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Friday Midday Links: NY Times brings forth its ebook bestseller list

Jane — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:00:17 +0000

Update: A reader mentioned that I forgot to point out that Barnes and Noble is having a groupon where you pay $10 for a $20 gift certificate that can be used on anything. Be sure to use your Groupon before April 10, 2011.

# Limit 1 per person. Valid on all items – including sale items. Not valid on previous purchases and/or adjustments. Not valid with other offers.
# Except as prohibited by applicable law, on April 10, 2011, any funds remaining on the BN Groupon shall be reduced by $10.00. For example, if you use your BN Groupon to make a $6.00 purchase sometime in March (meaning your BN Groupon would have a remaining balance of $14.00) but do not use it again thereafter, on April 10, your BN Groupon will be reduced to $4.00 (because $14.00 minus $10.00 is $4.00).

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India may be the fastest growing market for English language books but the digital craze isn’t gaining a foothold there yet or so say the major publishers in India.

The sales of digital books in India is expected to pick up in coming months but that will not impact the aficionados love for hardcover books as has been the case in the West, say major publishers here.India may see good rise in sales of digital books as downloading them on mobiles becomes a possibility but their growth trajectory may not be same as in the West, they say.

As I understand it, India is replete with cell phone users but whether cell phones = ebook adoption remains to be seen.

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The New York Times unveiled its new set of Bestseller lists this week to be published in the Sunday issue. There are several new additions:

ebook
ebook + print
all print formats

Strangely, the Times will not count any individual vendor sales such as self published books citing “market instability” as the reason. I think that is a bunch of hooey, but this is the Times and the Times list is what they want to make it, damn the market reality and all. So the ebook and print list doesn’t represent a huge change given that the Times is excising a big portion of the ebook market.

Having said that, there were some interesting findings. For example, Catherine Anderson’s book, Here to Stay, was number 3 on the mass market list but 23 on the ebook plus print list and did not appear on the ebook bestseller list at all suggesting that her numbers are primarily built upon print sales. Susan Elizabeth Phillips made it to 12 on the NYT hardcover list and 31 on the ebook + print list but like Catherine Anderson, did not generate enough ebook sales to make it onto the Times list. Conversely Nalini Singh’s Archangel’s Consort was number 8 on the mass market list and number 18 on the print + ebook and number 18 on the ebook only list.

This week’s list is dominated by thrillers and mysteries. In fact, of 96 slots on the mass market, hardcover, ebook, and ebook + print list, 51 were filled with either thrillers or mysteries titles compared to 24 titles with a romance designation.

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Book By You is a personalised romance novel service wherein you fill out a questionnaire and receive a romance novel starring you and the hero/heroine of your choice. The reason I am mentioning it is because the services is now offering a gay and a lesbian title. While I am not a fan of the service myself, I am glad to see that they are recognizing all sorts of love:

To spice things up in time for Valentine's Day, the company has just released a couple of hot, steamy same-sex novels catering to gay and lesbian readers.

"Hot Blooded" tells the erotic story of two gay men -’ one vampire, one mortal -’ who fall deeply in forbidden lust and love, while "Seduction Games" follows a sexy romance between two lesbians who pine for each other after they become rival contestants on a reality-TV game show.

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Our friend and fellow reader, Keishon, is shutting down her romance blog to focus on her current love: mysteries, thrillers and crime fiction. Keishon started the To Be Read challenge and is one of my inspirations for blogging. I am glad that she isn’t leaving the blogging scene entirely. You can still find Keishon at Yet Another Crime Fiction Blog.

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Generally, I think Orbit is a genius imprint. They do cool things and great promotions (think the online paper doll thing for Gail Carriger’s series) and I think that their publishing blog is one of the best in the business. Their covers are great. Amanda Downum’s covers, in particular, are just striking. I’m not a huge fan of fantasy and science fiction, but their blog posts are so interesting, I still follow along. I think because I have such high expectations, I was struck nearly dumb by the really awful cover for Gail Carriger’s next book, UHeartless. The hair looks like a wig that is about to fall off and the face is too realistic for the cover. It looks like a bad SIM. I don’t know what happened here.

