Harvard Coop: ISBNs are our intellectual property

In what must be one of the most incredible arguments in the world of book data, the Harvard Coop has been punting students out of its store for jotting down ISBNs and pricing information (in an attempt to do an online search to see if they can find the books cheaper elsewhere) - on the premise that the ISBNs are the bookstore's intellectual property and the students are thus violating copyright law by taking them down.

Here's the real deal, in case anyone is wondering: 

If an ISBN is anyone's property, it's the publisher's property. The publisher bought and paid for the ISBN. The Coop is way out of line on this one. What those students are doing is completely legal. The only way the Coop could justifiably kick students out of the store is if they have a policy stating that comparison shopping is not permitted in the store.

This situation, however, adds fuel to the textbook-pricing-is-out-of-control fire - and furthers our own argument that digital textbooks are pretty much the only way costs are going to come down on textbooks, and that libraries will be playing an increasing role in textbook distribution just as they do with scholarly journal distribution. For more on this, see the latest issue of The Big Picture, or download our white paper, "What Publishers Should Know About Libraries."

HarperCollins launches AuthorAssistant

The Bookseller reported on Tuesday that HarperCollins has launched a new service for readers and authors called AuthorAssistant:

AuthorAssistant allows authors to create and post personalized information and gives readers a chance to learn more about their favorite authors....On the author pages, readers can see comprehensive biographical information, links to press and articles, author blogs and favorite websites, photo albums, news, essays and more.

Simply Audiobooks Launches DRM-free Titles

Simply Audiobooks announced on Tuesday that they are now selling DRM-free titles:

Simply Audiobooks, the second largest player in the audio book download market, after Audible/iTunes, today announced that they now support DRM-free (digital rights management-free) audio book content and plan to eventually become altogether DRM-free.

They take a jab at competitor Audible.com at the end of their press release:

[Vitaly] Petritchkovitch [Director of Simply Audiobooks Digital] added that Simply Audiobooks' competitors, most notably Audible.com, are coming down on the wrong side of technological history by continuing to tie their service inflexibly to DRM audio files. "Being controlled like that is simply not what our customers want, and we are among the first to respond to consumers' demand for DRM-free content.

Shelf Awareness launches new service

Shelf Awareness, in partnership with Unshelved, has announced a new service for publishers with drop-in titles (or crash titles):

Drop-in titles (also known as crash or add-in titles) continue to grow--and getting the word to booksellers and librarians about these sudden new books or titles with major last-minute changes is ever more problematic. Publishers send the information via reps, faxes and e-mail, a process many of them admit is cumbersome. Sometimes the message makes it through, but booksellers and librarians often feel deluged by the material and can't keep track of it all. Opportunities are lost.... For a small fee, announcements about drop-in titles will appear in the Shelf Awareness and Unshelved newsletters--and then reside in our drop-in title database web site. The web site is fully searchable and will archive all drop-in listings.

US Publishers to Canada: Oh, Dang

From USA Today:

Bookworms north of the border are likely to ratchet up their complaints about the U.S. imports, now that the shrinking U.S. dollar and rising Canadian dollar met at value parity last week.

Prices there have been a lightning rod for scrutiny, partly because both U.S. and Canadian prices for the same book typically are on the dust jacket. While the U.S. dollar historically has had a higher value than Canada's, Canadian prices for books typically have been higher than exchange rates alone could explain...."Before, when there was a 5% or 10% difference (in the currencies), people would … accept that the Canadian price was higher without making a calculation," says Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. "Now that we're spot-on parity, it's tougher to explain away that difference."

Borders Changes

Luke Johnson, the new Borders UK owner, is full of new plans - in addition to taking the online business back from Amazon, he's planning on closing a few stores in the UK - as quoted in a number of sources (Publishers Lunch, Book Standard, etc.): "We will probably shut a few of the shops that are not contributing, but we're talking about a handful."

Johnson's Risk Capital Partners purchased Borders UK for about 10 million pounds cash plus another 10 million if performance improves. Which is, all things considered, pretty cheap. At least the Oxford Circus store is staying open, which is what we care about most.

Ingram to Forbes: WTF?

