A 2011 survey showed that 33% of British children do not own a book, according to the National Literacy Trust. This program is meant to help remedy that by putting an actual printed book, rather than a cheap plastic toy, in the hands of young would-be readers.

Not everyone is fond of the move. UK bookseller Katie Clapham has an essay on The Bookseller complaining that the free giveaway devalues “what we work so hard to give value to” by equating it to those cheap plastic toys.

Selfishly, what upsets me most is the news that the other token gift in the box is a voucher for another Morpurgo book, redeemable only at W H Smith. As an independent children’s bookshop in a town that shares the high street with a W H Smith we are constantly working to compete with their never-ending deals and red sticker discounts. Now they can give away for free what we have to pay to sell.

Of course, it is not surprising that an employee of a specialty children’s bookstore would feel that way, as this is clearly just another way that big chains are using their buying power to outcompete the little guy. And books that are given away for free are not books that are being bought from a bookseller, and that are likely to get kids started buying from the big chains that can offer bigger discounts.

I find it interesting that books are finally reaching the point of being given away free with Happy Meals (albeit only in the UK, and for a limited time). Are the printing costs of a book really about the same as the manufacturing costs of a cheap plastic toy? If so, it would seem to lend ammunition to the publishers who insist that printing costs are a fraction of the cost of a book and so e-books should be priced accordingly.

A number of the works in Cambridge’s library date from well before the 1710 Statute of Anne invented modern copyright, suggesting that they should definitely be in the public domain no matter what Cambridge says. Moody writes of these works:

Assuming that copyright dates from the "fixing" of the work, or from the date of the Statute of Anne, they would clearly have passed into the public domain long ago. One technique that libraries have tried to employ in order to maintain their control is to claim that the act of digitizing creates a new copyright, although this seems dubious. After all, the whole point of digitization is to capture as faithfully as possible the physical appearance of a text: an artistic interpretation of that physical appearance would defeat the object of the exercise. But without that artistic element there seems to be no grounds for claiming copyright.

Moreover, even if there were copyright in the digitized image, it’s hard to see how there is any basis for stopping people from transcribing the text, since that is undoubtedly in the public domain. But that’s precisely what Cambridge University is trying to do in its conditions quoted above.

Moody also points out that, thanks to the British Newspaper Archive, the British Library is removing physical access to public-domain papers and replacing them with digitized images that it claims are under copyright.

For that matter, even Google Books attaches a usage-terms boilerplate to the beginning of its book scans. (You have to download the file to see it; it doesn’t show up on the in-web display.) Google’s usage terms are a good deal more temperate, acknowledging that “public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians” and couched in terms of “we ask” or “we request” that viewers use them noncommercially and so forth.

Project Gutenberg, on the other hand, still has this boilerplate on its books:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

That’s the kind of terms that public domain works ought to have. It’s worrying that these newer projects are putting so many limitations on theirs, but given that they are the offspring of commercial concerns while Gutenberg was always intended as a nonprofit, I suppose it’s understandable. I wonder when or if those limitations will be tested in court?

When new ebooks were $10, I was buying them all the time. In almost all cases, book purchases are impulse buys – something you want to have, right now. I was buying new best-sellers at a rapid rate, and happy to do so. (The books I bought this way tended to be mysteries and thrillers – the kind of book purchases I treated like movie tickets, to be read or seen once and then put aside.) No more. I still buy some e-books, but only at lower prices.

Gillmor’s complaints about agency pricing are old hat to Americans, but it might be significant to note that this article is showing up in the UK where they don’t have that…yet. An Office of Fair Trading investigation into agency pricing, begun early this year, is still underway, and UK publishers won’t be implementing agency pricing until the investigation is over. Gillmor is giving British consumers a preview of what they can expect if the OFT decides agency pricing is OK after all. (The OFT recently allowed Amazon to purchase UK e-tailer The Book Depository. Who knows which way they’ll decide on agency pricing?)

Other European countries, including France and Luxembourg, have reduced their own VATs on e-books significantly. France has told its publishers it will pay any fines the EU imposes on them for flouting its VAT law.

The VAT drop in Luxembourg (to 3%) gives Amazon a fairly large competitive advantage, since that’s where Amazon’s European operation is based—so UK e-book buyers will only pay a 3% tax when they buy an e-book from Amazon, as opposed to the 20% they have to pay everyone based in the UK. The EU is going to change how VATs are handled so that buyers will pay the tax of their country rather than that of the vendor, but that change will not take effect until 2015.

When Parliament member Tom Blenkinsop asked the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer about reducing or eliminating VAT for e-books, the Chancellor said, essentially, that under EU agreements they did not have any choice about the VAT rates they charged. However, that is not stopping other European countries such as France and Luxembourg from acting to reduce e-book VAT rates.