Monday Round up Links: A New Kind of Book Tour

Jane — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:00:51 +0000

Cover Cafe nominations for 2010 are now open. If you want to nominate a cover for a book that has been published in 2010, please go to http://www.covercafe.com and click on Nominate. The new 2010 nomination form is now available.

All About Romance has launched its annual readers’ poll.

Author Stephen Elliott wrote an editorial about his very different book tour. Instead of going to bookstores, Elliott booked appearances in people’s homes. Sometimes the group would stay up very late to talk about the book and issues the book brought to readers’ attention.

They asked interesting questions about murder and confession and the moment the lie mixes with the truth like red and yellow paint, becoming orange, the original colors ceasing to exist. Afterward people went back to talking, grabbing another drink or a snack. Leaning against the kitchen counter, I thought to myself that they weren't a standard literary audience: they were better.

I loved that statement “lie mixes with truth like red and yellow paint…the original colors ceasing to exist.”

Xerox has partnered with Espresso Book Machine to provide on demand books for consumers. Espresso used to use a machine from Kyocera but the Xerox is supposed to provide better quality and faster output.

The Espresso Book Machine can produce paperbacks in variable combinations of trim sizes between 4.5â€³ x 5.0â€³ and 8.25â€³ x 10.5â€³ for a production cost less than one cent per page and can produce a 300 page book in about 4 minutes

I really love the idea of the on demand book because it can use digital technology to deliver books to those who want print and there are definitely opportunities for customization (choose your own cover) and personalization (inscribe a line for a gift).

The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) released an iPhone App that uses Occipital’s barcode scanning technology. Take a photo of a book’s barcode and the OCLC iPhone App will bring up whether your local library has a particular book and whether it is on the shelf or checked out. It will also provide you with places to purchase the book in case you don’t want to use the library services. That’s pretty awesome.

The Times is going behind a paywall which means we won’t be reading as many stories like Elliott’s without paying for it. Times knows that there will be a steep dropoff in readership but the possible revenue is worth it.

What makes the decision so agonizing for Sulzberger is that it involves not just business considerations, but ultimately a self-assessment of just what Times journalism is worth to the world. ..Hanging over the deliberations is the fact that the Times' last experience with pay walls, TimesSelect, was deeply unsatisfying and exposed a rift between Sulzberger and his roster of A-list columnists, particularly Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd, who grew frustrated at their dramatic fall-off in online readership.

A game developer posted on slashgear asking why people pirated. He’s trying to see if there are ways in which to modify his behavior to make the product less attractive to pirate and more attractive for legitimate purchasers.

The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reports that HarperCollins is in talks to bring ebooks to the Apple Tablet rumored to be announced later this month.

HarperCollins is expected to set the prices of the e-books, which would have added features, with Apple taking a percentage of sales. Details haven’t been ironed out.

The article suggests the ebooks will be enhanced editions and if so, that would mean a very meager catalog for Apple so I have some doubts about the veracity of the entirety of the article, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see ebooks as part of the Apple catalog. Of course, you can still get the Amazon app on the Apple iPhone and thus, likely on the tablet. Therefore, pricing would need to be competitive. The article speculates that the pricing for “enhanced ebooks” would be $14.99 to $19.99. Frankly, publishers are barely doing ebooks right let alone delivering value added enhanced versions.

Monday News Roundup: Angela James Leaves Samhain & other stuff that’s not as important

Jane — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:22:24 +0000

First up is the news that Angela James, former executive editor of Samhain, is joining the Quartet Press folks. I think QP means business, no? In other QP news, Anne Frasier aka Teresa Weir is going to be releasing Bad Karma in ebook form through Quartet. Under the penname of Teresa Weir, Frasier wrote some fabulous romances with unexpected depth and emotion. I can’t wait to enjoy a re-reading binge of Weir books.

