Three months ago Sourcebooks publisher and CEO Dominique Raccah announced a bold plan to withhold the ebook release of a major YA novel. My understanding of her rationale is that a market for $25+ new release hardcover books still exists (upon which much of the traditional publishing business model is built), and if the digital market is setting the value for content below ten dollars (a la Amazon and B&N's $9.99 ebook editions), then a digital edition deserves a place in the life cycle of a book, probably somewhere between the $15 paperback and $7 mass market edition. Friday, October 23, 2009
Is the Digital Book Market Catching Up to the Print Market?
Three months ago Sourcebooks publisher and CEO Dominique Raccah announced a bold plan to withhold the ebook release of a major YA novel. My understanding of her rationale is that a market for $25+ new release hardcover books still exists (upon which much of the traditional publishing business model is built), and if the digital market is setting the value for content below ten dollars (a la Amazon and B&N's $9.99 ebook editions), then a digital edition deserves a place in the life cycle of a book, probably somewhere between the $15 paperback and $7 mass market edition. Thursday, July 23, 2009
Answering the Call of the IBPA with Our Amazon Kindle Statistics
E-book/p-book ratios
IBPA: How many print-on-paper titles do you have?
PM: More than 700 active titles.
PM: 166 as of today. We will have more than 500 by end of September.
PM: Less than 1%, but we are conservatively projecting 1000% growth next year.
IBPA: How long have you been publishing e-books?
PM: 13 months
PM: I have been tracking industry news stories about ebooks and digital publishing since last October when Oprah declared the Kindle her new favorite gadget. When I started there was one or two stories a week, now it is unusual to have a day without some piece of digital publishing news, and typically three or four stories--every day!
PM: Always, so far. We've also released some enhanced ebooks (marrying book and Bible content) and derivatives (checklist, quotes) as iPhone apps.
IBPA: Which version usually or always appears first?
PM: Print first or simultaneous, though we are looking at a couple of projects that may be digital first or digital only.
PM: Currently we are doing simultaneous release of ebooks and print editions on new releases, though we are watching closely the current discussions related to pricing and timing.
PM: One product we are considering would be most used as a digital product, the other is going to be very expensive to print so we are considering digital to build the audience.
Pricing
IBPA: What are your e-book pricing policies?
PM: We match what is currently available in print.
PM: $5.99 and up, matching print, though we are about to test $.99 essays and $4.99 sections from a nonfiction title on our Web site. The complete book is still the best value for $31.99 in print or digital, but some readers will only be interested in specific essays that are well worth $.99, but would not pay $32 for the complete book.
IBPA: What guidelines do you use in setting prices?
PM: Honoring our commitments to our retail partners, authors, and readers (not necessarily in that order), and watching the market like a hawk.
PM: Can you still have a pulse and not notice? What drives me bananas is the misconception that ebook publishing is free, or even cheap. It is true (today) that print still pays the bills and digital is incremental revenue, but there is a lot of cost in developing, distributing, and retailing ebooks--everybody takes a piece. It will be very interesting to see how the supply chain changes when there's not enough to go around at $9.99. (More on the pricing debate here.)
Reaching readers
IBPA How are your e-books distributed?
PM: Kindle, MobiPocket, iPhone, B&N eReader, Sony, Adobe Digital Editions, many others to come in the very near future.
Insights, lessons, tips and plans
IBPA: What have you learned from your e-book experiences so far?
PM: Pay attention.
PM: Enhancing the reader experience with the content and connectivity. We are counting on the device manufacturers to enhance the reading experience, and the retailers to enhance the shopping and purchasing experience, but we've got to deliver the content.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Would You Participate in a Virtual Trade Show?
This is the first summer in nearly fifteen years I have not attended one summer book show. No BEA, no ALA, no PLA, no ICRS, no RWA, nothing. I really missed getting out of town, seeing friends, and the energy and ideas I usually pick up from a crowded exhibit hall and days filled with 20 minute meetings, but am I any further behind with my business or relationships because I missed the shows? I don't think so. In fact, thanks to Twitter and my favorite industry enewsletters and blogs, I probably know more about what happened at each of those shows than if I attended. I am certainly more connected and aware of what is happening in our industry than ever before. Which got me thinking...Sunday, July 19, 2009
Opportunities for Publishers in the eBook Discussion

Dominique Raccah responds to WSJ piece
What are words worth, I wonder?
by Dominique Raccah, Publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks
Given responses to the Wall Street Journal article on Monday, I thought it might be useful to explain some of the thinking that went into the decision to delay the ebook release of our very hot upcoming children’s book, Bran Hambric.
And that includes this background: We need a sustainable author/publisher model, and it’s probably not the model of old. But the new music model of low-priced content and sales of concerts and ancillaries is probably not a viable model for book publishing. Authors, unlike musicians, don’t typically have paid live performances (and t-shirt sales are usually few). They have words. And we need to have a real conversation about what those words are worth (and that’s what the pricing issue is actually about) and how do we keep them worth enough to support authors, authorship and publishers. And yes, we can (and I suspect will) have a conversation about whether that last piece is worth supporting and at what level.
But here’s the thinking:
- I agree wholeheartedly that digital formats should be readily available, immediately (you can see from other decisions we’ve made how important digital is to us).
- We are being told (repeatedly) that ebooks are inherently less valuable—they are not physical; they are not easily ported; they can disappear at any time; etc. The value issues of ebooks are not issues that can be solved by a single publisher.
- Eretailers are suggesting that the “right” price point for an ebook is maximally $9.99. And they are proselytizing the price $9.99.
- We can’t control what retailers charge for books or ebooks. The choices book publishers have are:
- To make the product available, and when
- To have a relationship with that retailer
So that’s the fundamental decision we get to make. It’s not, what’s the right price for this author…or for a book that he’s worked 10 years on (yes, Michael Malone’s new hardcover The Four Corners of the Sky is also not available as an ebook)…it’s just do we make it available and when? - Formats have windows. We know when we (book publishers) put out different formats in the lifecycle of a book. So we shouldn’t be releasing ebooks at the same time that we release a hardcover book. We should be releasing ebooks when we release the trade paper or mass market of the hardcover and can then price appropriately to that. To me the decision is analogous to a new release in movie theatres; we don’t expect that movie to be immediately available on DVD.
- There are some who say, digital and print don’t cannibalize and you’re going to miss sales. But isn’t this the same as people (myself included) who say I’ll wait until it comes out in paperback or I’ll wait to see the DVD? And don’t those people sometimes forget and not buy or rent? So yes, there’s a risk that sales will be missed, but isn’t that a risk that has always existed in format choices?
- If you continue with the lifecycle concept, the vast majority of the books we (Sourcebooks) publish will release in e-formats at the same time as p-formats because we are primarily a trade and mass paperback publisher. And in fact our xml workflow structures towards simultaneous release in multiple ebook/ereader formats.
I would also argue that music is absolutely not the right model to compare books and book publishing to. And newspapers are even less appropriate. However, that’s a really long conversation, and I’m a publisher not a pundit. We should make the choices that are right for our authors and their readers.
We are at the beginning of model building. If hot frontlist titles are to be available in e-formats, they need to be priced by the publisher, at a reasonable discount from the hardcover retail price (to take into account the devaluation of eformats). I am totally open to that. But that’s not an option currently available. I think people may be willing to pay the premium to have the new new thing, or they may want to wait until the price falls with the trade paper edition, at which point the e-book price should be adjusted and $9.99 may make perfect sense.
