Store notes

It's what independent booksellers have been saying for years, but you don't really know it in your bones until you do the work: a neighborhood independent bookstore is an irreplaceable part of the community in ways that a chain bookstore is not. Because you don't just go to the bookstore to get books. You go for an experience.

Yesterday, I was noticing how sad it was getting - big holes in the bookcases, customers coming in with condolences - and I ran out and bought two dozen pink roses and some chocolates. Stuck the roses in a vase and the chocolates in a dish on the corner of the cashwrap - and made sure to keep upbeat music on the stereo - and the mood changed. People were more cheerful. And they came in for stacks and stacks of books.

Beyond that, though, one finds oneself helping the neighborhood on a personal level. If a bookstore is welcoming, people come in - with their problems. A little boy came in last night with his mother. She was, it turned out, so drunk that she nearly collapsed at the register. (Later I found out that this happens quite a bit with this particular woman.) Another customer tried to help but she really was too much for him; meanwhile the little boy was...exquisite and charming, trying so hard to be a little man. We got his grown-up big brother to come and take care of them and walk them home.

The little boy loves Calvin and Hobbes, it turns out - that's why he came into the store. Now I know that he goes to my daughter's school, and I can ask the teachers to keep a special eye on him, let the school librarian know of his passion for Calvin and Hobbes...and if the store were continuing past this week, I'd be able to set aside books specifically for him.

Chain bookstores are wonderful in their own way - you can be pretty much assured you'll get what you went in for, and browsing among all those titles is awesome. But an independent bookshop (particularly one that sells used books, strange out-of-print arcana) has a magic of its own - maybe it's not essential to a neighborhood, any more than music or film or good design is essential to life...but, like music and film and good design, I certainly wouldn't want to live without that neighborhood magic. 

August blues

Dep't of Now I've Heard Everything

Galleycat reports this morning that CafeScribe is offering a new product for ebook readers.

A survey of 600 college students conducted by pollster Zogby International between August 15 and 21 found that 43 percent of students identified smell, either a new or old smell, as the quality they most liked about books as physical objects.

And so...smelly ebooks. CafeScribe is supplying every ebook purchaser with a scratch-n-sniff sticker that smells of old books. 

iTunes getting hit from all sides

B&N: If We Didn't Stock It

B&N won't be stocking "If I Did It" in its stores - yay, Steve! - making it available to interested customers only online and via special order.

Borders, on the other hand, will be stocking it. According to PW:

A spokesperson for Borders was more optimistic about If I Did It’s prospects, explaining that the retailer will carry the title, "since there will be customers who have an interest in purchasing the book." She added, however, Borders "will not promote or market the book in anyway." She said Borders chose to sell the book because, "We believe in our customer's right to make his or her own choices about reading and listening material, and to support that right we feel it is our job to make a full range of choices available, without regard for our own preferences."

Snarks one source at B&N, "Also, they don't really have much of an online presence, so selling in stores is pretty much their only option."

Twenty-seven percent???

A sad statistic from AP this morning: 27% of American adults haven't read a book in the past year.

The poll reports that oddly, those of us in the Northeast are least likely to pick up a book - due to competition from the Internet and other media (on-demand movies?). And of course, in rural areas, reading is a less likely pursuit.

Perhaps if rural areas were better served by bookstores, there'd be a little shift in these numbers. 

Twenty percent???

With the help of a few moles, I've done a calculation of all who have left Muze in the last 9 months (voluntarily or not) and it's about 20% of their payroll.

And you'd be running this company with no product managers and no sales force and no IT...how? 

BookRenter.com

The textbook industry has long been pained with astronomically rising prices - $900/year on average - and a new company is trying to help students ameliorate this situation with a rental program. For half the cost of the textbooks, students can rent the books for anywhere between 30 and 125 days. According to their press release:

There are no monthly fees, and shipping is available in three methods: ground, 2 day and next day. After finals, students mail the book back in a pre-paid envelope, similar to online DVD rental programs. If a customer decides to keep a book, they simply pay the difference between the purchase price and rental cost.

With Amazon as a partner, students need not worry about limited inventory or selection. BookRenter.com boasts hundreds of thousands of titles, all searchable by title, author or ISBN number on its intuitive interface. In addition to book rental, customers can also choose to buy books outright.