Linda Howard will be at the Borders True Romance blog tomorrow. She blogs, among other things, why she hasn’t written about Nick, the daughter of Zane and Barrie McKenzie. I spent the last two weeks re-reading many of my favorite Linda Howard books. I wish that Harlequin would re-release her Kell Sabin series because that remains one of my all time favorite series. I didn’t love White Lies like Midnight Rainbow, Diamond Bay and Heartbreaker. Of the three, I think Midnight Rainbow is my favorite and not because the heroine’s name is Jane.

Filed under “Why I Would Be Glad if Newspapers Died” is this hugely distasteful review of JC Penney store by Cintra Wilson in NYTimes.

It took me a long time to find a size 2 among the racks. There are, however, abundant size 10’s, 12’s and 16’s. The dressing rooms are big, clean and well tended. I tried two fairly cute items: a modified domino-print swing dress with padded shoulders by American Living (aRalph Lauren line created for Penney’s) and a long psychedelic muumuu of a style generally worn by Rachel Zoe. Each was around $80; each fit nicely and looked good. I didn’t buy either because I can do better for $80, but if I were a size 18, I’d have rejoiced.

AND herein lies the genius of J. C. Penney: It has made a point of providing clothing for people of all sizes (a strategy, company officials have said, to snatch business from nearbyMacy’s). To this end, it has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen. They probably need special insulin-based epoxy injections just to make their limbs stay on. It’s like a headless wax museum devoted entirely to the cast of "Roseanne."

And then this article in the Washington Post about a family struggling to make ends meet with a household income of $300,000.00.

Laura Steins doesn’t mind saying that she is barely squeaking by on $300,000 a year. She lives in a place where the boom years of Wall Street pushed the standard of living to astonishing heights. Where fifth-graders shop at a store called Lester’s that sells $114 tween-size True Religion jeans. Where a cup of fresh spinach and carrot juice called the Iron Maiden costs $7.95.

As a vice president at MasterCard’s corporate office in Purchase, N.Y., she earns a base pay of $150,000 plus a bonus. This year she’ll take home 10 percent less because of a smaller bonus. She receives $75,000 a year in child support from her ex-husband. She figures she will pull an additional $50,000 from a personal investment account to “pick up the slack.”

The nanny and property taxes take $75,000 right off the top, but Steins considers both non-negotiable facts of her life and not discretionary. When she bought out her husband’s share of the house after their 2006 divorce, she assumed the costs of keeping it afloat — $8,000 to $10,000 a month. There’s a pool man, a gardener and someone to plow the snow from the quarter-mile-long driveway.

Oy.

Apparently the Amish trope is the fastest selling in Christian romance.

A hero’s greatest desire is often to teach an English, or non-Amish, heroine about Jesus. Plots may stir an irresistable urge to bake rhubarb pie.

Most Amish-themed romance novels are written by non-Amish authors and are aimed primarily at an evangelical Christian readership. While Amish women do read them, leaders of Amish communities in Pennsylvania and elsewhere have actively discouraged or banned them.

The exceptions are books by an Amish woman from Franklin County, whose self-published novels are about to be picked up by a major publisher.

New York Times Takes Another Look at EBooks

Jane — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 01:04:18 +0000

Whether it’s Oprah’s endorsement of the Kindle or the idea that technology can save publishing, more and more mainstream publications are revisiting the concept of ebook reading. The New York Times reports on the Kindle which is out of stock and the Sony which has sold 300,000 readers since 2006. Currently, sales of ebooks appear to account for less than 1% of the overall revenue stream for mainstream publishers but that the momentum indicates that the time may be ripe for ebooks.

Thanks to JL Wilson and JFerg for the link.

What Will NYTimes Staff Cuts Mean for Books?

Jane — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:49:02 +0000

There was an article on Gawker the other day that NYTimes is planning to cut 20% of its editorial staff in 2009. I’m not sure what number that translates into but the report goes on to say that most of the cuts will be in the newspaper’s “softer” sections. Is Arts & Leisure a “softer” section and if so, does that mean anything for the NY Times Book section?

