I’ve talked to several readers about the price fixing lawsuit and people have a lot of questions.  I thought I could provide a few answers here to help clarify matters.  If you have a question, drop a line in the comments.

1.  What are the lawsuits and who do they involve?

There are three lawsuits in the United States alleging that five of the big six publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon&Schuster and Penguin) colluded with Apple to raise ebook prices.  Those three lawsuits are as follows:

• Department of Justice (a federal lawsuit)
• 31 States’ Attorney Generals
• Private class action suit

There are also investigations taking place in Canada, Australia, and the EU.

2.  What are the suits about?

All three of the U.S. lawsuits are essentially the same.  The suits allege (or accuse) that Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon&Schuster and Penguin conspired or colluded with Apple to raise the ebook prices from the price level that ebooks were at leading up to January 2010 which was primarily $9.99 for Bestsellers and under.

What we know from the documentary evidence (or evidence that is supported by emails, notes, memos or telephone records) is that executives of the five publishers communicated with each other about two things:

• windowing ebooks (windowing means holding back the sale of an ebook for a period of time after the paper book is released)
• moving to a retail price maintenance model (or “Agency” as it is commonly known) that guaranteed the price would be the same at Apple as it would be anywhere else and that Apple would get a 30% commission from all digital books sold through Apple’s store.

3.  You’ve made a big deal about “per se”.  What does that mean?

Shorter answer: It is much harder for a defendant to win a per se case and much easier for the plaintiffs.  Accusations that Amazon made them do it won’t be permitted in a per se case.

Long answer: Per se is a legal standard.  Accusations of antitrust violations are measured against one of two standards: either “per se” or “rule of reason”.

Per Se:  A per se violation is “conclusively presumed illegal.” Under this standard, business justifications or social benefits are not considered and the Defendant Publishers would not be allowed to offer proof to justify their actions such as arguing that Amazon was going to destroy publishing. Under a “per se” standard, Amazon and their actions are completely unimportant.  The Supreme Court in United States v. Socony- Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150, 221, 222 (1940). said the following:

The elimination of so-called competitive evils is no legal justification for such buying programs. The elimination of such conditions was sought primarily for its effect on the price structures. Fairer competitive prices, it is claimed, resulted when distress gasoline was removed from the market. But such defense is typical of the protestations usually made in price-fixing cases. Ruinous competition, financial disaster, evils of price-cutting, and the like appear throughout our history as ostensible justifications for price-fixing. If the so-called competitive abuses were to be appraised here, the reasonableness of prices would necessarily become an issue in every price-fixing case. In that event, the Sherman Act would soon be emasculated; its philosophy would be supplanted by one which is wholly alien to a system of free competition; it would not be the charter of freedom which its framers intended.

The reasonableness of prices has no constancy due to the dynamic quality of the business facts underlying price structures. Those who fixed reasonable prices today would perpetuate unreasonable prices tomorrow, since those prices would not be subject to continuous administrative supervision and readjustment in light of changed conditions. Those who controlled the prices would control or effectively dominate the market. And those who were in that strategic position would have it in their power to destroy or drastically impair the competitive system. But the thrust of the rule is deeper, and reaches more than monopoly power. Any combination which tampers with price structures is engaged in an unlawful activity. Even though the members of the price-fixing group were in no position to control the market, to the extent that they raised, lowered, or stabilized prices, they would be directly interfering with the free play of market forces. The Act places all such schemes beyond the pale, and protects that vital part of our economy against any degree of interference. Congress has not left with us the determination of whether or not particular price-fixing schemes are wise or unwise, healthy or destructive. It has not permitted the age-old cry of ruinous competition and competitive evils to be a defense to price-fixing conspiracies. It has no more allowed genuine or fancied competitive abuses as a legal justification for such schemes than it has the good intentions of the members of the combination

Rule of Reason:  Under the rule of reason, the accusing parties (the states, DOJ, class action plaintiffs) would have to prove that the price movements made by the Defendant Publishers were not reasonable and the Defendant Publishers and Apple could offer proof that would justify their actions.  In  Clorox Co. v. Sterling Winthrop, Inc. (2nd Cir. 1997), the 2nd Circuit defined the rule of reason standard in this fashion:

First, the “`[p]laintiff bears the initial burden of showing that the challenged action has had an actual adverse effect on competition as a whole in the relevant market….’” Id. (quoting Capital Imaging, 996 F.2d at 543). Then, “[i]f the plaintiff succeeds, the burden shifts to the defendant to establish the `pro-competitive “redeeming virtues”‘ of the action. Should the defendant carry this burden, the plaintiff must then show that the same pro-competitive effect could be achieved through an alternative means that is less restrictive of competition.” Id. (internal citations omitted) (quoting Capital Imaging, 996 F.2d at 543; Bhan v. NME Hosps., Inc., 929 F.2d 1404, 1413 (9th Cir.1991)). Ultimately, the goal is to determine whether restrictions in an agreement among competitors potentially harm consumers. See SCFC ILC, Inc. v. Visa USA, Inc., 36 F.3d 958, 965 (10th Cir. 1994). The focus of the inquiry on consumers “cannot be overemphasized and is especially essential when a successful competitor,” as here, “alleges antitrust injury at the hands of a rival.” Id.

(Note there is also an inherently suspect standard that can be applied as well but I’m going to skip that for purposes of brevity and coherence)

4.  Why can’t the publishers set their own prices like other manufacturers of goods like shoes or perfume or computers?

Publishers can set their own prices. In this circumstance, however, the publishers didn’t just set and maintain certain prices.  They got together and made sure all their publisher friends were going to do it as well because they knew (according to the allegations) that they couldn’t afford to engage in Retail Price Maintenance if only one of them was going to do it.

It used to be that Retail Price Maintenance (RPM) which is a manufacturer setting the price at which a good could be sold was not permissible except under certain circumstances such as when the seller was an agent or pass through of the owner.  The best example of this is a real estate broker and a home owner.  The home owner sets the price and the real estate agent helps to broker the deal but the real estate agent acts as the agent of the home owner.  The agent can’t change the price of the house without the permission of the owner.

Under those scenarios, an owner or manufacturer of a good could set the price of a good.  In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court loosened the rules on RPM and basically said that if there is a good business justification, then a manufacturer or producer of a good could set their own price.  In the decision of Judge Cote to deny the Defendant Publishers and Apple’s move to get rid of the lawsuit, she references that RPM can be used.  In the settlement proposal for the DOJ, RPM is allowed under certain circumstances.

Those circumstances include allowing retailers to pass on their commission (whatever is negotiated between the publisher and the retailer like Amazon) to the consumers in the form of a discount.

5.  Isn’t Amazon a monopoly? Why is that okay?

Not all monopolies are illegal. (See the Primer) It isn’t even illegal to acquire a monopoly.  There were ebooks before Amazon, but it wasn’t until Amazon introduced the Kindle and its one click buy feature from the device itself that ebooks began taking off.  Amazon released the Kindle First Generation on November 19, 2007.  From 2008 to 2010, ebook sales grew from .6 % to 6.4% of the overall book market. (Source: AAP) Amazon had 80-90% of the ebook market at the beginning of 2010. Nook entered the market on November 22, 2009, Apple with iBooks announced on January 2010, and Kobo in July 2010.  Currently the ebook market for trade fiction sales varies from publisher to publisher but is around mid 20% to 30%.

6.  Didn’t Amazon acquire its monopoly through predatory pricing?

In 2010, when the publishers and Apple allegedly colluded to fix price, Amazon controlled 80-90% of 6.4% of the overall book market according to the statistics of the American Association of Publishers.  While Amazon did sell some of its ebooks at a loss leader price of $9.99, the Kindle was one of two dedicated devices marketed to the US readers and widely available in the US. (Sony’s reader actually predated Amazon).  In other words, no one was competing against Amazon from 2007 to 2010 except for Sony.

There were other ebook retailers, but none that sold a dedicated reading device and none that allowed on device purchasing and delivery of ebooks over a cellular connection.  Amazon would have evidence that it provided a product and service in the ebook market that was technologically advanced at the time.

Nonetheless, let’s talk about predatory pricing for a minute. Predatory pricing (a Section 2 violation of the Sherman Act)  is considered anticompetitive and a violation of antitrust.  However, it is very difficult to prove.  Predatory pricing requires proof that the seller deliberately undercut its competitors to drive those competitors out of business.

In Brooke Group v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 509 U.S. 209 (1993), the Supreme court established the following test:

Accordingly, whether the claim alleges predatory pricing under § 2 of the Sherman Act or primary-line price discrimination under the Robinson-Patman Act, two prerequisites to recovery remain the same. First, a plaintiff seeking to establish competitive injury resulting from a rival’s low prices must prove that the prices complained of are below an appropriate measure of its rival’s costs.

The second prerequisite … is a demonstration that the competitor had a reasonable prospect, or, under § 2 of the Sherman Act, a dangerous probability, of recouping its investment in below-cost prices. …  Recoupment is the ultimate object of an unlawful predatory pricing scheme; it is the means by which a predator profits from predation. Without it, predatory pricing produces lower aggregate prices in the market, and consumer welfare is enhanced. Although unsuccessful predatory pricing may encourage some inefficient substitution toward the product being sold at less than its cost, unsuccessful predation is in general a boon to consumers.

The court goes on to say:

That below-cost pricing may impose painful losses on its target is of no moment to the antitrust laws if competition is not injured: It is axiomatic that the antitrust laws were passed for “the protection of competition, not competitors.”

and

If circumstances indicate that below-cost pricing could likely produce its intended effect on the target, there is still the further question whether it would likely injure competition in the relevant market. The plaintiff must demonstrate that there is a likelihood that the predatory scheme alleged would cause a rise in prices above a competitive level that would be sufficient to compensate for the amounts expended on the predation, including the time value of the money invested in it. As we have observed on a prior occasion, “[i]n order to recoup their losses, [predators] must obtain enough market power to set higher than competitive prices, and then must sustain those prices long enough to earn in excess profits what they earlier gave up in below-cost prices.”

Evidence of below-cost pricing is not alone sufficient to permit an inference of probable recoupment and injury to competition. Determining whether recoupment of predatory losses is likely requires an estimate of the cost of the alleged predation and a close analysis of both the scheme alleged by the plaintiff and the structure and conditions of the relevant market.

It should be noted that when Amazon began its $9.99 pricing scheme, there were only a few competitors in the marketplace: Sony, Fictionwise, Diesel.

6.  Is there any action that can be taken against Barnes & Noble for their alleged actions against Random House?

In the amended complaint of the States’ Attorneys General, there were allegations that Barnes & Noble engaged in two different acts to create and enforce the collusion:

• BN assisted Macmillan in its move to Agency Pricing by moving Macmillan’s products to the top of its merchandising pods and to the front of the Nook recommendation section.
• BN punished Random House for not colluding by not including RH books in any of its advertising.

7.  Will the prices come down? Or what will happen next?

Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins have agreed to settle with the DOJ.  The terms of the settlement would allow retailers to gain control over pricing and include those publishers ebooks in loyalty programs, discount clubs, and straight up discounting.  Amazon has signaled that it will begin discounting once the settlement is approved.  The settlement could be approved as early as August.  The parties have 30 days to comply with the agreement once the settlement is approved.  The earliest prices will likely be reduced is September or October of 2012.

Simon & Schuster has reportedly settled with the States’ Attorneys’ General.  The terms of this settlement is unknown at this time but will be made public.  Based on past reports, it is likely to include cessation of the current control by S&S over pricing along with some kind of rebate to consumers who purchased S&S books from 2010 until the date of the settlement.  Hachette and HarperCollins were reportedly in settlement talks with the states.

If Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins would settle with DOJ and the States’ Attorneys’ General and those settlements would result in some payment to consumers, then it is likely the Class Action suits would be dismissed.

You can read more about what might happen next here.

8.  Will “Agency” pricing still exist?

The DOJ settlement terms allowed for a 2 year cessation of agency agreements except one kind.   The  settlement agreement allows a retailer, like Amazon, to discount books but limits the discount in one year for one publisher to not exceed the retailers aggregate commission.  Assume Amazon signs an agreement with Hachette and Amazon agrees to accept a 30% commission on every book sold.  For one year, the total amount of discounts cannot exceed the total commission Amazon received for that year.  Some of the books could be half off, buy one get one free, or not be discounted at all.  But the total discount cannot exceed total commission.  Assume Amazon sold 100 books for Hachette that were retail priced at $9.99.  The total commission for Amazon would be $299.70.  Thus, the overall discounts Amazon gave to us readers could not exceed $299.70.

I hope this helps to clarify some issues. Please feel free to drop a question in the comments.

No related posts.

Image by Diane Cordell

Last week, Laura Hazard Owen of Paid Content tabulated that about 500,000 digital copies of Harry Potter have been sold since their release on March 27, 2012. Harry Potter series have reportedly sold 450 million copies in print. Despite those record breaking print sales prior to the official digital release and that there were illegal digital versions have been available for years, print sales have actually increased since the release of the official digital versions. Says Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of Pottermore:

Obviously there were fears piracy would increase as a result of being DRM-free, and that sales of the e-books would cannibalise sales of the physical titles, but we were delighted to see sales of the physical books go up, and piracy come down.

50 Shades series sold over 250,000 copies in digital and print on demand before the series was purchased by Vintage in the U.S. The initial print run by Vintage was 750,000 copies. It remains on the top of the trade print list for the 8th week or since its release in print.

Amanda Hocking sold 1.5 million digital copies of her books before being swooped up by St. Martin’s Publishing. Last week, Hocking blogged about her print sales. She didn’t have concrete numbers but did give us a feel for the success of her print books:

Switched came out January 3, 2012 with an initial print run of about 200,000 books in the US, and it’s in its fifth printing. Torn came out February 28, 2012, and I’m actually not sure of its initial print run, but it’s in its third printing. … Ascend came out last week, and my editor told me that my first week sales are already double that of Torn.

Shannon Stacey published 10 books before her Kowalski trilogy was published by Carina Press, the digital first arm of Harlequin. Yours to Keep placed No. 33 on the NYTimes list. This year the Kowalski books were released in print under the HQN imprint.

Back in the infancy of digital publishing, one of the things that frustrated ebook readers was the publisher practice of windowing. In an effort to prevent digital book sales from canilbalizing print sales, publishers would delay the release of the digital version until after the release of the hardcover. Some publishers would do this for paperbacks as well. The latter was due to the fact that digital sales were not included in the calculation of bestseller status. It wasn’t until 2011 that the New York Times began counting digital book sales (and even now they do not include digital book sales in anything but one large list called a combined print and ebook. The USA Today remains more forward thinking than the times. It started counting digital book sales and the list ranks titles regardless of format.  Presence on the list is a sales accelerator and still remains an important part of a writer’s goals.  Last week, I wrote about three publishing experiments I would like to see publishers engage in and one was a tried and true Baen sales technique – sell early access to a book. Ruthie Knox, currently a digital first published author, mentioned the concern that this type of pricing experimentation might lead to a reduction in aggregate sales the week of its “official” release.

But what I wondered was if there really would be a “regular” first week, for an e-first publisher that followed the Baen model. Surely an e-book’s on sale when it’s on sale, as far as the best-seller lists are concerned? I wouldn’t think the publishers could get away with saying “The pub date is April 6, but we’re going to go ahead and sell these higher-priced copies on March 21. But it’s not on sale yet. Not really.” Could they? Maybe I’m thinking too hard. :)

Walt Boyes pointed out that the Baen model has been in existence since 1998 or 1999 and has proven data that shows early release of the digital arc does not diminish sales.

 If you are dying to read the book, they’ll sell you the electronic ARC shortly after the author turns in the book, for a fair sum.

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Ebook Weekly: The Long Tail (or the end of the Hard to Find)
2. Harlequin Shows Solid 2008 Results
3. Dorchester Moving to Trade and Digital

In the past two weeks, we’ve seen two publishers engage in some experimental changes in the way they sell digital books. Sourcebooks launched a DRM free subscription site and TOR/FORGE announced it would be selling DRM free digital books beginning this summer. Traditional publishers have been quietly moving toward digital first programs for a couple of years beginning with Harlequin’s launch of Carina Press, a digital first, DRM free romance book publisher. These days, particularly in the romance sector, publishers are dipping their toes into the digital pool. Nearly every major traditional publisher either has a digital first arm or is developing one: Harlequin’s Carina Press; Avon Impulse; Forever ; Penguin’s Intermixx; Random House’s Loveswept; and Pocket. St. Martn’s Press has released a few digital only novellas.

With digital book adoption moving forward quickly, however, the publishers need to be a bit braver and a bit more experimental. Here are three things I’d like to see publishers give a try:

1. Differing types of subscription offerings. Every other entertainment media offers a subscription option, from video games to movies. An annual subscription guarantees a certain level of sales a year. Differing levels of subscriptions offers differing access. I’ve had a gold membership, the lowest level, at Audible for about three years. It was a great way to access one book a month. Often I wouldn’t buy a book and I banked my credits. Recently, however, I have begun listening to more audiobooks and I found that the best value was to up my subscription level to platinum. Now I get two books a month and I’ve committed to buying two books a month at the discount for an annual commitment. I’m a sure thing for Audible.

