Apple bigger than Microsoft

It's extraordinary! Apple's market capitalization is more than Microsoft's, at least according to some reports, though others disagree. Whatever the status now Apple is predicted to surpass Microsoft this year.

Ten years ago such a thing would have been unthinkable, which makes Apple's triumph is all the more interesting as a business story.

Apple's growth has been on the strength of the iPhone and other pieces of cleverness. As a longer term user & fan of Macs, I am so pleased to see a smart and stylish company being rewarded with success. For Mac fans it feels like the world has come along to join us.

more on agency pricing

This is worth a read (and the comments):

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012168.html

My understanding is that publishers are in the box seat with agency pricing as they can control and enforce the price in a way they couldn't with pbooks. The eworld actually gives (large) publishers more control.

That's one of the scary things about ebooks and downloaded music. The owner or licensor of the copyright can reach right into the guts of your computer via the channel of supply and manage the rights embedded in 'your' books and music.

Melissa (downstairs) only buys CDs - she wants to have something physical for her money, something she can fall back on when the online world gets a bit screwy.

Agency pricing is putting publishers in the box seat

BooksOnBoard sent out the following note. I found it interesting how quickly things can change in the online environment: with the tap of a few keys a big chunk of the catalogue comes down and on the other hand how complex the software systems are to manage the change.

There's no change to the audio catalogue. No agency pricing change, or already sold on the agency pricing system? And I'm not sure why: "choose the MP3 versions where available to avoid Digital Rights Management issues"?

Dear BooksOnBoard Customer:

You may have noticed a change in our store the last few days. While ALL of our UK store titlesMailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "www.booksonboard.com" claiming to be (www.booksonboard.co.uk) are still available and most of our US eBooks are still available, some are temporarily unavailable in the US store MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "www.booksonboard.com" claiming to be (www.booksonboard.com). We still have more than 70% of our US eBook catalog available for you. We also still have all of the audio books we carried previously from ALL of the publishers available in both stores.

As you can see by this newsletter, there are some very good books and some really great deals available, including New York Times bestsellers from Danielle Steel, Stephenie Meyer, and Elizabeth Berg - all with great discounts AND significant Rewards Dollars. Additionally, we have great prices for the audio book versions of most of these eBook titles. (We recommend you choose the MP3 versions where available to avoid Digital Rights Management issues.).


We expect to have almost all of the missing titles back by the middle of the month (we do recommend backing up your files to avoid rare issues like this). This issue is due to the sudden switch to a fixed price system (aka agency pricing) by 5 of the 7 largest publishers last Thursday. Over one thousand other publishing imprints are NOT going to this system, including our 3 most popular publishers. Their titles are all still available on our site at good discounts and with Rewards Dollars.

In this agency pricing system, retailers act as agents for the 5 agency publishers . The publishers assign a Required Ebook Price (REP) that every retailer must charge to customers. BooksOnBoard’s systems were ready for this change on April 1, but the publishers and our wholesalers – dealing with a more complex set of circumstances - have not yet been able to change their systems to accommodate the tricky changes required to get ebooks from these publishers to you under the new system. These changes involve unique sales tax requirements by each publisher depending on where the publishers have offices, changes in territories for titles that have yet to be fully disclosed to us, and a tracking system so that the 5 publishers can be certain we are not discounting their titles. The publishers, unfortunately, underestimated the task and gave the wholesalers only two weeks notice of the change.

In the meanwhile, we still offer 250,000 titles for sale, including everything from Random House, Harlequin, McGraw Hill, Kensington, Samhain, and over a thousand more publishing imprints. These represent your most popular publishers and most of the eBooks our customers want are still on the site. These titles also continue to enjoy discounts and Rewards dollars when you buy.

Thank you for all support of our shop in the past. We look forward to serving you in the future.

Sincere regards,

Bob LiVolsi
CEO & Founder

Short and Scary

It's lovely to see the news about Short and Scary getting out there. Here's a link to Sheryl Gwyther comment. And Sheryl's story is well worth reading.

no twitter or blogs in China

It was frustrating not to be able to twitter or blog from China, where I was for a week from last Wednesday. When I went to do either the message came up that I couldn't access the server. I could access Chinese language blogs (which I couldn't read) but I couldn't access English language blogs.

I assume freedom of speech, so it was a small but stark and frustrating personal reminder of what happens when it just isn't there.

ereader market research

Twice in the the last three days, while I've been reading my Sony e-reader (a manuscript), while waiting for a coffee people have come up and asked me what it is and what do I know about e-readers. Both were keen readers, both loved the printed book AND both wanted something they could take travelling. They both said they did a lot of travelling. The attraction for both readers was something light with lots of books on it. They wanted a choice of reading while they were away. The young woman this morning also wanted not only leisure reading but textbooks for the course she was studying. Maybe this is where the e-readers will establish a foothold in our market (from a giant sample of two) - people doing a lot of travel who are willing to invest in a device small enough to hold in your lap while reading and with the advantage that it gives them a huge choice in reading.