So why the UK intransigence? If he was really awake the [exchequer secretary] might also have paid attention to a recent memo published by the EU that sought to clarify how VAT needed to be modified in member states following a consultation with those countries. The EU specifically stated that the review should take as a principle that "similar goods and services should be subject to the same VAT rate and progress in technology should be taken into account in this respect, so that the challenge of convergence between the on-line and the physical environment is addressed”. French Culture Minister Frédérique Mitterrand has already welcomed the communication and said in a statement that he applauded the comment in the 16-page document on fiscal neutrality.

Blenkinsop is not going to let the matter drop, Jones writes, and will continue pushing in Parliament for a reduced VAT rate. As the e-book market grows, reducing that rate means giving consumers more money to spend on e-books, and hence pass along to e-tailers, authors, and publishers. The bigger the market gets, the more important that move will become.

I hadn’t been aware that tax rates on e-books were so high in the UK. It kind of puts the squabbles over Amazon collecting state sales tax in a bit of perspective. Hopefully they will soon be able to get that brought down.

There has been speculation B&N might partner with the Waterstone’s chain, since having a print bookstore to work from would be beneficial to an e-reader. However, the company has also been getting involved with the publishing process with UK publishers.

[Horner] said: "There are a lot of conversations with publishers, a lot of partnerships going forward. ‘What are you capable of doing digitally?’ That’s not a conversation that would have happened two years ago." She added that the current challenge in terms of content was in finding the right non-fiction content to sell digitally, and that self-published content was a "monster conversation going on in the digital space" in the US at the moment. Ten per cent of titles on B&N’s digital bestselling lists are produced by its self-publishing programme, Pub-it.

However B&N does it, it seems that the Kindle will soon have a run for its money on the other side of the Big Pond.

Jones notes that the show started from the position that it was a sad thing that print books were on the way out, and went on from there. It seems to have some rather odd blind spots, such as not really looking at why readers were finding e-books more attractive, and doesn’t seem to have paid much attention to the real issues.

Typically Farenheit 451 turned up at one point, but [show host Alan] Yentob managed to mangle the point, by saying that that though books were banned (and burnt), rebels had learned them off by heart to preserve them. The "them" here was ambiguous, but since Yentob was carrying a physical copy of the book the implication was not. But in the Bradbury classic it is the other way round: the rebels are not part of a print preservation movement, they are protecting the content not the package. Had Bradbury offered them a Kindle they’d have jumped for joy.

I agree with Jones that it’s a bit annoying that we keep seeing this kind of poorly-thought-out luddite/nostalgia piece, though it’s probably to be expected over the next few years. But people who like to smell books really need to wake up and smell the coffee instead.

The children’s series is Paddington Bear, the adventures of a small, talking bear named for the London railway station where he was found. The series already has a £3.99 (US $6.23) multimedia iPad/iPhone app, which among other things will let parents record video readings of the story, and children take photos of themselves “with” Paddington to send to family and friends.

HCB said the digital adaptation had been done "carefully" to ensure the rhythm of the story is not interrupted with the interactivity. Digital publishing manager Tom Conway said: "This is not just an electronic version of the book—it’s a new way of telling, and sharing, a much-loved story."

E-books for all Paddington titles are to be available in early 2012.

The other is the 12-book Flashman series, by the late George Macdonald Fraser, based on a minor character from an 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes. The books chronicle the adventures of a self-confessed scoundrel who, through a series of coincidences, gains fame and renown as a great hero of the Victorian era.

Davis said: "Naturally I follow the well-warmed footsteps of my King Wenceslas predecessor Tom Holland and believe we should claim 30% e-book royalties, and that higher than that would be right. It is important that we remember that when we signed our e-books away it was with a review period of two years—and those two years are now up. We must make the publishers review it."

She also believes authors should become more involved with the publishing process as a whole, educating themselves on how the system works so they can look out for their own interests instead of relying on an agent to do it for them. She urged more authors to join the 9,000-member Society of Authors.

I had thought authors were pressing for 25% royalties on e-books, but 30% does sound even better, doesn’t it? Of course, publishers will continue to insist that e-books have very nearly the same production costs as printed books—which means as printed books fall off in popularity, publishers will undoubtedly become more reluctant to commit to giving away that big a chunk of their primary income.

PA c.e.o. Richard Mollet said: "Today’s announcement [by Penguin UK] underlines what the Publishers Association has been saying for some time about the risks around e-lending. Whilst publishers are and always have been fully supportive of libraries, it also has to be recognised that in this still developing area, it is right to be concerned about the security of digital files in the supply chain."

The “security” issue puzzles me a little. I have yet to see any indication that library e-books are any less “secure” than the ones that publishers are only too happy to sell through Amazon and other vendors. Sure, the DRM can be cracked, but it can be cracked on any sold e-book as well as any that is checked out.

But apparently Penguin is concerned that libraries must be offered “only if those files were held behind the firewalls of the suppliers” (such as Overdrive). I thought that was how the system worked already?

I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see how things work out. I wish publishers would get over their paranoia and accept that it’s better to lose a little security than to lose potential paying customers.

