talking to quite a lot of the smaller publishers / indies.   Many seem not too anxious to jump full-heartedly into Agency and instead are adopting a "hybrid" approach - agency for Apple and wholesale for everyone else.  I asked one rather large and highly respected Indie about how they could do it legally.  They replied that there are some loopholes in the Apple contract to get around that issue. 

ToC: Are you looking forward to Google editions? care to share any thoughts about how Google Editions may affect your biz? have you been talking with them?
KLA:  We are not at liberty to talk any specifics but yes, we are excited about Google for a couple of different reasons.  One, they are having a calming influence on the eBook marketplace.  Two, they will be adding a whole different technical slant to the eBook experience for both the retailer and consumer.  We've always had a strong relationship with Google and expect that to continue

Ricoh Innovation's Visual Search Technology: A Potential Revolution for Booky Books

Kat Meyer
July 7, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

For those with a fondness for paper book reading, no ebook or book app or shiny, portable reading device can compare to the real thing. Some will cite their appreciation for quality paper stock and gorgeous typesetting. Others may tell you they love the smell or feel of books. And quite a few printed paper book diehards will say that there is nothing like a bound book for a truly engaging reading experience. For many, the  buttons and screens and links are anything but enhancements. 

I buy all these pro-booky book arguments and more, but I love the possibilities of digital books. It's a shame to give up all the potential webby goodness of an ebook for the tried and true goodness of paper books. Makes one wonder... what if one could have their printed bookish cake and eat it too? What if booky-books could transform, when so desired, into fully networked booky-books -- all without altering the design, the production, or the printed content?

Well, now they can. And, a small Palo Alto-based research center/start-up called Ricoh Innovations is leading the way.

How It Works
According to Jamey Graham, Distinguished Research Engineer at Ricoh, RI's technology is similar to that of QR codes, but uses the natural patterns of an object or a page as opposed to a barcode. "Over the last few years we've developed algorithms for indexing & recognizing visual patterns. Using an Android or iPhone device, readers can snap a picture of a region on the page (text or images, or a combination) and they will be presented with online material just as if they'd scanned a barcode."

With RI's visual search system, areas of a page are mapped and linked to corresponding content. RI has developed both cloud and mobile versions of their device recognition engines, and are hoping that publishers will recognize the opportunity that their particular approach to visual search can offer to the reading experience -- bridging the physical book with online media.

Ricoh recently launched their first app to accompany the soon-to-be-released novel by Matt Stewart, The French Revolution (Soft Skull). The app, dubbed the "French Rev," links pages in the book with web-based content including videos, recipes, and music. Geo location data alerts readers to mapped locations from events in the book (set in San Francisco) such as Coit Tower, Pier 39, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Why Publishers Should Be Excited About It:
It's relatively painless.
For one thing, publishers can take full advantage of RI's visual search technology regardless of how their books are designed or printed. Because RI's technology utilizes pattern recognition (as opposed to technologies such OCR), the visual search is not dependent on language, font or characters.

Oh, the data possibilities!
There's not a marketing person in publishing who doesn't salivate over the opportunities digital provides for consumer research. For books connected via visual search, the apps "phone home" with data on a regular basis. RI's visual search app records and reports which pages are scanned the most, the number of unique users that are scanning the location, the geo location of user, etc. Basically, any data that you can acquire they can track.

Why Readers Should Be Excited About It:
For "booky" book lovers and the digitally inclined alike, books embedded with RI's visual search offer the best of both worlds. Pretty bound books, enriched (at your convenience) with easily updatable web-based content, and no ugly QR codes to disrupt the reading experience.

How It Could Change the World
Ricoh has hopes to work with the Gates Foundation to create a visual search companion app for Hesperian's Where There Is No Doctor. As part of the project, villages would be provided with a smart phone and a copy of the physical book. In addition to providing instantaneous and crucial updates and revisions, the app would allow users in remote areas to view online maps of where medical experts are located, feature videos of procedures described in the book.