I agree with Kassia that it’s dangerous to expect consumers to play by the rules of last year’s business model. I’ve taken action in this one situation and I certainly wonder if there are other options that are neither mine nor the $9.99 option. And I also agree that we need to experiment, and I see our industry beginning to do that. But this pricing and release-date situation doesn’t feel like an experiment. This actually seems more like a dictate that could have enormous ramifications, perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but certainly long-term on the future of authors and books. And I think all I’m saying is, let’s think about this. It’s too important. As a publisher, we have to be strategic, book by book (and it’s important to remember that we’re talking about 1 book; Sourcebooks has 850 ebooks available). These are big decisions for our authors and ourselves. So in situations where the e-format release could hurt the author’s launch, what if we were to wait?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The New York Times enters the ebook strategy discussion
Dominique Raccah took a very brave and unpopular stand to launch a very necessary and important conversation for the publishing industry. It is interesting that none of the "big guys" seem willing to take a stand, and a shame that the WSJ and NYT zeroed in on the "cannibalization" issue instead of the pricing issue. The real story here is what Amazon has done to establish customer expectations and cement their dominant market share position, not to mention how publishers have just played along. Until now.Amazon pays publishers a percent of the digital LIST price for ebook sales, often sale pricing books at a loss. Amazon even encouraged publishers to set their digital list prices to match highest available print edition to help reinforce the value position for the consumer getting a $25 book for just $9.99, for example. Publishers gladly went along, realizing greater revenue as a percent of the higher list price. Amazon also cornered the pricing game by insisting that publishers’ digital list prices be the same across all channels. Sony, for example, sells most ebooks at 10% off the digital list price. So, an ebook with a $25 digital list price might be on sale for $9.99 at Amazon and $22.50 at Sony, and generally $25 (no sale pricing) at ebooks.com, booksonboard.com, deiselebooks.com, etc. If the publisher lowers the digital list price so the other retailers can be more competitive, Amazon reserves the right to match the lowest digital list price in the market. Publishers don’t dare lower digital list prices on the risk of losing revenue with the one retailer who is selling the most books.
Amazon’s willingness to take a loss on ebook sales these first few years has established a consumer expectation to buy ebooks for $9.99 or less and cemented their dominant market share position. Now Barnes & Noble says it will follow a similar pricing strategy but they won’t be paying publishers according to the digital list price, and so starts the slippery slope. $9.99 is not a sustainable price for retailers or publishers but the customer expectation is already established. And, as a consumer, I get it. I'm not paying more than $9.99 for an ebook. I've wanted to buy What Would Google Do? for at least three months and it still hasn't gone on sale for less than $14.99, so I wait.
Raccah is the first of the publisher sheep marching toward the ebook slaughterhouse to stand up and suggest that we don’t have to keep going the direction we’re heading. In fact, to survive we have to establish a different value paradigm. Her suggestion to preserve the value of content is to put it on a time line the same way books are released in hardcover before paperback—the content is available to everyone but only in a certain format for a certain price at a certain time. In other words, if you want it in paperback you wait. If you want it in ebook, you wait.
Dominique Raccah is smart enough to know the market will determine the value of an ebook and recognizes that asking someone to pay $25 for something they only value at $10 won’t work. So the next most valued currency is time. You can have it for $10 but you have to wait. Will it hold up? I don’t think so, but I don’t have a better idea. And the value of this public discussion in the WSJ, NYT, and countless industry blogs instead of blindly following the sheep in front of us is priceless.
Read more here:
Wall Street Journal
New York Times
Galley Cat
The Business Insider
Thoughts on eBook Pricing, Release Strategies, and FuturePublishing

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that leading independent publisher (and my former employer), Sourcebooks, is pushing back against the devaluation of ebooks typically sold on Amazon and B&N for $9.99 by delaying the ebook release of one of its major Fall books for at least six months after the hardcover release. The plan, as I understand it, is a kind of staged release, similar to that of a book going from hardcover to trade paperback to mass market paperback, inserting the ebook release somewhere in between.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Love Dare exceeds 3 million in print, launches iPhone apps

Thursday, June 18, 2009
4 out 5 PW Daily stories are digital news
Any day now it will be every story. GalleyCat offers three more stories (so far) today with digital implications for the publishing biz.
Hachette Signs with Attributor to Fight Online Piracy PW 6/18/09
Ingram Content Group Gets New Structure PW 6/18/09
Tor Launches Online Bookstore PW 6/18/09
Simon & Schuster Launches Teen Networking Site PW 6/18/09
Audibooks App Nabs Top Spot in Apple App Store GC 6/18/09
Macmillan Digital in the House at #140Conf GC 6/18/09
Publishing Perspectives @ Twitter Boot Camp GC 6/18/09
Click here for a list of all Headlines in Digital Publishing from PW, GalleyCat, and a few from Publisher's Lunch since October 2008.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Love Dare iPhone Apps Launched
B&H Publishing Group has released our first three apps for the iPhone based on the #1 New York Times best seller, The Love Dare (more than 2 million copies sold) from the popular major motion picture, Fireproof. Two of the three have gone live.As I type this post one of the apps is already ranked #20 of all book apps in the App Store!
Click here to see a video demo.
Click here to open the iTunes App Store.
The Love Dare: 40 Dares features each of the 40 dares from the book with Scripture reference pop-ups, and a place to check off each completed dare. The app includes the complete text of the King James Version BibleReader; another amazing value for $.99.Click here to see a video demo.
Click here to open the iTunes App Store.
The Love Dare: Reminders features 365 quotations from the book and Scripture. Each day that you open the app it takes you to the next reminder, or you can scroll through them, or navigate through a table of contents by topic. Users can mark their favorite quotes and/or email any quote, and add their own notes.Click here to see a video demo.
Click here to open the iTunes App Store.
All three apps have a catalog with links to sites to purchase the books, Bible study, audio book, movie, and links to the Web site, newsletter sign ups, and more.
Special shout out to our development partners, Olive Tree (eBook+ and 40 Dares) and LifeWay Digital (Reminders). Next steps will be launching the Blackberry and Windows Mobile versions.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
This accessory is not made to work with iPhone
facebook.com/paulmikos

Thursday, June 11, 2009
Digital News from PW, Publishers Lunch & GalleyCat:

Wednesday, June 3, 2009
I am so excited about ebooks!

