e-Relevant

Harry Potter e-books available, but only through Pottermore

marks@nhpsa.co.za (Mark Seabrook) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:05:08 GMT

It’s quite amazing that for the first time since the Harry Potter series began, in 1997, official e-book versions of all seven titles in the series are now available. Far more amazing however is where and how these e-books are being sold.

For the first time in the history of digital publishing a major author has forced the likes of Amazon and Barnes & Noble to operate on their terms. These and other retailers are referring readers to the Pottermore shop (the online business created to sell the e-books), rather than selling the e-books directly.

The customer can discover the Harry Potter e-books via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other major e-book retailers and is then re-directed to Pottermore to complete the purchasing of the e-book which can still be read on the customer’s device of choice (including the Kindle). It’s the first time Amazon has allowed a 3^rd party to own the customer relationship, while still allowing the e-book to be delivered to its device.

Mike Shatzkin – whose blog everyone interested in digital publishing should be following - has commented on how important Rowling and Pottermore's move is.

Bilbary and Jelly Books

marks@nhpsa.co.za (Mark Seabrook) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:01:31 GMT

In the last week two new e-book related startups launched that look to change the buying, browsing and selling experience. Both Bilbary and Jellybooks have founders with UK-based book publishing backgrounds. Bilbary was founded by formed Waterstones MD Tim Coates and Jellybooks by Andrew Rhomberg, previously director of content acquisition at Txtr.

Bilbary focuses on selling e-books direct to readers, something which big trade publishers need a lot of help with. Currently in beta the site is available in the US and has over 300,000 e-books available for sales from non-agency publishers. Another 100,000 agency titles will be added shortly, and then the site will expand to titles form international publishers, self-published and out-of-print books. Future plans are to expand to an e-book rental model, which could help publishers compete with Amazon.

Currently Jellybooks main focus is on book discovery. The website is simple and displays rows of book covers in an easy to browse manner similar to a bookstore, except here all covers are ‘face out’. Customers are able to read the first 10 percent of the book, DRM-free, and can share the sample across various social networking platforms. The business model behind Jellybooks is a group buying heavily discounted model; this is not available yet but will be rolled out in a future release. At this stage Jellybooks has no intention of selling e-books directly at retail prices. Its focus is on being an e-book showroom where customers discover e-books and can buy them (via links on Jellybooks) at various retailers, except for the special group buying deals on Jellybooks.

The Hunger Games: using social media to bring a fictional world to life

silmap@nhpsa.co.za (Silma Parker) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:23:15 GMT

Post-apocalyptic teen action movie The Hunger Games raked in a hefty $155 million during its debut weekend. With the third-highest opening weekend in history (behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Dark Knight), the film, based on Suzanne Collins’s novels, has established itself as the new pop culture phenomenon – one that is only just beginning.

Lionsgate, the studio behind The Hunger Games, strategically planned an immersive social media experience to engage and grow the fan base, a strategy that also increased print book sales from 9 million to 24 million. With the blurring of lines betweens books, e-books, enhanced e-books, apps, and related spin-offs, the book publishing industry is facing increased competition from other entertainment media, particularly when it comes to marketing savvy. Entertainment marketing increasingly thrives online, where engaging with fans and creating something exciting together can result in the snowball effect of word of mouth spread.

The Hunger Games is a great example of using social media creatively to create a buzz around their product. The studio had a team of 21 people and spent a long time exacting their strategy, and the timing of events in their marketing plan. Here is a summary of some of what they did on the various platforms.

E-Book Subscriptions are not Just a Thought

julial@nhpsa.co.za (Julia Lhuillery-Moulder) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:03:27 GMT

Skoobe.de, Germany’s first e-book subscription service launched in late February. A few months ago Skoobe (read it backwards) launched an iOS app providing reading samples of bestsellers published by more than 70 publishers (among them Droemer, DVA, Fischer, Goldmann, Heyne, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Lübbe, Luchterhand and Rowohlt). Customers are able to access about 2000 complete titles for a monthly fee of €9.99.

The customers can browse all titles, read extensive samples (without being a member) and may borrow a maximum of 5 e-books at once. When “returning” a title, another one can be picked. As an introductory offer, the first 10,000 users of the app can access an unlimited amount of new releases but from March 2013 users will be restricted to two new front-list e-books per month. The big attraction - compared to library subscriptions - is that there is no waiting list for popular titles: every e-book is available to every user at the same time. Furthermore the app allows readers to read without being connected to the internet for 30 days at a time.

NBC to launch e-books division under NBC Publishing venture

anthonyb@nhpsa.co.za (Anthony Booysen) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:37:27 GMT

NBC News is starting a new path into publishing, under the name of NBC Publishing.
They aim to produce electronic and print books under the NBC banner.

NBC Publishing’s strategy to production of books will be digital-first. Coming over from the television division of NBC are video producers and engineers who will create mixed content to enhance their books. NBC Publishing will still need to get their production processes in place, author the content, and edit and produce the actual books.

Creativity is closely tied to literature. Great writing is a completely different skill-set that NBC will have to work to improve when targeting a large reader audience.
Writers are needed, and a corporate culture capable of recognizing and promoting writing skills. NBC News has the advantage of large volumes of unseen broadcast footage that has never been aired. Beyond the archives are a much larger resource base provided by NBC News’s parent company NBC Universal.