American Writers May Suck but Not American Economists

Jane — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:17:19 +0000

While the Nobel jurists might think that US writers are insular and ignorant, the same can’t be said for US economists. Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton and New York Times columnist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics last night. He deserves it. He actually foresaw this current economic crisis and has been trying to warn us about it for years. In 2005, he made these comments:

These days Mr. Greenspan expresses concern about the financial risks created by “the prevalence of interest-only loans and the introduction of more-exotic forms of adjustable-rate mortgages.” But last year he encouraged families to take on those very risks, touting the advantages of adjustable-rate mortgages and declaring that “American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.
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How bad will that aftermath be? The U.S. economy is currently suffering from twin imbalances. On one side, domestic spending is swollen by the housing bubble, which has led both to a huge surge in construction and to high consumer spending, as people extract equity from their homes. On the other side, we have a huge trade deficit, which we cover by selling bonds to foreigners. As I like to say, these days Americans make a living by selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from China.

One way or another, the economy will eventually eliminate both imbalances.

Congratulations, Mr. Krugman. Maybe the next award you can get is the Cassandra one.

(For more prescient economists, you can read this article).

May 11, 2008 Bestseller comparison list

Jane — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:48:53 +0000

Gena Showalter is on the New York Times list for the third week. With the release of the second in the Nora Roberts’ paranormal/horror trilogy, The Hollow, her first book, Blood Brothers, reappeared on both the USA Today and NY Times list. Stephenie Meyer got the top spot for The Host, her first adult offering.

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Book Title	Author	Publisher	Price	Rank	Peak	NYT
The Hollow	Nora Roberts	Jove	$7.99	2	2	1
The Devil Who Tamed Her	Johanna Lindsey	Pocket	$7.99	14	7	8
Twenty Wishes	Debbie Macomber	Mira	$24.95	17	10	3*
From Dead to Worse	Charlaine Harris	Ace	$24.95	24	24	6*
A Wanted Man: A Stone Creek Novel	Linda Lael Miller	HQN	$7.99	28	12	21
Up Close and Dangerous	Linda Howard	Ballantine	$7.99	13	13	18
Natural Born Charmer	Susan Elizabeth Phillips	Avon	$7.99	31	19	9
Innocent as Sin	Elizabeth Lowell	Avon	$7.99	34	18	11
The Lawman	Diana Palmer	HQN	$7.99	45	22	34
Promises	Fern Michaels	HQN	$7.99	46	32	27
Comanche Moon	Catherine Anderson	Signet	$7.99	50	50	24
Playing with Fire	Katie MacAlister	Signet	$7.99	53	53	10
The Other Boleyn Girl	Philipa Gregory	Touchstone	$16.00	58	3	14**
The Darkest Kiss	Keri Arthur	Dell	$6.99	60	29	15
The Charm School	Susan Wiggs	Mira	$7.99	65	43
Duke Most Wanted	Celeste Bradley	St. Martin’s Press	$6.99	68	47	17
Back on Blossom Street	Debbie Macomber	Mira	$7.99	72	24	26
The Darkest Night: Lords of the Underworld	Gena Showalter	HQN	$6.99	79	42	14
Dark Deeds at Night’s Edge	Kresley Cole	Pocket	$6.99	83	38	25
One Foot in the Grave	Jeaniene Frost	Avon	$6.99	89	45	20
The Forbidden: The Courtship of Nellie Fisher	Bevarly Lewis	Bethany House	$13.99	93	73
Lover’s Bite	Maggie Shayne	Mira	$7.99	105	70	22
Silver Flame	Hannah Howell	Zebra	$6.99	113	103
Dying Breath	Wendy Corsi Staub	Zebra	$6.99	120	100
A Notorious Proposition	Adele Ashworth	Avon	$6.99	131	112
Dark Magic	Christine Feehan	Dorchester Publishing	$7.99	134	78
Blood Brothers	Nora Roberts	Jove	$7.99	135	1	30
Hokus Pokus	Fern Michaels	Zebra	$6.99	139	26
Creation in Death	J.D. Robb	Berkley	$7.99	140	36	33
Out of the list:
The River Knows	Amanda Quick	Jove	$7.99	121	35
Fire and Ice	Anne Stuart	Mira	$6.99	133	133
Shadow Magic	Cheyenne McCray	St. Martin’s Paperback	$6.99	144	144
Three Nights of Sin	Anne Mallory	Avon	$5.99	150	150

* NYT Hardcover list. The number 1 hardcover is The Host by Stephenie Meyer.