Friday, May 29, 2009
Great Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZYThursday, May 28, 2009
Last 150 Days in eBooks

Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Interesting tech articles in BusinessWeek

Friday, May 22, 2009
Seven new stories at "Headlines in Digital Publishing"

Tuesday, May 19, 2009
560,626 new titles published in 2008, up 38%

More Digital Publishing News

Sunday, May 17, 2009
Headlines in Digital Publishing
Last October I declared Oprah naming the Kindle her favorite gadget as a tipping point for ebooks reaching into mainstream popular culture. Electronic publishing initiatives have been in the news almost every day since. I started collecting the headlines and thankfully Publishers Weekly keeps an active backlog of their daily stories. I wish I could say the same for GalleyCat (which only goes back a couple weeks), Publishers Lunch (which requires a subscription to see more than a handful of stories), or ECPA's Rush to Press (which only show's the current week's headlines). Set against the backdrop of the recession's impact on the publishing industry (those were some dark days in December), the emphasis on digital publishing seems especially poignant. Separately, I also collected the recession stories.IndieBound Updates Literary iPhone App GC 7/23/09
Amazon.com, Inc. to Acquire Zappos GC 7/23/09
Is This the Bookstore of Tomorrow? GC 7/23/09
USA Today Bestseller List Includes Kindle Sales Data PL 7/23/09
Vonnegut Stories to Be Sold Individually As e-Exclusives Before Print Edition PL 7/23/09
Digital Book Buyer's e-Morse: WSJ On the Limited Rights Readers Get PL 7/23/09
Plastic Logic Strikes AT&T 3G Deal GC 7/22/09
B&N Tops Amazon in App Store GC 7/22/09
BookSurge to Sell 400,000 U of M Library Titles GC 7/22/09
University of Michigan Expands Print on Demand Effort with Amazon's BookSurge PW 7/22/09
IndieBound Updates iPhone App PW 7/22/09
Barnes & Noble Launches e-Book Store PW 7/21/09
Copyright Industries Warn Against Piracy Threat PW 7/21/09
It's Ready: Barnes & Noble Launches eBookstore, Partners with Plastic Logic PL 7/21/09
Class Action Specialists Want to Sue Amazon Over Orwell Removals; Plastic Logic "Fully Funded" PL 7/21/09
Barnes & Noble Launches Vast E-Book Store GC 7/20/09
University Presses Stepping Up e-Book Efforts PW 7/20/09
Industry Begins Debate Over Removal of Kindle Titles PW 7/20/09
Google Book Settlement Webinar Set for July 29 PW 7/20/09
Amazon.com, Inc. and "1984" GC 7/20/09
What We Talk About When We Talk About Amazon PL 7/20/09
Maker of Readius Folding eReader Polymer Vision Is Liquidated PL 7/20/09
Harry Potter and the iPhone Apps GC 7/17/09
Journalists Debate E-Book Pricing GC 7/17/09
Harvard UP to Sell 1,000 Books on Scribd GC 7/17/09
Harvard University Press Selling 1,000 Books on Scribd PL 7/17/09
On-Demand Flash Fiction GC 7/16/09
E-Readers Featured in App Awards GC 7/16/09
Slate Critic Calls for Lower E-Book Prices GC 7/16/09
Sourcebooks CEO Dominique Raccah on Delaying Ebook Releases PL 7/16/09
Amazon Offers Free Replacement for Cracked Kindles PL 7/16/09
Closing In on UK-indle? PL 7/16/09
Dems Want to Give Students 400k Kindles PL 7/16/09
WSJ Survey Student Doubts on eTextbooks PL 7/16/09
Morgan James Selling E-Books on Scribd PW 7/15/09
Amazon.com, Inc. Sued by Kindle Customers GC 7/15/09
Kindle Owner Files Suit Against Amazon Saying Cover Cracks Kindles; Seeks Class Action Status PL 7/15/09
Taiwan Companies Pair for eBook Launch PL 7/15/09
Library of Congress Explores New Rules for Depost of Electronic Works PL 7/15/09
The NYT Follows On eBook Release Timing PL 7/15/09
Taiwan Vendors Appear to Confirm Orders from Apple for October Tablet/Netbook PL 7/15/09 Robert Olen Butler Tweets as The Devil for His New Book 'Hell' PL 7/15/09
Content Explosion: FastPencil.com Joins Online Self-Publishing Crowd PL 7/15/09
Pan Macmillan's View: DRM Is Not Evil PL 7/15/09
It Was the Best of Tweets, It Was the Worst of Tweets GC 7/14/09
Sourcebooks Bucks $9.99 E-Book Price Point GC 7/14/09
Author Is Tweeting His Entire Novel PL 7/14/09
Blackwell, Ingram Ink Pact to Supply e-Books PW 7/14/09
Chinese Show Off Kindle-like e-Reader PW 7/14/09
Stanza Reader Turns One-Year-Old GC 7/13/09
Book Deal for Self-Published Kindle Author GC 7/13/09
Spain's Three Biggest Publishers Form eBook Distribution Company PL 7/13/09
Sourcebooks to Delay Release of eBook Version of Hot New YA Novel PL 7/13/09
Free-For-All: Anderson, "Free" Book, Sparks a Backlash Online and Among Battered Media Industry PW 7/10/09
Sourcebooks Experimenting with DRM-Free e-Books PW 7/10/09
Google Renegotiates Terms with Two More Libraries PL 7/10/09
Pixel Qi Introduces LCD-Based Color/Video Screens for E-Readers PL 7/10/09
Richard Nash on Kindle, Twitter, and E-Books GC 7/10/09
Sourcebooks Sells Digital Titles on Smashwords GC 7/10/09
QR Codes and Publishing GC 7/9/09
Amazon Drops Kindle 2 Price GC 7/9/09
Sourcebooks Tests DRM-Free eBooks with Smashwords 7/9/09
SharedBook Demos On-Demand Customized Book via Espresso at ALA 7/9/09
Amazon Drops Kindle Price to $299 PL 7/9/09
Sony Reader Promises Mac Compatibility By "the end of Summer 2009" PL 7/8/09
Enhanced Editions: A New iPhone Reader PL 7/8/09
Barnes & Noble Tops Amazon in App Store Books Category PW 7/7/09
Ditto Book Digital Reading Device Hits the Market PW 7/7/09
New Hachettte Program Gives Complete Access to Titles PW 7/7/09
Amazon Applies for E-Book Ad Patent GC 7/6/09
What's Apple Building in There? GC 7/2/09
Random Houses Teams with BookGlutton for Promotion PW 7/1/09
Using Social Media to Create Product Evangelists ECPA 7/1/09
