Yesterday I was a little unfair to Easons for the pronouncements of the company’s spokesperson and the tone of the article on its ebook strategy which suggested the company was about to embark on a  mission to build a rival platform to B&N and Amazon, something that would surely have been a valiant, if doomed, effort. When I thought about it for the rest of the day though it got me thinking about just how much ebooks are changing the profile of book publishing and bookselling and how quickly that is happening. For instance I am almost certain of two things...

Yesterday I wrote a post that was generally favourable to the deal between Amazon and Waterstones: If I was to think of one single reason for the move being a good though I would say it is this, it allows Waterstones to stand still and observe for a little longer. The value of inaction is often underestimated and right now when the ebook retail and distribution space is changing rapidly and requires such a huge investment, this move brings revenue, options but most crucially of all, time to just see what happens while rebuilding the core bookselling business. I still think the above holds true. One major issue...

Great piece. And one that warrants a solid response, which I will think on before I write anything else: So when digital evangelists prognosticate about the future of publishing, as they love to do, and about what ‘needs’ to go away, serious nonfiction is now one of the first things I think about. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and want to read more of it and notice twentysomethings have little perceived patience for weighty tomes. Maybe it’s because I’d rather have pragmatic conversations about what categories are best suited to digital — genre fiction obviously, certain commercial strains of literary...

When you look at this ebook game from a distance it seems to make a little sense: 1) Microsoft & NewCo. = Content, Device, Apps + possible future Mobile play via Nokia & Windows 8 2) Apple = Content+ Device, Apps + Mobile play 3) Amazon = Content, Device, Apps + Whispersync making Mobile already a significant play in my book but an actual partnership not yet to hand 4) Google = Content (-ish), Apps + Mobile (with Motorola) and a Device neutral stance Leaving Sony and Kobo somewhat on the sidelines missing some element of the game. Of course those two, like the previous four...

The thing about the end of Agency is that it’s not over. That is to say that the rearguard action by the legacy publishing establishment isn’t finished. And make no mistake, Agency Pricing and the rules and agreements that supported it were an attempt to stop the clock and buy the established players a breather against the tide of innovation. That the establishment chose to work with one of the greatest innovators in another sphere doesn’t make the move any less defensive, Apple certainly didn’t break too much new ground in the digital book world (though the game is a long one and they may yet). For the record,...

One of two absolute MUST READ pieces on PaidContent today about Amazon’s Kindle Singles program. A complete coup for Laura Hazard Owen and the rest of the crew over there. The pieces are filled with gold of which the below is only a small amount: When I got my first royalty check from Amazon, I went to my boss at the bar and was like, “Mike, I quit, dude,” and he was like why, and I was like “Look at this check, man,” and he said, “I’d quit too.” This is what I’m doing now. My three stories that are out have now sold in excess...

It’s a slightly unsettling and sinking feeling I get whenever I hear discussion about booksellers and others moving away from E-Ink based ereaders towards tablets. It’s not a hatred of backlit screens and the like, in fact I like them quite a bit. Rather it’s that such a move is an implicit acceptance that the stand-alone ereader device is moving from a top priority to a secondary one. The concern for me is that as apps, movies, tv shows, music and games become bigger and better businesses for these players, books become less and less important. With such a shift, books become simply...

You may have read this piece (or one of the several pieces on the topic) yesterday or this morning: Storia is in beta now and available for Windows PC through the website; an iPad version is coming later this month. The app itself is free and comes with five free e-books. A store contains over 1,000 other children’s e-books—many available in digital format for the first time—that can be sorted by grade level, reading level, age and character/series. When the app officially launches in the fall, it will contain over 2,000 titles, reports the AP, “that can be bought directly from the...

One of Ireland top trade publishers has started releasing ebooks. Gill & Macmillan has begun releasing its immediate front list and popular backlist titles on Amazon’s Kindle platform. Beginning with a  batch of eight released in December 2011, the publisher has now released 19 titles in total including Dying To Survive the memoir of former heroin addict Rachel Keogh, Paul Bew’s new biography of Charles Stewart Parnell, Enigma and Pádraig Yeates, A City in Wartime. Gill & Macmillan has priced all titles at $9.99 or less so far. The move comes as Mercier Press confirms by tweet and further commentary that the publisher’s ebooks success over the Christmas...

In an interesting shift, an Irish radio interview has led to an ebook edition of a book spiking on Amazon’s bestseller lists. Constable author, Tim Newark, whose book, The Fighting Irish was the subject of a Pat Kenny interview Wednesday 22nd February. By the end of the day the book had climbed to the top of  the Kindle Irish History bestseller charts and had spiked in the paperback Irish History Bestseller charts. It remains at #5 on the Kindle chart and #88 on the print bestseller charts a day later. It’s an example of how the immediacy of availability can move units and drive sales for publishers. (Via...

Really fascinating glimpse of the development of the UK ebook business from BML/Bowker (as a teaser for their annual conference in March): The survey also looks at how the e-book industry fares by genre. The adult fiction market saw spectacular e-book growth in 2011, up from 2.8% of purchases in the four weeks ending 26th December 2010 to 12.5% in the four weeks to 27th November 2011. But again, as e-books are being bought for lower prices, they accounted for only 7.1% of adult fiction spending in the latest period via Bowker – British Book Buyers are Switching to “e” from Print and...

Nick Atkinson has an interesting post over on FutureBook this morning. In it he asks three questions he feels people aren’t asking about ebooks. The ones he hits on are: EBooks  aren’t actually that exciting, so why are people buying them? Why am I rubbish at selling books online? Where the heck is my audience? They used to shop at Borders. he’s got a refreshing perspective on some of those: So why are we struggling so much to make a digital book look and feel like a book? I remember the overwhelming sense of disappointment, anti-climax and resignation that I felt when I first looked...