Sounds pretty cool. 

Wal-Mart selling music downloads without DRM

Wal-Mart will soon be offering DRM-free downloads of recordings from Universal and EMI, says the Wall Street Journal this morning. Unlike EMI, Universal will not make these recordings available to iTunes - meaning Apple is shut out from their distribution.

The Journal observes,

Apple uses its own DRM software, which doesn't work with services or devices made by competitors, resulting in locking owners of its popular iPod music players into buying the most popular mainstream music Apple's the iTunes store, and not from its competitors. Record companies have blamed this lock-in for limiting digital-music sales, which account for around 15% of all recorded-music sales in the U.S.

LongPen to arrive in stores

The LongPen device, invented by an exhausted Margaret Atwood, will arrive in stores shortly as a beta test ramps up in the US, Canada and England. According to the Book Standard,

The trial run for the device will allow authors, musicians and celebrities to autograph items from another location and talk with fans via videoconferencing.

B&N, HMV, and Waterstone's are participating. 

The Big Picture - What would YOU like to see us do next?

Back at the desk

After a brief sojourn in Southern Delaware, eating steamed crabs, corn on the cob, and amazing tomatoes, we are back in Brooklyn just in time for some crappy weather. Oh boy!

Check out today's Big Picture for a rant on how an area with a population of 175,000 has no bookstore!!! It's scandalous. 

HarperCollins Titles on Your iPhone

MediaBistro reports this morning that HarperCollins will be distributing book excerpts via the iPhone:

"Reaching consumers on mobile devices and the Internet is increasingly important for publishers," Brian Murray, president of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, said in a statement that noted the publisher has some 10,000 titles already digitized. "Our digital warehouse gives us the unique opportunity to quickly offer access to our titles on the newest technology, and we encourage people to provide feedback about their experiences."

Ingram Offers MyiLibrary to Public Libraries

Ingram has opened the gates of MyiLibrary to its public library clients, according to a release I just received this morning. MyiLibrary has over 70,000 ebook titles, with about 1000 added every month. A "tethered" system which allows patrons to access ebooks online (rather than downloading them for checkout), MyiLibrary also features a multi-user option, which lets 3 patrons access the same title simultaneously.

More information is here. 

Borders Publishing Employee's Fiction

Borders announced a companywide fiction contest - the grand prize, of course, being published in Borders's proprietary program.

Needless to say, Gawker was all over that one. 

Romance Writing Meets Web 2.0

Gather.com, the social networking site that shares its ad revenue with users, is sponsoring a romance writing contest in conjunction with Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster:

From August 1 through August 22, aspiring romance writers will have the opportunity to submit a full-length romantic fiction manuscript for consideration. Over the course of the competition, authors will post chapter one of their manuscripts in the First Chapters Romance Group. These chapters will be rated by the Gather community and the Gather Editorial Team, and five finalists will be selected through two rounds of voting. (See our new voting guidelines.) One Grand Prize Winner will then be chosen for publication by a panel of judges.

The winner receives a guaranteed publishing contract with Pocket Books and a $5000 advance. More info can be found here. 

Globe Pequot and Perseus join up with DailyLit

PW reports that DailyLit has enlisted Globe Pequot and Perseus as part of its program to provide books incrementally to readers using via email or RSS:

In addition to Perseus and Globe, other publishers that have signed on with DailyLit include Baen Books, Berlitz and Kaplan. Under the DailyLit model, the company will e-mail book installments of about 1,000 words to a customer's device of choice for a fee that will likely be under $5.

Springer Publishes Ebook Survey

Library Journal reports that Springer has released the results of its ebook survey:

Specifically, librarians commented that ebooks eliminate the need for physical handling and storage, eased space issues, and "nearly eliminated damage or loss concerns." But librarians also noted that ebooks offer librarians something they truly love: better, more meaningful usage statistics, which respondents said aids "decision-making about collection development and budgets."

The down side? The licensing process - having to work with numerous vendors, under numerous terms. 

SharedBook hires Peter Budd

Peter Budd, formerly of Hertz, has joined SharedBook as VP of Product Development and User Experience, reports the Book Standard:

According to SharedBook, Budd will guide the innovation and implementation of the user interface for all web-based applications, like the Blog2Print widget, which launched an enhanced version, updating the original beta version, last week.