Barnes & Noble Follows Amazon's E-Book Pricing Model GC 7/1/09
ScrollMotion Publishes Digital Stephenie Meyer Titles in U.K. GC 6/30/09
Barnes & Noble.com Launches Bookstore iPhone App PW 6/29/09
B&N Faces Amazon in App Store GC 6/29/09
Wattpad Launches Google Android Application GC 6/29/09
Read Your "Texts From Last Night" in a Book GC 6/29/06
Allen Letter Urges Industry to Support Google Deal PW 6/26/09
Alexander Street and Arcadia Publishing Launch Online Local History Collection PW 6/26/09
Quartet Press Launches PL 6/26/09
Transformers Rule iPhone Paid Book Apps GC 6/26/09
Quartet Press Seeks Its First Submissions GC 6/26/09
Espresso Book Machine Coming to McNally Jackson This Fall PL 6/26/09
Barnes & Noble Appoints New Digital Executive PW 6/24/09
Zinio Launches "Digital Bookstore" Section PL 6/24/09
O'Reilly Media Heads to Frankfurt Book Fair GC 6/23/09
Video: Book Talk at #140Conf GC 6/23/09
ScrollMotion Seals LibreDigital iPhone Content Deal GC 6/23/09
ScrollMotion in Deal with LibreDigital PW 6/23/09
LibreDigital Delivers 100k Titles for ScrollMotion's App PL 6/22/09
Stephen King Text Message Promo May Be Horror Story for S&S PW 6/22/09
Springer Lets Library Patrons Buy Paperback Versions of E-books PW 6/22/09
Hippocrene Launches Arabic Dictionary iPhone App PW 6/22/09
Kindle DX: Looks Good, Works Fine, Costs Too Much PW 6/22/09
Book Deal for College Kids' "Twitterature" GC 6/22/09
University Presses Cope with Digital Students GC 6/22/09
New Features on Google Book Search PW 6/19/09
140 Character Confab: Listening To and Learning About Twitter PW 6/19/09
Pearson Answers Schwarzenegger’s Call for E-Textbooks PW 6/19/09
Penguin Group Launches Multimedia Site GC 6/19/09
Amazon.com, Inc. May End Affiliate Program in North Carolina GC 6/19/09
Pearson Promises California Schools Digital Content GC 6/19/09
Hachette Signs with Attributor to Fight Online Piracy PW 6/18/09
Ingram Content Group Gets New Structure PW 6/18/09
Tor Launches Online Bookstore PW 6/18/09
Simon & Schuster Launches Teen Networking Site PW 6/18/09
Audibooks App Nabs Top Spot in Apple App Store GC 6/18/09
Macmillan Digital in the House at #140Conf GC 6/18/09
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/web_tech/publishing_perspectives_twitter_boot_camp_119256.asp GC 6/18/09
Penguin Launches Online Network PW 6/17/09
Google Mapping the Bible GC 6/17/09
Tor Launches Publisher Agnostic Online Store GC 6/17/09
McGraw-Hill Education Announces Digital Initiative PW 6/16/09
Amazon CEO Knocks Google Books Settlement GC 6/16/09
How to Write a Fictional Twitter Feed GC 6/15/09
Cliffs Notes on Your Telephone GC 6/15/09
Simon & Schuster in Deal with Scribd to Sell e-Books PW 6/12/09
A Tweet Treat? PW 6/12/09
Simon & Schuster to Sell Books on Scribd GC 6/12/09
HC Children's Does Mobile Promotion for Lauren Conrad Novel PW 6/11/09
Author Reveals Personal Kindle Sales GC 6/11/09
Shortcovers Builds Digital Reader for Palm Pre GC 6/11/09
Twitter Boot Camp Discount GC 6/11/09
Susan Orlean's Tempest in the Twitter Teapot GC 6/11/09
Dzanc Books Launches [Online] Literary Journal GC 6/10/09
Bret Easton Ellis' Twitter Review Career GC 6/10/09
Swiss Army Knife of Dictionaries GC 6/10/09
Conan the Digitalist GC 6/10/09
COOL-ER eBook Reader: the Future of Book Publishing? GC 6/10/09
ScrollMotion Bringing One Million Books to iPhone GC 6/10/09
$99 iPhone Rocks E-Book World GC 6/9/09
The New Gatekeepers GC 6/9/09
Book Stock Watch: Google Gains GC 6/5/09
Textnovel Lets Writers Publish Via Cellphone PW 6/5/09
Dave Eggers Sends Soothing Mass Email GC 6/5/09
Worldwide Seizures of Pirated Books GC 6/5/09
OUP Dictionary Team Dissects Twitter GC 6/5/09
How to Build a Literary iPhone App GC 6/3/09
eNews: Indigo to Launch Their Own Device PL 6/3/09
100 Strangers Co-Write and Publish Book GC 6/2/09
How 25 Million Chinese Readers Read Online GC 6/2/09
Showtime Network Develops Digital Tie-In for Amazon Kindle GC 6/2/09
Blogging Evangelist on the Future of Publishing GC 6/2/09
RAND Lowers e-Book Prices PW 6/2/09
Amazon’s Kindle DX Available June 10 PW 6/2/09
HMH Creates Digital Team PL 6/2/09
Google to Sell Digital Books GC 6/1/09
Amazon.com, Inc. Rumors GC 5/29/09
Tina Brown Bashes $9.99 Digital Books GC 5/29/09
GalleyCat Exclusive: $199 EBook Reader GC 5/29/09
How to Catch a Book Pirate GC 5/29/09
BookExpo America 2009: HarperCollins Featuring e-Galleys at BEA PW 5/29/09
Baker & Taylor, Donnelley in Print-on-Demand Pact PW 5/28/09
Ingram Survey Finds Half of Respondents Will Use E-Catalogues PW 5/28/09
Piracy Study Results Released GC 5/28/09
Stanza COO Neelan Choksi on the Last 150 Days in E-Books GC 5/28/09
Comparing Apples and Kindles GC 5/27/09
Ingram Adds Ingram Digital to Newly Formed Ingram Content Group PW 5/26/09
B&T, OverDrive Ink Digital Distribution Deal PW 5/26/09
FiledBy Expands Online Author Directory PW 5/26/09
Audible Launches BlackBerry E-Book Application GC 5/26/09
New Yorker Cover Drawn on iPhone (Gizmodo) MediaBistro 5/26/09
eMusic Adds Audiobooks from Recorded Books and HighBridge 5/22/09 PW
Hachette's Bestselling Promotional iPhone App 5/21/09 GC
U of Mich Signs Expanded Agreement With Google 5/21/09 PW
Viz Media Launches IKKI, New Online Magazine Venture 5/21/09 PW
Amazon Upgrades its Kindle for Iphone App 5/20/09 PW
HarperOne's Little Black Book Now Online 5/20/09 PW
Lit Bloggers Debate Kindle Blog Program 5/20/09 GC
On Demand Books Overtake Traditional Titles for the First Time 5/19/09 PL
Mobifusion, Encyclopaedia Britannica Release iPhone Apps 5/19/09 PW
Hyperion to Unveil Kernl 5/19/09 PW
Scribd Launches Online Store 5/18/09 PW
OverDrive in Deal with ChineseAll 5/18/09 PW
BEA Blogger Signing Schedule 5/17/09 GC