** NYT Trade Paperback

May 4, 2008 Bestselling Books

Jane — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:06:50 +0000

Will Kresley Cole hit #1 with her June release? She’s at number 3 with her May release. Brenda Jackson’s Kimani release hit the extended list which is unusual because, in part, it is a category romance.

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Book Title	Author	Publisher	Price	Rank	Peak	NYT
The Devil Who Tamed Her	Johanna Lindsey	Pocket	$7.99	7	7	14
Twenty Wishes	Debbie Macomber	Mira	$24.95	10	10	3*
A Wanted Man: A Stone Creek Novel	Linda Lael Miller	HQN	$7.99	12	12	33
Up Close and Dangerous	Linda Howard	Ballantine	$7.99	13	13	24
Innocent as Sin	Elizabeth Lowell	Avon	$7.99	18	18	19
Natural Born Charmer	Susan Elizabeth Phillips	Avon	$7.99	19	19	11
Lawman	Diana Palmer	HQN	$7.99	22	22
The Darkest Kiss	Keri Arthur	Dell	$6.99	29	29	16
Promises	Fern Michaels	HQN	$7.99	32	32
Dark Deeds at Night’s Edge	Kresley Cole	Pocket	$6.99	38	38	3
The Darkest Night: Lords of the Underworld	Gena Showalter	HQN	$6.99	42	42	8
The Charm School	Susan Wiggs	Mira	$7.99	43	43
One Foot in the Grave	Jeaniene Frost	Avon	$6.99	45	45	9
Duke Most Wanted	Celeste Bradley	St. Martin’s Press	$6.99	47	47	17
The Other Boleyn Girl	Philipa Gregory	Touchstone	$16.00	50	3	14**
Back on Blossom Street	Debbie Macomber	Mira	$7.99	51	24	29
Lover’s Bite	Maggie Shayne	Mira	$7.99	70	70	22
The Forbidden: The Courtship of Nellie Fisher	Bevarly Lewis	Bethany House	$13.99	73	73
Dark Magic	Christine Feehan	Dorchester Publishing	$7.99	78	78
Playing with Fire	Katie MacAlister	Signet	$7.99	85	85
The Third Circle: An Arcane Society Novel	Amanda Quick	Putnam	$24.95	91	25	18*
Hokus Pokus	Fern Michaels	Zebra	$6.99	97	26
Dying Breath	Wendy Corsi Staub	Zebra	$6.99	100	100
The Hollow	Nora Roberts	Jove	$7.99	101	101
Silver Flame	Hannah Howell	Zebra	$6.99	103	103
Creation in Death	J.D. Robb	Berkley	$7.99	106	36	27
A Notorious Proposition	Adele Ashworth	Avon	$6.99	112	112
The River Knows	Amanda Quick	Jove	$7.99	121	35	32
Fire and Ice	Anne Stuart	Mira	$6.99	133	133	21
Shadow Magic	Cheyenne McCray	St. Martin’s Paperback	$6.99	144	144
Three Nights of Sin	Anne Mallory	Avon	$5.99	150	150

* NYT Hardcover list

** NYT Trade Paperback

*** A LADY’S SECRET, by Jo Beverley (Signet) is No. 30 on the NYT Mass Market extended list and IRRESISTIBLE FORCES by Brenda Jackson (Kimani) is No. 34 on the NYT Mass Market extended list

USA Today v NYT Bestseller List Comparison, Week Ending March 9, 2008

Jane — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:28:04 +0000

We’ve put together a new list that includes references to the NYT placement.