Publishers with extensive backlists could offer subscription access for a reduced price to introduce readers to old classics that would lead to new purchases that are outside the subscription plan. A large house like Penguin or Random House could offer genre specific subscriptions: romantic suspense; contemporary; historical; fantasy. Access to multiple genres could be added at a reduced cost to the reader. A print piece could be generated at the end of the year as a collection item (and could be offered for increase cost).

2. Best of Bundles. I’m not a huge fan of how bundles are sold these days. It’s one huge file and it’s hard to keep track of on an electronic device, but I think the concept of bundling (if the mechanics of the bundle could be worked out) would be a great way to introduce readers to new series.

I’ve always liked the idea of offering first three “In Death” books by JD Robb at a “Introductory Price” of $5.00 for a three week period leading up to her next release with a 40% off coupon for the new release (it’s a hardcover) bought directly from Penguin.

How about trying to partner with other publishers. I.e., do cross promotions. Jayne Ann Krentz is with Penguin now, but many of her backlist titles are with Random House. The two publishers could work together to do cross promotions to sell her backlist and move her front list titles.

3. Pay for Early Access. Baen pioneered the selling of early access to a book at a higher price and many readers enjoy it. Instead of letting eBay sellers reap the benefits of an ARC sale, why not pass the early sales onto the author and reap a profit through an early ARC digital release program. You could price the early releases at a 50% premium mark up. (I would include a note as to why they are more expensive, i.e., they are being allowed into the wild early). Sell readers on the idea that this early ARC release is really a privilege, a luxury and hence why they have to pay more for it.

Harlequin and digital first publisher, Samhain, offers once month early access at a reduction if bought directly. As a result, many books are sold directly from the Harlequin site wherein Harlequin absorbs the entire profit.

Digital formats allow for greater experimentation and I hope publishers start taking advantage of the mutability of digital files and the ease of access to the market. Barriers have come down for authors selling direct to readers but those same fallen barriers increase opportunity to repackage existing content in new ways to meet differing reader demand.

(Some of the ideas here are reprinted from my 2009 article on digital publishing)

Related posts:

1. Digital book subscriptions
2. Does eBook Pricing Affect Your Opinion of a Publisher, Author or Retailer?
3. Publisher’s Weekly Digital Rundown

This article is to lay out, in simplest terms, antitrust law as it pertains to the publishing price fixing lawsuit. It is not designed to address the shortcomings of the law or the need for reform but the status of the law. Additionally, my knowledge of the antitrust law is very shallow.

The purpose of the antitrust law is to promote competition with the underlying maxim that competition creates the best product at the lowest price for the benefit of the consumer.  Some economists argue that the focus on consumer welfare in antitrust laws harms competition and business.  For instance, increased prices redistributes wealth from the consumer to amongst the producers and that is economic neutral outcome but because antitrust laws have focused on what is best for the consumer, an economic neutral outcome that pushes more money from the consumers’ pockets to that of a producer is a disfavored result.

What is a monopoly?

A monopoly is defined by the U.S. Supreme Court as follows:

In United States v. du Pont & Co., 351 U. S. 377, 391, we defined monopoly power as “the power to control prices or exclude competition.” The existence of such power ordinarily may be inferred from the predominant share of the market. In American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781, 797, we said that “over two-thirds of the entire domestic field of cigarettes, and . . . over 80% of the field of comparable cigarettes” constituted “a substantial monopoly.” In United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 148 F. 2d 416, 429, 90% of the market constituted monopoly power.

United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563 (1966)

There are two basic types of monopolies: single firm and multi firm monopolies. Multi firm monoplies are generally frowned upon because they are viewed as actions of collusions. The Apple + Publisher lawsuit is an alleged multi firm monopoly. Some believe Amazon is a single firm monopoly.

When is the monopoly okay?

Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust act says that a company shall not monopolize or attempt to monopolize. However, the acquisition of a monopoly through “a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident” is not an antitrust violation.

The mere possession of monopoly power, and the concomitant charging of monopoly prices, is not only not unlawful; it is an important element of the free-market system. The opportunity to charge monopoly prices—at least for a short period— is what attracts “business acumen” in the first place; it induces risk taking that produces innovation and economic growth. To safeguard the incentive to innovate, the possession of monopoly power will not be found unlawful unless it is accompanied by an element of anticompetitive conduct.

Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP, 540 US 398, 407 (2004)

When is the monopoly bad?

From the above definition, we know that it is monopolies exercising power in an anti competitive behavior that violates the antitrust law.

The first antitrust law was the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 followed by the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936,  and  Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.

Antitrust violations are broadly known as Section 1 or Section 2.

Under Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust act, the following are considered “per se” violations:

• price fixing
• dividing markets
• bid rigging

If a firm or a group of firms are proven to be engaged in one of the above, then there is no real defense. The battle accused firms must face is whether they are considered to have engaged in a per se violation.  The parties cannot argue (as many of the press have in response to the DOJ filing) that the prices were reasonable or that the collusion was necessary to prevent or eliminate price cutting or competition that would ruin them.  I.e., the parties cannot argue that the price fixing was necessary to prevent Amazon from gaining a larger slice of the digital market through low pricing.

Under the Clayton Antitrust Act, certain business activities like price discrimination and tying were impermissible if it harmed competition. A famous tying case was the Eastman Kodak Company v. Image Technical Services, Inc.  The other antitrust laws were designed to address monopolies formed through mergers and acquisitions.  A Clayton Antitrust violation is often viewed under the rule of reason.  Under the rule of reason, anticompetitive behavior can be defended by a competitive outcome.   In other words, a defense that Amazon’s big pockets and tendency to price low to keep or acquire a monopoly and hurt publishers would be an appropriate in rule of reason case.  However, the government hasn’t brought a rule of reason case. It has alleged a per se violation.

The Federal Trade Commission Act bans “unfair methods of competition” and “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.

What is considered an antitrust violation?

A § 1 violation of the Sherman Act (restraints of trade by agreement, contract, or conspiracy), requires proof of the following:

• The charged conspiracy was knowingly formed and was in existence at or about the time alleged;
• The defendant knowingly joined the charged conspiracy; and
• The charged conspiracy either substantially affected interstate or foreign commerce or occurred within the flow of interstate or foreign commerce.

A § 2 of the Sherman Act (acquisition of a monopoly), requires proof of the following:

• possession of monopoly power in the relevant market
• the willful acquisition maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident.

Apple and the publishers have been accused of a § 1 violation of price fixing.  The publishers will argue that their prices and agreements with Apple were made independently and that the similarity of pricing was conscious parallelism.

How does this affect the DOJ lawsuit on price fixing?

This is not an easy case. First, many believe that post Broadcast Music, Inc. v. CBS, 441 U.S. 1 (1979), price fixing isn’t always measured under per se but rather rule of reason.

“This is not a question simply of determining whether two or more potential competitors have literally ‘fixed’ a ‘price.’ As generally used in the antitrust field, ‘price fixing’ is a shorthand way of describing certain categories of business behavior to which the per se rule has been held applicable.”

BMI, 441 U.S. at 9-10.  Instead, some price fixing may have a business justification and should be measured under the rule of reason.  Apple and the publishers (sounds like Gladys and the Pips) will attack the suit on a two pronged basis.  First, that there was no price fixing and second, if there was, it isn’t a per se violation.

The biggest hurdle for the government in moving forward with a per se violation will be proving an agreement.  In Business Electronic Corp. v. Sharp Electronics Corp., 480 F.2d 1212, (5th Cir. 1986) aff’d 485 U.S. 717 (1988), the Fifth Circuit found that a distributor’s termination of a retailer’s contract for failing to observe a price floor was not inappropriate without some agreement by the parties to set a price.  The U.S. Supreme Court approved of this.  In other words, price fixing required proof of an agreement.

There is no written agreement of the defendants to fix prices.  Instead, the government is arguing that the conduct of the publishers is indirect evidence of the agreement hence the allegations of meetings,  phone calls and double delete email warnings.  The government must show that independent action was not likely.  John Sargeant’s statement that he made his decision alone in his basement on the treadmill is an argument that Macmillan’s pricing decisions were independent of any other publishers.

Price fixing monopolies are considered unstable because the incentive to cheat on a partner in the cartel is too great.  Overtime, at least one or more of the firms in the cartel will reduce prices to gain market share thus shattering any agreement.  It is much easier to maintain a cartel if the market players involved are oligopolistic.  While there are a number of small publishers, the Big 6, as they are called, control some 80% or more of the trade book business.

The jury instructions tell a jury that they cannot find price fixing solely on the fact that Apple and the publishers talked about prices in person or wrote about different prices, or that there was a suggested price that everyone followed or that the publishers refused to deal with anyone who didn’t adopt their retail price maintenance model.   The instructions focus on the existence of an agreement and the compliance with the agreement.

The courts have settled on a conscious parallelism plus test here. See e.g., Monsanto v. Spray-Rite Service Corp., 465 U.S. 752 (1984).   In other words, the government has to prove something other than the publishers looking at each others’ actions in the marketplace and matching them.  In the civil class action suit, the Plaintiffs identified the following “pluses”:

The Interstate Circuit Case (or the Hub and Spoke conspiracy)

A similar factual pattern was presented in the 1939 case of  Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. United States, 306 US 208.  This is the hub and spoke conspiracy.   Apple, as the hub, enters into similar agreements with all of the publishers, the spokes.

The Interstate Circuit case, a two firms contributed 74% of the licensing fees to movie distributors for first run and second run films, constituting a monopoly in the cities in which the firms operated. There were eight distributors delivering about 75% of the all the first class feature films shown in the U.S.  The theatre firms wanted the eight distributors to agree to a pricing structure which raised the price of a seat in the theatre house from slightly below 25 cents to above 25 cents and in some cases 40 cents.  Interstate sent out a letter with all the distributors on the letterhead demanding a floor (no lower than 25 cents) and a restriction on double billings (two movies for one admission) for the better seats.  This was designed, it was alleged, to prevent competition from subsequent run and often independently owned theatres.

The admission price customarily charged for preferred seats at night in independently operated subsequent-run theatres in Texas at the time of these letters was less than 25 cents. In seventeen of the eighteen independent theatres of this kind whose operations were described by witnesses the admission price was less than 25 cents. In one only was it 25 cents. In most of them the admission was 15 cents or less. It was also the general practice in those theatres to provide double bills either on certain days of the week or with any feature picture which was weak in drawing power. The distributor appellants had generally provided in their license contracts for a minimum admission price of 10 or 15 cents, and three of them had included provisions restricting double-billing.

Interstate Circuit Inc, 306 U.S. at 218. The trial court inferred from the agreement signed by the distributors and other actions such as the distributors failing to call the officers of the firms to testify and only put the local managers and failing to renegotiate differing contract terms.

The problem here is that Apple was not (and is not) a dominant player in the digital publishing market.  I don’t know if iBooks has even a 1% market share.  The hub in a hub and spoke conspiracy ordinarily has a dominant market share such as the two theatre houses that controlled the majority of the market in which they had first run theatres.  The DOJ identified the relevant market in its petition as trade ebook market. I find that definition too narrow and wonder if it won’t spike the DOJ’s suit.

Conclusion

As I stated earlier, this is no easy case for the government.  There are three parties left in the suit: Apple, Macmillan, and Penguin.  The three will have differing arguments.  In the beginning, it will behoove all three to stick together, all arguing the same points of law.  The first step is to file a motion to dismiss but I think the DOJ petition pleads enough facts to overcome a motion to dismiss.  After the motion to dismiss, the parties will engage in what is called “discovery.”  Depositions will be taken.  Those are oral questionings recorded by a court reporter.  Written questions called interrogatories will be sent back and forth as will requests for documents and admissions.  After discovery is complete, the defendants will ask for a summary judgment meaning that the DOJ doesn’t have enough evidence to move forward to a jury trial. It is my belief that if the defendants cannot win at the summary judgment stage, their likelihood of prevailing drops dramatically.

At some point, the DOJ may ask for a directed verdict.  This is a request to the judge that reasonable minds could not disagree that the undisputed facts support a finding that the defendants engaged in per se violations of the antitrust act. My guess it that if the DOJ did file this, it would likely lose the motion, primarily on the argument that there are too many facts in dispute.

As an aside, the parties involved are facing lawsuits from the states, a civil class action, and now a class action lawsuit in Canada.

Related posts:

1. Amazon Subject of Antitrust Suit
2. German Price Fixing for Books Keeps Bookstores in Business and Book Prices Low
3. Is Macmillan’s Retail Price Maintenance Move Legal?

Publishers haven’t helped to develop a robust independent retailer market for ebooks.  I wrote a few weeks ago about the lack of competition that was fostered during the two years of publishers and Apple setting the price for ebooks.  The sad truth is that while Barnes & Noble has gained market share, independent booksellers have not.

When Google pulled its affiliate program, most every independent bookseller has been left without a digital option.  Google’s relationship with those booksellers will end on January 31, 2013.  Currently the independent booksellers are awaiting the American Bookseller’s Association for a solution.  Two booksellers have attempted to explain the current state of independent ebook bookselling.  Ruth Curry of Emily Book writes

Publishers told us that if we did not have digital rights management (DRM) technology, they weren’t interested in letting us promote and sell their products. DRM is the set of technologies that encrypt and prevent the reproduction of e-book files. A new bricks and mortar bookstore, even the tiniest one, could have easily opened accounts with all the major distributors. But to sell electronic versions of those exact same books, publishers told us that you have to be a mega corporation. We were confused, and set about finding out why this counterintuitive business practice has taken root.

DRM is supposed to prevent piracy and illegal file sharing. In order to provide DRM, you need at least $10,000 up front to cover software, server, and administration fees, plus ongoing expenses associated with the software. In other words, much bigger operating expenses than a small business can afford. By requiring retailers to encrypt e-books with DRM, big publishers are essentially banning indie retailers from the online marketplace.

Lori James of All Romance eBooks wrote:

There was much talk originally about how Agency would level the playing field for the little guy who couldn’t hope to engage in the kind of loss leader pricing Amazon was doing. Instead, we could compete based on “service”. Yeah! We’re great at service. It sounded good. Then the content was pulled. It was many months before contracts were even available for initial review. Meanwhile – it’s back on Amazon and B&N. It’s on Apple. Getting Agency back was a priority but it took over a year to get those titles back due to numerous delays. And, this also required significant IT build-outs.

Loyalty and reward programs ended:

KoboBooks pointed out that under this new Apple pricing scheme by publishers, loyalty programs, coupons and the like are not allowed:

We lose most of our ability to issue coupons, promotions, special discounts, kickbacks, buy-X-get-one-free. We could still do it for non-agency titles, but then we end up in a weird situation of “Get $1 off, but only on these books, and definitely not on these other ones.” That’s not fun. And worse, it’s confusing to consumers. We’re sad about that, obviously. Not just because they’re a great way for us to drive sales, but because they help us focus attention on specific great books, reward our loyal customers, and celebrate the launch of new features, apps or services.

There are three things that need to be accomplished:

1. A standard formatting for ebooks should be implemented.  This is permitted explicitly by DOJ Settlement terms.
2. DRM should be removed. There is no way to sell books to the Kindle readers with DRM.
3. Publishers should start sourcing books for independent booksellers.

Let me make the case for no DRM.  I have heard that because I advocate against DRM, I am pro piracy.  I am not pro piracy.  However, I know that there is no way to effectively compete against Amazon unless there is some way to deliver books to Kindle readers.  The only way to do this is to remove DRM.

DRM does not prevent piracy.  I heard this claim during the week at Romantic Times being proclaimed by some authors.  I’m uncertain where this myth started, but it is a myth.  From the inception of ebooks, DRM has existed and so has piracy. Even before ebooks were prominent, piracy existed.  Piracy will exist tomorrow if DRM was eliminated.

DRM only hurts legitimate purchasers of books by preventing readers from moving from one platform to another (like from a Kindle to a nook). Major players in the publishing industry recognize this:

In a speech this afternoon at the Digital Book World Conference in New York, Berlucchi [CEO of London-based social e-retailer Anobii] argued that digital rights management technology, or DRM as it is known, prevents more readers from buying e-books and may actually encourage piracy of copyrighted material.

and Maja Thomas who heads up digital for Hachette says:

“There’s a misconception that somehow the digital format of books has made piracy increase, or become logarithmically more serious. But piracy was always very easy to do, because scanning a physical copy of a book [takes] a matter of minutes. A physical book doesn’t have DRM on it.

“Coming from the audio business, where I started, we had DRM on our audiobooks when music had DRM on it, and as that changed, a lot of audio publishers started to drop the DRM on their audiobooks. We were one of the last ones to drop it, and I was asked to monitor the destruction of my business. The business was not destroyed. If anything, it became more robust.

“You could argue that taking the DRM off e-books would be in the benefit of consumers, and possibly even publishers, because then you wouldn’t have the device lock-in you have now.