Amazon Opens Kindle to Bloggers 5/14/09 GC
Romance, DRM and the Future of Reading at Digital Book 2009 5/13/09 PW
Amazon and indieBound Top iPhone App Store 5/11/09 GC
The Expensive Art of Digitization 5/11/09 GC
Webcomics, Storytelling and Books from 'Smith' Online Magazine 5/11/09 PW
Amazon Optimizes Kindle Store for Safari on iPhones 5/11/09 PW
Mobifusion Releases New Cellphone Content Viewer 5/11/09 PW
Book Stock Watch: Amazon Unveils Kindle DX 5/8/09 GC
Sterling's Leaver Down on Trade Shows, High on Digital Catalogues 5/7/09 PW
Alloy to Adapt "Private" for Web TV Series 5/7/09 PW
Amazon Launches Kindle DX 5/6/09 PW
IDW Hires Webber to Oversee E-publishing 5/4/09 PW
Michelin Unveils iPhone Apps for New York, San Francisco and More European Cities 5/4/09 PW
Amazon Press Conference Set Amid Rumors of Bigger Screen Kindle 5/4/09 PW
L.A. Times Panel Debates Gatekeepers, Supply Chain and e-Books 4/30/09 PW
SharedBook Partners with Nelson 4/29/09 PW
Google Deadline Delayed Four Months as Steinbeck Motion Granted 4/28/09 PW
Delay Looming for Google Settlement Deadline? 4/27/09 PW
Amazon Acquires Stanza iPhone e-Book App 4/27/09 PW
More Than 100,000 Users in 160 Countries Try Shortcovers 4/27/09 PW
Barnes & Noble Launches Audiobook Store 4/27/09 PW
Judge Rejects Internet Archive Motion to Intervene in Google Settlement 4/24/09 PW
Amazon Sales Jump, Though Media Growth Slower 4/23/09 PW
Scholastic Web Game Show to Test Kids’ Knowledge 4/23/09 PW
Gompertz Named to New Digital Role at Simon & Schuster 4/22/09 PW
In U.K., Sony E-Reader Says Bring It On, Kindle 4/21/09 PW
British Publishers Try to Find the Money in E-books 4/21/09 PW
Big Rollout for DNL Laptop-format e-Books 4/21/09 PW
Using SKYPE, Wiley Holds Virtual Bookstore Talk 4/21/09 PW
S&S, GoSpoken to Offer E-titles for Mobile Phones 4/17/09 PW
Internet Archive Latest to Object to Google Settlement 4/17/09 PW
Lightning Source Launches Espresso Book Machine Pilot 4/16/09 PW
Children’s Book Week Goes Digital 4/16/09 PW
Lulu.com Launches Lulu Poetry, Introduces Contest 4/14/09 PW
Baker & Taylor Signs with LibreDigital for E-Books, Starts Digital Media Services Group 4/10/09 PW
Digital Recipe Reader Demy Hits the Market 4/10/09 PW
Twittergirls: Laurie Halse Anderson on Tour 4/9/09 PW
Amazon Launches App for Blackberry 4/8/09 PW
Disabled Group Protests Removal of Kindle's Text-to-Speech 4/7/09 PW
Consumer Group Protests Google Settlement 4/6/09 PW
Houghton Rolls Out Curious George App 4/6/09 PW
Yen Press Launches Toxic Planet Comic Online 4/6/09 PW
B&N Gives Booksellers Blogs 4/6/09 PW
Fujitsu Launches Color e-Book Reader in Japan 3/26/09 PW
Kiyosaki Site Drawing Lots of Interest to Free Book 3/26/09 PW
Chronicle Finds a Hit Online 3/26/09 PW
New Site Hosts 1.8 Million Author Web Pages 3/25/09 PW
Fictionwise Launches Free eReader E-book App for Blackberry 3/24/09 PW
Workman Gives Away Kindles, Lands Book in Amazon's Top Spot 3/24/09 PW
University of Michigan Switching to Digital Format for Scholarly Monographs 3/24/09 PW
HC Goes Digital With Catalogues 3/23/09 PW
B&N Digital Initiatives Coming, Riggio Promises 3/19/09 PW
Sony Partners with Google for More e-Books 3/19/09 PW
Scribd Signs Deals with Major Houses 3/18/09 PW
Bringing Comics to the Amazon Kindle 3/16/09 PW
ABPA’s Book Building 2.0 Seminar Addresses E-Books, iPhones and More 3/11/09 PW
Drummond Talks Google Settlement at AAP Meeting 3/10/09 PW
Stanza Has 'Read an eBook Week' Freebies; Hunted Pubs in Print, on iPhone 3/10/09 PW
The Kindle for iPhone: Good App with Flaws 3/9/09 PW
Amazon.com Stock Gets Upgrade 3/9/09 PW
B&N Buys Fictionwise; Will Start e-Bookstore 3/5/09 PW Note: Same day Borders cuts 742 jobs.
A Million Kindles by Thanksgiving? 3/4/09 PW
ScrollMotion Offers Graphical ‘Daniel X’ for iPhone 3/4/09 PW
Amazon Joins the iPhone App Market 3/3/09 PW
F+W Offering Free e-Books 3/3/09 PW
Nelson Makes Books Available in All Formats for One Price 3/3/09 PW
Amazon Reverses Stance on Text-to-Speech Feature 3/2/09 PW
Simon & Schuster Launches Crossword iPhone App 2/23/09 PW
Walden Media Moves into Future 2/19/09 PW
Read Will Eisner On Your iPhone 2/17/09 PW
Lexcycle, Plastic Logic, iRex and Others to Integrate New Adobe eBook Technology 2/16/09 PW
Authors Guild and Amazon Disagree Over Kindle's Text-to-Speech Software 2/12/09 PW
TOC: The Digital Future Is Confusing and Inspirational 2/12/09 PW
TOC Conference: Using Social Media to Build Book Audiences 2/11/09 PW
ReadHowYouWant Has Big Ambitions 2/11/09 PW
Plastic Logic Annouces Partnerships for Forthcoming eReader 2/10/09 PW
Kindle2 to Launch February 24 2/9/09 PW
Google Optimizes Book Search for iPhone, Android 2/6/09 PW
Tor.com Offers New Sci-fi and Fantasy Webcomics 2/2/09 PW
HarperCollins’s New Format: Video Books 2/3/09 PW
ReadHowYouWant Launches Online Braille Store 1/30/09 PW
Amazon Has Big Year, Though Media Growth Slowed 1/29/09 PW
Robert Kiyosaki, Business Plus Team-Up for Free, Online Book 1/29/09 PW
Tantor Distributing Playaway 1/28/09 PW
New Kindle Coming? 1/27/09 PW
Amazon To Drop Microsoft, Adobe e-Book Formats 1/26/09 PW
Perseus Partners with Incelligence to Create Mobile Phone Editions 1/21/09 PW
BookSwim.com Partners with BookRenter.com for Textbook Rentals 1/21/09 PW
Wiley Signs with YBP Library Services for Online Book Distribution 1/21/09 PW
iPhone Recipe Apps Surge 1/20/09 PW
Avalon Travel and For Dummies Launch New Web Sites 1/16/09 PW
Simon & Schuster Launches New Web Site 1/14/09 PW
Hachette's Young Touts Benefits of XML 1/13/09 PW
A Cautionary e-Book Tale 1/13/09 PW
Dorchester Signs with LibreDigital for e-Book Distribution 1/12/09 PW