Obviously its the best way for me to do market research on e-readers is to stand around (or sit) in public, reading my e-reader, and wait for people to come and ask me.

interactive ebooks

I haven't blogged in ages but I was inspired by this article in the Huffington Post. I like the idea of adding bells and whistles to a book - as a maker of books - but I'm not a believer. A book is not about choice; it's about an author taking the reader by the hand and leading you where they want to take you. That gives the reader a sense of security that is the pleasure of reading. Too much choice destroys the willing suspension of disbelief (in the case of fiction) Once a teen reader leaves a book for a game, they won't be coming back. I'm not convinced that more, more choice, is better.

P or E kids books

worth a read from a teacher: link

territorial copyright

Territorial copyright is frustrating in an online world for those ebook and audio downloaders who don't live in the states. For international sales for ebook online retailers its going to be a major point of difference. Here's the newly branded Kobo's statement.

ebooks for children

This is cute - and interesting.

Authors depart

I've belatedly ripped the environmentally unsound plastic covering off my latest edition of BRW to discover that 4 authors departed from the Top 50 Entertainers list this year: John Flanagan, Bryce Courtney, Donna Hay and Garth Nix. There's only one author left on the list, Rhonda Byrne of The Secret fame, and her earnings have plummeted from $5.2 million last year to $2.1 million this year. It hardly looks like it was a great year at the top-end of publishing - sadly.

John Le Carre leaves Hodder …

an interesting article in The Guardian here,

which ignores independent publishing. It's a common journalistic error to overlook the most interesting part of the industry

celebrity bios

It's good to hear that Michael Parkinson believes that "many showbiz memoirs aren’t worth the paper they are written on". quoted in Crikey

Anonymous writes a book

Wayne Carey's dreams of an anonymous life [this morning's Sun-Herald] and has written a book to prove it.

eReader is slow but nice

My Sony eReader is nice but slow - slow to load and then re-index - and the battery has drained inexplicably on occasion. I can't get it to work smoothly with my Mac, as, say, the Mac does so very sweetly with the iPhone. Signs of a nascent technology with Sony?

The ink is not as nice to read as ink on the page but I can carry so many manuscripts at a time. I am growing to like it

Talking of Macs it's nice seeing Apple doing so well.

Barnes and Noble are launching an eReader

called the Nook. Now taking pre-orders. Is it available internationally or US only?

editing children's books

The challenge I find is reading a manuscript (which I'm doing right now on a manuscript I'm loving) with an adult mind and from the point of view of a reader of the target age. Then I'm challenged by figuring out what the target age for a particular book really is - and accurately filtering that is a key editorial task in children's books. If I read the book with the wrong age in my head or with too much of an adult mind I come up with the wrong editorial decisions, and suspending the adult mind is like suspending my critical faculties on how to make a book better.

eBooks in Australia

Here's a press release from the APA - well worth reading!

Australia needs to get its ebook walking shoes on - we're behind developments in the UK and the US, especially the US and we need to be able to read our books in the form we want to. Without a development like this we could be shut out of reading many of our own books as ebooks.

Media Release

18 October 2009

eBooks to go on over-the-counter sale in Australia

Australians will be able to buy digital books over the counter at bookstores from next

year using a digital distribution system constructed for Australian book publishers.

The move will bring easy availability of eBooks in Australia a step closer, says the CEO of the

Australian Publishers Association, Maree McCaskill.

“Right now, take-up of eBooks in Australia has been hampered,” she explained. “Sales of

eBook readers have been slow because of cost and availability issues, and there is no simple

system for eBook distribution.

“This new system will allow Australians to download digital books quickly and simply via

participating bookstores. This will make a wider range of eBooks more freely available,” she

said.

All booksellers using the APA’s TitlePage program will be able to access the system.

Customers wanting to buy eBooks can go to a participating retailer, check the title they want

is available in the right format and price using TitlePage, then give the store their email

address and pay for the book.

The new system will email customers a unique web address they can access to download the

book at their convenience.

Ms McCaskill said the system is expected to be operating in the first half of 2010.

“TitlePage was a world industry first, and this addition will be a groundbreaking industry

solution for Australian retailers and consumers,” she added.

“Australian booksellers have been looking for an industry solution to enable them to

participate in this market, and this system will minimise risk for them in a fast-moving

landscape.”

The CEO of the Australian Booksellers Association, Malcolm Neil, welcomed the move,

saying: “This innovative initiative taken by the APA will ensure Australian readers have

access to the choice of retailer which suits them in this exciting new market.”

Ms McCaskill said the APA expected to be working closely with booksellers on the

implementation of this new digital distribution system.

“The decision demonstrates the importance of maintaining territorial copyright for books in

Australia. This is what gives publishers the security to make this major investment in new

technology, ultimately to the benefit of consumers,” she said.

Media contact: José Borghino 0413 998 033

Social Media comment from the lovely Shop Sui

Down the road in Gertrude St is Sylvia Tai's delightful Shop Sui - all things whimsical, especially, as the name suggests, an Asian take on something Western. And there's this gorgeous child's tee that I noticed yesterday.

This is worth a look …

Results of NMC Two Minute Survey on eBooks

And here are my questions (for Australian readers):

Have you started reading your first ebook this year but not completed it and not attempted to read another?

Have you downloaded an audio book online this year?

Are you planning to buy a Kindle?