E-Books and Interactive Publishing

I just returned from an incredible vacation to Colorado. It was the first time I traveled with my Nook, which, of course, is one of the great benefits of an e-reader—it’s portability. I tend to be a, shall we say, slightly heavy packer (OK, I’ll admit it, my suitcase was just shy of 50 lbs., but I still contend that every one of those pairs of shoes was essential), so it was a relief not to have to lug one or two cumbersome print books along, too. And from my admittedly limited, unscientific perspective (that is, seat 18D on the plane ride out to Denver), it appears e-reader use is indeed increasingly—in addition to my Nook, I spotted two Kindles in my direct vicinity.

Bruce Brandfon, Scientific American: always charged for content and a few years gave it away for free on the web. Couldn’t monetize it by way of advertising. A year ago decided to publish tidbits and took the features stories off the web. Previously published features on the web for free before the magazine came out. As a result subscriptions increased. Lesson learned as publishers of content is that rates they were able to generate on the web were very small compared to the rates they could generate in print.

Price sensitivity and books. Surveyed Kindle hardware owners: overall message was that if they can’t get the books they want from a publisher they won’t buy the book or will buy a different book. It seems to be easy to get riled up about a price change in the abstract, but when comes to the reality most people who really want the book will buy it. People strongly objected to iTunes selective pricing when introduced last April and it didn’t effect their sales.

Publishers are betting that consumers will follow. First time that industry has raised the price of an existing format, and while doing this will be limiting the tactics retailers can use to entice consumer. Based on assumption that consumers will pay more, but we’ve just never asked them to. Concept of bundling: talking with some publishers but publishers seem frightened about anything that would “devalue” the pbook as an asset bundling runs into this. They have data that indicates that consumers would like this.

North American Publishing Company (NAPCO) of Philadelphia announced today that Gadgetell, a division of NAPCO, has acquired TeleRead.org, a Web Site covering global e-book news based in Alexandria, VA.

SEATTLE, Feb 08, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that Gavin de Becker, bestselling author and nationally recognized expert on the prediction and management of violence, has decided to make expanded and updated editions of two of his books, "The Gift of Fear" and "Just 2 Seconds," available in Amazon's Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). This is the first time "The Gift of Fear" has been available electronically, and both books will be exclusive to the Kindle Store for one year. Kindle is the most gifted, most wished for and the No. 1 bestselling product across all categories on Amazon.com. The Kindle Store now includes over 410,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including New York TimesBestsellersand New Releases.

A look at Apple's new iPad, including its iBooks app and iBoostore.

With the explosive growth in e-book sales and the entrance of multiple new devices and players, it seems like we are at the tipping point for e-books. But have any of us who are deeply involved in e-books—publishers, retailers, technology developers, standards organizations and writers—asked the question: What do e-book readers want?

With some of its better-known and wackier titles including "The Complete Far Side," "What the Duck: A W.T. Duck Collection," "Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong" and "Butter My Butt & Call Me a Biscuit: And Other Country Sayings, Say-So's, Hoots & Hollers," one might think that Andrews McMeel Publishing's (AMP) strategic advantage comes from its funny bone. But, while humor is one of the company's leading product categories, there is no doubt that it's serious about its approach to publishing.

The average prices of the top 100 e-books on the Amazon Kindle best-seller list and the Sony best-seller list for the first half of 2009 were $8.26 and $10.38, respectively. For the second half of 2009 (up to mid-December), the average price for the top 100 Amazon Kindle titles dropped to $6.76, while Sony's average price dipped to $9.25.