The DRM battle is on - what's your take?

DRM is like a key-less padlock from Flickr (CC)

The story behind Digital RM is this - DRM is a way for publishers to digitally control how, where and in what format you read a purchased book. For example, if you buy an ebook on the Kindle, and later if you want to read it on your new Nook, it is illegal to convert and read that book, if it is DRM-protected. In actual fact, it is easy enough to transfer it to your computer, convert using calibre and read on any format - pdf, mobi, doc etc.
However, it is illegal to do so for all DRM protected books. 

What does this mean for you?


Publishers use third party software to handle the DRM-locks on your books. If that software or server goes " dark" (shuts down) then the ebooks are gone too, like with Fictionwise ebooks protected by Overdrive software. You keep paper books for years, don't you expect ebooks to do the same?


Interestingly, O'Reilly publishing discovered that sales of their textbooks more than doubled since they dropped DRM books 18+ months ago


Cory Doctorow's view: A Whip to beat us with 
Ebook DRM provider goes dark, the books you paid for disappear

Is the hardback book dying?

The time between hardbacks and paperbacks is progressively decreasing, and ebooks now release at almost the same time as the hardback. My recent purchase of Kate Daniel's latest by Ilona Andrews was the same day as the hardback, but I got it at 1/2 the cost.
We know more buyers are doing this, as Amazon recently reported that ebooks were outselling hardbacks by 143 to 100 (Publishers Weekly).
Ebooks also accelerate the paperbacks release dates - several publishing houses now release paperbacks within 6 months of the hardback release. 

“I really do think that e-books are part of the reason for this trend of hurrying up that paperback,” said Carrie Kania, the publisher of Harper Perennial and It Books. “You don’t have to wait for a lower-priced version of that book now. I think we need to move more quickly in general.”

Traditionally, the gap between hardback and paperback releases was 1 year.
Still, I would rather wait the three-odd months to the ebook release, and perhaps get it from my library, unless the author was a favorite of mine (Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Ilona Andrews among others).
Lots of interesting books have recently released directly as trade of mass market paperbacks - Scott Westerley's Uglies series did crazy good business in this format, perhaps justifying the no-hardback decision taken. Does this mean we are seeing a trend where the end lies in no hardback releases? 
Who knows!

Further reading? (nytimes)

Simon and Schuster ebook sales now 15% of revenues

The recent Q2 results for CBS corp included the Simon and Schuster results too, under the Publishing section. While overall revenues went down in the past year, the ebook and digital sales grew and more than doubled in revenue. Which means that those sales now count for 15% of their business!

I'm excited - I hope this translates into easier ebook sales in multiple countries.
Wouldn't it also be great if ebooks are released on the same day as the hardback release, but priced lower? I know that cannibalization of hardback sales by ebooks is a real and prevalent issue but Publishers ought to start figuring out ways to combat this aside from Price. 

"Publishing revenues for the second quarter of 2011 decreased 3% to $183 million from $189 million for the same prior-year period, as strong growth in the sale of more profitable digital content was offset by lower print book sales.  Digital content revenues for the second quarter of 2011 more than doubled last year's second quarter digital sales and represented 15% of Publishing's total revenues.  Best-selling titles in the second quarter included The Greater Journey by David McCullough and The Original Argument by Glenn Beck."

Read the entire results here (cbsatlanta.com)

Ebook Prices - Variations across countries

I recently noticed something appalling - yet strangely, not shocking. Amazon differentially prizes items across different countries (not news, I knew they did this).

But an ebook I was trying to pre-order *ahem* Ilona Andrews *I've been raving about this series, Magic Slays FTW* was $2 more expensive when I tried to buy it vs. my husband purchasing it. We both have accounts registered in different countries, which probably accounts for this price change. But it burns anyway!

Related situation in France: Les Echos in France says that the French Parliament has unanimously voted to price all ebooks sold in France (whether imported or otherwise) at a fixed, standard price. Since France has already placed a fixed price on all paper books, this is a simple extension of their existing law.

Why are ebook laws so complicated? Shouldn't this be easier than selling a paper book?

If I'm buying a book on my laptop, paying taxes toward a given country, and the publisher in that country, at what point is the price difference too much?

The new Kindle with ads

The latest version of the Kindle has been available for a month now, cheaper than ever. The caveat? It comes with ads.
I've spoken about this earlier here, but I wanted to check if there is a blog reader who has tried the new Kindle out. Is the $20 price cut worth it?
I know the ads are only when WiFi is on, and probably related to what an ebook reader would want to see.
Is this an acceptable trade off - what say You?

Bryan's Blog Tour - this month!

The very talented Bryan Cohen's blog tour is this month, and will be coming to e-Volving books on the 19th of May!

Bryan is the Author of 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More

Bryan wears several different hats - author, playwright, producer and more!
We'll get to see a guest post by Bryan, AND Win some books, and personalized writing prompts!
More details next week.