OCLC Opens Office in Beijing

B&T in the midst of wrangling

Baker & Taylor is getting it from all sides (and giving it too, apparently). According to an article in Publishers Weekly, B&T is seeking $1.75 million from AMS for "services rendered and expense" (AMS is in turn seeking $6.2 million in "wrongfully withheld" funds from B&T). The suits and counter-suits are expected to be resolved next week.

Meanwhile, PW reports, PMA has had to intercede on behalf of its members regarding numerous complaints about slow payments from B&T.  

Dept of Holy Shit: Angus & Robertson

Michael Cader reports this morning that Angus & Robertson, the Australian book chain, has sent a letter to the publishers from which it buys its books, saying in effect that if A&R can't sell a certain number of each publisher's titles, those pubs will have to fork over cash to make up "the gap".

Jaw-dropping.

Times Discovers E-books; Slow News Day Confirmed

The NY Times today has an article about ebooks which honest-to-God says very little except that...people are reading them. On their phones.

Now, granted, articles like this are quite useful for those of us looking to justify the effort and expense of creating digital standards, or looking to figure out how to trade individual chunks of books. Wave this article around and get your airfare to New York (or your membership in BISG - hem, hem, AUDIBLE.COM) taken care of.

What I found interesting is that this particular article emphasized the trade in romance titles:

But lately, the lists are led by romance and women’s fiction. The top seller at Fictionwise yesterday was “Lady Beware” by Jo Beverley. The top seller at both Mobipocket and eReader recently was “The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever” by Julia Quinn.

“The public’s attitude is that electronic media is disposable,” said Nick Bogaty, the executive director of the International Digital Publishing Forum. “Mystery and romance are priced lower, and there’s an argument to be made about trade e-books that the consumers want a lot of product, and they want it relatively inexpensively.”

Another advantage of the format, he said, is that “on the subway, you don’t need to be embarrassed by the cover.”

Interesting on 2 counts. One is that in yesterday's issue of The Big Picture, Steve Potash also confirmed romance as a top category in Overdrive's Digital Library Reserve. Two is that Gawker just covered this on July 31st. Or, well, their version of it.

Muze rearranges deck chairs, ignores flooding

Muze announced yesterday that it had put Adam Klein, formerly of EMI and now running a company called VideoEgg, on its board of directors.

Klein used to teach change management at Harvard Business School. Wonder if he can teach Muze to stop losing talented people. 

CreateSpace, the on-demand media company bought by Amazon in 2005, has launched a POD service, reports Shelf Awareness this morning.

CreateSpace provides an ISBN, Search-Inside functionality, and makes its products eligible for all Amazon shipping options. For now, set-up is free, and there are referrals to BookSurge services for additional fees.

The Big Picture

The Big Picture - nterview with Steve Potash, CEO Overdrive-Digital Library Reserve

Fake Steve Now at Forbes

Another Muzer Out

iPhone Content Op Seminar

For those publishers interested in selling fragments (poems, quotations, recipes, etc.) of titles for use on mobile devices, a seminar sponsored by PaidContent.org:

This seminar for content executives will examine opportunities with the launch of iPhone and how it is shifting views of the mobile content platform, and the larger developments in the industry with emerging consensus on open networks and free flow of content. Now that the iPhone is here, how does it move the industry forward? Also, what do the iPhone’s omissions say about the progress that still needs to be made? What kind of services can the industry hope for, as the handset evolves into an open platform?

Amazon Groceries

Meanwhile, Amazon has "quietly" started delivering perishable groceries in a Seattle suburb, the WSJ reports:

In the late '90s, a handful of online grocery-delivery companies such as Webvan Group and Homegrocer.com Inc. launched with fanfare but failed spectacularly when their sales didn't keep pace with the massive investment they had to make in infrastructure, like warehouses and delivery vans. Amazon, which is based in Seattle, was an early investor in Homegrocer.com.

For its own service, dubbed Amazon Fresh, the company plans to store the groceries at a local refrigerated warehouse and to deliver them itself in "temperature-controlled totes" using 12 trucks of its own...

As we know in New York, online grocery shopping works if you don't mind huge lumbering refrigerated trucks hulking on the side streets. 