New B&N.com President 1/9/09 PW
OverDrive Digital "Checkouts" Jumped 76% in 2008 1/6/09 PW
Orbit Offers Dollar E-Books 1/5/09 PW
Amazon Launches Author Stores 12/30/08 PW
Melville House Doing "Live Book" on Goose Island 12/11/08 PW
BISG Unveils BookDROP Standard for Digital Book Repositories 12/10/08 PW
uclick Hopes to Roll Out Hundreds of Comics for iPhone 12/9/08 PW
John Wiley and Directory M Enter Internet Content Syndication Partnership 12/9/08 PW
Penguin Launches Penguin 2.0, iPhone App; Stanza Deal with Random House 12/8/08 PW
Joint Venture Takes Control of NetGalley 12/8/08 PW
Fictionwise Partners with Stanza on iPhone 12/4/08 PW
New E-Book Publisher Launches 12/2/08 PW
Amazon Complete AbeBooks Buy 12/2/08 PW
NBN to Offer Digital Services 12/1/08 PW
Pan Macmillan Signs with Lexcycle’s Stanza 11/25/08 PW
Random House Expands E-book Offerings 11/24/08 PW
Tyndale Signs with Global Reader 11/18/09 PW
Google Settlement Gets Initial Approval 11/18/09 PW
Borders.com Goes Live with Google Preview 11/12/08 PW
U.K. Booksellers Say Google Deal Creates Monopoly 11/12/08 PW
SharedBook Teams with Tattered Cover and Capitol Books 11/10/08 PW
DailyLit Launches Book Samplers 11/6/08 PW
Authors, Publishers, Google Embrace Settlement 10/28/08 PW
Google Settles with AAP, Authors Guild 10/28/08 PW
B&N Launches Social Networking Site 10/27/08 PW
Kindle is Oprah’s New “Favorite Gadget” 10/24/08 PW
Bad News in the Book Biz
Perhaps it seems a bit morbid or sadistic, but I've collected stories about these dark days in the book business to show the stark contrast in electronic publishing--the one industry growth area.CBA Survey Finds Down Market 5/20/09 PW
Writing the Future Depression 5/20/09 GC
Books Flat at Hastings 5/18/09 PW
Quebecor Has Loss, Moves Ahead with Reorg 5/18/09 PW
Bookstore Sales Dipped 4.2 Percent in Q1 of 2009 5/14/09 GC
CBA Industry Report Reveals Volatile 2008 for Christian Stores 5/14/09 ECPA
Donnelley Makes Offer for Quebecor 5/13/09 PW
Bookstore Sales Down 1.3% in March; Off 4.2% for Quarter 5/13/09 PW
First Quarter Loss at Bertelsmann 5/12/09 PW
Episcopal Publisher Halts Trade Acquisitions 5/12/09 PW
Making Information Pay Conference Charts Changes Brought by Recession 5/8/09 PW
Revenue Dips Nearly 20 Percent at Simon & Schuster 5/8/09 GC
Budget Cuts Threaten LSU Press 5/8/09 GC
Simon & Schuster Has Rough First Quarter 5/7/09 PW
Charges Result in $38 Million Loss at HarperCollins 5/6/09 PW
Marvel Publishing Dips in Quarter; Expects Better Second Half 5/5/09 PW
First-Quarter Slip for Quarto 4/29/09 PW
Source Interlink Files Pre-Packaged Bankruptcy 4/28/09 PW
Plug Pulled on Christian Consumer Book Show 4/28/09 PW
Sales Fall at McGraw-Hill Education, but Loss Cut 4/28/09 PW
New Report Sees Dip in 2009 Book Sales 4/27/09 PW
Aperture Cuts Staff, Publishing List 4/24/09 PW
Borders to Overhaul Board, Enhance Book Clubs 4/16/09 PW
Results Down at Courier, Expects Better over the Next Six Months 4/15/09 PW
February Bookstore Sales Plunge 4/14/09 PW
Quebecor Reaches Agreement with Creditors 4/9/09 PW
NavPress Cuts Nine Positions 4/7/09 PW
Amid Changes, Globe Pequot Reducing BEA Presence 4/3/09 PW
Despite Big Loss, Marshall Confident of Borders's Future 3/31/09 PW
Babylon Falling Closing 3/31/09 PW
U of New Mexico Press Downsizes 3/31/09 PW
Book Sales Off 2.8% in 2008, AAP Says 3/31/09 PW
Pershing Extends Borders 3/31/09 PW
Recession Impacts BEA’s Black Professionals Confab 3/31/09 PW
Kensington to Sit Out Smaller BookExpo America 3/30/09 PW
Quebecor Cuts Loss in 2008 3/30/09 PW
Schoenwald Up, Heim Out at Nelson 3/27/09 PW
Books Etc. Closing Old Port Outlet 3/26/09 PW
Pay Freeze for Barnes & Noble Execs 3/24/09 PW
Random Has Down Year; Sees More Challenges 3/23/09 PW
Books-A-Million Results Fall 3/19/09 PW
B&N Confirms Down Year; Bleak Sales Forecast 3/19/09 PW
Baker & Taylor Moving California Warehouse to Indianapolis 3/17/09 PW
Community Acts to Save Shaman Drum 3/17/09 PW
Borders Sets Annual Meeting; Considers Reverse Stock Split 3/12/09 PW
Bookstore Sales Flat in January 3/12/09 PW
Anderson Sues Magazine Publishers & Wholesalers 3/11/09 PW
Currency Issues, U.S. Economy Result in Down Quarter at Wiley 3/9/09 PW
Anderson's Debt May Top $200 Million 3/6/09 PW
Borders Cuts 742 Store Positions 3/5/09 PW
Anderson’s Troubles Mount 3/4/09 PW
HCI Eliminates 35 Positions 3/3/09 PW
Random House Acquires Ten Speed Press 3/2/09 PW
Book Results Flat at Donnelley 3/2/09 PW
Borders Cuts Corporate Workforce 12% 2/19/09 PW
Simon & Schuster Reports 3% Decline in 2008 2/19/09 PW
Anderson Lays Off Employees; Source Sues 2/18/09 PW
Turner Publishing Buys Cumberland Titles 2/13/09 PW
Borders Gets Another Extension 2/13/09 PW
ABA to Reduce Staff, Institutes Salary Freeze 2/13/09 PW
December Store Sales Down; Year Off 0.5% 2/12/09 PW
HarperCollins Closes Bowen Press 2/12/09 PW
S&P Gets More Negative on HMH Parent 2/11/09 PW
HC Closes Bowen Press, Downsizes Rayo; Makes U.K. Cuts 2/10/09 PW
Harper Closing Collins; Other Layoffs Planned 2/10/09 PW
Anderson News Suspends “Normal Business Activity” 2/9/09 PW
Another Bad Quarter at HarperCollins 2/5/09 PW
Rodale Trims Four in Book Group 2/5/09 PW
Armstrong, Harwood Among Those Leaving in Borders Consolidation 2/3/09 PW
Reed Drops Canadian Publishing Events 2/2/09 PW
Simon & Schuster Unites Marketing 2/2/09 PW
Borders Execs Hit New York 2/2/09 PW
Reader’s Digest Cuts 280 Positions 1/29/09 PW
Random Out of BEC Consumer Show 1/29/09 PW
Harper Offers Voluntary Retirement 1/27/09 PW
Weak School Sales Drop Results at McGraw-Hill Education 1/27/09 PW
Amid Changes, Kenney to Lead 'PW' 1/26/09 PW Note: Sara Nelson out. Boo!
