Thursday News: Re:Create copyright law, Goodreads + sponsored content; Kobo publishing tell-all, and beautiful, isolated cottages
Publishing Newsarchitecture / copyright / Fair Use / Goodreads / intellectual property / Kobo / publishing / sponsored content18 Comments
Library Groups Join Effort for ‘Balanced’ Copyright – Re:Create is a new coalition that includes organizations such as the American Library Association and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The group wants “clear, simple and transparent” copyright laws that promote “innovation, creativity, education and economic growth.” There don’t appear to be any commercial publishers in the mix, which may not be a surprise, given the following:
In a release, representatives said Re:Create will focus on “engaging and informing lawmakers” on the importance of things like fair use, safe harbors, curbing statutory damages, and the need to counter “abusive” copyright enforcement practices. –Publishers Weekly
Goodreads is adding sponsored content to readers’ feeds – Has Bookpushers noticed sponsored content in her Goodreads feed the other day. Goodreads informed us that this is a new program designed to deliver more personalized ads. The long term-goal is to deliver fewer, but more relevant ads. You can hide a sponsored book by marking it as “I’m not interested in this book” in the right hand corner drop down arrow. This is currently a test phase and Goodreads is looking for feedback. –Twitter
Kobo has ‘no interest in fighting publishers’ – I’m not sure how to take this. Kobo, claiming that they aren’t trying to “become a traditional publisher,” is still publishing their first original book, with digital and print rights, in collaboration with ECW Press (a Canadian independent publisher). Jian Ghomeshi – Secret Life, will delve into the life, career, and sexual assault accusations against the Canadian radio personality, a move that might be smart, timely, or sensationalistic, depending on your perspective. As a side note, I’m wondering how Kobo devices are doing these days – who’s using a Kobo e-reader and how do you like it?
Speaking about cutting its first professional publishing deal, Pieter Swinkels, Kobo vice president of publisher relations, told The Bookseller that the company saw itself as “enabler of publishing houses” and added “we support them, we have no interest in fighting them.” However, he also said that “publishing is a term that needs to be redefined” and while the company wasn’t looking to become a traditional publisher, it was hoping to “evolve the model” going forward.
He said: “Kobo is always looking to how we can improve, evolve and develop our platform for our readers. As we see how projects develop and publishing and bookselling models evolve, we are looking for our place to give our customers the support and experience. What we are looking for is not to become an traditional publisher, we are looking to evolve the model.” –The Bookseller
20 Little Lonely Houses For The Solitary Soul – So when we read about the heroine who lives in some isolated cottage somewhere, is this what we should be imagining? I wouldn’t mind that little place in Hofskirkja, Iceland. –One More Post
If Kobo really wants to improve for readers they should fix their horrible customer service, It’s impossible to reach them and when you do they always have to “escalate” the issue to someone else and that takes days. It’s easier to buy the book somewhere else rather than contact them.
Kobo devotee here. As far as i’m aware, Kobo is still a big player outside the US, where Amazon has less of a monopolistic strangehold. As a Canadian, it’s a relief to be first in a company’s aims for once. We usually get, at best, sloppy seconds.
I have a Kobo Mini and a Kobo Aura HD. They’re great devices and while I have both a Nook and a Kindle Paperwhite, I try to do most of my purchasing through Kobo. I love that I can connect my Kobo account to and support my local independent bookstore through my ebook purchasing.
I’ve never got any useful recommendations out of Goodreads. Amazon used to do great recommendations, now, when I search on an author, it offers me cheap books by unknown authors after the first 3 books. For recs, it suggests more of authors I like (Hello! I can figure out on my own that if I’ve liked several of this author’s books, I’ll probably like more of them) or generic romance novels, with no way for me to say, I read a chapter of this author and stuck on my never again list.
So, if Goodreads is going to offer sponsored content, if it’s clearly identified, it won’t make a difference. If it’s going to offer self-pubbed ads as sincere recs, well, it probably won’t change things much anyway.
I wish the recommendation engines would allow you to say I hate this author and make recs based on other people who not only like what you like, but dislike what you dislike.
PS, if anyone can suggest a better site than Goodreads, I’m all ears. I’m not that interested in what my Facebook friends read. I want to know what people with tastes like mine read, and I don’t need to meet them. You know, like Pinterest, where you can look at pictures others like without ever making a connection or exchanging a message with the people you follow.