The Forbes 400 apparently had listed Ingram Books as having a pretty awful year - down 48% in book sales. However, John Ingram begged to differ, as PW reported:

He said that sales in the book division rose modestly in 2006 and are up significantly in 2007....“Not only is our core book wholesaling business steady, but our Lightning Source business continues to grow rapidly, and our Ingram Digital opportunities are extremely exciting,” John Ingram said.

LibraryThing Launches Google Book Search Search

Life just gets more meta. In the words of LibraryThing, they've just launched a search program that runs through Google Book Search - they call it a "bookmarklet":

Last week Google introduced an interesting "My Library" feature, allowing people with Google accounts to list some of their books. A few tech bloggers saw an attack on LibraryThing.

LibraryThing members were quick to dismiss it. It wasn't so much the lack of any social features, or of cataloging features as basic as sorting your books. It wasn't even the privacy issues, although these gave many pause. It was the coverage.

Google just doesn't have the sort of books that regular people have. Most of their books come from a handful of academic libraries, and academic libraries don't have the same editions regular people have. Then there are the books publishers have explicitly removed from Google Book Search. Success rates of below 50% were common. Of these a high percentage are only "limited preview" or "no preview."

The Google-kills-LibraryThing meme has another dimension. We WANT people to use Google Book Search. It's a great tool. Being able to search your own books is useful, and LibraryThing members should be able to do it. Call us naive, but we aren't going to be able to "pretend Google isn't there." And we aren't convinced that Google is going to create the sort of robust cataloging and social networking features that LibraryThing has.

Our bookmarklet works by transcending ISBNs, using what LibraryThing knows about titles, authors and dates to fetch other editions of a work. In limited tests I've found it picks up around 90% of LibraryThing titles.

MyiLibrary Adds Publishers

MyiLibrary has added 12 new publishers to its program, bringing the total number of publishers working with MyiLibrary to 350. The new publishers are:

• Bit 10
• Council of Europe
• Eleven International Publishing
• G7 Books
• How to Books
• Insomniac Press
• M&M Scrivener
• Opera Journeys Publishing
• Policy Press
  
• Scion Publishing
• Tottel Publishing
• University of Calgary Press
  

More On Book Videos

What's emusic Got...?

Web retailer eMusic.com has added audiobooks to its offerings. Right behind iTunes in terms of online sales of downloadable music, eMusic.com will offer about 1000 audiobook titles from a variety of publishers (Random House, Hachette, etc.). The big selling point? No DRM. So customers can download audiobooks to iPods, Zunes, or whatever other MP3 player they have.

Audiobooks are only offered via subscription. PW reports:

Not all those in the audiobook industry are comfortable with the notion of selling DRM-free files. Michelle Cobb, president of the APA (as well as director of sales and marketing for BBC Audiobooks America), said eMusic's sales model is a "concern," but anything that grows the audiobooks market is exciting. Nonetheless, the announcement will force the APA to deal more directly with the issue that's capsized the music industry and has been looming large in the audiobook one: piracy. "We're now [going to have to face] some things we haven’t had to deal with on a daily basis, and look at them more carefully."

Digital divide bridged in Kansas City

Kansas City, Kansas voted to allow high school students in its district to check out laptops and take them home, reports KCTV5.com:

Half of the students in the district don't have access to a computer at home.

"With the ability to check out laptops, students will engage in higher levels of critical thinking, work to close their own learning gaps, become productive and creative students ready to exit high school college- and career-ready," said Dr. Cynthia Lane, Assistant to the Superintendent for Business and Instructional Support Services.

IDPF approves Open Publication Structure 2.0

The members of the IDPF have approved the Open Publication Standard v. 2.0, according to Publishers Weekly:

The IDPF adoption of OPS 2.0 along with the ".epub" file format that goes with it (the OPS 2.0 standard uses the .epub file extension for reflowable text) means that publishers can now create one digital book file instead of the 6 to10 formats previously required....The new standard also means interoperability for ebooks with consumers now being able to read non-DRM digital books on any software or device that uses the .epub standard.

Woo-hoo! So now you can download MobiPocket ebooks to read on your Sony Reader, right? 

Audible to publish first novel

Book Video Company Needs Salespeople

TurnHere, whose videos we covered a little earlier today, is now advertising on Craigslist for a "Publishing Vertical Sales Manager". Given that they just signed deals with 12 new accounts, that's a good sign of expansion.

