Microsoft Corp.

Amazon to give away tens of millions of dollars in virtual currency
February 6, 2013

Amazon has announced Amazon Coins, a virtual currency for use with its tablet, the Kindle Fire.

Scheduled to launch in May for US customers, the currency is being billed with an exchange rate of one Amazon Coin to one cent, although Paul Ryder, Vice President of Apps and Games for Amazon is also promising that the company will give customers tens of millions of dollars' worth of free Amazon Coins to promote the service.

Wharton: Barnes & Noble, the Last Big Bookseller Standing: But for How Long?
January 16, 2013

Barnes & Noble had a rough holiday season: Same-store sales fell compared to a year ago and revenue from sales of the Nook tablet stalled. Despite a heavy investment in the Nook business, Barnes & Noble is expected to have a three-year cumulative loss of more than $700 million, according to Barclays Capital -- an indication that the bookstore's multi-front war with online retailer Amazon.com doesn't seem to be working.

Barnes & Noble's Strategy Is Questioned as Holiday Nook Sales Decline
January 3, 2013

For Barnes & Noble, the digital future is not what it used to be.

After a year spent signaling its commitment to build its business through its Nook division, Barnes & Noble on Thursday announced disappointing holiday sales figures, with steep declines that underscored the challenge it faces in transforming from its traditional retail format.

Bad News for Amazon Is Good News for Apple
December 19, 2012

There may be a reason for last week's fire sale on Amazon.com's Kindle Fire.

Maybe they're just not selling.

Pacific Crest analyst Chad Bartley lowered his unit sales target for Amazon's attractively priced tablet yesterday. His supply chain checks show that Amazon is likely to sell just 6 million Kindle Fire devices this holiday quarter, well off the 8 million that he was originally targeting.

Obviously, most companies outside of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) would kill to move 6 million tablets

How 6 New Tools Change the Equation for Writing and Self-Publishing Your Book
December 18, 2012

When writers first exchanged pen and paper for word processing systems we didn't realize how firmly it put us on the path toward self-production and self-publishing. The jury's still out on whether the creative process was altered for better or worse. Marshall McLuhan, an early media pundit, recognized back in 1962 how "the divorce of poetry and music was first reflected by the printed page."

In contrast, today's tools marry writing and publishing, bringing artists ever closer to the end product with click-of-a-button e-book creation capabilities built into the writing tools.

How Many Tablets Does the Market Have Room For?
November 26, 2012

Surface. iPad. Nook HD. Kindle Fire HD. iPad Mini. The list goes on and on. Consumers can try to escape the onslaught of new tablets, but they are inescapable.

Apple, Sony, Samsung, Asus, Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Barnes & Noble are among the many companies that have developed at least one tablet. Some of these companies are attempting to expand the market with the so-called tablet hybrids, which take advantage of Windows 8.

Barnes & Noble Is Shutting Down E-Book Pioneers Fictionwise.com, eReader.com and eBookwise
November 16, 2012

Barnes & Noble is shutting down Fictionwise, a company running several eBook websites, including Fictionwise.com, eReader.com, and eBookwise.com. Although the move shouldn’t be all that surprising in a world of Amazon Kindles, iBookstores, and of course, B&N’s own Nook library, it’s worth a tip of our hat to these sites that laid the groundwork for the digital e-reading revolution.


Fictionwise, launched in 2000 and was acquired by B&N in March 2009 for $15.7 million, as the company planned its move into the ebooks space with the Nook tablet and accompanying bookstore. B

Booksellers Resisting Amazon’s Disruption
November 4, 2012

Amazon prides itself on unraveling the established order. This fall, signs of Amazon-inspired disruption are everywhere.There is the slow-motion crackup of electronics showroom Best Buy. There is Amazon’s rumored entry into the wine business, which is already agitating competitors. And there is the merger of Random House and Penguin, an effort to create a mega-publisher sufficiently hefty to negotiate with the retailer on equal terms. Amazon inspires anxiety just about everywhere, but its publishing arm is getting pushback from all sorts of booksellers.

Twelve Tips for Agile Product Development
November 1, 2012

As publishers become increasingly digital, both in workflow and product offering, we will continue to hear more and more about the agile publishing model. Agile is a methodology that comes from the software development industry. Its main components are iterative design, rapid prototyping, minimum viable product (MVP), customer feedback loops which provide behavioral and usage analytics and data-driven decision making.

Essentially, the objective of agile is to push things to market more quickly, and to learn from actual usage patterns. The data collected informs subsequent product releases. While this model has yet to be fully realized or articulated in the publishing space, there are components of it which have been the subject of experimentation among publishers. If your company is just starting in agile or is in the midst of implementing an agile workflow, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Ignore the Doomsayers: The Book Industry Is Actually Adapting Well
October 26, 2012

Numbers show that the publishing industry is handling the rise of e-readers better than what folk knowledge might suggest.

The fall publishing season is in full swing. There can hardly have been a year with more luminaries atop both the fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists; J. K. Rowling, Michael Chabon, Ken Follett, Junot Diaz, among others, represent literary acclaim and commercial appeal. Diaz is having an especially good run. Stephen Colbert, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Young, Bob Woodward, and Salman Rushdie are just a sampling of the nonfiction bestsellers.