About the only thing that DRM does in terms of preventing piracy is that it may reduce the casual sharing of digital books between acquaintances.  One way to eliminate that worry is to institute social DRM.  Social DRM is what JK Rowling is doing with Pottermore.  A special code is inserted into a book that is tied to a person’s account.  If that book is shared, the book can be tracked back to the original purchaser.  Another way to institute social DRM is to incorporate small invisible html changes or, as Amazon once proposed, to change a word here and there within the text of the story.  The goal is to be able to track an uploaded file to the original purchaser.   This can serve to reduce the amount of casual sharing of digital books that worry some publishers, authors and agents.

If publishers are serious about competing with Amazon, price is not their only or their best tool. Getting rid of DRM is.  With DRM eliminated, competing retailers can finally serve Kindle customers.   With DRM in place, Amazon will maintain a hold on its place in the industry and if price wars are ahead, then it may only strengthen its position.

Related posts:

1. The International Digital Rights Mess (or Amazon’s Cock Up)
2. Eliminating Returns May Reduce Waste but Might Also Reduce Sales
3. Amazon.com Announces DRM Free Music Store to Launch This Year

Cloud storage

There are more than a dozen cloud storage options today with everyone from Amazon to Apple offering cloud storage capabilities and often for free.  Cloud storage is space on a computer hard drive operated by a company that specializes in storing data.

Dropbox Free: 2 GB Monthly Fee: 50GB $9.99/mo 100GB $19.99/mo Features: Auto sync Saves multiple versions, restore deleted files   Devices: PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Blackberry Playbook	Box Free: 5 GB Monthly Fee: 50GB $19.99/mo Features: Share any file or folder w a link Easy Collaboration   Devices: PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Blackberry Playbook	Apple Free: 5 GBYearly Fee: $59/yr per computer $99/yr per computer 50GB $50/yr Features: Share files Recover deleted files Devices: PC, Mac, iOS
Amazon Free: 5 GB Yearly Fee: 20 GB $20/yr 50GB $50/yr 100 GB $100/yr 200 GB $200/yr Features: Free storage for any mp3s purchased from Amazon Limits access to 8 devices Use proprietary software to upload/download files Recover deleted files Devices: PC, Mac, Android (only viewing music/photos)	YouSendIt Free: 2GB Monthly Fee: 5GB $9.99/mo Unlimited $14.99/mo Features: Autosyncing Easy sharing of files/folders E signed documents Devices: PC, Mac, iOS, Android	Carbonite Free: None Yearly Fee: $59/yr per computer (user generated files only) $99/yr per computer (w external storage & program backup) Features: Complete Backup Shareable links Restore deleted files Devices: PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Blackberry
Mozy Free: 2 GB Monthly Fee: 50 GB $5.99/mo 125GB $9.99/mo Features: File synching across multiple computers via MozyStash Automatic/Scheduled Backups Restore deleted files Devices: PC, Mac, iPhone, Android	SugarSync Free: 5GB Monthly Fee: 30GB $4.99/mo 60GB $9.99/mo 100GB $14.99/mo Features: Autosyncing Easy sharing of files/folders Devices: PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Win Mobile	Wuala Free: 2 GB Yearly Fee: 10 GB $29/yr 25GB $49/yr 50GB $79/yr Features: Selective backup Sync Restore deleted files Versions Shareable links Devices: PC, Mac, iOS, Android

My preference is for the automatic syncing thus Dropbox, Mozy’s new  MozyStash, SugarSync. The nice thing about Dropbox is that because of its popularity, there are a number of mobile apps that are integrated with Dropbox.  Other cloud services don’t have this kind of developer support.

Portable media

There are currently two main sources of portable media types: USBs and Storage Cards.  The storage cards are a nice way to provide a backup for your ebooks because many of the ePub readers will read books from a storage card, usually a micro SD card.  The problem with micro SD cards is the propensity for losing them.  The microSD cards are tiny and they need a card reader to be accessible via most computers.

The advantage of a USB device is that does not need a separate card reader.  It uses the USB port, as the name implies. I particularly this LaCie keychain one but there are dozens of USB drives out there that would suffice.

The disadvantage of the USB drive is that you can’t use it with your ereading device.  A compromise is to get a device like this. It’s a USB drive that is also a card reader.

Time Capsule/External hard drive.

An external hard drive (or time capsule as the Mac world calls it) is a hard drive that you attach to your computer and with backup software automatically backups your hard drive.  You should buy a hard drive that is at least the size of your existing computer’s hard drive if you want to backup the programs as well as data.

If you use an external hard drive with a program and software called PogoPlug.  PogoPlug turns your external hard drive (or your computer) into a cloud accessible hard drive so you can create your own cloud without uploading information to a third party service. Over time, the PogoPlug is also much less expensive.

Related posts:

1. It’s April Fool’s Day. Have You Backed Up Your Ebooks?
2. How do I recover my ebooks if my harddrive crashes?
3. Dear Jane: How Do I Sideload eBooks onto the Kindle?

This was initially instituted in January 2010 after Macmillan pulled its entire digital catalog from Amazon unless Amazon concede to these new terms. Under the new terms, Macmillan would set the prices for digital books and Amazon and every other retailer would not be allowed to discount. This became known as Agency pricing, but the term “Agency pricing” is a misnomer. What the publishers are doing is engaging in retail price maintenance, not Agency pricing.

Amazon had been discounting popular front list digital titles heavily, marketing their nascent digital book program as having most of its digital content priced at $9.99 and under. Discounting is commonplace for paper books with large wholesalers like Costco and Sam’s Club pricing hardcovers at 40% or more off. Barnes & Noble also heavily discounts print bestsellers.

However, publishers worried that low digital prices would speed up the adoption of digital books, create large losses for print books, and wreak havoc with their current business model. Further, allowing Amazon to undercut prices would imperil others attempts to enter the market.

William Lynch is quoted as saying that agency pricing helped Barnes & Noble achieve its 25-27% of the market.  I’ve argued as much here.  Much discussion around Agency pricing involves the issue of competitiveness. It appears that the publishers (not Apple) are going to argue that without agency pricing, market competitiveness would decrease.  They will point to the decline in print sales as an example.  The goal of publishers will likely be to get a broad definition of the market such that it includes both paper books and digital books; trade fiction and non fiction; and academic works.  This likely works both for and against them.  First, Amazon only has market dominance in the trade fiction and non fiction categories in digital works.  It does not have market dominance in the digital textbook market, the print textbook market or even the print trade market.

The publishers will point out that Amazon’s aggressive digital pricing is dooming independent bookstores and contributing to a decline of print book sales and a decline in businesses selling print books.  The question that publishers will not be able to answer, however, is how Agency pricing helped to increase competitiveness at the increased price to customers.  First, there has not been an attendant rise of independent brick and mortar bookstores since 2010 when the publishers impose retail price maintenance on print books.  Second, there has not been an attendant rise of independent digital bookstores since 2010.  In observing independent digital bookstores on the internet, the move toward RPM was dismay not jubilation.  Kobo Books had to discontinue consumer oriented programs as did Fictionwise and All Romance eBooks.

Lori James of All Romance EBooks shared her thoughts on this matter.

1. We at All Romance appreciate the publisher’s desire to control pricing. We have direct relationships with hundreds of publishers and since the day we opened our contract has stipulated that we will not change the sale price of their work without permission.

2. Under the Agency model we can not offer incentives. We do offer incentives from time to time for Non-Agency, but that is our cost, not the publisher’s cost. In those cases, customers still pay full price for the Work. So, for example, we can spotlight a non-Agency publisher like Harlequin and offer customers a 30% rebate to purchase Harlequin titles for a two week period. Those purchases are for the full list price and Harlequin get’s paid based on the full list price. The cost of the promotion is completely ours and Harlequin enjoys increase sales and tons of brand advertising for free. As things stand we can’t offer that to Agency Publishers. It’s the same with our loyalty program and our bookclub. I understand they don’t want the offering of incentives to dilute pricing. But I don’t think a flat-out policy that they can’t happen is best either and it’s placing Agency titles at a disadvantage.

3. There was much talk originally about how Agency would level the playing field for the little guy who couldn’t hope to engage in the kind of loss leader pricing Amazon was doing. Instead, we could compete based on “service”. Yeah! We’re great at service. It sounded good. Then the content was pulled. It was many months before contracts were even available for initial review. Meanwhile – it’s back on Amazon and B&N. It’s on Apple. Getting Agency back was a priority but it took over a year to get those titles back due to numerous delays. And, this also required significant IT build-outs.

Meanwhile, fortunately, our customer base found many other titles they were interested in and continued to purchase. The loss of Agency didn’t end up really impacting our bottom line because we were in a unique position, having strong relationships with Indies who were supplying our customer base with a steady stream of delicious romance. Would we have done even better with Agency during that year? Yes. It’s hard to compete without content.

I have to wonder how many of the bookstores that were getting content prior to Agency are approved and still getting content today. And, it would be interesting to know how many new Indies have entered the arena. From where I sit, the numbers seem to be shrinking.

Agency pricing (aka Retail Price Maintenance) was designed to slow the adoption of ebooks, bolster print sales, and move marketshare away from Amazon.  It was not designed to increase competitiveness in the market.   I don’t think any one disagrees that one publisher and one retailer of books is a bad idea.  No one, not even a card carrying Amazon Prime member like I am believes that.  As Amazon becomes larger, it pushes for more concessions from its suppliers.  Publishers are getting squeezed and it would not surprise me in the least if Amazon reduces the self publishing royalties using exclusivity as the modifier.   But artificially maintaining a higher cost of a good isn’t increasing competition in the marketplace.  No one will leave Amazon until something better comes along and in this case, with prices being equal, you can’t beat Amazon’s service.  The question will be what will?  My ideas include Loyalty and rewards programs.  Better search and filter options.  More targeted recommendation services.  What are yours?

Related posts:

1. Is Macmillan’s Retail Price Maintenance Move Legal?
2. The Oddities of Digital Books
3. What is the right price of a book, print or digital, part one.

With over 400,000 apps in the Android Market it can be tough finding the right apps for your device. For reading books I find myself primarily using Kindle for Android and Mantano, but what about apps for other things? Below are a few non-reading apps that I’ve found I use all the time on either my phone, tablet or both.

Lookout Security & Antivirus
A way to protect your device from viruses and malware. Backup your data and locate your lost/stolen phone. There is a premium service option that offers more features for a monthly/annual fee. Many argue that the chances of getting a virus are so slim it’s not worth the overhead an app like this uses, so far I’ve liked the sense of security, true or not, that it offers and continue to use it. Another option would be the free or paid versions of Antivirus by AVG.

Dolphin Browser HD
There’s really nothing wrong with the stock android web browser per se, but Dolphin gives you things like tabbed browsing, custom gestures, sync with Google bookmarks and plug-ins. Another good option is Opera Mobile and I have both installed on my devices, but I find I usually use Dolphin.

Dropbox
I use Dropbox as one of my backup places for eBooks so this app makes it super easy to access my books while on the go and add a new one to my phone or tablet. I also find it handy to throw other files I may want to access when away from my computer in my Dropbox. Box and SugarSync both have apps as well.

NewsRob
NewsRob is the best I’ve found for reading RSS feeds. You can add feeds directly in the app or you can sync it with Google Reader and it will automatically use the feeds you might have there. It’s very easy to move back and forth between article with a quick tap. Not only can I read articles in a feed, but I can easily share/save a link using Evernote, Twitter, Facebook, Email, Text Message and more. With a click I can open the article in my browser to bring up the article on the full website.

Advanced Task Killer
Android manages tasks and memory on its own, but sometimes it doesn’t do the best job. This task killer is quite useful especially on my phone which doesn’t have the horsepower my tablets do. I find using it (when I remember it’s there) can help speed up my phone and save battery.

Audible
I love audio books, often listening for hours each day, so this app is a no-brainer for me. I’ve had an Audible account since 2004 and have hundreds of books from them. This app works really well and is great when I don’t have my MP3 player (an iPod Touch) with me. The awards/stats are similar to what Kobo has in their reading app and while sometimes kind of silly are sometimes kind of fun.

Barcode Scanner
This is a neat app when you’re out somewhere shopping. It uses your devices camera to scan the barcode of a product you’re looking at and easily compare prices and find reviews. Also works for scanning QR codes.

ESPN ScoreCenter
I love this app. I can easily and quickly get news and scores for my favorite teams and get scores, news and standings for pretty much any sport out there (from Auto Racing to Water Polo).

MSecure
I used to use the same password for a lot of sites because it was easy and I didn’t have to remember dozens of passwords. We all know that’s not a great idea and with this app I don’t have to. All I need to do is remember the apps master password and I can easily access the usernames and passwords for any site I’ve entered into it. The app will also generate random passwords for a site based on parameters you set. There is also a desktop app (extra cost) which will sync between your computer and mobile device (Android or iThing). Other options would be LastPass and SplashID.

Pandora & Slacker
I can’t decide between the two of these so I’ll list them both. Both services have their good and bad points, but ultimately they’re both a great way to listen to streaming music. I find I switch back and forth using free accounts for both services.

Amazon MP3
The Amazon MP3 app is a great cloud player for any music you have on Amazon’s cloud. Since Amazon is where I often buy MP3’s and purchases are automatically added to the cloud it’s a simple method to play my music without having to transfer it all to my phone. This way I can keep a few albums physically on my device for when I’m without a connection, but still have access to everything most of the time. This app works good as a player for locally stored music as well. An alternative is Google Music which I find I use on occasion.

Astro File Manager
Astro works in a similar way to Finder on a Mac or Explorer in Windows allowing you to easily access your devices file system to keep your data organized. It also allows you to stop processes your phone is running and to backup any apps you have installed. An alternative would be ES File Explorer.

Out of Milk
I use this app all the time for Shopping lists and To-Do lists. It also has a Pantry list feature so you know what you have in your pantry. I find this app intuitive to use and like its simplicity. Another option would be Any.DO which seems good, but is more complex than I’ve found I need.

Other apps you might find essential…
Gassbuddy: Find cheap gas prices in your area
Weatherbug: Get live local weather, forcasts and alerts
GDocs: An editor/viewer for Google Docs
Skifta: Turns your device into a remote control for DNLA enabled devices (TV’s, Stereos, PS3, etc)
Evernote: Take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists and voice reminders then sync them to the web.

For your social media needs Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads all have apps that are quite nice.

Everyone needs a few games to kill time depending on what they like to do. A few games I’ve enjoyed wasting time with include Tetris, Shoot Bubble Deluxe, Super Sudoku and Random Mahjong. My niece would tell you that you have to have Angry Birds, Puffle Launch, and Pretty Pet Salon.

Those are some of my must have apps, what are yours?

Related posts:

1. How to install apps on an Android device with no access to the Android Market
2. A catalog of Android reading apps
3. Best Mobile Reading Apps

Two of the largest technical publishing book conferences have just finished their sessions as of last week, Digital Book World in January and Tools of Change this past week. I attended neither but I paid attention to the articles and tweets that were written of and around the conferences. There did not appear to be much optimism nor was there much innovation. The one large question that loomed before publishers is how do they get readers to buy their books.

It used to be that publishers could essentially make a book popular by buying ads and placement in stores. Remember that everything in the store, even the bestseller lists in some retail places like grocery stores and Wal-Mart, were for sale. For a price, a publisher could position their book in the front of the store, face out, on an end cap, and so forth. It was through heightened in store placement that many books achieved success.

With the decline of in store placement due to the closure of Borders (which made up nearly a quarter of sales for some books), reduction of titles carried by Wal-mart, and retail space at Barnes & Noble replaced by nook promotions, in store book discovery is declining for many titles. There is simply less space that can be physically devoted to new books.

Further, with digital book sales increasing from 20-30% this year to likely over half by the end of the year, more customers will be discovering books in new ways. And that is the challenge for authors, publishers, and readers.

How to find a new, good book in the age of digital books.

It’s a question that we’ve addressed previously here at Dear Author. Many readers still go to the bookstore and browse the shelves. Others rely upon word of mouth which includes twitter, facebook, goodreads, and the plain old email service. Others sign up for newsletters, whether it is from authors, publishers or retailers. Still others belong to message boards at Amazon or B&N.

Finding a good book is a challenge. I’m constantly on the look out but I hate reading excerpts because excerpt reading can be time consuming. I recall one night, I spent about two hours downloading and then reading excerpts. That’s a hassle.

I try to go for recommendations from online friends, but sadly, they invariably recommend books I’ve already read. Lately I’ve been trying the recommendations suggested by Goodreads but without much success.

Mostly I try to read as many reviews as possible for a book I’m interested in and even then I’m only batting about 25% in the “decent read” game which is frustrating. I’d much rather bat 70% meaning 3 out of 4 books I purchase are decent reads. I think my low success rate, though, comes from being more adventurous in what I am trying to read. Back in the paper days, I bought primarily authors known to me and then by cover and blurb. But even back then I recall being overwhelmed by choice, with the covers all kind of running together in some big blur.

One thing I would like to see is a place where I could sign up for newsletters that would send me the author, title, blurb and link to an excerpt from specific publishers, authors, and/or tropes. Like I would love to receive an alert for every sports book, every friends to lovers romance released once a month in my inbox. There doesn’t seem to be anything like that. I’m keeping up a list of popular new releases but it is by no means exhaustive and it isn’t sorted by genre or trope.