Book video time really HAS come. 

B&N branches out to music

Barnes & Noble, not content with publishing mere books for exclusive sale at its stores, is now offering its own music CDs for sale as well. According to PW:

The bookseller’s first two CD releases (on the new label bigHelium Records) are Sunday Music 1 and Sunday Music 2, compilations mixing together familiar artists (Norah Jones, Peter Gabriel, Patty Griffin, Rufus Wainwright and the late Jeff Buckley) with newer musicians. Some of the tracks have a cache not immediately apparent, including two songs on Sunday Music 2. “Your Love Means Everything” by Faultline features a lead vocal by Coldplay’s Chris Martin. There’s also a previously unreleased track called “The White Room” by a new band named , which is the creation of Grammy Award-winning composer Craig Armstrong (who has produced U2, Madonna, Massive Attack and Pet Shop Boys).

 

Sony Reader Getting Kindled?

Ars Technica reports tonight that the Sony Reader will be released in a new version, possibly as early as October:

Forum members at MobileRead discovered that the Sony PRS0-505 had been accidentally listed as "for sale" on Abt Electronics' website.

The Sony Reader PRS 505 will come in two colors this time around—blue and silver—and will be able to store 160 books. (The currently available PRS 500 can store 80 books.) The display remains the same, a SVGA 800x600 6-inch screen.

While the product is no longer available from Abt Electronics' website, one advertisement on the website claimed that users could "go to other sites that have DRM Free eBooks in file formats supported by the reader." That means Sony Reader customers may be able buy books at other outlets besides the Sony Connect store, which is now limited to selling eBooks following Sony's decision to get out of online music sales.

Of course the immediate thought is that the rush to market is sparked by Amazon's Kindle - thought by many to be on the verge of launching. 

It's Time for Author Videos Again

Years ago, when I was at Barnes & Noble.com, Steve Riggio launched a series of expensively-produced author interview videos, which (after a few months) experienced such little traffic that the project was ultimately scrapped.

A couple years later, when I was at Sirsi, I licensed author videos from Charles Halpin's Bookstream, Inc. These videos were much less expensive (and the quality was really great), but the time was too early for them. We couldn't get libraries to adopt them.

Shortly after this, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, I was approached by David Freeman, a British book TV host, about his own line of videos. Given the difficulty we were having getting libraries to accept the Bookstream videos, I had to turn him down.

And now...author videos are popping up all over the place. GalleyCat reports this morning on Turn Here, which produces BookVideos.tv - they've signed up Library Thing and Buy.com, among other partners. In June, USA Today reported on the book video phenomenon. Could it be that their time has finally come?

Could it be that all this time we were waiting for YouTube to come along and get people accustomed to watching things on their computers? Congratulations, Charles and David - you are demonstrably ahead of your time.

Andrew Grabois Reports on Libraries

I ran across an interesting article this morning which discusses the uneasy relationship between publishers and libraries due to the "first sale doctrine" - and discovered it was written by Andrew Grabois, formerly of Bowker and now an independent consultant.

Great article, and it only confirms what I've written in "What Publishers Should Know About Libraries", the white paper that I excerpted in last week's issue of "The Big Picture".

Some particularly resonant notes from Andrew's article:

• 'In a recent press release announcing the publication of ALA’s 2007 State of America’s Libraries report, the headline read “Predicted demise due to Internet fails to materialize.”'

• "According to the Book Industry Study Group’s annual Book Industry Trends report, libraries bought more than $1.8 billion dollars worth of books in 2006, a 3.2% increase over 2005. BISG predicts a 2.6% increase for 2007 and increases of 2-3% from 2008 to 2011. Sales to libraries will exceed $2 billion by 2010."

• "Even though libraries are now buying almost 100 million books a year, and spending more per book, on average, than anybody else, they still have an uneasy, high-maintenance relationship with publishers. Unlike other English-speaking countries where there is a Public Lending Right that compensates authors for potential loss of sales from library lending, the U.S. recognizes a limitation on copyright called the first-sale doctrine, which allows copyrighted works to be sold or given away once they have been legally obtained. This means that after buying the first copy, libraries have the right to lend it to multiple borrowers without compensating the copyright holders."