Amazon Vine

Amazon announced the other day the launch of their Amazon Vine program, which will provide advanced reader's copies of certain titles to their customer reviewers on request.

Meanwhile, LibraryThing gently points out that they started doing this first. 

Ebooks Could Boost Literacy

A study being conducted by researchers at Ball State University suggests that elementary school students who are "reluctant readers" may prefer to do their reading on an ebook device:

A team of graduate students led by Richard Bellaver, associate director of Ball State’s Center for Information and Communications Sciences, is in the midst of a multi-year study designed to test the effectiveness of the wireless handheld device as a reading tool....“The evidence from teachers says that the kids are more interested and the poor readers are more eager to use the eBooks,” Bellaver said.

Never underestimate the "coolness factor". 

Other Book Tech News

There isn't any. The Times scooped everyone today. All the other websites are quoting the very Times articles I am.

Oh, God, clearly it is summertime.... 

"Exaggerating" Copyright?

The Times is chock-full of book-industry stories today (were they saving them all up?) and of course in the business section there was the article about Yahoo, Microsoft and Google - in the guise of their trade association, CCIA - filing an FTC complaint against the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBC, Harcourt and Penguin, stating that these companies

display copyright warnings that are a “systematic misrepresentation of consumers’ rights to use legally acquired content.”

The complaint alleges that the warnings may intimidate consumers from making legal use of copyrighted material, like photocopying a page from a book to use in class.

“It is an attempt to convince Americans that they don’t have rights that they do in fact have,” said Ed Black, the association’s president and chief executive. “This is part of the larger context of what should be and what are proper rules for copyright in an Internet age.”

Are Audiobooks Cheating?

Is listening to the audiobook cheating?

Despite my consultancy with Audible, which lasted 10 weeks and put me nose-to-nose with the audiobook industry, I have never managed to become a diehard audiobook fan. To me, reading is a physical thing, and active and pleasurable thing, while listening is a passive thing that I just don't find as fun. But not everybody shares my love of curling up with a book - my youngest daughter is a devotee of audiobooks and my feeling is...however you can get the story, get it.

The Times has an article today about audiobook-philes, and the snobbery surrounding audiobooks. (Frankly, I think it says more about the general snobbery of book clubs than anything else.) What I found most interesting were the statistics, of course:

People are pressed for time, and so growth in the audio book industry has been brisk, with overall sales (downloads, CDs and cassettes) at $871 million in 2006, up 5 percent over the previous year.

Espresso in 15 minutes

The Times this morning has an article buried in the "NY/Region" section about the Espresso, Jason Epstein and Dane Neller's print-it-in-15-minutes press:

Mr. Neller’s firm [On Demand Books, which oddly doesn't appear to have its own website] is pitching the book machine, which may eventually sell for $20,000 or more, principally toward the nation’s 16,000 public libraries and 25,000 bookstores. A 300-page book costs about $3 to produce with the machine. A bookstore or library could then sell it to customers or library members at cost or at a markup.

Why bother? The machine, Mr. Neller said, is for the “far end of the back list,” those books that are out of print or for which there is so little demand that it would be too costly to print a few hundred copies, let alone one.

At the risk of letting the long tail wag the dog, it's nevertheless pretty cool. 

Obligatory Murdoch Post

Further Muze News

MyStrands Hires Ex-Muzers

Generally, it's about 9:00 by the time I can tell if I'm blogging or not - if there's any news (or non-news) worth posting. But today I was held up - ex-Muzers have landed at a new company and I wanted to talk with one of them to get the scoop.

MyStrands is a recommendation engine that started up last year and is expanding rapidly. Scott Lehr, formerly VP of Biz Dev at Muze, and Gary Geller, formerly VP of Sales at Muze, have moved into similar positions over at MyStrands; they are setting up the NY office (literally, when I spoke to Scott, he was out on the street meeting a real estate agent), and formalizing the business office of MyStrands out of New York.

Originally using music as a content to develop the recommendation engine, MyStrands is now migrating to other forms of content: movies, credit-card purchases, any "strand" of purchasing/renting behavior that can be personalized into a picture of consumer behavior. They are developing a B2C site, as well as B2B operations.

Recommendation engines were all the rage in the 90s, but now that there's so much content available digitally (and so much improvement in technology), the idea of a renaissance is pretty exciting.