Monday News: Harlequin print and digital consumer sites merge; Kobo says it will be a billion dollar company in 2014; New medical HIV prevention device
Uncategorizedcondoms / Harlequin / Kobo27 Comments
Big Changes Are Coming to Harlequin.com! – When I read this my only response was finally. Harlequin is finally combining their print and digital sales into one site. No longer will you have to go to the ebook site and remember a new login account information. All of that will be combined into one account. When you search, it will search the digital and print books, not just one or the other. This merger is a long time in coming. As a result of the print and ebook stores merger, the ebook wishlist feature is being discontinued. Harlequin Blog
What Ever Happened to Book Editors? – Marjorie Braman spent 26 years in traditional publishing beginning as an editorial assistant in 1984 with Random House and then as a V.P. & Editor in Chief of Henry Holt. She wrote an advertorial for Publishers Weekly touting her availability as a freelance editor but I thought that her insight into what editors do at publishing houses is interesting. Editors today must buy books that they think can sell so they have to balance their role as a sounding board for their authors. They do so much more than edit a book, but must also serve as part marketer for their authors and themselves. Publishers Weekly
Digital Reading Company Kobo ‘On Pace To Be A Billion Dollar Company’ – Kobo says (although provides no numbers to confirm this) that it is on pace to be a billion dollar a year company by 2014 which would present an eleven fold growth since 2011 when it had 91 million in revenue. Kobo focuses on the heavy buyer which I guess is the entirety of this blog and the blog’s audience.
Kobo has chased the “heavy reader” segment in particular. Book buying resembles many consumer markets, where the 80/20 rule operates: 20% of the customers buy 80% of the product. So by Kobo targeting heavy users, they can efficiently sell a larger volume. It’s difficult to get comparable figures internationally, but according to management consultant (and my colleague) Brian O’Leary, the average U.S. consumer buys about 4 books per year, and the frequent buyer purchases 12 to 45 books per year. Humphrey reports that his readers via a Kobo device buy on average four books per month, or 48 per year. Forbes
Study: New Medical Device Extremely Effective at Preventing Immunodeficiency Virus – HIV may be more associated with gay men in the United States but worldwide, the face of the HIV epidemic has a female face. A new intravaginal ring filled with an anti-retroviral is demonstrating 100 percent success rate in preventing contraction of the simian immunodeficiency virus. Scientists will soon start testing this on humans. How I’m not sure.
The upcoming clinical trial, to be conducted in November at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, will evaluate the ring in 60 women over 14 days. The trial will assess the ring’s safety and measure how much of the drug is released and the properties of the ring after use.
The ring stays in place for 30 days. The ring can be used deliver other drugs in the future such as contraceptives or other STI killers. Maybe a new and better condom doesn’t need to be invented? News | McCormick School of Engineering | Northwestern University
The new vaginal ring sounds interesting but one would have to actually believe that one is at risk for the disease and that the disease is deadly. Many people don’t believe they are at risk. In this country anyway , I am finding many young people regard the risk with a shrug,having known people who have lived with HIV for many years as a manageable, non-life-threatening condition. Married women especially are probably not going to use this.
It’s cool that they’re at least trying to find a new– more effective– way of combating HIV. It has it’s issues, sure, but I hope that the trial goes well.
As far as the Kobo thing? They’re a billion dollar company? How? Who reads on a Kobo?
@Patricia Eimer: A lot of people who don’t live in the US.
@Patricia Eimer: I don’t read on a Kobo, but I do buy books from them. They have ePub I can use on my Sony.
@Patricia Eimer: I don’t read on a Kobo, but I shop there a lot. They sell mainly ePub and have great coupon codes. And now all publishers are coupon eligible.
Yay for the Harlequin site. Though I do need to learn how to navigate around again now.
I think the medical ring sounds promising, but how sad that it will be yet another excuse for males not to take equal responsibility.
@Ros: Definitely. I read on my Kobo (reader and app) and they are my chief source for book-buying. Amazon can be a pain for non-US residents, they charge additiional fees for their international customers and they rarely have any of the “deals” which US folks get for their international customers. The Kobo coupons are great.
@Patricia Eimer: What others have said. Kindle ebooks are usually the most expensive option for me due to the crazy international surcharges, and their deals are almost always restricted to US customers. While I have issues with Kobo’s search engine, I love their prices.
@Patricia Eimer:
I do – I have a Kobo Glo after a disastrous experience with a Kindle and *I* personally find it a better reading experience all round combined with Calibre, and you are not locked in to buying from the Amazon walled garden. As others have said they have great coupon codes too .
@Patricia Eimer:
People who live outside of the US? Sony’s store sucks but their reader is fab so it’s a mix and match of non-Amazon products that works best for most of us. :)
The whole Harlequin site merger really is along time coming. I wonder if this means that the new eBooks will be available to download when their book counterparts are. It seems odd that I can purchase and read the paperback long before the eBook is available to read.