For all the aspiring authors out there - Avoid Publicide

The recent months have been filled with author mails asking me to review their books. I'm interested in the self-publishing phenomenon, so I was thinking of all the possible road-bumps in the path to actually getting a good book out there. There are plenty of self-doubts one goes through while doing anything, so publishing your own novel must be extra hard!

Here is a super article called "Publicide" on common mistakes made by new and self-published authors:

http://www.creativemindspress.com/publicide.htm

I'd recommend you check it out, the remarks are pretty funny!

Sample quotes from the article:

"10. Failing to secure a way for the world to buy the book besides one’s own website. There are currently 4 billion websites—how will your buyer find you? A basic Amazon Advantage account is a start. Acquiring Baker & Taylor as a wholesaler is better. In some cases, getting a distributor for the book is best. Also Death by Supply Chain."

© Jacqueline Church Simonds 2009

Oh, and for a Pick-me-up, all you aspiring authors and self-publishing gurus should know that these authors also self-published:

Edgar Allen Poe, Beatrix Potter, Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf.

The wonderful people at Penguin have come up with some interesting innovations around Book Jackets. Finally, a breath of fresh air in this industry! A publisher that seems to be open to ideas, and experiments.
What am I talking about?

This is a CRAZY COOL concept - have an artist design covers around some great books, and relaunch said books (with some extras like new forewords). Penguin Threads is an intriguing concept, and they've certainly picked some crowd-pleaser classics for the launch. Black Beauty, Emma and The Secret Garden, all childhood/teen favorites of mine, and of many others.
Penguin has commissioned Jillian Tamaki to design these covers, and hand-stitch them. We get that you and I can't buy a hand-stitched book jacket, but the mass-produced one still looks to be a gem!
I've never seen these in India yet, book jackets tend to be just for show on shelves. Maybe there should be a campaign around showing off your book jacket via Facebook/social media?

Lendle - Why not?

The latest development on the Kindle i.e. Amazon Kindle now to Lend books (I wrote that back in Oct '10), has of course, resulted in a host of new business models and opportunities.
This site seems an all-round best in class:

Lendle. The easiest, fastest, fairest, and best way to lend and borrow Kindle™ books.

http://lendle.me/
You can log in, and you get two initial borrows. The more books you lend, the more you can borrow. I ran through their book list, and it is pretty great.
My only thought is - why didn't I think of this first?

Penguin Launching 50 Book Collection

This year, '11, is the 50th anniversary of Penguin Modern Classics (those books your school library had and some readers borrowed). Thanks to @Dhar, I came across this interesting tidbit below:
In the spirit of celebration, Penguin has launched this gorgeous box collection of 50 short novels/stories. The authors include Kafka, Saki, Ian Fleming, Kipling, Shirley Jackson, J. Joyce, H.P. Lovecraft, and other Greats.
At only 3 pounds each, these make a great gift collection and stand independently as cool introductions to these literary heavyweights.
More:  http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/static/minisites/minimodernclassics/index.html

NetGalley and Scribd

I was recently introduced to NetGalley by a fellow Blogger on Twitter. She just happened to mention it, and I immediately turned to Google to get more info on it. Within minutes I created my personal account at NetGalley, and uploaded my review policy. It took me a couple of seconds to understand that perhaps I qualify as a "Professional Reviewer" - and it still makes me blush to say it!!

The other great site I will be linking to in a book giveaway next week, is Scribd. I was requested by an author to promote their currently free book on Scribd, and that giveaway is coming up on Monday.


I'm looking forward to getting a few ARCs and ebooks via NetGalley, and it is a party in my head right now - Free Books!! w00t!

8 Publishing Trends of 2010

This blog runs about 2 posts a month on Publishing, and here are trends I've noticed from my research:

1. Amazon sells more eBooks than Hardcover books:  This was one of the earliest trends this year, based on Amazon's Q1 results. This trend accelerated in the later part of the year, selling 3 times as many books in the first half of the year, compared to 2009. Bringing me to..
   