Sometimes I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out what to read that by the time I’ve picked a book out, I’m too sleepy to read (much of my “discovery” is happening late at night after tot has been put to bed). Ned relies mainly on me and for him, I’m asking my fantasy reading friends what to read. Word of mouth is definitely the best and most reliable source of good reads. But beyond that, how does a book gain your attention and what are you doing to increase the “decent read” hit? Have your browsing and discovery habits changed from when you used to buy print books? What is one thing that authors, publishers could be doing better to bring books to your attention?

Related posts:

1. The Oddities of Digital Books
2. Digital Published Books Increasing While Most Categories Falter
3. Why Digital Books Won’t Diminish Connections

I received an email from Sarah who had received an email from one of her readers wondering what to do when her harddrive crashed and she had to reformat. Because of DRM, moving away from your existing system because of a system failure or simply upgrading your computer can be fraught with problems. The following are some suggestions in preparing to move your books and how to address a harddrive failure.

Before an upgrade

Location

Make a note of the location of your ebooks.  If you choose a default installation, your ebooks are stored in your My Documents folder (or Documents folder if you have a Mac).  Each ebook reading application uses a different folder name.  It is important to remember that the ACSM file is NOT the ebook file.  It is merely the license that allows you to download the epub or the pdf.

Location of ebooks in the My Documents/Documents folder

• Sony:  My Books/Reader
• Kobo:  If you have downloaded epub files then they would be in Digital Editions.  If you are using the desktop app, the files are stored in a sql database and are not able to be retrieved. You’ll need to download the “epub” version from the website and those will be found in the Digital Editions folder.
• Nook:  My Barnes & Noble eBooks
• Kindle:  My Kindle Content.  There are several files in the folder but the important ones are those that end with AZW  That is the ebook file.  The others are for the whispersync services.

Usernames, Passwords, and Credit Cards

Adobe Digital Editions license is dependent on a username and a password.  Don’t remember your Adobe username? Open Adobe Digital Editions and go to Library -> Authorize Computer. The popup screen will tell you what username the computer is authorized to.  Write this down.  Keep it somewhere so you can remember it.  You can even email yourself the username.

Barnes and Noble Nook books depend on your username/password and a credit card.  Look into the Nook settings for what credit card is associated with your account.  If you change your credit card information, you may need to redownload your books.

Kobo, Kindle and Sony rely on a username/password authentication.

Making a backup

There are a number of ways to create a backup of your ebook files. For the companies that offer cloud storage such as all the major etailers, you may prefer to redownload new copies of your books direct from the source onto your newly formatted harddrive.  The folders to backup are the locations of the books you identified above. Other backup strategies include:

• USB drive or SD card
• Online cloud storage
• Emailing copies to a different email address (which a) only works if the other email address stores your emails and b) is essentially another form of cloud storage).
• Attached backup harddrive

After a harddrive crash

The good thing is that most of these companies allow you to redownload your books. The bad thing is that you often have to redownload them one by one.  Further, if you don’t remember where you bought your ebooks, you may not be able to recreate your digital library. Some smaller retailers won’t allow you to redownload your books.  You are given one opportunity or a 24 hour opportunity and that is it.  These smaller retailers, however, often are selling non DRM’ed books.  If that is the case, you may be able to recover your ebooks using a harddrive recovery software.

1. Gather your emails, passwords, usernames, credit cards
2. Redownload the retailer software
3. Authorize your programs
4. Redownload your files

If you can’t remember your passwords or usernames, try contacting the various retailers.  Ordinarily, you can get those companies to either email you your username or have it reset over the telephone after providing sufficient identifying information.  Check last week’s post for the customer service contacts for the major retailers.

If you have forgotten your Adobe ID you can fill out this form here so long as you remember the email address you used at the time of registration or use the customer support page.  More on the Adobe ID here.

If you can’t remember where you bought all your books, request a few months of your credit card or bank statements and review all the locations of your purchases. Another tip is to use only one credit card to buy your ebooks and then you need only look at that one statement.

Summary Tips

In sum, here are some tips to keep in mind as a new or experienced ebook reader.

1. Keep track of your purchases.  One way is to dedicate one card for purchases of ebooks.
2. Remember usernames and passwords.  A password program can help to remember these for you and still keep you secure.
3. Backup using offline storage like USB or SD cards or cloud storage like Dropbox.  Back up your My Documents folder.

Related posts:

1. The trials and tribulations of buying ebooks
2. All Romance eBooks Accepts Paypal
3. REVIEW: Ebookstore Review: All Romance Ebooks

Amazon

Amazon allows you to request a refund directly from the device by canceling the purchase immediately after pressing the buy button. Another way to request a refund is by going to Your Digital Items -> Your Kindle Orders. Your Kindle purchases appear and by clicking the + (plus sign) to get the expanded view, a Return for Refund will appear. You can request a refund for any book purchased within the last seven days.

Returning Kindle Content

Books you purchase from the Kindle Store are eligible for return and refund if we receive your request within seven days of the date of purchase. Once a refund is issued, you will no longer have access to the book. To request a refund and return, visit Manage Your Kindle, click the actions tab for the title you’d like to return, and select “Return for refund.”

Otherwise, you will need to contact Amazon.

Any content you’ve purchased from Amazon since its Kindle launch can be retrieved from your kindle library at Amazon.com. This is also true for any document you’ve sent to your Kindle.com address that is stored in the personal document service archive.

You can also access the “Archive” of your books via any Kindle device or App.

Your Kindle Content Library

All Kindle content, including books and Kindle active content, that you’ve purchased from the Kindle Store is stored in your Kindle library on Amazon.com. If you’ve enabled your Personal Document Archive settings on Manage Your Kindle, all your archived personal documents will also appear in your Kindle library on Amazon.com.

Barnes and Noble

B&N does not allow for returns. Some people have reported that if it is an error on BN’s part, you can call and get a refund. I tried to get one for a book that was ordered but I didn’t authorize and after two weeks of run around, I just swallowed the cost.

Items That Cannot Be Returned

We are unable to accept returns for NOOK Books, magazines, downloadable PDFs for SparkNotes products, gift cards, and shrink-wrapped items that have been opened. Please note: Once purchased, NOOK Books cannot be refunded.

Barnes and Noble keeps an archive of your past nook book purchases. You can also access your Nook library via any nook device or App.

What is My NOOK Library?

Your NOOK Library is a private page on BN.com that lists your previous purchases, allowing you to manage your NOOK Books quickly and easily. It is a permanent home to your purchases and free samples, no matter how many different devices you use to read your NOOK Books. To see your NOOK Library, sign in to your BN.com account.As your NOOK Library grows, you can move previously read items to your Archives by clicking the Archive link. This simply takes it out of your main view, but it is always available in case you want to download it again.

Kobo

I find Kobo to have the worst customer service around. They rarely respond to their emails and when they do, it usually takes weeks to resolve. If you have an issue with a book your purchased from Kobo, I highly recommend you contact the publisher of the book instead of Kobo.

I emailed and asked if they had a refund policy and while I received a response back asking that I clarify my question (how can it be more clear?), I never received an actual answer even though I did reply that I wanted to know whether there was a refund policy.

Kobo keeps an archive of your past purchases and you can redownload them from the site or you can access the “My Library” link from the web browser or the Library icon in any Kobo App.

Sony

Sony does not allow digital returns.

Can I return an eBook?

No. Please confirm all purchases before you complete them as all sales are final. There are no refunds for digital content.

Sony allows you to redownload past purchases by going to the Reader Library Software on your computer, logging in, and accessing My Library tab.  The archived books have a download arrow underneath. Alternatively, if your device is a wifi enabled Sony, you can access past purchases from the Store tab -> My Account link.

Diesel

Diesel will refund any book that was not downloaded and if the title has been cancelled but only if less than 30 days have passed since the order.

Refund Policy

We are able to refund any ebook that has not been downloaded. If a title has been cancelled by the publisher (after download), our policy is to refund the order/title if less than 30 days have passed since the order was placed.

Within 24 hours of purchase, you can access all your Diesel purchases from your bookshelf.

Link here.

In addition, 24 hours after your purchase, you can also download your books from your bookshelf (in addition to your email download link).

Fictionwise

According to an email reply from a customer service representative at Fictionwise, books that have not yet been downloaded are eligible for a refund.

If you purchase a book, but do not download it, then we will give you a full refund. Once a book has been downloaded we cannot refund the book unless of course the file is broken. We have already been forced to pay royalties for your copy.

Your purchased books can be found on your “Bookhself” and can be redownloaded individually or in bulk.  The download in bulk feature is particularly awesome if your hard drive crashed.

Bookshelf Features:

Some of the features in your Bookshelf include:
– Download your eBooks individually or in Bulk
– Rate your eBooks individually or in Bulk

All Romance eBooks

ARE does not allow for refunds or returns but will replace a damaged file.

Q: Do you give refunds?

A: No. We will, however, replace any damaged files.

ARE allows you to redownload your past purchases.

Q: Can I access my library anytime, anywhere?

A: Your library, where all of your eBooks can be downloaded, can be accessed via the internet. We selected our Web-host due to their reliability. We experience 99.9% up time, use multiple redundant telecommunications paths and carriers, have secondary power solutions in case of emergencies, RAID mirroring, 24/7 monitoring, backups and security updates.

Google eBookstore

Google allows you to request a refund if the book is not as described or has an error or defect. The request should be made within 7 days of purchase.

Request a refund for a Google eBooks purchase

You may return an ebook for a refund or replacement if the ebook does not perform as described or has an error or defect. We request that you submit your request within 7 days of purchase. In certain cases, we may consider refunds outside this period, but please note we make these decisions at our sole discretion. Refunds will not be granted in situations of purchase abuse.Note: When a refund is granted, we’ll remove your access to the ebook and your money will be returned.If you bought your Google eBook from another retailer, you’ll need to check their refund policy.

Google allows you to redownload your past purchases from the “My Library” tab. Look for the “Read from My Device” link under the “Read Now” tab. Clicking on that link will bring up a new page. Scroll to the bottom to find download buttons for ePub or PDF.

Books on Board

Books on Board has one of the easiest to find Refund policies but once a download is attempted a refund cannot be issued. The policy goes on to state that refunds can only be issued if there are defects in formatting, missing parts, or have incorrect content assigned to meta data. You must contact customer support in order to request the refund or store credit.

Refund

Please choose your format carefully. Once a download has been attempted using the link in your order, the publisher requires payment for the file and it is, per publisher requirements, Non-refundable. Self-reporting that an item has been deleted from your computer is not accepted by the eBook wholesaler or publishers as a de facto reversal of the actual delivery and possession of digital content of value by the user.….If you select and checkout with the wrong format, contact us, we can verify with the distributor that no download has been attempted and they will allow us to exchange unused links for new formats. However, once the link has been used and file downloaded, the distributor treats a second format as a unique transaction and charges for the new file.

Due to the extensive fraud on the internet, we have no choice but to contest all credit card disputes in situations where download of an eBook or Audio Book has been attempted.

BooksOnBoard Provides Refunds or Credits and Exchanges Under Very Specific Circumstances

eBooks and Audiobooks that have been downloaded and found to contain defects in their formatting, missing parts, or have incorrect content assigned to meta data, may be refunded or credited by BooksOnBoard only after our Support staff has been contacted and has submitted the files to the eBook distributor or publishers requesting that they 1) provide a working replacement issued in a timely manner, or; 2) evaluate the file for the reported issue and verify that it is eligible for credit on the transaction.

Redownloading books can be achieved by logging in and accessing “My Account.” On the right should be a listing of recent orders. The last column gives you the option to View & Download.

Harlequin & Carina Press

Harlequin and Carina Press have the same policy which is that an ebook cannot be returned. However, sources indicate that customer service for both presses can be accommodating when contacted directly.

Harlequin:What is your return policy?

As eBooks cannot be physically returned, it is our policy to not offer refunds on successful purchases (i.e. items have been successfully downloaded to your PC or reading device). If you have concerns about your purchase, please contact customer support.

Carina Press: What is your return policy?

As eBooks cannot be physically returned, it is our policy to not offer refunds on successful purchases (i.e. items have been successfully downloaded to your PC or reading device). If you have concerns about your purchase, please contact customer support.

Can I download a title multiple times?

If you’ve misplaced your copy of a downloaded title, this site maintains a history of purchased digital materials called ‘My Bookshelf’. You can re-download from the ‘My Bookshelf’ feature by clicking on the ‘My Bookshelf’ link in the ‘eBook Account Info’ section. To reach the ‘eBook Account Info’ section, click the ‘eBook Account Info’ link and enter the required login information.

My computer crashed and I lost all of my books, can I re-download my purchase?

Yes. Click to access the My Account section of the site. Once you log in, you can access all of your previous purchases via the My Bookshelf link.

Samhain

Samhain allows for a refund if a) you have not downloaded the book and b) the purchase was made in error.

Q: Do you give refunds?

Don’t download the books and email support@samhainpublishing.com right away. We will refund your money.However, if you have downloaded the books prior to asking for a refund, we consider you to have bought them.

Samhain allows you to redownload your past purchases, even those published by others when the store was “My Bookstore and More”.

How do I download my books from Samhain?

Once your purchase transaction is complete, or any other time you need to download an ebook file, login to Samhain and go to “My Bookshelf”. There you will see a listing of all the titles you have purchased through Samhain. The default sorting is with the most recent purchases first. You can resort by Title, Author, Genre and Order Date either ascending or descending. You can also search by a word or phrase. At this time, this only searches the title, it will not search author name or the description.

Related posts:

1. Harlequin Treasury Purchases
2. REVIEW: Ebook Weekly : Review of Cobblestone Press
3. How to Convert an eBook into eReader Format for the iPhone Using Publish eBook

This is my attempt to catalog the multitude of reading apps available for the Android platform (and there are a lot more than I ever thought there were). I’ve tried to include a listing for every app available along with basic information such as the formats it supports and its system requirements. Hopefully this will give users looking for apps an easy way to see what’s out there since searching the Android Market can give mixed results.

This is just a catalog so there are no reviews, but I have done reviews of some apps that you can find here, here, and here. While all of the links go to the apps listing on the Android Market (where you can read about features and user reviews) many of these apps can be found at third party markets or direct from the developers website. If you don’t have the Android market and need info on sideloading and third party markets, I wrote about that here.

First up we have the apps which are primarily for use with a specific store, however some of these apps allow sideloading which can greatly expand on their usefulness. I myself find that I use the Kindle app more than any of the others, but occasionally do use the Kobo app as I have a lot of books on my “shelf” there as well.

Kindle Formats: azw, topaz (azw1), drm free mobi Requires Android: Varies with Device Price: Free	Nook Formats: B&N ePub, drm free ePub Requires Android: 2.1 or higher Price: Free	Kobo Formats: Kobo kePub, drm free ePub Requires Android: 1.6 or higher Price: Free
Google Books Formats: ePubs and PDFs purchased from Google eBook store Requires Android: Varies with Device Price: Free	Sony Reader Formats: ePubs purchased from Sony eBook stores   Requires Android: Varies with Device Price: Free	eReader (beta) Formats: eReader PDBs     Requires Android: Android 1.0 or higher Price: Free

Other bookseller apps

Ebook Reader: Supports books purchased from ebooks.com; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Borders Australia: Supports books purchased from borders.com.au; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Angus & Robertson: Supports books purchased from angusrobertson.com.au; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Whitcoulls: Supports books purchased from whitcoulls.co.nz; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Dymocks: Supports books purchased from dymocks.com.au; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Inktera: Supports books purchased from inktera.com; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Blio: Supports books purchased from the Blio store also imports DRM free ePubs; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Book Place: Supports books purchased from toshibabookplace.com also imports DRM free ePubs (this is the Blio app re-skinned); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Go Spoken: Supports books purchased from gospoken.com; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

DNL eBook Reader: Supports DNL DRM’d books purchased from ebook.com and drm free ePub; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free
 

Non-English language eBook store apps

Numilog: Supports books purchased from numilog.com (a French eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

BooksV: Supports books purchased from booksv.fmworld.net (a Japanese eBook Store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

E-books by greekbooks: Supports books purchased from greekbooks.gr (Greek eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

My eBooks: Supports books purchased from myebooks.gr (Greek eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Tradebit eBook Reader: Supports books purchased from tradebit.com also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Libri.de eBookS Reader: Supports books purchased from libri.de (German eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM & txt; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

OYO eReader: Supports books purchased from thalia.de (German eBook store); Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

Weltbild.de eBooks: Supports books purchased from weltbild.de (German eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Weltbild.ch eBooks: Supports books purchased from weltbild.ch (Swiss eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Weltbild.at eBooks: Supports books purchased from weltbild.at (Austrian eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

textunes eBooks: Supports books purchased from textunes.de (German eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

PagePlace eBooks: Supports books purchased from pageplace.de (German eBook store); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Carturesti Reader: Supports books purchased from librarie.carturesti.ro (Romanian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Metaixmio: Supports books purchased from ebooks.metaixmio.gr (Greek eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

eLibris: Supports books purchased from ebooks.metaixmio.gr (Finish eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Libroteca: Supports books purchased from libhumanitas.ro (Romanian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Tavasli Reader: Supports books purchased from tavasliyayinlari.com (Turkish eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Biblio.bg Reader: Supports books purchased from biblio.bg (Bulgarian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Evripidis Reader: Supports books purchased from evripidis.gr (Greek eBook store); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

TD Bookstore: Supports books purchased from tritiumdigital.com (Singapore eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM, Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

DLivre: Supports books purchased from dlivre.com (Belgian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or highe; Cost Free

CLB eBooks: Supports books purchased from clb.ro (Romanian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Digibooks4All: Supports books purchased from various bookstores also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

HyRead eBook: Supports books purchased from ebook.hyread.com.tw (Tiwanese eBook store); Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

iPubu: Supports books purchased from pubu.com.tw (Tiwanese eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Handheld Culture: Supports books purchased from handheldculture.com (Chinese eBook store); Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

UPaper: Supports books purchased from upaper.net, ePub (Chinese eBook store); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

MuchMarts eBook/app market: Supports books and apps purchased from MuchMarts (Chinese eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Nexto Reader: Supports books and audiobooks purchased through the app (Polish eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

E-Booki T-Mobile: Supports books purchased at ebooki.t-mobile.pl (Polish eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Saraiva Digital Reader: Supports books purchased at livrariasaraiva.com.br (Brazilian eBook store), ePub and PDF with or without DRM; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Naver Books: Supports books purchased at books.naver.com (Korean eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Mekia: Supports books purchased at mekia.net (Korean eBook store); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Ridi Books: Supports books purchased at ridibooks.com (Korean eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Bookcube: Supports books purchased at bookcube.com (Korean eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Next up are general purpose reading apps. These apps support various formats and some support DRM’d content, but they aren’t primarily tied to any give store (some do have catalogs/links to various stores such as Aldiko’s link to All Romance eBooks catalog). I’ve used a fair number of the more popular apps and have settled on Mantano as my go to app. Other apps I’ve liked for various reasons include Aldiko, BlueFire, Moon+ and Cool Reader.

