Nov 15 2012
Thursday News: Apple granted a patent for page turns; Bookstore sales fall 8%; Goodreads posts about book discovery
September Bookstore Sales Fell 8% – I guess by now anyone who has ever been interested in reading a 50 Shades book has bought it already. In September the spring and summer’s robust sales due to the trilogy have worn off leaving bookstore sales to droop 8% behind the previous year’s already lackluster numbers. Publishers Weekly
Apple granted patent for ebook page-turning – It’s a good thing skeumorphism* is on its way out the door at Apple (or so says everyone with the firing of Scott Forstall) because Apple just was granted a patent for page turning on an digital device. This makes about as much sense as Apple being granted a patent for rounded corners on a rectangle. Go USPTO! Good Job. The Register
*Skeumorphism is the concept of making a digital device replicate physical objects. I.e., the hideous looking background for the bookshelf in iBooks.
How Readers Discovered a Debut Novel: A Case Study – Goodreads posts an article describing the discovery growth of Colleen Hoover’s debut self published novel, Slammed. In the initial months of its release, Slammed gained very little attention. After Hoover hosted a couple of giveaways, noise about her book increased. A few major bloggers picked it up a couple of months later and the book began to steamroll. Goodreads
For Slammed, that initial buzz paid off in a big way. In late April, the Goodreads Recommendation Engine picked up the book. On average, a book needs to have several hundred ratings before it starts to be included by our algorithm. From that point forward, it became the dominant way that Goodreads members discovered the book. That’s the blue section you see in the graph.
The Big 6 – eBooks in Libraries – Kansas State library takes its case for digital library lends to facebook. If it gains an increasing amount of attention, more libraries may follow and leverage social media against the big 6. Kansas State’s facebook page identifies books that are not available to libraries and the publisher associated with those books. It’s bad publicity. Facebook
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Nov 15, 2012 @ 07:04:06
That Slammed article is a bit of Goodreads promoting Goodreads (and its author-promoting services) more than anything else. I doubt that’s the only reason why the book became so popular, although I guess GR had something to do with it, just not through giveaways alone.
Nov 16, 2012 @ 00:01:41
Everytime I hear/see Apple and Patents in the same sentence I wonder what the heck lawsuit they are going to pursue in future. This is just getting ridiculous. They need to remember their strong point has been innovating what is already out there and stop relying on petty lawsuits in order to raise their profile because it only ends up making them look bad.
Kansas State Library is doing a great thing, I hope, but won’t hold my breath, that this kicks the Big 6 into reconsidering.
Nov 16, 2012 @ 00:28:02
I think I will patent my method of delivering oxygen to my blood. I call it “breathing”. It is revolutionary.
Nov 16, 2012 @ 00:35:05
How to turn a page should be obvious and if you succeed in being obvious, doesn’t that, ipso facto, deny you a patent?