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Book Title	Author	Publisher	Price	Rank	Peak	NYT
The Other Boleyn Girl	Phillipa Gregory	Touchstone	$16.00	3	3	10
Remember Me?	Sophie Kinsella	Dial Press	$25.00	6	4	2*
Naughty Neighbor	Janet Evanovich	Harper	$7.99	26	20	4
Killer Secrets	Lora Leigh	St. Martin’s Press	$6.99	30	30	11
Thigh High	Christina Dodd	Signet	$7.99	31	31	17
Predatory Game	Christine Feehan	Jove	$7.99	39	12	8
The Alibi Man	Tami Hoag	Ballantine	$7.99	41	19	7
Strangers in Death	J.D. Robb	Putname	$25.95	43	2	8*
Shifter	Angela Knight, Lora Leigh, Alyssa Day, Virginia Kantra	Berkley	$7.99	45	45	14
The Outlaw Demon Wails	Kim Harrison	Eos	$24.95	50	17	10*
Mysterious	Nora Roberts	Silhouette	$7.99	57	18	13
Vampire Interrupted	Lynsay Sands	Avon	$7.99	61	28	12
Absolute Fear	Lisa Jackson	Zebra	$7.99	63	30	30
Chosen: House of Night Novel 3	P.C. Cast, Kristin Cast	St. Martin’s Griffin	$8.95	78	78	2**
Lady Killer	Lisa Scottoline	Harper	$25.95	82	16	12*
The Perfect Wife	Victoria Alexander	Avon	$7.99	83	65	1
Iron Cowboy	Diana Palmer	Silh Desire	$4.75	100	91
Sugar Daddy	Lisa Kleypas	St. Martin’s	$19.95	101	101
Simply Magic	Mary Balogh	Dell	$6.99	103	76	33
To Bed a Beauty	Nicole Jordan	Ballantine	$6.99	105	58	27
Desperately Seeking a Duke	Celeste Bradley	St. Martin’s	$6.99	107	107	35
Seaview Inn	Sherryl Woods	Mira	$6.99	109	82
Deadly Deceptions	Linda Lael Miller	HQN	$7.99	113	68	22
What The Dead Know	Laura Lippman	Harper	$7.99	117	117	19
Plum Lucky	Janet Evanovich	St. Martin’s Press	$17.95	122	1	22*
Let Sleeping Rogues Lie	Sabrina Jeffries	Pocket	$7.50	124	44	24
Deep Dish	Mary Kay Andrews	Harper	$24.95	134	75
The Bridal Quest	Candace Camp	HQN	$6.99	135	87
Dead Over Heels	MaryJanice Davidson	Berkley	$14.00	136	136
No Humans Involved	Kelley Armstrong	Spectra	$6.99	147	69
Tangled Webs	Anne Bishop	Roc	$23.95	149	149	26*

* NYT Hardcover list

**NYT Children’s list

*** Wild Jinx by Sandra Hill (Grand Central) was No. 26 on the NYTimes Bestseller paperback list but did not appear on the USA Today list.

NYTimes Notable 100

Jane — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:49:30 +0000

New York Times posted its Notable 100 books for 2007. The print version is released on Sunday. I have nothing to say since I’ve not read a one of them, not even JK Rowling’s 7th Harry Potter book.

New York Times’ David Pogue Likes the Kindle

Jane — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:32:36 +0000

David Pogue, the technology reviewer for the New York Times, thinks that the Kindle might catch on once the design is sleeker and the price is lower. The negatives are the

Design
Huge previous/next buttons are so big that they are easy to hit by mistake

The positives:

The web browser
The easy downloading of books
Automatic back up on amazon.com
Titles are half off
E ink technology

I am always amazed at how these big time print media can get things wrong. Pogue identifies the Sony Reader at a price point of $350 when it is $300. The prices of hardcover books are half off or more than half off, but not the prices of trades or paperbacks. Some of the positives such as the large digital library and the eink technology are not exclusive to the Kindle.

What Pogue does get right is that the Kindle delivers on the concept behind digital entertainment: immediate gratification.

German Price Fixing for Books Keeps Bookstores in Business and Book Prices Low

Jane — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:00:28 +0000

The New York Times has a really interesting article about German bookselling. In Germany, there are hundreds of small bookstores that populate the business landscape. The reason for the thriving independent bookstore business is because Germany requires all bookstores to sell books at the same price, without discount.