MyiLibrary Partners with Swets

Meanwhile, MyiLibrary (not to be confused with Google's My Library) has partnered with Swets, according to Information Today:

to enable customers to access ebooks and electronic journals from one easy-to-use and efficient point of access. The first offering of combined services between MyiLibrary and Swets is expected to launch this September...Combining the functionality of MyiLibrary with SwetsWise Subscriptions is designed to create a powerful platform that enables organizations to manage their journal subscriptions and ebooks from a single interface.

Google Does Library Thing

Google has added new functionality to its book search, reports PW:

Google Book Search users now have the ability to create a personal online library by clicking on a new “add to My library” link that has been added to book search results. Readers can build personal libraries of their favorite titles.

As this sounded suspiciously like Library Thing to me, I hopped over to the Library Thing blog...where they were too busy launching Wiki Thing (a wiki for their site) to even be bothered by what Google is doing.

Kindle Going Onsale in October: Don't Everybody Run At Once

The NY Times this morning that Amazon's ebook reader, the Kindle (and wtf kind of name is that? Honestly) will be going on sale in October, at a price point at $400-500. Unlike other ebooks (or even MP3 players), the Kindle is a standalone device that does not require being hooked up to a computer to download anything - it has its own wireless connection.

Obviously, given the track record of ebook readers so far, my skepticism about new devices blasting out of the gate into heartfelt consumer adoption is...understandable, I think. No ebook reader is going to be the new iPod.

The Times quotes:

“Digital readers are not a replacement for a print book; they are a replacement for a stack of print books,” said Ron Hawkins, vice president for portable reader systems at Sony. 

Now push this fact up against the recent finding that fully 27% of Americans haven't read a book in a year, and you have to ask yourself...exactly how many people think of books in terms of "stacks"? There's your potential market. How many people who enjoy the idea of stacks of books...would read one on a screen? There's your actual market. You want to start marketing these gadgets in the same way Sharper Image and Hammacher-Schlemmer market theirs - to an audience that considers itself somewhat rarefied. An ebook reader is a luxury item in a way an iPod will never be.

The other obvious target is college students, who are already learning to read their textbooks on laptops. But then again, one has to ask, if they are accustomed to reading on laptops (and interacting with their textbooks), why would they adopt two devices instead of just the laptop when they graduate? Particularly as laptops are getting lighter and easier to carry around?

It's a long slow climb uphill. Books aren't getting any less digital...but we're not looking at Star Trek ("Is that a book? How quaint.") scenarios anytime soon. 

Sony Reader? (cue crickets)

Mediabistro reports today on Sony's Reader sales (or lack thereof):

[R]eviews of the tiny handheld book-reading device have been tepid at best, and Sony has consistently declined to release sales figures, which just might tell you something.

Apparently in response to these tepid sales, Sony's lowering the price by $50 and offering registered customers $100 in sales credit towards public domain titles. Woo-hoo! Public domain titles!!! 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled naptime. Because even that is more exciting than this bit of "news". 

B&N, Borders to merge?

Rumors swirl around B&N and Borders, as analysts at Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Stifel Nicolas agree that the time has come for some "consolidation" in the bookselling sector.

Says Crain's:

[T]he success of Whole Foods’ $565 million acquisition of Wild Oats Markets could mean the market is willing to accept some reduced competition -- good news for the two book behemoths, which are losing sales to non-bookstore and online retailers.

Given the fact that non-bookstore sales have increased so dramatically, and consumers have become comfortable with buying books on the web, some argue that it makes sense for B&N and Borders to consolidate. Of course, neither store had any comment about this. 

Overdrive Standing Orders

Overdrive announced the launch of its new Standing Order plan, which allows libraries to automatically download all frontlist titles from Overdrive's Digital Content Reserve. Says The Book Standard:

Download Standing Order Plan, which was made available earlier this week, allows libraries to automatically add frontlist audiobooks on or before their release dates, without spending time researching new titles. 

First Day of School

A little punchy this morning, as we all had trouble getting to sleep last night. School in NYC started today, and my fourth-grader was buzzing around this morning changing clothes 25 times, packing and re-packing her bag.

So summer's over and it's time to get down to business again. Tom Simon's bookshop is officially closed, and we're back at our desks, and it's time to get crackin'.