Thursday News Thread: Penguin and Amazon Have Kissed and Made Up
Publishing NewsAdobe / Android / Barnes & Noble / book business / book-sales / Kindle20 Comments
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a news roundup so I’ll try not to overload you with information. Probably the most important news is that Amazon and Penguin have kissed and made up. Kindle versions of the April and May books are already appearing in the bookstore. This news was first announced at PublishersMarketplace.
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In other good news, book sales were up quite a bit in March. According to the AAP, total sales were up 16.6% over last year March sales and 8% for the year. The breakdown is as follows:
- Adult Hardcover: Up 15.1% with sales of $92.0 million. YTD sales up 3.7%
- Adult Trade Paperback: Up 38.2% with sales of $123.1.0 million. YTD sales up 23.5%
- Adult Mass Market: Down 18.1% with sales of $53.6 million. YTD sales down 6.6% (is this being made up in digital sales?)
- Children’s/YA Hardcover: Down 12.3% with sales of $45.4 million. YTD sales down 35.2%
- Children's/YA Paperback: Up 6.1% with sales of $47.0 million. YTD sales down 8.5%
- Audio Books: Up 8.6% with sales of $9.8 m. YTD sales up 14.7%
- Downloaded Audio Books: Up 29.3% with sales of $6.2 million. YTD sales up 32.5%.
- E-book: Up 184.8 % with sales of $28.5 million. YTD sales up 251.9%.
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Book Expo America is taking place (or winding down as the case may be) today. Over the past few days, there have been very interesting reports out of BEA. Specifically the ones covering the CEO panel. CEOs of the major publishers along with the CEO of Ingram, one of the major distributors of paper and digital books in the US, spoke about the state of publishing. Ed Champion did a great piece on this that is well worth the read. Champion concludes that there are some individuals in positions of power within the publishing industry who seem to have no clue as to the current state of publishing. He singles out Jonathan Galassi of FSG and Scott Turow, the current president of the Author’s Guild as being some of the most clueless.
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There are some strange looking new ebook devices from ACER. One is the LumiRead and it looks like an extended Kindle. It will partner with the BN ebookstore. Another ACER device, with a design similar to the LumniRead is the 7″ Android Tablet that comes with a full QWERTY keyboard.
Another ereading device partnering with BN ebookstore is the Pandigital. The eReader has a 7″ touchscreen LCD (not eink) with Wi-Fi connectivity. You should also be able to show movies on this device. The battery is said to last up to 6 hours. This device should be in national retailers by June. No word on who the national retailers are. Best buy? Wal-mart? This device is kind of interesting because it’s price is $199 and will support PDF, ePub and HTML and runs on the Android OS.
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BN’s iPad App has been approved. I like it so far, but I haven’t loaded any content other than what I have purchased from the BN ebookstore. BN still does not have the buying process streamlined sufficient to compete with Amazon. Surely it can eliminate one or two of the confirm screens along with an automatic link back to the ereading app. No?
Adobe has released an Adobe Reader for the Android. I’m not sure if it readers PDFs or encrypted epubs as well.
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Marginal Revolution had a link to a wiki piece on the bestselling books of all time. They aren’t what you think they might be.
Did you see Garrison Keillor’s column in the Chicago Tribune?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-oped-0526-keillor-20100526,0,1253174.column
Basically, his take is that publishing is going to hell in a handbasket and he longs for the good old days of the typewriter. And no he’s not kidding. Sigh. I guess with digital you either love it or you think it’s the beginning of the Apocalypse.
@Kelly S. Bishop So is this the literary version of “I walked uphill in the snow both ways to school and it made me a better person?”
@Kelly S. Bishop:
Like Garrison Keillor is up with the times. His entire career is based on romanticizing the past.
Man, reading that article on the CEO panel was sort of frightening. Publishing is run by a bunch of fools.
Thank you for keeping us informed of the publishing world, Jane. The publishing panel is depressing. And ditto for Garrison Kellor. My dream as a reader is to be able to walk into a book store (ANY BOOKSTORE) and not get sneered at for asking about romance. Just that one simple thing. Forget about all this other stuff -how about making the big chain bookstores more romance friendly and staff more knowledgable about the needs of romance readers? If all they want to talk about is brick and mortar selling, then why the hell not make the brick and mortar places better for the readers who support the entire freakin’ industry! Thank you for letting me rant.
The Pandigital looks FAB. Me thinks I need an upgrade o.O
@Ridley:
Agreed, and I like Garrison Keillor. He is king of the grumpy old men though.
I’d really like to eliminate the words preserve, maintain, and protect from the vocabulary of all major publishers and replace them with some verbs like motivate, innovate, and capitalize upon. Goodness they are a gloomy bunch.
And Scott Turow will be worth $4million as long as his books sell enough copies to cover the cost. You want the money, then make me want to buy. Presumed Innocent was one heck of a book but that doesn’t obligate me to buy everything else he writes from now until death at hardback prices.
Jane: Yep. That’s GK. I’m surprised he didn’t wax nostalgic about quill pens. (Evil Grin)
About 5 years from now, I think the publishing industry is going to be used as an example in business schools all over the country – of how to get run over and flattened by change you saw coming but refused to adapt to.
I am reading the article and the more I read it the more it smells of RIAA v. Napster. The execs from the RIAA had the exact same attitude before someone (Apple) came up with a very viable, marketable solution along with the technology to support it becoming a very profitable venture. With ebooks the technology is there, what is not there is the right attitude. I think ebook piracy is going to expand in leaps and bounds. I am sad to be saying this, but I am getting a very strong feeling that’s exactly where things are headed as more and more reading gizmos become available and more affordable. People are not just going to sit there waiting for the majority of the publishing industry to wake up.
Thanks for the news updates! I specifically log onto this site for the news that I would not othewise read!
Wish I was at BEA this week …
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I am not sure that the agreement between Penguin and Amazon is to the benefit of e-readers. I still do not feel that I should pay the same price for an e-book as I do a paperback/hardback.
I can’t trade it in at a used bookstore and I can’t share with my friends.
I guess this will limit which e-books I will buy. If I had known that I might not have bought my Kindle. I do love my Kindle but to justify the cost, I want lower prices.
A ver si removemos el spam… oh sorry, I thought this was a multilanguage “forum”… oh, it isn’t a forum … damn, I suck as a spammer …
P.S. I still want that LCD color gadget…
Geez, Adobe. How did you know I’d spent four hours last night converting all my PDF books to ePub and trying to figure out my SD card so I could read your books on Aldiko?
And there’s still reflow issues, which means I’m probably going to download the adobe app anyway.
The execs from the RIAA had the exact same attitude before someone (Apple) came up with a very viable, marketable solution along with the technology to support it becoming a very profitable venture. With ebooks the technology is there, what is not there is the right attitude.
Im just introducing myself, my name is Alex! Just wanted to say hello, hows it going :)