Mantano Formats: Adobe DRM ePub, B&N DRM ePub, drm free ePub, Adobe DRM PDF, drm free PDF Requires Android: 2.1 or higher Price: Free/$7.49	Aldiko Formats: Adobe DRM ePub, B&N DRM ePub, drm free ePub, Adobe DRM PDF, drm free PDF Requires Android: 2.1 or higher Price: Free/$2.99	Bluefire Reader Formats: Adobe DRM ePub, B&N DRM ePub, drm free ePub, Adobe DRM PDF, drm free PDF Requires Android: 2.2 or higher Price: Free
Moon+ Reader Formats: ePub, html, fb2, txt, umd, zip and chm   Requires Android: 1.6 or higher Price: Free/$4.99	FBReader Formats: epub, oeb and fb2(.zip)     Requires Android: Varies with Devices Price: Free	Cool Reader Formats: ePub, fb2, doc, txt, rtf, html, chm, tcr, pdb, prc, mobi, pml Requires Android: 1.5 or higher Price: Free/Donations
OverDrive Formats: Adobe DRM ePub from OverDrive sources Requires Android: 1.5 or higher Price: Free	Wordoholic Formats: epub, fb2 & txt   Requires Android: 1.5 or higher Price: Free	iReader Formats: txt, chm, pdb (eReader & Mobi), UMD, HTML Requires Android: 1.6 or higher Price: Free

Other general reading apps

txtr ebooks: Supports Adobe DRM ePub (uploaded through txtr website), drm free ePub, Adobe DRM PDF, drm free PDF; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

DL Reader: Supports ePub & PDF (drm free, Adobe DRM, B&N DRM); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

SE-ED Reader: Supports ePub & PDF (drm free, Adobe DRM, B&N DRM); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

AReader: Supports ePub, PDF, txt; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

DuoKan: Supports ePub, txt; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Nomad Reader: Supports ePub, fb2; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

iSilo: Supports iSilo, Palm Doc, and plain text files; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost $19.99

Booqua: Supports fb2; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

LDS Reveal Reader: Supports ybk (YanceyWare), oeb; Requires, Varies by Device; Cost Free

Palm Book Reader: Supports pdb (palmdoc, no iSilo or eReader), txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Android txt eBook Reader: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Android chm eBook Reader: Supports chm; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

HyReader: Supports ePub, txt, chm, umd, html; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost $0.99

eBook Reader (by SpicySquid): Supports prc, epub, oeb and fb2(.zip) [based on FBReader]; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

eBook Reader (by S4BB): Supports S4BB format; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Speak Text Easy: Supports ePub and PDF; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost $1.45

Captionary eBook Viewer: Supports ePub, txt ,zip, pdf; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

ePub Reader for Android: Supports ePub; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Himawari: Supports ePub; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free/$1.56

Wattpad: Supports stories from wattpad.com; Requires Android 1.1 or higher; Cost Free

Nightbook: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free/$1.50

Multireader: Supports PDF, ePub, txt, Word, RTF , Power Point; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost $4.82

Foliant (beta): Supports ePub, txt, fb2; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Legimi: Supports ePub & PDF uploaded to Legimi cloud; Requires, Varies by Device; Cost Free

GeckoReader Lite/Paid: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free/$1.59

Chaek: Supports ePub, txt, html; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

PDB Book Reader: Supports pdb, txt; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Fanfiction Reader: Supports, for reading material from fanfiction.net; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free/$2.96

Fiction Press Reader: Supports, for reading material from fictionpress.com; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Compact Reader: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.0 or higher; Cost Free

aReader: Supports pdb (palmdoc); Requires Android 1.1 or higher; Cost Free

ZXReader: Supports docx, fb2, ePub, txt; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

EBookDroid: Supports PDF, djvu, xps, cbz/cbr, fb2; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

GO Book: Supports ePub, txt, umd, PDF, fb2; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

epubReader: Supports ePub, txt, mobi; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Bookfm: Supports doc, docx, pdf, txt, ppt by converting to ePub when you upload to bookfm.com; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Book Troupe: Supports ePub read from your DropBox or Box account; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

General reading apps for non-Latin/Asain text (many supporting both horizontal & vertical modes) [some apps above also support non-Latin text]

KingReader: Supports ePub, txt, html; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

SnowLamp Reader (Korean): Supports ePub; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

cBook (Chinese only): Supports pdb and updb files from www.haodoo.net; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Tulip Reader: Supports pdb (Haodoo, PalmDoc, zTXT Mode 1), txt, umd; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

CuckooReader: Supports ePub, chm, txt, umd; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

AlmorBook: Supports unsure, but does support haodoo.net; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

SmartBooks: Supports ePub; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

qqReader: Supports txt, umd, pdf, chm; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

BestReader: Supports txt, umd, html, chm; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

TxtReader: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

GobyReader: Supports pdb/updb; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Vertxt Reader: Supports txt (UTF-8, UTF16, Big5, EUC_JP, EUC_KR, GBK, and SJIS); Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Apabi Reader: Supports cebx, txt; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Now we come to dedicated PDF readers. I find that I no longer use a dedicated PDF reader as Mantano does a good job with them, but in the past I’ve been quite happy with ezPDF and Adobe Reader.

ezPDF Reader Formats: PDF Requires Android: 2.1 and up Price: $0.99/$2.99

RepliGo Reader Formats: PDF Requires Android: 2.0 or higher Price: $4.99

Adobe Reader Formats: PDF Requires Android: 2.2 or higher Price: Free

Other dedicated PDF viewers

Foxit Mobile PDF: Supports PDF; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost $2.99

BeamReader PDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.1 or higher; Cost 10 day trial/$4.99

qPDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

MobilePDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

ODGPdf Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

APV PDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Android PDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

PDF GView: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Ebooka PDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Last up are apps designed primarily for viewing Comics and Manga. I’ll admit my experience here isn’t as in depth as with other reading apps, but I’ve been happy with Droid Comic Viewer, Comics by ComiXology and the Marvel app in the past with very limited use.

Droid Comic Viewer Formats: cbz/zip, crb/rar, jpeg, png, bmp Requires Android: 1.5 and up Price: Free

Comics Formats: Comics purchased from comiXology Requires Android: 2.1 or higher Price: Free

Perfect Viewer Formats: cbz/zip, cbr/rar, 7Z/cb7, lzh, PDF (with plugin) Requires Android: 1.6 or higher Price: Free

Other Comic/Manga viewing apps

Comic Reader Mobi: Supports rar, zip, cbr, cbz; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost $14.99

ComicRack: Supports cbr, cbz, (CB7, CBT, PDF, DJVU and WebComics via conversion with Windows app); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free/$6.89

Marvel Comics: Supports comics purchased from Marvel; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

DC Comics: Supports comics purchased from DC; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Dark Horse Comics: Supports comics purchased from Dark Horse; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Graphicly Comics: Supports buy and read comics from publishers such as Image, IDW, and Archie; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

AveComics: Supports comics purchased from AveComics; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

e-book/Manga reader: Supports manga (& eBooks) from eBookJapan; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

jjComics Viewer: Supports cbr, cbz, rar,zip, jpg, gif, png, bmp; Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

Komik Reader: Supports cbr, cbz; Requires Android 3.0 or higher; Cost Free

Comic Reader: Supports, read 347 of the most famous comics including Dilbert, Xkcd, Abstruse Goose, Geek and Poke, Calvin and Hobbes, PhD Comics, Pickles, Garfield, Spiked Math and many more; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Manga Watcher: Supports manga from a bunch of manga websites; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost $2.99

MangaWhat: Supports manga from a bunch of manga websites; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

TIViewer (comic & text viewer): Supports zip (jpg, bmp, gif, png), txt; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Simple Comic Viewer: Supports zip, rar, cbr, cbz, jpg, png, gif, bmp; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Comic Strips: Supports over 300,000 comic strips from over 120 comics; Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

Comic Viewer: Supports images and compressed files (zip); Requires Android 2.0.1 or higher; Cost Free

AyaComicViewer: Supports zip, rar, jpg, png, bmp; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Manga Reader: Supports manga from MangaStream, MangaReader; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Our Comic Viewer: Supports jpeg, png, gif, bmp, zip/cbz, rar/cbr; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Esay Comic Viewer: Supports image & zip files; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Comics by ArcaMax: Supports more than 65 of the funniest comic strips ever known to mankind — including famous strips such as Wizard of Id, Dennis the Menace, Blondie, Mutts, and Mother Goose & Grimm; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

xkcdViewer: Supports access to the xkcd archives; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free


 

Calibre Library: Connect wirelessly to your Calibre e-book library; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost $2.99

Aldiko Sync free/pro: Sync your books and bookmarks from Aldiko across your devices using your Dropbox account; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free/$0.99

FBSync: Sync your position (by paragraph and word) in every e-book you’ve opened with FBReader to the web, Dropbox interface that will allow you to sync your actual book files from one devices to another, REQUIRES ROOT ACCESS; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free
 

I hope this catalog will be a useful one stop place for folks to be able to find out what’s available to them for the various formats that are out there. I’ve no doubt missed some (especially when it comes to non English stores and apps) so if you see your favorites missing be sure to leave a comment so that I can add them to the list.

Next month I’ll share some of my favorite non-reading apps with you.

Related posts:

1. How to install apps on an Android device with no access to the Android Market
2. Reading with Android – Mantano Reader
3. Best Mobile Reading Apps

Now that you have your Calibre database set up just the way you like it, you need to figure out how to get the books from your computer to your device.  You can use the tethered or the over the air (untethered) method.

Tethered

Tethered means to physically attach your device to your computer using the USB cord.  Calibre recognizes almost every mainstream device from the Kobo, Sony, nook, Kindle, Cybook, and the iOS devices.

Send to Device

Once you plugin the device, you should see a “Send to Device” icon on the menu bar.

If you don’t see it, you may need to modify your tool bar.  CMD/CTRL + P -> “Toolbar” -> “The main toolbar when device is connected” -> Then drag over the “Send to Device” icon from the “available actions” column to the “current actions” column.

“Send to Device” gives you the option of sending the book to the main memory or the memory cards.  If you always use the same action, such as sending the device to the memory card, you can set that as the “default” which means when you press the “Send to Device” button, the book will be sent to the memory card.  You can use the drop down menu to change that feature.

This is where your special columns and saved searches come in handy.  For instance, if you had a “TBR” column, you could filter for just those books that you want to read and then when all those books are shown, select and then send to your device.  If you have modified the plugboards to change the title when the book is sent to the device, the action will take place when you hit the “Send to Device” button.

A special plugboard that you may want to create is a “genre” plugboard that corresponds with a “genre” or “tag” field.  Using this in conjunction with iBooks can sort your books into separate categories on your iOS device.  First, create a custom field that you will want to use to sort your iBooks. You may generically name it “genre” in case you want to use it for some other purpose otherwise you could name it “ibooks_cat” or something like that.  For column type, select “Text, column show in the tag browser.” As with any new column, you will have to restart calibre.  Go through and mark the books in your library.  Alternatively, you can use the existing “tag” field.  Then create a new plugboard: Format=epub | Device=apple | Source template {#usercolumn} or {tags} | Destination field=tags. Save and then “Apply”.

Saving to Disk

The Saving Books to Disk feature works great if you use an SD card and don’t want to tether your device to the computer. Instead you store all your files on an SD card.  Saving to Disk feature allows you to save multiple files with one click of the button.  The Calibre default is to save multiple files into separate folders. I really dislike this.  Further, if you have only one device, such as a Sony or Nook, you don’t want to save Mobi files, you just want to save ePub files.

You can modify Calibre to change the default behavior so that it saves only one file (the ePub one) and with no folders.  Go to Preferences (CMD/CTRL+P).   Under the Import/Export set of features is “Saving books to disc”

Here is where you make your changes.  I don’t want to save things separately. I just want one file to transfer over to my SD card but I do want to make sure my metadata is updated (1).  In File Formats (2), enter EPUB  instead of all and in the template (3), I have {title} – {authors}.

Now when I use the Save to Disc button, I get one file that is named Title – Author.epub.  Again, use your saved searches or special columns to collect all the books you want to transfer to your SD card.  Highlight the books and then click the “Save to Disk” button.  (Tip: if you want to sort by recent and your device doesn’t have that feature, you can use the “{timestamp}” variable.  First, you would want to format the date.

• %d = day
• %m=month number
• %b=month
• %m=year

I like (%d-%b-%m) so in the “Format date as” box, I would put %d-%b-%m.  In the Template box, I would put “ {timestamp} {title} – {authors} ”  This results in the following output: “21-Jan-01 Sizzle in the City – Wendy Etherington.mobi”  (I use mobi instead of epub, but you get the idea)

Connect/Share button.  This button allows you to connect to a folder, iTunes, start the content server, and send via email.  Connect to folder allows you to use a folder on the computer as a device.  This is useful if your device is not recognized by calibre or you use an SD card.

The Connect to iTunes function allows you to send books to iTunes and then when you sync your iOS device, either via USB or now over the air, the calibre books will show up.   You can use the “send to device” feature for your iThing, but perhaps you just prefer to use iTunes to collect all your media (particularly with the over the air synching and the cloud features).

You must have iTunes open on your computer in order for the “Connect to iTunes” function to work.

1.  How do you want your iTunes to handle the books?  There are two options. First, iTunes can just use the Calibre copy of the book.  Second, iTunes can create a copy and store it in the iTunes media folder. The drawback of the second option is that it creates a second copy of the book.  The drawback of the first option is that if you change the iTunes preferences to use only Calibre copy, this affects all your media.  Thus if you download a music track from Amazon, you would have to manually move it into the iTunes media folder instead of having it automatically copied there when you import a track into iTunes.  It depends on what is more important to you.

If you want iTunes to just use the Calibre copy, then in ITUNES open Preferences and then Advanced.  Uncheck “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.”  Just remember this affects ALL MEDIA not just books.

2.  Set up Preferences in Calibre.

• Change the output to EPUB in Preferences -> Behavior -> Preferred Output
• Change the output to iPad or iPhone in Preferences  -> Conversion | Common Options -> Page Setup  -> iPad
• Change the order in which ePub or PDFs are sent to iTunes

This last one is important.  iBooks can read either ePubs or PDFs.  If you have an iPhone or iTouch, PDFs are not as easy to read. If you have a book folder that contains both PDFs and EPUBs then you want to make sure the ePUB version is sent first. Or perhaps you don’t want to send PDFs at all.  To do this you must go to Preferences  ->  Plugins.  In the box, type “Apple device interface” and then click the “customize plugin” button at the bottom:

Use the green arrow buttons to order the formats to your preference.  If you use the tags or a special user column for categories, uncheck “Use Series as Category in iTunes/iBooks.” Now you’ll be able to “Send to Device” with iTunes.  You can click over to iTunes to see what books were sent over and how they are categorized.

Untethered

There are three ways of getting books to your device without the use of USB cord or an SD card.

Connect to iTunes

The first one was for iThings using the Connect to iTunes feature.  Under iOS 5, you can sync your iThings over the air.  Simply gather up the books you want on your iThing, Send to Device, and then institute an over the air sync.