Apple’s iBooks Author

marks@nhpsa.co.za (Mark Seabrook) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:38:20 GMT

iBooks Author was launched at an Apple press event at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. This new Mac OS X application can be used to create any kind of book, but Apple has focused in heavily on textbooks and has already partnered with academic publishers McGraw-Hill and Pearson, who have content ready in this new format. Books created with iBooks Author can be viewed in the iBooks 2 application.

So what exactly is iBooks Author and what can it do? Its features are designed to help bring highly illustrated and complex layout books to life in a digital format. Anyone who has used Apple’s excellent presentation software Keynote or products such as Adobe InDesign will feel comfortable with the user interface of iBooks Author. Some of the key features include:

Ø A selection of page layout templates to help get you started, or you can design your own

Ø Add text, shapes, charts, tables, and Multi-Touch widgets anywhere on the page with a single click

Ø Mask images, use alignment guides — even add reflections and shadows

Ø Add a variety of widgets such as: interactive images, interactive galleries of images, 3D images, video & audio, questions/reviews (multiple choice, chose correct image, label the image, or a mixture)

Ø Widgets can also be custom written for an iBook using code in Javascript and HTML

Ø iBooks Author also simplifies creating glossaries for a title. Simply highlight a word and click a button, and the word is added to a glossary, while definitions for words can also be simply added

Ø Accessibility: The table of contents, glossary, widgets, main text, and more are built to automatically take advantage of VoiceOver technology

Google Search, plus Your World: An opportunity to increase brand awareness

silmap@nhpsa.co.za (Silma Parker) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:51:14 GMT

Takeaways:

Google has integrated Google+ into their search results
These results are highlighted above regular search results, and can include public and private posts, pictures and links
When someone shares your content on Google+ it gets recommended to their friends when they search for a related phrase
Google+ profiles related to search terms are also promoted in Google search results

What is Search, plus Your World?

A few weeks ago, Google launched Search, Plus Your World (GSPYW) a service that personalises search by showing each user different results based on content shared by their online social circles. In one swoop, Google has changed the way search results appear to Google account holders and consequently they’ve changed the playing field for all businesses that have an online presence.

The big players – Expanding their offering and reach

marks@nhpsa.co.za (Mark Seabrook) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:10:25 GMT

Amazon, Kobo and Google have all been very busy in the last month expanding their device offering and their geographical reach, hoping to put their device in your hands this festive season and secure your future e-book purchases.

Amazon kicked things off on 28 September, launching their much speculated tablet device, the Kindle Fire, which will ship on 15 November and sell for $199. During the same press event Amazon announced a touch-screen version of the Kindle selling for $99, a non-touch-screen Kindle selling for $79 and a new mobile web browser called Amazon Silk. ‘We’re making premium products and offering them at non-premium prices’, says Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO).

THE KINDLE FIRE

A week later, on 6 October, Google announced the launch of their Google e-books UK store, which will include e-books from Hachette, Random House and Penguin and over two million public domain e-books. The Google e-books are stored in the cloud and will work across a range of devices.

Kindle Now Supports HTML 5

anthonyb@nhpsa.co.za (Anthony Booysen) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:30:08 GMT

Amazon has brought their support for web standards up to date with the adoption of HTML 5. The latest offering from Amazon implementing these features is the Kindle Fire tablet.

Rich media content clearly takes precedence for Amazon, in providing users an interactive graphical experience recreating and enhancing the original product content in a digital format.

The new Kindle devices boast a wide range of features and enhancements. KF8 is the next generation file format for Kindle books replacing the older Mobi 7 format.

In the past Amazon kept away from open standards, forcing publishers to provide their books in a proprietary format exclusive to their systems, maintaining firm control on Kindle content.

The support of standardised HTML 5 adds over 150 new formatting capabilities to improve digital content.

Are libraries dying? Unlikely so!

julial@nhpsa.co.za (Julia Lhuillery-Moulder) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:10:31 GMT

With the rise of e-books one may think that libraries have problems keeping up. It seems that, on the contrary, US libraries are becoming again a popular place to visit.

OverDrive – the leading e-book and digital audiobook distributor to libraries – stated that e-book checkouts increased by more than 200% in 2010. Furthermore this trend is accelerating as the checkouts nearly tripled in September 2011 reaching 12 million so far this year.

According to a recent study from the American Library Association, more than 2/3 of public libraries in the US offer e-book checkouts. OverDrive distributes to over 15 000 public and school libraries in the country. To ensure that e-books supplied by libraries are compatible to a majority of e-readers and mobile devices, OverDrive has partnered with high profile companies such as Sony, Amazon and Barnes and Noble which allow library lending.

Libraries are more appealing than ever. People can just visit their local library’s website from their home or mobile phone, and download the e-books of their choice. Mobile and tablet users represent 21% of the checkouts according to OverDrive.

US school libraries are also embracing modern times. 44% of school libraries now offer e-book lending to students and the number is on the rise since only 1/3 of schools were providing this service last year. E-books appeal more to the higher echelons of education - 71% of high school libraries, 55% of middle schools and 35% of elementary schools offer e-book checkouts.

Few South African libraries currently offer e-books but looking at the trend overseas this situation is likely to improve. The stumbling blocks for libraries may be the cost of integration with e-book distributors like OverDrive and the small penetration of e-book devices in South Africa.