2. Ebooks sales doubled from 5% of the overall books sold to closer to 10% of the books sold (Association of American Publishers). Ereader owners also read on average 3 more books each month than before.
3. E-readers Proliferated:       New e-readers entering India and Multiplying like Rabbits. Some estimated Christmas Day Kindle sales to be around a million units (Jeff Bezos said that this day sales was the largest ever in Kindle history). Kindle now is the #1 best-selling product on Amazon, surpassing Harry Potter #7. 
4. Reading on Mobiles and other Devices:       Reports from Apple iStore show that iBooks is one of their top downloads. B&N Nook has a desktop reading device, and of course several other great independent Mobile/notebook readers like Stanza are widely used.On Christmas, Apple's iBooks e-reader is the #1 most-downloaded free iPad app, while Amazon's Kindle app is #9.
5. Censorship: Several times this year, Amazon was in trouble for deleting books from Kindles, and for (perhaps accidentally) dropping GLBT books from their listings. 
6. Closing of indie bookstores: While my favorite bookstore in Bangalore still exists, news reports suggest a struggle to survive elsewhere. While Independent stores are probably the hardest hit, we should remember that Borders and other mainstream stores shut several outlets this year. Google eBooks launched with options for local retailers to sell, hopefully this helps keep folks in business.
7. Rise of YA: Inevitable, sustained for over two years and massive - this trend has resulted in more teens reading, and also a rise in adults reading Young Adult books.
8. An Aptara Survey of 600 publishers does a great dive into the impact of ebooks on Publishing: The main eBook production challenge facing publishers is eReader/content format compatibility issues, the same as in our first survey. Even with a nearly universal eBook format standard (EPUB), today's highly fragmented eReader market makes quality eBook production a moving target.
   

I referenced this list in parts, to flesh out some of my points, from Julie's Book Hooked Blog.

2011 Trend Spotting: Content is King: View
What do you think? Do you have any you would like to add?

Publishing News: Amazon gives larger share of revenue on ebooks

News: Ebooks can now make more money for Publishers!
 

There are some qualifiers to this edict:

• Customers should be able to read the title on all Kindle devices and applications.
• Customers can read the title in all geographies for which the publisher has rights.

If your ebook falls under these rules (amongst others), then up to 70% of the income now goes to the publisher.
While ebook growth in sales has been phenomenal (the report stated 180% for the year) the total market share works out to $120 Million, Q3 2010 (IDPF Website).

This is still just under 10% for a Publisher, but the profit per ebook going up will bring some additional focus on this channel for sales and promotions.
(More on that later)

Read on:
http://bookpublishingnews.blogspot.com/2010/11/amazon-announces-70-percent-revenue.html

Oddest Title of the Year?

So I just heard of something called the "Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year"
It is a humorous literary award given to - yes, you guessed it - the book with the oddest title that was published that year.
Some of my favorites from the list of past winners include:

• Last Chance at Love - Terminal Romances
• The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History, and Its Role in the World Today 
• How to Avoid Huge Ships (wtf?)
• Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers
• Living with Crazy Buttocks
• If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs (rofl)
• Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice (Nude mice??)

I believe some books actually get published with this prize in mind! 
Have you any submissions for this year's Oddest Title prize?


More info:
Wiki on Diagram Prize

Content is King

I've blogged earlier about ebooks, evolving publishing and ereaders, and a lot of the conversation so far between us has been about using ebooks vs. paper books.

While researching ebook-related ideas to write about, I came across this nugget from the Harvard Business Review:

This year marked a critical shift, however. With the advent of a plethora of ereading devices, the conversation was no longer about whether such devices will be viable replacements for books, but about ways to make them vastly better than books ever were.

That makes me think. Instead of an "either or" situation, would it be a hugely different way to experience books?
Lets talk about that.
There has been talk about adding new features to enhance your reading experience. Kindle now has Scrabble, Nook comes with Sudoko and chess, and eventually, someone (probably Apple) will build community.
I don't care to have my reading interrupted (most of the time) by IMs or games, but its a neat feature to have. What do you say?
More importantly, I echo Stephen King* when I say Content Rules.

*What Mr. King said was "The Book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story."

Why book publishing needs to Change

Traditional publishing is entrenched in brick and mortar ways of selling - Marketing via an ad on the NYT for publicity, real stores for distribution, printing and of course, choosing which book to print. After that you negotiate, edit multiple rounds and book version, plan the tour - You see why this is an entire industry in itself.

However:

1. Manufacturing a book in paper no longer remains your core competency
2. People can get a book in many ways - getting into a store is not critical
3. Any author can now become an Independent Publisher
4. More people are reading blogs over books - leading me to my next point...
5. Convenience Matters! Online delivery of ebooks is faster and easier to get a book into a reader's hands - People will pay for this
6. See what happened to the music industry?? This year, the number of records produced was the same level as that in 1960. Same thing in the newspaper industry - traditional methods need to be adapted
7. Including social buzz elements into the book promotions...
8. And hence, connecting fans closer to authors in a community. This is why book blogs are growing so much
9. People will pay and spend time reading books that they hear about from passionate book bloggers, communities and fellow fans

All this boils down to:
Identify your fans, count them, make a community, THEN decide which book to sell to them, sell it the easiest way possible for the reader to get the book, get The Fans to spread it.

What do you think? Are you happy with the way things are, and paying the same amount for an ebook as a paper book? Does that seem fair? Comment away!

Medieval copyright Protection

Since I recently promoted three of world's free ebooks (two of which are amongst the most famous), I started thinking about copyright protection. It was part of the research I did for that article, where I looked into how authors had suffered when battling publishers for rights to their books.