Content Server

Calibre has a built in content server.  You can share books over the net by starting the server.  Preferences -> Sharing over the net -> Start Server.  You can check the box “Run server automatically when calibre starts.”

Many Android and iOS apps will recognize the Calibre server automatically.  If not, you will need to know the IP address of your computer and manually add the calibre server to your APP.  You will need to open terminal on your Mac or PC.

• PC: Click Start -> Run. In the box type cmd.  A black window should open.  Type “ipconfig all”.  A bunch of numbers will spew out.  You are looking for IP Address.  It is usually something like 192.168.0.xx.
• MAC: Spotlight and type “Terminal”. Click on the Terminal App.  Type “ifconfig”.  A bunch of numbers will spew out.  Look for “inet”.  It is usually something like 10.0.1.xx.

Take the IP address of your computer and enter it into the app followed by :8080.  So it would be something like http://10.0.1.88:8080.

You should be able to access a searchable database of your Calibre library. This only works if a) you have calibre running and b) you can connect to your wifi network.  See this post for information about port forwarding and DNS redirect services which allows you to access Calibre from the internet.

Sharing books by email

This is my most used feature on Calibre particularly since Amazon has instituted Personal Document Service for the iOS Apps as well as the Kindle devices.  Basically this feature does exactly what it says.  It sends books by email.  Read more about PDS and Amazon here.

Enter the emails to which you want a book sent along with the formats that you want to send.  Here is my setup:

I don’t mind sharing these emails with you because only authorized folks can send documents to my devices.  As you can see, the top one is my default but I can, via the drop down menu, send a book to any one of these email addresses.  Plus, you can change the default by selecting the preferred email address and hitting the “make default” button on the right.  Calibre has built in email server configurations for gmail and hotmail. It’s worth signing up for one of those email services just for facilitating the sending of books to yourself.

I hope this January series of articles about Calibre has helped you get an idea of how to start to harness this amazing piece of software to manage your book collection.  There are so many other ways to use Calibre and this series just scratches the very surface.  Thanks for listening. Feel free to ask any questions. If I don’t know the answer, I bet there is someone who does.

Additionally, I am always looking for topics or even guest reviews of devices, products, and general ebook-y stuff for Sunday. Please email jane at dearauthor.com if you have an idea, a question or a blog post.  Thanks!

Related posts:

1. Create Your Own Cloud of Ebooks with Calibre + Calibre OPDS + Dropbox
2. Stanza, Calibre, the iTouch and the Mac
3. Calibre: The eBook Reader’s Best Friend, Part 1 of 2

Part two of settling up a new library with Calibre.  The first can be found here for plugins and metadata. 

Once you have the books entered into your library, you can then manipulate the data. Calibre now allows you to create your own custom columns.  Calibre comes with columns for Title, Title Sort, Author, Author Sort, Date of Publication, Date (that you add the book to Calibre), Size of the file, Rating, Tags, Series, Publisher, Description.

Creating User Defined Columns

To create a column, CTRL/CMD + P (This opens Preferences).  From the first row of icons, click on the button: Add your own columns.

Or simply position your mouse on the header bar of the database page and right click:

Use the green and red buttons to add and delete user create columns.   Here I’ve created “want” “read”, “price”, “reader comments”.    You can define the type of column.   Want and Read are Yes/No while Price is an integer and Reader Comments is long form text.  If you downloaded the Pages plugin we discussed last week, you would want to create a “Word Count” and “Page Count” plugin, both integer.  The checkmarks indicate which columns will show on the database page.

I marked the books that I want to buy under “want” as yes.   I’ve marked books under “Read” as “blank/Yes/No.”   Blank means “To be read”.   The yes/no type column actually has three choices.   Also important to remember is the lookup name for the user generated column. The lookup name will be vital for searching.  You cannot have spaces in the Lookup name.

Now that I have marked my wants, I can create a buy list.

First, I am going to create a custom search.   For all my user created columns, I need to use # in front of the lookup name for the column. For “want“, I would enter in the “search box.”

#want:yes

I am going to save this search by naming it in the “Saved Searches“   (Click and start typing).   I’ve named this my “To Buy List” search.   Click on the green plus sign. You can double check by clicking on the saved searches drop down box.

You can also create a TBR search by

#read:false

The false means that there is no entry at all (neither yes or no).   Enter “TBR” (or whatever you would want to name this list) in the “saved searches” box and then click the green plus sign to save.

So now you have a searchable and sortable list for your wants and your TBRs.   You can continue to create as many columns and saved searches as you want.  Some other columns that might be helpful:

• Price
• Print/eBook
• Location of purchase
• Date Begun
• Date Finished
• Date Abandoned
• Original/Republication
• Genre
• Subgenre

You can select which columns you see. Simply right click on the header bar and hide and add columns as you like.

Multiple Libraries

You can have as many libraries as you want. Instead of creating a column that sorts Paper and Digital books perhaps you want to create a different library for just paper books.   Click on the bookshelf button in the toolbar

Then change the location of the ebooks to a new folder such as “My Dropbox\Calibre\PaperBooks”.   I maintain three: one for books I’ve purchased, one for ARCs and one that contains no ebook files but generates the Dear Author coming soon catalogs.

Plugboards

Plugboards are difficult for me to understand but one great feature is the ability to use a plugboard to insert the series name into a file when it is sent to your device.  That way your books can be sorted on your device, in order of their series appearance.  This is to get around the lame way that ebook readers allow you to sort your content.  Basically you are using the calibre template language to combine already existing fields into new fields.

{series}{series_index:0>2s| – | – }{title}:  Turner Brothers – 01 – Unveiled

Let’s unpack this.  The field name inside the brackets {} correspond to the field lookup name.  In the above example, we have the following metadata:

By using a plugboard, we are asking Calibre to change the title when it it sent to the device from “Unveiled” to  ”Turner Brothers – 01 – Unveiled” which is the {series} + {series_index:0>2s| – | – } + {title}.

• series=Turner Brothers
• series_index:0>2s| – | -
• 0>2s – two digits with leading zeros.  If you did 0>3s it would be three digits with leading zeros.  0<3s would result in a digit with three trailing zeros.
• “| – | – ” places the dashes around the series. field:|prefix_text|suffix_text is the formula.  Here we have space pipe space as the prefix (or the text before the digit) and space pipe space as the suffix (the text after the digit).  If I changed it {series_index:0>2s|*|*} the result would be Turner Brothers*01*Unveiled.  Notice the lack of spaces.
• title=Unveiled

Putting this together, access Preferences and then select Plugboard:

Format: Here you choose which format you to apply the plugboard to.  Perhaps you have a Kindle and an iPad and want to use different plugboards for Mobi and ePub.

• Device: Choose the device you want to apply the plugboard to.  I’ve selected “email” so that every time I email a file to myself, the title becomes title, series, series number.
• Source template: This where you enter the fields:{title}{series_index:0>2s| [|] }{series}
• Destination field: authors, author_sort, language, publisher, tags, title, title_sort.  Here I’ve chose Title. (Click on image for larger image).  I like to use a slightly different format:  {title}{series_index:0>2s| [|] }{series}

SAVE  your plugboard.  You can test out what the plugboard will look like by creating a custom column created from other columns. Review the top of this post to refresh your recollection on how to create a custom column.  This time you are going to create a custom column based on other columns which is essentially what you do with plugboards.  Paste in the formula you would like to use for the title.  Remember in the Lookup name you cannot have blank spaces.

You’ll have to restart every time you add a new column, however, you can edit the formula (and tweak it to get it just right) without restarting Calibre by simply clicking in the new column you created.  When you restart, the column will be filled in (or populated) from the other metadata that is already in the database.

And this is what it looks like on my iPhone:

But, if you can only sort by Title or Author, then you want to start with the series.  Turner Brothers [01] – Unveiled.

You can use custom columns created from other columns to eliminate things like articles from the series names like “The”, “A”, etc.  This would be akin to the “author sort” or “title sort”.  Create a “series_sort” custom column.  In the “Template” section enter the following:  {series:re(^(A|The|An)\s+,)||}

This takes the series and strips out “A”, “The”, and “An”.  Then when doing the plugboard, instead of {series} you would use {#series_sort} (you need to add the # for any user generated column).  Actually, if you create a custom column, then just reference the custom column in the plugboard.  That way any modifications you make to the custom title will be automatically reflected in the plugboard.

Whew.  Plugboards require a little concentration but it is a powerful harnessing of data that is already entered. To get more hints and tips on how to use plugboards, visit Mobile Read.

Next week Getting eBooks from Calibre to Your Device Using Send to Device and the Connect/Share Functions.

Related posts:

1. Dear Jane: How do I use the user columns and saved searches feature of Calibre
2. Setting Up a New Library with Calibre: Essential Plugins and Getting to Know Metadata
3. Using Kindle Collections Plugin for Calibre

I am a huge fan of the free open source software written by Kovid called Calibre.  It is an organization, management, conversion tool for both print and digital books.  I’ve had several people email me asking what the best set up is for Calibre along with what plugins that they should download.  The following is what I recommend but I am sure that there are other great organizational minds out there.

1.  Plugins

There are three essential plugins for me and they are all metadata plugins.  (Read here on how to install a plugin)  The newest versions of Calibre allow the download and installation of plugins from directly within Calibre interface.  From the top menu bar, select Preferences and from the drop down menu Get plugins to enhance Calibre:

The “Get New Plugins” screen begins with a filter that lets you choose whether you want to see “all, uninstalled, installed, and update”.  The following is the list of plugins I have installed:

The BN, Fantastic Fiction, Goodreads plugins are all designed to ensure that the metadata for your book is up to date.  The metadata that Calibre will automatically pull for you includes “Title, author, series, tags, rating, description and ISBN.” When you import a book, that digital book will often come with some metadata but the metadata can be inconsistent from publisher to publisher or incomplete or simply wrong. When building your library, you will want consistency.

Other plugins I have installed include:

Count Pages estimates how many pages are in an ePub and Mobi files. In order to get this plugin to work, you need to create a custom column.

Goodreads Sync can synchronize your library with your Goodreads account. This should only be used if you are going to add a few books at a time because, as the plugin author says “Goodreads T&C require a very limited threshold on the number of API calls per minute. Worst case they will block the plugin and that ruins it for everyone. You can use export/import to Goodreads for large volumes if you need it. Refer to the help page within the plugin for the full details.”

Find Duplicates, Quality Check are for larger libraries wherein the user didn’t do a very good job of setting up front standards and thus her library is filled with all kinds of junk and needs to be cleaned up. (AKA me)

Recently I installed Reading List which helps me organize my ARCS and books for review.  The Reading List plugin allows readings to create an ordered list of books they want to read. “You can have multiple lists (e.g. if keeping track for different users or genres). In addition v1.2 has integrated all the functionality of the Book Sync plugin, allowing you to send your list to a device either manually or automatically when it is connected.”

Another plugin that might be worth checking out is Extract ISBN.  The plugin will attempt to extract the ISBN from the digital file.  As the author of the plugins that I use explains  “Secondly, a good ISBN will always give you the best match. The Extract ISBN plugin can help with this, provided the ISBN is in the book for it to find. Note this plugin is not infallible, not all books have an ISBN it can read, or worse sometimes the ISBN it finds is from the publisher advertising some other book within it. However a very high % of the time it gets it right, and will give you the best chance of a quality edition match with most metadata sources.”

Another fun plugin is Fan Fiction Downloader.  I’m not a fan fiction reader but I know it is tremendously popular.  This plugin helps to download and then enable for transfer to your reading device fan fiction from these sites: Download FanFiction stories from various sites into ebooks. Currently supported sites are: www.adastrafanfic.com, www.fanfiction.net, www.fictionalley.org, www.fictionpress.com, www.ficwad.com, www.fimfiction.net, www.harrypotterfanfiction.com, www.mediaminer.org, www.potionsandsnitches.net, fanfiction.tenhawkpresents.com, www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com, www.tthfanfic.org, www.twilighted.net, www.twiwrite.net, www.whofic.com.

2. Metadata Organization

I use the Calibre automated metadata download function. You can tell Calibre the metadata you would like to download. By default, all the choices are selected. The configure metadata screen can be accessed via the Edit Metadata screen at the bottom middle:

There are a few features that I like to activate here.

Downloaded comments are essentially the description, blurb or series of reviews that Calibre pulls down automatically from various sites.  Some of the encoding of the various publishers is really poor so I opt for plain text which means no bold or italics. The middle option allows you to switch the way that your author names appear.  I actually prefer First Name, Last Name because you can modify the author sort to be something different.  I also like fewer tags. Some books can have 10, 15 tags and it seems too many.

Obtaining the metadata can be done a couple of different ways.   First, you can run the search by ISBN or other identifier. This will pull up only one specific record. For instance, I purchased The Bride by Julie Garwood in digital form. I can look it up by the ISBN or just by using title and author.  Both will give me a list of books.  As you can see there are really two versions of The Bride.  The original publication or the reprint by Penguin.  The first screenshot shows a search using author, title and Nook ISBN (9781101533116):

This screenshot shows the results from just using the amazon ASIN (B004XFYWNY).  The way to use the identifiers is to preface the identifier with the lookup site.  Therefore in the Id field, type amazon:B004XFYWNY.

After you double click on the entry that contains the metadata that you want to use, the next screen will load the covers and you can choose which cover you want associated with your file.

I like the original The Bride cover and I double-click the cover to select it.  This is the resulting metadata:

An underused feature of Calibre may be the Author Sort feature.  Calibre will sort your books by FN LN or LN, FN.  Remember when we had the option of how it is displayed in the metadata configuration? I like it display as Julie Garwood, but I want it to sort as Garwood, Julie so I will make sure the author sort is LN, FN

Ordinarily, you will simply need to import your digital book file and press CMD/CTRL + D to start a metadata download based on the information extracted from the ebook file.  Please remember that when you are handling ePub files, ACSM is not the epub file.  The ACSM file is simply the licenses that allows you to download the actual ebook. Your ebooks will likely be in Documents/My Documents folder under “Digital Editions” (Adobe Digital Editions) or “My Books” (Sony) or That’s it for today. If you have any questions, let me know.  Next week, we will discuss essential user created columns and saved searches.

Related posts:

1. How to Add a Plugin to Calibre
2. Dear Jane: Can I use Calibre to manage my paper books?
3. Using Kindle Collections Plugin for Calibre

With over 3 million Kindles sold along with 100 iOS devicees sold a minute, it is likely that many readers received digital reading devices this Christmas.  The following is what you might need to know in order to use your device.

1.  Are prices the same for digital books?

Generally speaking the price of books are equal to their paper equivalent or less. If you buy new most of the time, you should not see an increase in your book spending.  There is no seccondary market (like a used bookstore) that you can buy digital books or sell books that you are no longer interested in.

There are many free books offered on a regular basis at the digital bookstores.  Don’t forget to use the “Sample” button to check out a portion of the book (about 10%) before you purchase.   If you have a NookColor or Nook Tablet, you can read in the store nearly any of their books for free for one hour a day. It’s called their “Read in Store” program.

Both BN and Kindle offer daily deals.  Barnes & Noble’s is called Nook Daily Find and Amazon’s is the Daily Deal.  Amazon almost always price matches the Nook Daily Find but it usually takes a half a day or so.  The price of these daily deals is usually about 60-80% off the retail price and the selection varies from non fiction to fiction to genre reads.

2.  Where do I find books I want to read?

Onlike bookstores have sections just like real bookstores.  If you are buying digital books, you’ll want to go to the Nook books section and at Amazon, the “Kindle” section.  The “Books” section for both sites refer to paper books.  There are several sub sections such as romance or mystery or science fiction/fantasy.

On many devices, you can shop directly from the device itself.  Doing this can prevent you from accidentally purchasing a paper book.  You can sign up for newsletters from the retailers that will send you suggestions based on your purchases.  On the Nook, suggestions scroll across the bottom of your device.

3.  How do I check out digital books from the library?

Not every publisher participates in digital lending.  Currently the list of publishers NOT participating in digital lending include new releases from Penguin (Nora Roberts, JD Robb, JR Ward); Hachette (Larissa Ione, Jill Shalvis); Simon & Schuster (Kresley Cole, Steve Jobs biography); Macmillan (Sherrilyn Kenyon, Janet Evanovich).

Digital lending is sourced by a company called Overdrive.*  You can check books out for about three weeks.  Many of the digital books have long wait lists.  Check with your local library to see if you are eligible for digital lending or look into digital lending at the Philadelphia Free Library which is available to out of state residents for $35 per year.

*If you live in Kansas, your state is moving from Overdrive to a 3M sourced digital book system and that book system is not yet up and running. Until it is, you do not have digital lending available.

More about digital lending from libraries here.

4.   Can I shop around?

It depends. If you received a Nook, you can shop at most etailers as the nook accepts “epub” format. However, Nook books cannot be viewed through anything but a nook device or a nook app.  Read more here.

Amazon reads only mobi formats. I have a longer post on this subject here.   The good news is that Amazon, generally, has the best prices and the greatest selection; but nook, Sony, Kobo readers give a shopper the most retail freedom.