Layoffs at Diamond, DC Comics, Top Cow 1/23/09 PW
OUP Cuts 60 Positions 1/21/09 PW
Random Revamps Adult Sales 1/21/09 PW
BookStream to Flow No More 1/19/09 PW
Schwartz Bookshops to Close; Two Will Have New Owners 1/19/09 PW
The NeverEnding Story Reaches an End 1/16/09 PW
O’Reilly Media Eliminates 30 Jobs 1/16/09 PW
Random House Publishing Group Restructured 1/15/09 PW
B&N Cuts 4% at Corporate HQ 1/14/09 PW
Publishing Sales Sink at Courier; Closes Print Plant 1/14/09 PW
Crown Restructuring Completed 1/14/09 PW
November Bookstore Sales Plunge 1/14/09 PW
Knopf Doubleday Reorg Done 1/14/09 PW
Borders Names McGuire Head of the Board 1/13/09 PW
Books-A-Million Has Small Decline 1/9/09 PW
Small Press Sues Borders, B&T Over Returns 1/9/09 PW
B&N Holiday Sales Drop at Stores, Online 1/6/09 PW
More Cuts at McGraw-Hill Education 1/7/09 PW
Kaplan Buys Cleveland Clinic Press Assets 1/5/09 PW
As Sales Fall, Borders Gets New Leadership 1/5/09 PW
Borders Gets More Time 12/23/08 PW
Dohle Urges Random to Rethink, Reformulate Ways of Doing Business 12/18/08 PW
One-Time Charges, Currency Fluctuations Dent Scholastic Results 12/18/08 PW
Macmillan Scales Back BEA Presence 12/16/08 PW
Macmillan Eliminates 64 Positions; Forms Children’s Group 12/15/08 PW
Sourcebooks Buys Cumberland House 12/15/08 PW
October Bookstore Sales Dropped 5.6% 12/12/08 PW
Unit Sales Fall in Early December 12/11/08 PW
Perseus Suspends Raises 12/10/08 PW
Belt-Tightening in Canada 12/10/08 PW
Chronicle Books Makes Cuts 12/10/08 PW
Ten Speed Press Sale Close 12/10/08 PW
Pay Freeze at Macmillan 12/10/08 PW
Penguin Freezes Raises for Those Above $50,000 12/4/08 PW
HMH Lays Off More Staff 12/4/08 PW
Random Waits for Pending Integration 12/4/08 PW
S&S Cuts 35 Jobs 12/3/08 PW
Richter, Pfeffer to Leave S&S Kids 12/3/08 PW
Rubin, Irwyn Applebaum Step Down in RH Reorg 12/3/08 PW
Thomas Nelson Cuts 54 Positions 12/3/08 PW
Becky Saletan Quits HMH 12/2/08 PW
Borders Results Decline; Company Sale Off 11/25/08 PW
Broccoli Books Folds; Publishers Struggle in Tough Economy 11/25/08 PW
Levy Cancels 2009 Sales Conference 11/25/08 PW
HMH Places "Temporary" Halt on Acquisitions 11/24/08 PW
BAM Comps Drop Nearly 10% 11/24/08 PW
Random House Walks from BEC 2009 11/21/08 PW
Broccoli Books to Shut Down 11/21/08 PW
B&N Sales Sink; Sees Gloomy Holiday 11/21/08 PW
Layoffs at B&T 11/19/09 PW
Linda Jones Stepping Down at Borders 11/17/08 PW
September Bookstore Sales Drop 4.5% 11/14/08 PW
BookStream Slows As It Waits for Funding 11/14/08 PW
Reidy: Worse Publishing Environment May Be On the Way 11/11/08 PW
Economic Downturn Shutters Dallas-area Indie 11/7/08 PW
Profits Tumble at HarperCollins 11/5/08 PW
With Big Exception, Trade Sales Slowed in September 11/5/08 PW
Marvel Publishing Sales Slip 11/3/08 PW
Rodale to Cut 10% of its Workforce 11/3/08 PW
B&N Prepares for Terrible Holiday 11/3/08 PW
Indigo Second Quarter Results Down 10/30/08 PW
Doubleday Cuts 16 10/28/08 PW
Results Off at McGraw-Hill Education; Slashes Forecast 10/28/08 PW
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Amazon beats "MediaPad" to Market with DX

Large Kindle DX Display and New Features Provide Enhanced Experience for Reading a Wide Range of Professional and Personal Documents
“Personal and professional documents look so good on the big Kindle DX display that you’ll find yourself changing ink-toner cartridges less often,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Cookbooks, computer books, and textbooks – anything highly formatted – also shine on the Kindle DX. Carry all your documents and your whole library in one slender package.”
New Large DisplayKindle DX’s display has 2.5 times the surface area of Kindle’s 6-inch display. The larger electronic paper display with 16 shades of gray has more area for graphic-rich content such as professional and personal documents, newspapers and magazines, and textbooks. Kindle reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real ink and doesn’t use a backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays.
New Built-In PDF ReaderKindle DX features a built-in PDF reader using Adobe Reader Mobile technology for reading professional and personal documents. Like other types of documents on Kindle, customers simply email their PDF format documents to their Kindle email address or move them over using a USB connection. With a larger display and built-in PDF reader, Kindle DX customers can read professional and personal documents with more complex layouts without scrolling, panning, or zooming, and without re-flowing, which destroys the original structure of the document. Everything from annual reports with graphs to flight manuals with maps to musical scores can be viewed on a single, crisp screen with Kindle DX.
New Auto-Rotation
Kindle DX’s display content auto-rotates so users can read in portrait or landscape mode, or flip the device to read with either hand. Simply turn Kindle DX and immediately see full-width landscape views of maps, graphs, tables, images, and Web pages.
With 3.3 GB of available memory, Kindle DX can hold up to 3,500 books, compared with 1,500 with Kindle. And because Amazon automatically backs up a copy of every Kindle book purchased, customers can wirelessly re-download titles from their library at any time.
Incredibly ThinKindle DX is just over a third of an inch thin, which is thinner than most magazines.
Just like Kindle, Kindle DX customers automatically take advantage of Amazon Whispernet to wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, download or receive new content in less than 60 seconds, and read from their library—all without a PC, Wi-Fi hot spot, or syncing. Amazon still pays for the wireless connectivity on Kindle DX so books can be downloaded in less than 60 seconds—with no monthly fees, data plans, or service contracts.
Just like Kindle, Kindle DX uses Amazon Whispersync technology to automatically sync content across Kindle, Kindle DX, Kindle for iPhone, and other devices in the future. With Whispersync, customers can easily move from device to device and never lose their place in their reading.
The Kindle Store currently offers more than 275,000 books, including popular books like New York Times Bestsellers, New Releases, and fiction and nonfiction released in the past several years. Dozens of newspapers and magazines are also available for subscription or single-edition purchase. BusinessWeek and The New England Journal of Medicine are available in the Kindle Store starting today, and The Economist will be available soon. Subscriptions are auto-delivered wirelessly to Kindle overnight so that the latest edition is waiting for customers when they wake up. Over 1,500 blogs are available on Kindle and updated and downloaded wirelessly throughout the day.
- Look up words instantly using the built-in 250,000 word New Oxford American Dictionary
- Choose from six text sizes
- Add bookmarks, notes, and highlights
- Text-to-speech technology that converts words on a page to spoken word
- Search Web, Wikipedia.org, Kindle Store, and your library of purchased content
- No setup required—Kindle comes ready to use—no software to load or set up Amazon Kindle is sold through Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel; Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial.
Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), Amazon Mechanical Turk and Amazon CloudFront.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com , www.amazon.co.uk , www.amazon.de , www.amazon.co.jp , www.amazon.fr , www.amazon.ca , and www.amazon.cn .
As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
Source: Amazon.com, Inc.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Another Tipping Point for eBooks?
PC World has already declared the MediaPad could be the Kindle Killer. Personally, I have held out on purchasing an ebook reading device, mostly because I didn't want to pay all that money for another device only to read books. Granted, the Kindle allows one to do more than read books, but the little black & white screen with all those little buttons at the bottom: It looks like the offspring of a 1940s television and a Blackberry. There's no back lighting. Weak graphics. And, while I appreciate what Amazon and the Kindle have done for advancing the industry of electronic books, I'm not paying $400 for that experience.