Apart from the pitfalls of online publishing, I also stumbled upon some real-life curses used in the past to deter people from stealing or defacing books!! 

It was hilarious, and I couldn't help highlighting a few here for you to read:

Should anyone by craft of any device whatever abstract this book from this place may his soul suffer, in retribution for what he has done, and may his name be erased from the book of the living and not recorded among the Blessed.

--attributed to a 16th-century French missal belonging to a man named Robert 

---------------------------

Thys boke is one
And Godes kors ys anoder;
They take the ton,
God gefe them the toder.

[This book is one (thing),
And God's curse is another;
They that take the one,
God gives them the other.]

--found in various Middle English books.

For more great "Don't Steal Me" lines, check out http://gotmedieval.blogspot.com/2010/08/medieval-copy-protection.html

Most of these quotes come from the this book, the motherlode: Anathema!: Medieval scribes and the history of book curses

Free Ebooks Download - Do you want some?

My last post on Ebooks for Beginners covered the reasons to read an ebook. My next post highlighted Baen publishing, one great resource to discover ebooks.
Today, I'd like to give you three free ebooks to read. Click any one of the below books for a free download.

1) Scott Adams
Click Below to Download the PDF:
God's Debris or from another source here
The Creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams, has this to say about his book -  "It's a religion/science book written by a cartoonist, using hypnosis techniques in the writing. It's a thought experiment. It's unlike anything you've ever read."

2) Paul Carr
Click Below to Download the PDF:
Bringing Nothing To The Party - True Confessions Of A New Media Whore
A TechCrunch writer, (http://www.paulcarr.com/columns/techcrunch) his ebook is free for download by the CCL. His website is http://www.paulcarr.com/
Quick Review - Paul has a quirky, self-deprecating style of humour that permeates this book. I hesitate to call this an autobiography as the book also gives you a timeline of how publishing and journalism has evolved. A good read.

3) Seth Godin
Click Below to download the PDF:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/what-matters-now-2.pdf
The EBook has over 70 ideas from 70 important thinkers - Tim O' Reilly, Ariana Huffington to name two. Seth's blog post on the free ebook, including the new updated Part 2 is here

All these PDFs are DRM free, and available for free download.
Finally, a shoutout to Cory Doctorow, the pioneer of Free.
Do follow me if you liked this post, I have several more planned along these lines!

Baen Publishing - a home for ebooks and new authors

The Baen Free Library is the brainchild of Jim Baen, the publisher and editor of Baen Publishing. It was started about a decade ago, late 1999, and they were (to my mind) the pioneers of the ebook and online publishing worlds. Dedicated to sci-fiction and fantasy, these guys revolutionized the nascent, piracy-fearing ebook industry.

Not only did they create a convival atmosphere for authors to chat, meet online, share stories, they also brought a whole new audience to these great authors. Where else could you have gotten a free book from a new author? Now, of course, amazon offers this as an incentive  - giving the first book in a series away for free. Now you know where it began!

Baen also has an internet publishing venture at http://baens-universe.com/, which just recently called it quits. They still have a huge collection of short stories and articles.

Authors I discovered, and later bought books from, via this free-book strategy from www.baen.com are:

• Mercedes Lackey
• David Weber
• Lois McMaster Bujold

It is funny how even Sharon Lee is one of the authors in Jim's fold, but I only discovered her Liaden books recently, thanks to her giveaway. There are still authors in that list that I am sure I will read, eventually. Sadly, the site doesn't seem to be super active, since Jim Baen's passing. Eric Flint does a stand-up job of his role as First Librarian, as always.

Most authors have a number of books available for easy download here, in html, epub, .lit and many other formats. You can browse The Baen Free Library by author, books or even by Series.

This is your chance to discover new scifi/fantasy authors!

Some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baen_Books

http://baens-universe.com/

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Starting with EBooks - for beginners and explorers

Have you ever tried reading an ebook?
Most readers would have read one or two non paper-based books, at least.Usually, this is the point that you decide that you do or do not like reading this way.
Perhaps those books weren't the right ones to read in the ebook format, perhaps the device being used was a laptop. Perhaps it just wasn't a good day!
Give ebooks another chance...Technology has improved so much - lighter, faster, better.
 
FIVE Quick Advantages of an Ebook -
1) Super convenient - simply load an entire series
2) Font size is easy to change and Contrast is better than on paper
3) Easy to scroll down or turn pages (even with just one hand)
4) Look up dictionary immediately and on the fly
- I love this, it allows me to get a deeper understanding of words I might have just read contextually before.
5) Make notes as you read
- If you want to make a quick note to yourself, or put a bookmark into a favorite scene, e-readers will give you this freedom
Finally, it saves trees and the rainforest! Now, what are you waiting for?

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