Re: The 20 lone little houses…If I had my life to do over again, I think I would have gone to Iceland. Such beauty.
@SAO: Me too. I’ve been searching for a alternative to Goodreads since…forever. I haven’t found anything to fit my style, unfortunately. However, if you’re looking for a more pintrest-y, non-friends experience, than maybe Riffle is something you might be interested in? I didn’t explore in depth once I found out it didn’t have a native iOS app, but I will occasionally go on there to get some different books recs.
I’ve always had a Kobo as my ereader. Some issues; it freezes periodically and I need to insert something small into a tiny hole to reboot and a page turn can turn three pages at once but that’s about it. It does what I want it to do and the backlight is a huge upgrade on the one I had without. Would get another but not until this one breaks.
We’re a Kobo family. We’ve had the original Kobo, Kobo Touch, Kobo mini (awesome) and we now have Kobo Auras. I love the backlight and the sleep cover.
I like the Kobo hardware, I buy from their website pretty frequently and convert to my Kindle, I like the company — I would rather sit in a tub full of scissors than deal with their customer service.
Full disclosure, I worked for the company that originally owned Kobo and did a lot, lot, LOT of tech support for unhappy customers, to the point where if someone moved to pull an e-reader from their bag/purse/etc I would flinch knowing an hour or two of banging my head against the phone equivalent of a brick wall was about to commence. I haven’t dealt with them in the past year and can only hope they’ve gotten better.
They’re definitely a big deal outside of the US, the number of Kobos on the subway downtown outnumbers anything else 10:1. They’re also easier to find non-English-language books on, and non-North American authors in English.
SAO, my Goodreads alternative is Librarything.com. I find more of what I like via the users there than GR.
I use a Kobo Mini and love it. It has a long battery life and just suits me. I’ve had really good luck with their customer service people. My only issue is that they don’t always have the same books I can get through Amazon, so I have to use my phone and Kindle app as a backup.
I have a Kobo Glo and love it. I only buy books through the website as until recently their desktop software was pretty useless for finding and buying books. I haven’t had to deal much with technical support. However, if anyone can figure out how to buy a book as a gift for someone please let me know; my partner has been trying to buy one for me and can’t figure it out. And he’s a programmer!
I use a Kobo Aura HD and I love it. I buy from all over the place – less from Kobo since their coupons started to be scarce. Their customer service is pretty crappy but their device is great.
@Taffygrrl: I can’t see anywhere at Kobo where you can gift a specific book. You can buy egift cards here and send it to a Kobo user: https://www.kobo.com/egiftcards?style=onestore&store=AU&language=en-US&utm_source=bordersau
Otherwise, you can gift a book from All Romance eBooks or Amazon – that’s a pretty easy process. ARe is easier if you’re restricted to ePub only.
I have a kobo that I bought in January when my 6-year old Sony prs 505 was dropped one too many times. It’s okay but I miss my Sony. Kobo froze up on me this morning & I’m travelling, grr.
I mostly buy from ARe, because more selection & cheaper.
@Wahoo suze: If you have a pin or a paper clip, you can stick it in the little reset hole on the device. This usually works. (I had two Sony readers before I got my Kobo reader and they all froze on occasion. I think it’s a thing that just happens with technology. *shakes fist at technology*)
Thank you, everyone, for the reminder about Kobo’s customer service. I have a couple of friends who had experienced that directly when they had issues with their device. For all of Amazon’s flaws, their customer service is very good, and they act like they trust their customers, which makes a difference to me, especially when dealing with device issues. Although I do wish they had more competition.
I’d like a new reader for epubs since my last Kobo died and I’m waiting on more reviews for the new Glo HD. I’ve always been pleased with the hardware but I’ve felt that they have been lacking in customer service as well as a bit behind in software and store search/organization. Add that to their appeal of the decision by the Canada’s Competition Bureau that agency pricing was anti-competitive, I suspect those reviews are going to have to wow me. Unless I use it only for epubs from the library. I guess this means I’m pretty much on the fence about Kobo these days.
In the meantime, I think I’ll check out what the geo-restrictions are for Iceland. 3G coverage too.