This anti-freemarket idea is netting positive results: book prices have actually dropped 0.5% in the last year and flourishing independent presses.

The culture, reports the Times, supports this phenomenon in part because Germans place such an importance on books.

If you're a skeptic, you might associate fixed pricing with a German impulse toward conformity and an aversion to traditional haggling cultures. A German will stare blankly at you if you even suggest such a thought. Instead they will stress the special place books have in society.

Via NY Times.

Book Scanning for Libraries Becoming Hot News

Jane — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:40:19 +0000

As I was waiting for a meeting yesterday, I saw CNN reporting on the issue of libraries and scanning. Some well known research libraries are turning down Microsoft and Google’s offers to scan the contents of the libraries for free. Of course, nothing is really free, and the libraries do not want to bind themselves to the terms of Google and Microsoft’s “free deal”. If a library or organization commits to Google or Microsoft, it agrees that it will not make the scanned material available to any other commercial search service.

Boston Public Library and the Smithsonian Institution have signed with Open Content Alliance, a non profit, that will scan and make the information available to any search service. The Times says that this signals “that many in the academic and nonprofit world are intent on pursuing a vision of the Web as a global repository of knowledge that is free of business interests or restrictions.” I love the idea of the Web as a “global repository of knowledge.”

Via New York Times and CNN.

NY Times Select is Now Free

Jane — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:10:58 +0000

The NY Times Select is now available free of charge, including its archives that go back to 1987. In a letter to readers, Senior Vice President & General Manager Vivian Schiller, wrote that since the launch of the TimesSelect online, the internet has changed dramatically. “In light of this shift, we believe offering unfettered access to New York Times reporting and analysis best serves the interest of our readers, our brand and the long-term vitality of our journalism. We encourage everyone to read our news and opinion –" as well as share it, link to it and comment on it.”

Essentially, the Times understands that the webosphere is driven by linkage. It’s the online version of word of mouth. One thing that I know was available in the Times Select subscription (that used to cost an individual reader $30 per month) was the Bestseller list. I wonder if that will be made available online on Wednesdays instead of Sundays.

NYTimes Changes Its Bestseller Lists

Jane — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:38:36 +0000

In a huge shift, NY Times is revising its bestseller lists. It will add a Trade Paperback list in addition to its stable of Non Fiction, Hardcover Fiction and Mass Market Fiction lists. It will also expand the paperback list to 20 titles (from the 15). The total number of bestsellers listed will increase to 110 from 70.

The addition of a trade paperback list adds another page of ad revenue for the Times. One executive sees that addition of a list as “completely ad driven.”

Via New York Business.

NYTimes Talks EBooks

Jane — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:59:46 +0000

In today’s New York Times tech section is an article about the growth of ebooks. The writer, Peter Wayner, offers up a summarization of places to buy ebooks (Fictionwise) and formats (Mobipocket and eReader) and devices (cellphones, PDA, and Sony Reader).

There isn’t anything that you haven’t read here on eBook Sunday but Wayner’s explanations are concise and easy to understand, if a bit simplistic. Some articles that we have compiled on the subject:

The interesting part of the article is that it sounds like Fictionwise is testing formats for the iPhone (yeah) and that ebook sales have increased $4 million in revenue since last year to $8.1 million. Not bad ebooks, not bad.

New York TimesSelect to Be Eliminated?

Jane — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:54:46 +0000

The New York Post ran a scoop yesterday that the paid online content portion of the NYTimes known as the TimesSelect would be eliminated by the end of the year. The NYTiimes refuses to confirm this saying “We continue to evaluate the best approach for NYTimes.com.” According to the article at Editor and Publisher, TimesSelect subscriptions results in $9.9 million in revenue. The WallStreet Journal, on the other hand, generates about $75 million in online subscription revenue.

Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates believes that it is because the Times specializes in strong writing but its content can be found, for free, elsewhere on the ‘net where as the WSJ offers unique content only obtained at WSJ. One thing that is offered in the TimesSelect is an early preview of Sunday’s NYT Bestseller list.