Here is an article about who has the best ebook prices.

If you have the iPad, you have the best of all worlds as there are Kobo, Kindle, nook apps for the iThings. For reading ePubs, you can use the Kobo, Bluefire App, or MegaReader, and a few notes about iPad ebook Apps.

The reason for these complications is a thing called DRM or digital rights management.  DRM is a software that makes sure you can’t freely share your digital books with others.  Publishers and authors are afraid that without DRM, piracy (or the illegal sharing of books) will overtake legitimate sales.  DRM is used to lock a digital book to a particular device or account.  This prevents free transferability of books and thus books you buy at one store like Amazon can’t be used on a device like the Nook and vice versa.  Some ebookstores like AllRomanceEbooks and Fictionwise specialize in selling books without DRM.

For the Kindle Fire, you can install a great app called Mantano Reader which will allow you to read ePubs.  Read more here.

5. How do I get my books on my Kindle or nook or iOS device?

If you don’t buy directly on the device or have a “send to” device feature, you are going to have to manually add the books. This is called sideloading. When you connect your Kindle/nook to the computer via a USB, the Kindle/nook should show up as an external harddrive:

Just drag over your books.   On the Kindle, put them in the documents folder:

More on sideloading of Kindle books here.   Always remember to download the MOBI format for your Kindle.   Kindle also allows you to email yourself books. To email yourself books, you must enter the sender’s email address under Your Account->Manage Your Kindle, enter the emails under “Your Kindle Approve E-mail list.”   This is to prevent spammers from sending you unwanted documents.

TIP:   If you send documents to @free.kindle.com, there is no charge.  Read more about Personal Document Service here.

On the nook, put the books in the My files folder. I usually put them in “books”:

More on sideloading nookbooks here.   Download the ePub versions of ebooks.   On the Nook Color or Nook Tablet, you can also load books via email or from a website.

Sideloading works for iPad and iPhones as well. Directions for sideloading books onto iOS devices.

6. Can I lend my books or share them?

Publishers are allowing limited sharing or lending of books.   The sharing or lending of books is limited.   First, you can only lend a book once.   Second, the lending period is only for 14 days.   Third, the person to whom you lend the book can only read the book by using the same software as you: Kindle, nook, Kobo, etc.

Another way to share books is to share the same account.   Nooks and Kindles can be hooked up to the same account although there are some drawbacks.   More on sharing here and here.

Kindle also offers the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library.  If you own a Kindle device (not just an app you downloaded onto an Android or IOS device) and are a Prime Member, you can access the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library.  You can borrow one book a month at no extra charge.

7.  Where can I find the free classics?

Many people want to fill up their devices with free books much like they filled up their iPods.   The classics such as plays by Shakespeare, books by Jane Austen, and book club picks like Dickens can be downloaded for free at places like Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks, and manybooks.

Retailers like Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Kobo also give away promotional freebies.   This is a link to the Amazon Kindle promotional freebies.   Promotional freebies generally are time sensitive so download them while you can.

Dear Author posts the monthly specials that they know of but there are three good sources for the publisher promotions:   MobileReads “Deals, Freebies, and Resources” forum; Books on the Knob blog; Kindle Besteller list (broken into free and paid).  You can always come back to Dear Author. We post daily deals about 5 days a week.

8.  How do I keep track of everything?

Digital books can be difficult to keep track of, particularly if you shop at more than one digital book store. I really love a free program called Calibre.  In it’s most simplistic use, Calibre is intended to be an ebook organization tool. You can organize your books by author, title, series, publisher, personal tags, and personal ratings and any other custom field you may think of.  Take a look at a few of my Calibre posts here and here if you are interested in a great and free organizational too.  Part 1 and Part 2.

Finally, don’t be shy about asking questions.  We readers are here to help one another out.

Related posts:

1. Adobe Labs Cooks Up Worst Ebook Reader in Ebook Reader History
2. Should I Buy an Ebook Reader This Year?
3. 10 Tips for Your New eBook Reader

Readers dislike Agency pricing a lot complaining that the 7.99 price point for a digital book that has limited sharing options and no resale. I don’t hear a lot of complaints about the digital first publishers and their high prices.  I’m not sure if it is because of the following:

• Limited audience
• Speciality publishing

High Prices

Digital first publishers like Loose Id and Ellora’s Cave, among others, price their stories very high. Loose Id prices novellas at $4.99 and their full length books at $7.99. Ellora’s Cave charges $7.50 for full novels at their own site and $9.99 at third party retailers.  The price isn’t deterring many readers from buying Laurann Dohner’s books. Brawn is a pre order and ranked in the top 50 of romances at Kindle with a digital list price of $8.75 and $6.65 discounted.  To Command and Collar by Cherise Sinclair published by LooseId is No. 66. The digital list price is $7.99 and the discounted price it $6.39.

Riptide Publishing came out of the gate with high prices arguing that you were getting a superior product and thus you needed to pay a premium price.  Sarah Frantz said:

Almost all of the initial offerings so far listed are under 30K words. And honestly, $2.99 for 10K words seems utterly ridiculous to me. $4.99 for under 30K words? $10 for 100K words? I mean, 100K words is a great story, but $10? Really?! While the stories are great and the idea behind the new press is admirable, with price points like that, I can’t see it getting very far.

These prices don’t decline over time either.

I still remember Angela James stating that for Carina Press, a high quality product in terms of editing and production value, that the highest price they can charge is 5.99. For specialty collections such as their holiday anthologies, they charge $8.99. Samhain’s highest priced book appears to be $5.50.  Carolyn Crane’s “Head Rush” is a full length novel and priced at $5.50. For their Retro Romance line, the pricing is as follows:

• Plus Novel: $4.99
• Novel: $3.99
• Category Length: $2.99

When Entangled Publishing launched, it’s full length novellas (some of which clocked in under 80,000 words) were priced at $7.99. Since then I’ve seen the prices of those books drop dramatically.  When I first read Rosalie Lario’s Blood of the Demon, the book was priced at $7.99.  Now it is priced at $2.99 and it’s sequels are listed at $4.99.

Sarah and I discussed backlist pricing in September 14 podcast and we both agreed that 2.99 to 3.99 was our discovery price.

I saw a review for Caught by Cassandra Carr at Romance Novel News. I went looking for the book and the price was $4.99 and only at $4.99. It’s a novella and for an author I’ve never read before.  Jennifer Porter, a reviewer at RNN, noted that she couldn’t review Debbie Macomber’s “Family Affair” because it was 112 pages and priced at $16.99.

In this case, I was so bothered by the price that I decided I couldn’t read the book. I figured that my negative reaction would most likely color my reading experience. I didn’t want to deal with the issues, so I chose to avoid it entirely. Admittedly, the fact that Macomber has such a large fan base played a role in my decision to just leave the whole thing alone. And FYI, I absolutely respect the fact that her fans might not find the $16.99 price tag problematic.

As for me, I didn’t want to spend $4.99 on a novella of an author I had never read before.  Instead I purchased Talk to Me by the same author at $5.80. (It’s a book that features a creepy sexual harasser but I didn’t realize that until I had read the first three chapters).  Interestingly, I went to lend this book to another Kindle reader and I found that it a) was not lendable and b) it was only sold at Amazon and Siren’s Bookstrand Store.

Availability

I noticed that LooseId, Siren, and other digital first publishers don’t have partnerships with a wide range of retailers.  Sourcebooks, for example, has this great graphic that shows where all their books are available for purchase.

I tried to find “Caught” at Fictionwise, All Romance eBooks, and Kobo, but it was only available at Loose Id and Amazon.  Interestingly, I searched Carr’s other titles. Some were available at Barnes and Noble (Head Games, pubbed by Siren), Fictionwise (Talk to Me, pubbed by Loose Id), Fictionwise (Talk To Me), Kobo (Head Games).  Amazon had Caught, Head Games, Talk to Me.  Isn’t this a problem?  A reader might assume that the one book is all that Carr has published.  There appears to be no consistency.  Other Loose Id books are available at Barnes & Noble whereas other Siren books are available at Fictionwise.

The Rifter by Ginn Hale was favorably reviewed by Sunita here at DA.  The serial was only for sale at Blind Eye books and it cost $3.99 per entry or $29,95 overall.  Each entry ran around 10-15,000 words.

Features

It’s hard to say what the features of ebooks are across the board for Loose Id or Siren or other ebook titles.  Loose Id and Ellora’s Cave appears to allow lending of its books but Siren does not.  They all have Text to Speech enabled and they are available DRM free.

Carina Press does not allow lending of its titles but does have Text to Speech enabled.  CP books are available DRM free.

Conclusions

For these digital first publishers that are charging high prices and limiting their retail partners, I’m interested in hearing from readers about whether that has value for them and why? Are there lessons to be extrapolated here?  Are these publishing houses offering something unique? I noticed that Loose Id sells primarily M/M stories.  Siren is well known for the menage and more titles.

For authors, does it matter where your book is sold or the price point? Perhaps these digital first houses have built up such an audience, limiting its retail partnerships has no adverse affect. I’ve heard that Siren authors are making significant money.

But we often hear readers complaining about the Agency priced books.  How about these?  Is the discounting sufficient?  Do you mind that you have to buy these books from several different retailers?  Any insight is welcome.

Related posts:

1. My First Sale by Claudia Dain, the Low Points and High Points of Writing
2. Penguin Will Sell Books in Canada at US Price Points
3. What is the right price of a book, print or digital, part one.

The Case

I used to be a huge proponent of the cover versus the sleeve but since the advent of the gorilla glass, I’ve changed my mind. It is harder to scratch the screens on these devices and the cases are often holding the devices in by unsightly elastic bands on the corners. I’ve been using my devices naked more often and really enjoying those devices in that manner.

For the eink readers, a case might be better choice if you do a lot of walking and reading and don’t plan to remove your device from the case.  The Amazon sells a light case for the Kindle Touch that runs off the power of the Kindle itself. I have one for my Kindle Keyboard and love it.  Barnes and Noble offers a huge variety of beautiful cases. My favorites are the ones where the reader clips in.

But I’m not often carrying my eReader, Tablet or iPad outside of my purse while moving about.  Further, a case can add a lot of extra bulk and for Tablets and iPads, that extra bulk isn’t worth it.  Thus, what I do want is to protect the face of my device from the keys, tweezers, pens or other random stuff that might scratch it. If you want to use the device without bulk, get a sleeve.

The other benefit of the sleeve? You can get anything from a very inexpensive neoprene sleeve to some gorgeous handcrafted cases. ($9.99 – $79.99).

The Power

I like to keep a power cord in my purse so that if my device gets low on power I will be able to charge it away from my home.

• Kindle Fire: Needs a 2 AMP plug and any microUSB cable.
• Nook Tablet: Uses a proprietary USB cable.
• iPad: Needs a 2 AMP plug and a proprietary USB cable.

A couple other neat power sources includes the power brick for the iPad/iPhone/iTouch/Kindle Fire/Nook Tablet.  It provides a 2.1 amp USB port and can provide up to 10 extra hours for your tablet. ($99) An alternative is the ThinkGeek iGeek Large Capacity Portable Charger.  It allows for two USB connections (1 amp & 2 amp ports) and offers up 17 hours of movie time for the iPad2.  ($61.99) The travelers charger from Restoration Hardware rolls up while traveling and unrolls to provide a plugin tip for iPhone/iPad2, Mini USB, Micro USB, Samsung.

And for in your car?  Turn the cigarette lighter into a plugin with ThinkGeek’s Coffee Cup Power Inverter. ($24.99)  Ned says this isn’t very manly so you could get this one instead.  I use a simple USB micro charger in my car. It’s nearly flush with the panel and in my Kia, the cigarette lighter top actually can close over this one.  Ned got the other one because it has a little handle to pull out the USB charger but it doesn’t sit as flush.  Make sure that the USB charger is compatible with the iPad if you want to use it to charge your Nook Tablet or Kindle Fire.

Keyboards

Only the iPad allows for a connection of a keyboard and while most are expensive, I do recommend one.  A keyboard really extends the functionality of the iPad. I’ve tried several.  I do not recommend the soft keyboards, particularly this device. I got this one as a member of the Amazon Vine program and while it is great for protection of the iPad, the keyboard part of it is really awful.  You could feel a single stamen (for lack of a better word) that needed to be pressed squarely in the middle or you would get multipllllllles of one letter.

I also don’t recommend the Apple bluetooth keyboard because if you carry the keyboard around in your purse the keys will eventually fall off.  Yes, this is from personal experience.

The first thumbnail is for the Logitech Zagg Bluetooth keyboard.  The pros to this keyboard is that it works as a hardcase for the iPad and you can use the iPad in either portrait and landscape form.  The device is rechargeable via a micro USB and holds its power for around 3 weeks with casual use. The keys are nice sized and there is top row that allows you easy access to volume, home, and music control.  The con is that I have found the edges to be very sharp. You cannot change the angle of viewing. (This looks to be similar to the Logitech but at half the cost) ($72.95)

The second thumbnail is for the Adonit Bluetooth keyboard.  A friend of mine bought this and let me borrow it for a few days to test it out. (We traded).  The pros to this keyboard is the quick eject feature as well as the soft resting pad for your wrists.  There are several view angles.  The cons are that the keys are slightly smaller than that of the Zagg.  The device is not rechargeable but instead relies on 2 AA batteries. (This might be a pro for others)  The keyboard only works in landscape format and it is more difficult to use on your lap versus the Zagg. ($89.99)

The third thumbnail is the Kensington Keyfolio.  Another friend of mine has this.  I did not get to borrow before the review but I did play with it at a day long meeting.  The pros of this keyboard is that you can use it in both landscape and portrait format without ever removing the device from its case.  The keyboard keys are about the same as the Zagg.  The angle of viewing is adjustable.  You can easily access all ports without removing the device, including the camera. The cons are that you really can’t use this on your lap very easily.  Also, there is no quick release like the previous two which makes it more difficult to use while in bed.  It is more bulky than the previous two.  ($61.62)

Other Accessories

These are small accessories but might make great stocking stuffers.

• Cleaning cloth and cleaning spray.  This one from Carson retracts the cloth by the cables.  $4.61
• For those who don’t like fingerprints on their touchscreen, they might like the touchscreen stylus pen.  3 pack for $6.85
• Cord helpers. The Quirky keeps your earbud cords untangled and serves as a stand in a pinch ($4.99). These larger flexi ties (set of 6 for $8.85) for larger cord clutter.

Related posts:

1. Holiday Buying Guide, Part 1: Device differentiation, which type is right for you?
2. 2010 eBook Holiday Buying Guide, Part 2
3. 2008 Holiday EBook Reading Buying Guide, Part I

On November 3, 2011, Amazon announced the Kindle Lending Library for Prime members. This allows Prime members to download one book per month for free that is in the Kindle Lending Library. Most publishers did not agree to be included so Amazon is testing the limits of the first sale doctrine and ownership by buying copies at their wholesale discount and then lending them for free to Prime members.

Later in November, Penguin disabled all the Kindle library lending options through Overdrive, was upset that the Kindle lending occurred at the Amazon site and not through Overdrive (as Overdrive is not considered a direct competitor), and then restricted any new digital lending. If Penguin brings back digital lending for new titles, the access will be windowed only allowing digital titles to be lent after some period of the books being on sale.

I really have no problems with this from a business standpoint (a corporate charitable or moral discussion may be different). I understand the publishing is a business and that businesses must make the best financial decisions for them. I understand Amazon is feared because its goal isn’t in concert with publishers. One librarian has suggested that if library patrons bought just one more copy per year, it would equal the entirety of the library market which is around 10%. While there are statistics to indicate the physical book lending has led to sales, there is no data that this is true for digital book lending. Of course, digital lending library is in its infancy and thus making predictions now on whether it will decrease or increase purchases is dangerous. But digital library lending is thought by some to lead to the overall devaluation of content.

The goal of any manufacturer or producer is to sell the product at the highest dollar it can achieve. Barnes & Noble is built along the same guidelines. High prices in exchange for a high quality product and great customer service.

I wouldn’t know about customer service from publishers because they don’t consider the reader as a customer, but I know that B&N’s business rests, in part, on being a trustworthy brand with superior customer service in its stores. It can no longer rest upon providing more content than any other retailer.

But the world has changed and more rapidly than anyone can expect. Carolyn Reidy, the CEO of Simon & Schuster, told a group of Korean business people that ebooks would be around 25% in 2016. Others thought it would not be until 2020 that the digital market share of books would be at the quarter mark but for trade fiction it’s 25% now and for some authors its 50% or greater now. In 2012, the digital market will easily be half of trade book sales. Unfortunately, when long range vision planned for digital adoption to be slower by a factor of 5 that business plan isn’t well suited to change which leads to attempts to slow the pace of adoption to match the plan. I don’t believe the latter works.

A publishers only goal cannot be to thwart Amazon. Hachette CEO Armand Noury stated:

“It’s not that I am against libraries, or a book being sold and then read by 10 different people, but it’s clearly a way invented by retailers to change the balance of power.”