Forty-eight books a year is a “heavy” buyer? What comes after that, Super Size Me or maybe DA Reader? In September alone, since discovering their coupons, I bought 14 books, without a Kobo device. It’s a good thing I buy my clothes from Goodwill.
I do hope with the Harlequin site merger that they totally retool the site. It was/is cumbersome and not at all conducive to shopping around.
@Darlynne: I know – I’m still trying to wrap my head around only buying 4 books a month, let alone only 4 a year. I buy so many more ebooks than I ever bought print books – I’m sure my average is way above 4/month.
This past month and a half I’ve been on an extremely restricted budget and I’ve been so good about going to the library and reading books I already own. I was really proud of myself for only buying about 3 or 4 (cheap) books in 6 weeks and it turns out that I’ve already bought more in 6 weeks than the “average” person buys in a *year*. I don’t get non-readers.
Sorry to ask a stupid question – can you purchase ebooks through Kobo for a Kindle Fire? I always assumed the answer was no, so I didn’t pay much attention to those Kobo coupons.
Also, while I read approximately 200 books/year, I probably only buy a quarter to a third of them. Thank god for public libraries.
Wouldn’t a permanent anti-retroviral medication cause the disease to become resistant? Because I can’t see women who want the ring using it just one month. It might be a good choice for women whose partners are HIV positive, but I can’t see it for anyone else.
@SusanS:
No – Kobo books are epubs and Kindle books are Mobi format. There is a way around this if you use Calibre – whereby you can change the format of the book from epub to mobi and then read it on your Fire.
oh yes… we are part of the kobo heavy users.We buy a lot of books probably 10 or more each month and a lot of them from kobo.
They have great marvellous coupon discount codes which really goes a long way to alleviate the cost of e books…
I believe they are on their way to generate a billion dollar company.
they are owned by rakuten… japanese..
btw we reside in asia and kobo is easily accessible here unlike kindle…
@SusanS:
Yes, you can purchase books from Kobo by downloading the Kobo app on your fire.
You have to have your fire set to allow install applications from unknown sources:
Swipe down from top> Other> Device> Turn on installation of applications.
Then on your fire go to: Goodereader app store
Search for the Kobo app and download and install to your fire. It will then show under your apps.
NB: I gave you the link to goodereader.com because that’s the store I usually use for apps outside of Amazon. You can also try mobile1.com and getjar.com. You can also download the Nook app from goodereader if you like. There are other reading apps as well but these are the two I use.
@SusanS:
Yes if you download the Kobo app. They have decent coupons but their customer service is poor. They reply quick but can’t fix things and getting them to send you to someone who can… Good luck. Also watch for pdf’s. They stopped marking them separate. I haven’t been able to tell if it’s fixed. Lastly all books may now have a coupon slot but they won’t all take one. Tried it last contest.
The trial study for the ring is short, only 14 days with a small number of women. They will only be testing the amount of drug secreted, not the effectiveness. The press releases are a bit misleading. Usually, when they test effectiveness, researchers will offer the option to half of the sample and look at overall rates of transmission, while taking in account factors like whether it was used properly, etc. It is not as sketchy as deliberately exposing a bunch of people to HIV and seeing who gets it. I do think the ring will be quite effective but the risks of taking tenofovir as a continual prophylactic scares me. As much as HIV treatment works wonders for viral suppression, we know very little about the impacts on bone health, livers, and other vital organs. Well, we know it’s bad, but not whether it is bad enough that a continual dose prophylactic should be ruled out.
@SAO:
A permanent prophylaxis probably wouldn’t cause resistance in the wider population any more than existing arvs would. Once the semen is in the woman’s body, the virus won’t survive to infect others if the woman herself isn’t infected. So the mutations from prophylactic treatment should be minimal. If the woman does get infected, then I would worry about individual resistance.
Unfortunately, the changes at Harlequin also mean Australian buyers have been given the boot. We’re now directed to another site with higher prices and less books to choose from.
@Jolie Jacq: Oh no! I haven’t tried buying there from the UK yet. Hoping I still can…
I read on a Kobo. Aside from their customer service (took a week to learn why I couldn’t add books to my device, and that was after I pretty much figured it out on my own), I really like the device. When I need a new device, it will also be Kobo. I like the coupons (especially the multi- use ones) and it has the SD card slot, which was why I went there in the first place.
And 45 books per year is heavy buyer? Really?
@Ros: Doesn’t look like it. Per email
emphasis is mine
I do wonder why when they are so big on world rights.
Like many others in this thread I read on my Sony reader and I buy from Kobo quite often. Especially with their coupons. If they keep those up I can see why they might get to a billion dollars – I’ve bought more from Kobo in the last month than anywhere else.
Sad that the new Harlequin store excludes us Aussies. :(
Is the Carina site still separate?
@Anne: Thanks!