Via Editor and Publisher.

NYTimes Allegedly Buys Last Potter Book and Reveals Plot Details in Review

Jane — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:59:25 +0000

The NY Times has a review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book even before the book goes on sale. (use bugmenot.com for username and password) This is actually quite normal for all books but with Potter, no review copies were sent and no copies were supposed to be sold until Friday night.

Times hasn’t said where they purchased the book and no one else in NY is crowing about purchasing it. DeepDiscount.com is supposed to have shipped it early but the Times posted the review on July 18 and the earliest reporting of those who received the book was on Tuesday, the 17th. I guess its possible that the reviewer sped read the book and composed a review in time for it to appear in the NY Times the following day but it doesn’t really pass the smell test to me. Am I the only one who thinks that the NY Times got a copy of the pirated version and wrote the review from that?

I’m not going to cite the review because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but you can go to the review and read the plot and what the reviewer thought of the ending.

Edited to Add: The story of a Harry Potter entrepreneur and how DeepDiscount.Com’s flub made one book buyer a small amount of cash.

10 NYT Bestsellers= $3.5M Home

Jane — Mon, 14 May 2007 13:02:43 +0000

Judith McNaught’s League City, Texas home sold for $3.5M this month. She’s moving to Dallas to be closer to family. See, authors, what 10 NYT Bestsellers can do for you?

Do any of you remember in the late 80s, early 90s when RT used to have a monthly spread of some author’s palatial estate? Times have changed a bit. The NYT business section reported yesterday while Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep sold 133,000 in hardcover and 329,000 on a $40,000 advance, Prep’s second novel, The Man of My Dreams has been a disappointment. To date, it has sold 36,000 copies in hardcover and 6,000 in paperback while the advance was several multiples of the Prep advance.

It doesn’t look like Sittenfeld is quite on the McNaught track. At least not yet.

One of the more interesting points in the NYT article was that publishers do little to no market research, depending solely on sales to determine what to buy, what to push, what to sell. We readers clearly see that as publishers pushed regency romances on us until we gagged on them, followed by the vampire glut, and soon we’ll be done in by shamans, shapeshifters, witches, and threesomes.

One publisher noted that bloggers have a much better idea of what their readership wants and that before Amazon, publishers had no clue what readers thought of books. Guess what I’ll be blogging about tomorrow?

NYTimes Book Review Guest Essay May Have Been a Copy

Jane — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 18:49:49 +0000

According to today’s NY Times Book Review, the editors regret publishing a March 4 essay by Ben Schott. Mr. Schott opined about his book abusing ways in an article entitled “Confessions of a Book Abuser.”

Several readers found some disturbing similarities between Schott’s essay and a piece of Anne Fadiman’s 1998 book, “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader.”

The Editor’s Note articulated the most similar passages as the opening lines of each essay.

But the most striking resemblance occurs in the opening lines of each essay. Schott’s begins: “I have to admit I was flattered when, returning to my hotel room on the shores of Lake Como, a beautiful Italian chambermaid took my hand. . . . Escorting me to the edge of the crisply made bed, the chambermaid pointed to a book on my bedside table. ‘Does this belong to you?’ she asked. I looked down to see a dog-eared copy of Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Vile Bodies’ open spread-eagle, its cracked spine facing out. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Sir, that is no way to treat a book!’ she declared, stalking out of the room.”

Fadiman’s essay begins: “When I was 11 and my brother was 13, our parents took us to Europe. At the HÃƒÆ’Ã‚ ´tel d’Angleterre in Copenhagen, as he had done virtually every night of his literate life, Kim left a book facedown on the bedside table. The next afternoon, he returned to find the book closed, a piece of paper inserted to mark the page, and the following note, signed by the chambermaid, resting on its cover:

“Sir, you must never do that to a book.”

The Editors claim that the Book Review would not have published Schott’s essay had it been aware of Fadiman’s. I can’t help but think of the article about Google Book Search being used to combat plagiarism.

Via NY Times.