Business goals must be to meet and anticipate the consumer demand because publishing isn’t just about finding and producing books. It’s about selling them as well.

For too long I think publishing thinks of themselves as a speciality industry, unaffected by the vagaries that might influence change within other entertainment industries but hardcovers and print books will be treated like vinyl records in a few years. These will be artifacts for a few. I still believe that there is a market for hardcover books, but it will be primarily because there is a uniqueness to the printed form of a particular book . Ordinary hardcovers, trades and mass markets won’t have a market big enough for them to be available in large quantities.

Problematically, there is a downward pressure of pricing. Most readers believe that digital content should be cheaper than physical content.  There are many reasons given for this but primarily I think it comes from a lack of substance. Digital entertainment is somewhat disposal, as mass markets have often been viewed.  Disposal or transitory entertainment has less value.  This concept isn’t aided by the push by digital content creators to abrogate the first sale doctrine by defining the transaction between publisher and consumer as a lease instead of a sale.  If a reader doesn’t have true ownership, the value of any product trends downward dramatically.

Publishers must be frustrated by this push to the bottom because they’ve been told that the digital book buying customer demographic currently isn’t short of funds. Executives are frustrated to think that the reader’s disposable income is sufficient to allow them to buy iPads and ereaders but they balk at spending $25 for a book. From Noury again:

Nourry said he would like to one day find a way for readers to lend each other e-books, but said copyright protection was currently more important as the industry’s new business models were still fragile.

“My business consists of selling books,” he said. “People who buy Kindles every 18 months and iPads for $600 — they don’t need our help.”

But what publishers believe customers should do and how publishers believe they think doesn’t actually matter. It’s what customers do and what customers believe that should be the guideposts. Aside from how wrongly I think Noury views the reader (and this isn’t a surprise because readers aren’t his customers) readers, even those who are willing to buy new Kindles every new product cycle or new iPads aren’t looking at lending as a financial break. Instead, they are looking at trying to get a return on their dollar spent. Free books or low cost access to books increases discoverability. It isn’t about “helping” the pocket book of the reader. (Digital library lending and library lending, in general, sometimes invokes the corporate citizenship concept and the moral responsibility that publishers and those in the publishing ecosystem may have to support the library and I think that is a separate issue. I want to acknowledge that publishers have the right to make a business decision, even a bad one).

Books are simply one of many entertainment option that readers have at their fingertips. It is foolish to think that readers wouldn’t want immediate access to books as they have immediate access to movies, music, and video games. The big problem that publishers have here is not anticipating the moves of the readers. Publishing does not stand alone in a separate silo. Instead, readers’ expectations toward access and price of content is influenced heavily by other entertainment options.  Thus if every other entertainment option that is at a reader’s disposal offers digital downloads, publishing needs to offer digital downloads.  If every other entertainment option that is at a reader’s disposal offers some type of subscription access to unlimited content, publishing needs to offer that.

The way to combat Amazon and other retailers isn’t simply to withhold content because Amazon’s response (as other retailers’ response will be) is to create their own content and thus make publishers irrelevant.  The method of combatting Amazon and other retailers is to offer alternatives.  This is what Amazon is doing for authors through self publishing. It is offering a viable alternative.  Publishing needs to provide a viable alternative.

1. Change your customer focus. I really don’t understand anymore why publishers believe that focusing on the retailers as their customers creates a competitive advantage. The biggest accounts such as B&amp;N and Amazon are directly competing as publishers. I understand the desire to take care of “accounts” but what good is it? B&amp;N and Amazon need publishers right now. This might not be true five years from now.  B&amp;N’s physical retail existence is weakening every quarter.  The only thing that is keeping B&amp;N from Borders’ fate is its Nook focus but Nook is taking a ton of money and retail space away from the sale of actual books.

2.  Publishers need to sell direct.  Maybe they should be working on more cooperatives. Bookish, an unrealized site, was announced early this year and was a site that was backed by three different major publishers: Simon &amp; Schuster, Penguin, and Hachette.  The site was going to sell paper books directly to the consumer. Paper books.  Not digital books.  Paper books.  They should be experimenting in ways to draw readers away from retailers by selling books in advance or at a discount or both.  There should be advantages such as club memberships.  The idea is better content at a good price.

4.  Be synonymous with quality.  Of course, if you want to keep prices elevated in exchange for quality, then quality has to be delivered.  No more Reamde debacles.  The great wealth of crappy self publishing offerings helps to increase the value of quality offerings but if the higher priced goods are crappy, then readers might as well pay $.99 instead of $7.99.

5. Leverage resources. The biggest advantage publishers have over any of the other retailers is their catalog.  The deep breadth and scope of books in the publishers’ catalogs should be leveraged to attract readers.  Why doesn’t Harlequin have a Harlequin Treasury subscription? These are books that have already earned out (or written off) whatever money that was initially invested in them.  Why not charge readers $25 per month (with a one year commitment) for unlimited access to the Harlequin Treasury library?

6.  Speak to the readers.  When I updated by apps on the iPad the other day, two companies’ update notices stood out to me. Zappos wrote “With 2.2.0, we added HIGH DEF images and zooming, but removed the swiping between images.  We’ll be the first to admit that that was a mistake.”  Goodreader said “by popular demand, we’re re-enabling the “Textured background” switch in app settings for PDF files.”  Both these updates indicate that the companies are listening to their end users.  The end user experience is important to them. How are publishers listening to their readers?  If they are listening, how are publishers conveying that the reader’s input is important?  Who are the ambassadors of the publishers?  There are actually great ambassadors: editors.  Whenever I’ve had the opportunity to speak to an editor, they’ve always sold me on the books that they were working on.  Plus, they are real people who have something in common with readers – the love of books.

7.  Learn how to monetize free content.  Amazon is offering this free content to Prime members because Prime members spend more money at Amazon than any other type of customer.  In this way, Amazon monetizes its free content.

8.  Anticipate the reader.  If one can get out ahead of the game and anticipate the reader, that company can create value where one was before.  In other words , if you create a product that the reader suddenly believes she needs, then the value and the price is what you’ve defined it.

I completely understand that a) publishers want to maximize their dollar; b) the advance model of publishing is expensive; c) a multitude of free content can lead readers to believe that content is inexpensive to produce; and d) Amazon is a threat to the existing publishing business model.  But competing with Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo should not be to oppose every action that they take, but instead offering the reader an attractive alternative.

Related posts:

1. Publishers Move Toward Targeted Publicity
2. If You Could Talk to Publishers, What Would You Say?
3. Publishers Get Wise, Undercut Amazon prices

When Amazon first announced the Kindle Touch line of readers I was pretty indifferent about it.  I mean they looked nice, but I was perfectly happy with my Kindle 3 (now the Kindle Keyboard) and my older eInk devices (Kindle 2, Cybook Opus & Sony PRS-505) and saw no real need for anything else.  So I didn’t need a Kindle Touch by any stretch of the imagination, but need seldom comes into play when it comes to gadgets for me.

I opted for the $99 Kindle Touch WiFi with Special Offers.  Since you can now pay the difference ($40) and get the ads removed I figured there was little to lose by getting the special offer version and some of the previous offers folks have received seemed to be pretty good.  For what it’s worth I’ll be keeping the ads as I don’t care what my “screen saver” looks like (I don’t really look at the device when not reading) and the banner on the home screen is quite unobtrusive.

What You Get:

The Kindle Touch comes packaged in a very minimalist cardboard box that contains the device itself, a very short getting started card and a USB cable.  Amazon went cheap and eliminated the power adapter that came with previous versions (in the US anyway) of the Kindle from the package.  You can charge via USB or order Amazon’s power adapter for $10 (this is the same adapter the K2 and K3 came with).  I also tried charging with my iGo charger and had no problems.

Hardware:

The Kindle Touch itself is fairly minimalist in design, gone are the days of a hardware keyboard, 5-way controllers and page turn buttons.  There are no buttons on the device at all except for the Home button (looks like a speaker grill) on the front and a power button on the bottom edge.  Other than that you have a micro USB port and headphone jack next to the power button and a pair of speakers on the back.  The device housing, like all other Kindles, is plastic and has a nice feel in-hand.  The back is smooth and slightly rubberized and I find the device to be quite comfortable to hold.

The display is the same Pearl eInk screen used by the majority of eInk based readers now.  The screen on my Kindle 3 has a very slightly lighter background to it, but I think it’s manufacturing variances as two other K3′s I compared the Touch too looked to be exactly the same as the Touch’s screen.  Either way the Touch has the contrast folks have come to expect from Pearl screens.

The big difference between the Touch and previous Kindles is of course the touch screen.  Like readers from Sony, B&N and Kobo the Kindle Touch uses an infrared touchscreen which allows the screen to appear the same as non-touch devices (no extra touch layer causing glare).  The bezel edge around the screen is slightly raised to accommodate the touch sensors (like other IR touch devices).  I found the touch screen to be nicely responsive (not quite as responsive as a capacitive LCD as found on modern smart phones) and had no problems using it to turn pages or access menus on the device.

Of course one thing missing from this edition of the Kindle is the physical keyboard, which I found I don’t miss at all.  Now I don’t type much on the Kindle by any means, so I might not be the best judge, but while the hardware keyboards always worked fine for me I found I was able to type faster and with more accuracy on the Touch’s onscreen keyboard.

Technical Details:

Screen:
6” E Ink Pearl screen with infrared multi-touch interface, optimized with proprietary waveform and font technology. 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi and 16 levels of grayscale.

Size/Weight:
6.8” x 4.7” x 0.40” (172mm x 120mm x 10.1mm)
7.5 ounces (213 grams) for WiFi, 7.8 ounces (220 grams) for WiFi + 3G

Storage:
4GB internal storage (approx 3GB available for user content), no storage card slot.  Free cloud storage for all Amazon content.

Battery Life:
Battery lasts up to two months with wireless turned off, up to 6 weeks with wireless always on depending on usage.

Wireless:
Supports public and private 802.11b/g/n WiFi networks and hotspots with support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 security using password authentication.  Does not support WPA or WPA2 using 802.xx authentication methods or connection to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) WiFi networks.

WiFi+3G models also have an HSDPA modem (3G) with EDGE/GPRS fallback; wireless coverage provided by AT&T in the US and through partner networks outside the US.

Ports:
USB micro connector (USB cable included, power adapter sold separately), 3.5mm stereo audio jack, rear mounted speakers.

Content Formats:
Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, Audible, Audible Enhanced, MP3, unprotected MOBI/PRC; HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP through conversion.

Software:

The overall look of the Kindle Touch’s interface will be very familiar to users of previous generations of Kindle’s.  The Home Screen lists your books and/or collections in the same way as other Kindles with one change, collections are now sorted alphabetically instead of by last read as they are on the Kindle 2, 3 and DX.  I still wish Amazon would let users have options in how their collections are sorted, but they didn’t ask me.  The Home Screen also has a back arrow, store button, search box and menu icon across the top of the page.  Changing pages on the home screen is accomplished by swiping back and forth on the screen.

One place the touch screen shines is when interfacing with the Home Screen and with menus.  It’s no longer necessary to use the 5-way controller earlier Kindles had to make selections and navigate in general.  Now all one has to do is tap a collection or book to open it or tap and hold to bring up a menu giving you various options.  It’s much more intuitive and navigation feels much faster.

Reading a book looks much the same as it does on earlier Kindle’s with a few exceptions.  The progress bar is gone and all we are left with is the current location number in the lower left corner and the percentage read in the lower right.  Right now I’m unsure how I feel about the progress bars demise.  While the screen has a nice clean look I had gotten accustomed to seeing the bar and more importantly the little marks that indicated each chapter in a properly formatted Kindle book.  I’d often find myself planning my stopping point for the night by seeing how much was left of the chapter.  That said, in actual use I haven’t overly missed the chapter marks at this point and even though they’re unseen you can still use them to skip forward and back by swiping up and down on the screen.

Amazon has designed the touch screen with zones.  Tapping at the top of any page will bring up the same menu bar as the Home Screen at the top of the page and options to change font size/face/spacing, Go To and X-Ray or Sync (if the book doesn’t have x-ray) at the bottom.  Tapping on the left maybe 1/5th of the screen will go to the previous page and tapping on the other 4/5th’s of the screen will page forward.  Amazon’s reasoning is people will be going forward more than back and at least for me the design works great.  The forward zone extends over enough that I can tap to turn pages while holding the device in either hand with ease.  You can also swipe forward and back to turn pages if that is your preference.  I was glad to see that tapping as well as swiping works for page turns and I’ve tried different Sony devices and found I don’t really care for swiping to turn when reading for long periods, tapping however isn’t all that different than using a physical button.

Since this is a multi-touch interface you can also change font sizes by pinching or expanding you fingers on the screen (much like zooming in/out on smart phones/tablets) if you don’t want to delve into the menu’s to do it when reading.

While reading you can look-up a words definition by simply tapping and holding on the word, this is much less cumbersome than using the older Kindle’s 5-way controller.  Tapping and then dragging right after a word is highlighted will allow you to select passages which you can then highlight, add notes or share via social networks Facebook and Twitter.

X-Ray is a new development for the Touch which allows users to see the “bones of the book”.  When you use x-ray, if available for your book, you can see a time-line illustration that shows where fictional characters, ideas, historical figures, places and topics are mentioned on the current page, current chapter or the entire book.  Tapping on one of these entries will bring up a details page with a description/detail and also a list of excerpts from each page containing the selected character/item/etc., more detailed info can be had through links to Wikipedia or Shelfari.  At this stage I find x-ray interesting, but I’m unsure if it’s something I’d ever really use.

The Kindle Touch will also read PDFs, kind of.  Similar to the Sony’s you can pinch to zoom your document although it’s kind of cumbersome with the pages taking multiple seconds and flashes to actually appear zoomed.  Once the page is zoomed in swiping allows you to pan across the page and swiping far enough will change the page.  The next page will appear at it’s normal size and you can then zoom in again if desired.  I’ve yet to find a 6” eInk device that’s actually pleasant to read PDF’s on unless they’re formatted to the size of the screen and while I know some folks appear to like the way the Touch handles PDFs I find I preferred reading them on the Kindle 3 for one simple reason.

The Touch has done away with landscape mode as an option for reading and I found this the best way to read PDFs on the few occasions I tried.  Landscape viewing is also out for regular AZW/Mobi books as well which is something a few folks I’ve talked to that use really large fonts were disappointed to hear.  I don’t know if the problem has to do with the touch zones needing to reconfigure for landscape mode or what, but it’s too bad Amazon didn’t include the option for folks who like to use it.  I very seldom used it so it’s not a huge loss for me.

The Store:

I found going through the Kindle store on the device a much more pleasant experience than using the 5-way on the older devices.  Touch is a welcome feature here, although if I had to guess I’d say I’ll still to most of my purchasing of Kindle books by using Amazon.com and not by using the on device store.

Experimental:

The experimental features like the web browser, MP3 player and Text-to-Speech are all still there in this version of the Kindle.

I found the browser much nicer to use, although it’s still not a great experience and I doubt it ever will be with eInk’s refresh rates.  I was easily able to connect to my DropBox and download a few Mobi files to the device (PDF’s can’t be downloaded via the browser) and it was much quicker than doing it on my K3.  One note for folks used to using the Kindle’s free 3G to access their email, surf the web or download from DropBox.  That can’t be done with the 3G version of the Touch (which is why I went WiFi only this go around), the only thing you can use the 3G for is to access the Kindle store to buy and download books (and download from your archives).

The MP3 player is very basic.  It shows the current track and has skip forward and back arrows, volume, play/pause and an off button.  Once playing music will continue to play while you do other things, like reading, until you turn it off.  While the speakers aren’t the worst I’ve heard on a small device, headphones will give a much better experience.

Text-to-Speech is most easily accessed from the menu while in your book of choice.  Of course it only works on DRM-free books and on DRM’d books where publishers allow it to be used.  It acts/sound much the same as in previous Kindles to the best of my recollection.  It’s not a replacement for audio books by any means, but I know it’s quite useful for certain users, such as those with vision problems.  You can control the gender of the voice used and also control the voices speed, but it will always lack inflection and sound somewhat robotic.

Conclusions:

So is the Touch a game changer in the world of dedicated readers?  Nope, not really.  If I already had a touchscreen device from Sony, B&N or Kobo I probably wouldn’t drop them for the Kindle Touch unless there’s a specific feature you want and I wouldn’t dump a Kindle 3 for it unless you want the touch functionality.  That said the Kindle Touch is a solid new entry and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it, I know I’m quite happy with mine.

The Kindle Touch can be had (in the US only for now) in four versions.  $99 gets you the WiFi only version with special offers or you can get the same device without ads for $139.  For $149 you get WiFi + 3G with special offers or get the 3G version without ads for $189. Also remember you can remove the ads on the special offers models by paying the subsidy discount of $40.  You can also opt-in to the ads if you want to on a non-special offer Touch, K3 or K4 (and opt-out whenever you want).

Related posts:

1. New Kindles: Basic Kindle, Kindle Touch, and Kindle Fire
2. REVIEW: Sony Reader Touch Edition
3. Supersized Kindle Leaks Online