Apr 1 2009
April Fool’s Day Links Roundup
- In a not so tom foolery post, Mark Sarvas posts a beautiful in memoriam for his father. Thanks Elizabeth.
- Borders does Lisa Kleypas in its new “True Romance” feature. (Borders needs an embed element).
- BooksonBoard now offers a new eBook or audio book special every 24 hours! Follow BooksonBoard on twitter for daily updates. Check out today’s promotion here
- Borders has a decline of 8.9% in revenue, 9.4% decline in sales at the Borders superstores and a 14.7% decline at the Waldens stores.
- According to the AAP, book sales are down 2.8% in 2008 with most segments dropping but ebook sales which increased 68% to comprise 0.5% of total industry sales. Mass markets were down 3.0%.
- Kensington will not exhibit at BEA. It will host publisher parties and have staff walking the aisles (what like perfumers at the mall?)
- Wall Street Journal has an article about why Google Booksearch is a rip off for authors. (Thanks Kay)
- NPR hosts a discussion on DRM and whether piracy hurts ebook technology (no, only the knee jerk response hurts legitimate customers and the ebook industry). (Thanks Bec)
- And finally, there is a good discussion of ebook pricing by Orbit. I think the $1.00 pricing is genius because it seeds the front list. On Twitter the other day, we gave away about 40 copies of Larissa Ione’s book, Pleasure Unbound, in about 10 minutes because it was part of the $1.00 promotion.
Send to Kindle
Apr 01, 2009 @ 20:39:11
I’m not sure what this post is about but:
Lisa Kleypas! Please tell your publishers to put Smooth Talking Stranger on Kindle.
So I can buy it.
Isn’t that the idea?
Selling books?
For fuck’s sake. Sheesh. I can’t believe I am begging to buy a book.
Apr 01, 2009 @ 21:38:25
I don’t think piracy hurts ebooks. I think it hurt every book. Some people scan titles that came out in print only (such as Harry Potter series) and post them online. It’s a serious issue.
Apr 01, 2009 @ 21:39:43
@Bonnie:
Actually Amazon wants a huge huge discount from publishers, and I’m not surprised that some publishers don’t want to put some of their titles in Kindle format for that reason. The more popular Kindle becomes, the more power / leverage Amazon has over publishers.
Apr 02, 2009 @ 06:53:56
My local Borders has reduced its romance section from 3 shelf “walls” to 2. Also, they have overall reduced their inventory so that there are fewer tables in the middle of the store. It’s starting to look very sparse in there.
Apr 02, 2009 @ 08:21:10
I wonder if mass markets are down because publishers are persisting with that horrid “venti” format (which I refuse to buy). Or maybe publishers are choosing to go with trades instead of mass markets for more titles?
Apr 02, 2009 @ 11:49:23
Or people who buy eBooks now might have bought mass market paperback books in the past. Although given the percentage of increase in eBook purchases and decreased in mass market purchases there has to be something else included.
Agree on “venti” if they are the same thing as what I have seen described as “lux”– skinny but long and hard to hold open.
Apr 02, 2009 @ 15:20:53
Well darn it. Kensignton’s one of my favorite booths to visit at BEA. I guess I see their reasoning, but it’s still sad.