I did pay $400 for my iPhone and I LOVE it. I read on it every day, several times a day. Mostly I read the blogs I follow, but I also read articles, my email, my calendar, Facebook posts, Twitter posts, etc. I love that I can read in the dark before bed without a light and it doesn't disturb my wife. I love the touch screen navigation and zoom. I love the auto portrait-landscape feature. I love being connected to the Internet with (almost) full Web experience (Apple: for Jumping-Jack's sake, please give me Flash, Flash, Flash) and links out to other points of interest while I am reading. And I love that I can jump from my email, to watching a YouTube video, to my favorite blog sites, to Facebook, to my photos, to my voicemail, all while listening to my music.
Friday, April 10, 2009
A Return to Blogging
You may notice I've given the blog site a makeover and shifted the focus to digital book publishing.It's been an interesting few months. In December, Cumberland House was acquired by Sourcebooks. The conversations between the companies really heated up around the time my blog went dark. It proved to be a good transition. I learned a ton walking through the acquisition and helping transition the acquired titles over to Sourcebooks systems.
Today, I'm working for B&H Publishing Group, spearheading digital publishing initiatives, as well as developing backlist and custom books.
The digital arena is a wide-open playing field and I am having a blast.
I'm back! Happy Easter.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
How Good is Your Spelling?
Long-time friend of Cumberland House and author, Martin Manser, is a reference-book editor and language trainer & consultant in the UK where he offers courses to writers, companies, and university students. For full details of his open public courses held in London and also details of tailor-made courses, see his Language Trainer and Consultant page: http://www.martinmanser.com/MMTraining.aspx.1 a stupefying/stupifying effect
2 the forword/forward/foreword to the book
3 a forgone/foregone conclusion
4 the troubled period of adolesence/adolescence
5 a stand-up arguement/argument
6 and other miscellaneous/misellanious/miscellanious items
7 I am very loath/loathe to say no
8 the South African system of apartheid/aparthied/apartheit
9 the yoke/yolk of slavery
10 an insurance waver/waiver
11 the rudimentary principles/principals of physics
12 lackered/laquered/laqueured/lacquered wood
13 What impeccible/impeccable behaviour!
14 Yours truly/truely, Freda
15 They’re just good friends/freinds
16 a hypersensitive/hyposensitive personality
17 to canvass/canvas/cannvass public opinion
18 He suffers from agoraphobia/agraphobia
19 the national curriculum/curiculum in education
20 to seek professional/profesional/proffessional advice
21 The economy is not very boyant/buoyant at the moment
22 She complemented/complimented him on his fine appearance
23 Clostrophobia/Claustrophobia is the fear of being in enclosed places
24 He was severely censored/censured/censered for the brutality of the attack
25 in ecstacy/ecstasy/exstacy at the thought.
Answers to spelling quiz (above)
1 stupefying
2 foreword
3 foregone
4 adolescence
5 argument
6 miscellaneous
7 loath
8 apartheid
9 yoke
10 waiver
11 principles
12 lacquered
13 impeccable
14 truly
15 friends
16 hypersensitive
17 canvass
18 agoraphobia
19 curriculum
20 professional
21 buoyant
22 complimented
23 claustrophobia
24 censured
25 ecstasy
25 out of 25: well done! 20-24 very good. 15-20 fair. Below 15: you are relying too much on your spellchecker!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Great Gift Idea for Book People
Opening Lines: The First Sentences from Classic Plays, Poems, and Books is a wonderful gift for book lovers available exclusively at Barnes & Noble. It is a mini book designed to hold a gift card. Gift cards are sold separately so you can include a gift card from B&N or the retailer of your choice. Or, the book alone makes a great client gift with your business card inside instead of a gift card. Monday, November 24, 2008
Happy Holidays
Friday, November 21, 2008
Big Hit for The Military Wives Cookbook!
Cumberland House marketeer Paige Lakin received samples yesterday of a major hit she secured for The Military Wives Cookbook in the December 2008 issue of The American Legion Magazine--circulation: over 2.5 million!It is a full color, two page spread with a large image of the book cover, sample recipes, and a photo and interview with author Carolyn Quick Tillery. The December 2008 issue isn't posted on their Web site yet but click here, or on the image to read the feature.
Way to go Paige and CQ!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
I LOVE Last.fm
Have you heard of Last.fm? I learned about it last week. Joe Wikert wrote a post about his new found admiration for the iPhone. Someone commented on his post that using Last.fm on the G3 network is better than satellite radio. I've had satellite radio-envy for a long time. I've had rental cars with Sirius and I LOVED it. I'm not a talk radio person, it is the targeted, commercial free music I love.Saturday, November 15, 2008
Maximize Your Investment in Book Promotion - Every Author Should Read This Post
My friend Rusty Shelton at Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists gave me a heads-up on this post written by one of their authors, Wendy Kays, who recently appeared on Dr. Phil to promote her book, Game Widow.Thursday, November 6, 2008
Celebrity Autobiography: In Their Own Words
On the drive home tonight I heard this story on All Things Considered and it cracked me up. It is about a show running at the Triad Theater in New York called Celebrity Autobiography. Every Monday a different cast of comic actors like SNL stars Fred Armison, Will Forte, and SNL alumni Rachel Dratch, Molly Shannon and other stars read passages from celebrity autobiographies. Books read during the radio story included Mr. T: The Man With the Gold: An Autobiography by Mister T, the Motley Crue memoir The Dirt, and Good Morning, I'm Joan Lunden. Wednesday, November 5, 2008
How authors can stay positive through the publishing process
Richard O'Connor, author of Happy at Last: The Thinking Person's Guide to Finding Joy (St. Martin's) wrote the Soapbox feature for the 10/27/2008 issue of Publishers Weekly. It is a nice piece on the search for happiness."Humans are wired to be able to feel good when good things happen," he writes, "but the feeling never lasts."
Here are some tips from O'Connor:
Focus on what you can control. Write well, and be proud of that, no matter what.
Chances are your book won't sell as much as you want it to, but don't let that ruin your life.
Behavioral economists have shown that when we get what we want, we'll just want something else. . . You need to find more substantial goals, like getting to work on the next book.
Here's my favorite tip: When you go to bed at night, think of three good things that happened during the day. Little things, like a good grilled cheese sandwich, or bigger things, like how you love someone. Maybe you wrote a great paragraph or learned an interesting fact. Research shows that if you do this, not only will you be in a better mood the next day, but the more often you do this, the happier you'll be.
I really need to get better at doing this--taking stock of the good things every day. Here are my three good things from today:
- The autumn colors and mist rising off the river in the sun this morning.
- Overhearing my daughter tell my wife that she loves her, completely out of the blue.
- Flipping through a photography book called Old Dogs.
What good things happened during your day today? Share them here. Maybe what you share will be someone else's good thing.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Do you blog?
Are you actively writing or posting other content for a community of people who tune in regularly to see what you have to say? If so, please post a comment on this post with your blog address.Monday, November 3, 2008
Election Day Freebies
Well, it's almost over. I must say, as disillusioned and cynical as I am about politics, I've enjoyed the focus in the news the last few days on the final campaign strategies heading into the election. At least I've enjoyed it more than the dismal news of the fallout from the economy that is all we've been hearing the last couple of weeks--closed doors, lost jobs, lost homes. With the Dow up around 1000 points from the low of the last few weeks, maybe we'll get some relief on that front too. 