Daunt thinks that we will continue to read books in multiple ways, on a number of different platforms including paper. Paper will not disappear, but we will read a lot more digitally than we have been. And with so many other distractions available on tablet devices at the swipe of a finger, books will face a challenge competing with more interactive forms of entertainment.

Waterstone’s is in the process of launching its own e-reader, and Daunt discusses Waterstone’s plans to integrate the e-reader with the bookstore experience. 87% of the population of the UK is within a 30-minute drive of a Waterstone’s store, Daunt explains, and people visit bookstores not just to buy physical books but because they like to go there.

Bookshops are part of the cultural fabric of this country. Bookselling is something you just get better and better at. From a customer’s point of view, having someone who has sensibly and intelligently curated a book for him or her is hugely beneficial.

If only we could lock the experienced bookseller into the e-reader.

That happens if you choose your digital reader in a bookstore environment. I have a digital reader and I also like to own a real copy of the book. I don’t think it’s one or the other. I do think, however, that selecting a book in a book environment is still one of the most pleasurable places to do it. 

Daunt thinks publishers are still important for their expertise in guiding new authors to create great books and establish themselves on bookstore shelves. He does see Amazon as a game changer to watch, and admits that it is possible the company might end up “swallowing up the publishing industry,” but still thinks that traditional publishers will continue to exist. He closes by pointing out (without irony) that traditional books make great Christmas gifts to pass on to future generations.

I wonder whether Waterstone’s e-reader plans will be successful? Barnes & Noble doesn’t seem to have done so well at integrating its bookstore experience with its e-readers; if it had, I would think it would have done better at competing with Amazon.

But I wonder just how much like Waterstone’s culture Barnes & Noble really is. It may be a misapprehension on my part, but I’ve never really felt like mass-market bookstores were staffed with the sort of knowledgeable booksellers Daunt discusses—they’re just mass-produced big boxes filled with bookshelves and people to run cash registers. The stores are too big and busy for staff to give customers that sort of individualized attention—there’s just no time. Perhaps that’s part of why Borders fizzled; it didn’t build rapport with customers—it just took their money and gave them their books.

But I guess that’s probably a bit unfair of me, drawing conclusions based on my own experiences alone. There may well be lots of experienced people at these stores who know books and are able to spend a lot of time with customers. I just don’t recall ever having met any of them.

Daunt’s interview suggests the Waterstone’s stores feature booksellers who do take the time to know their customers and “curate” books for them. (I have to take his word for it—it’s not as if I can just pop into one and check.) If that is the case, and they can combine that with the e-reader experience, they might just have something there.

It’s not clear from the article whether this service just covers e-books, or is like Amazon’s new publishing division in offering both electronic and print publication services. Either way, it’s one more way e-book-based firms are competing with traditional publishers, though traditional publishers don’t necessarily seem to be worried just yet.

"It will be good for writers to have more choices," said Louise Dennys of Random House. "I’m just confident we’ll continue to do what we do best; the more the merrier."

Will the publishing operation be successful given Kobo’s third-place position in the US e-book market? Will it help it solidify its hold on the international market that the other sellers haven’t been concentrating on as much? We’ll have to see how it goes.

Meanwhile, the Bookseller reports that UK bookstore chain W H Smith’s CEO Nigel Newton is enthusiastic about the deal the store recently announced to sell Kobo e-readers, saying:

“It is a terrific move for Smith’s and Kobo and I think it will grow the market because their demographic won’t necessarily be the same as for Kindle devices."

The timing is pretty good—it’s just in time for the start of the Christmas shopping season. Hopefully it works out better for W H Smith than it did for the American bookstore that banked on the Kobo e-reader.

Thus I wonder whether people reading eBooks are inherently more honest than people consuming other forms of electronic content. Maybe it is only people of a certain age and social class that are interested in books at all. This summer, during the London riots, the only shops that weren’t looted were book stores. The underprivileged young people who thought that society owed them something and took everything they wanted by looting obviously weren’t even interested in books when they came for free. It stands to reason that in calmer times, when looting is limited to electronic piracy, these priorities don’t change.

Of course, the perception of Amazon not being “worried” rests largely on the perception that it is selling its Kindles at a loss. Amazon’s profits have slumped lately due to investing heavily in its new Kindle Fire, but that’s not the same thing as selling at a loss. (Early reports suggested Amazon might be selling the Kindle Fire at a loss, but subsequent analyses suggested that no, it’s probably making a profit.)

It’s also worth pointing out that Amazon is not planning to profit from the Kindle solely by selling e-books. Its lowest-priced Kindles come with an advertising network built in, which could eventually earn Amazon more over the lifetime of the device than the difference in cost between it and the ad-free version. (At least this is true for the US, though from what Tobold says he is in the UK where that’s not the case.) And for that matter, if Amazon really wasn’t worried about e-book piracy, it wouldn’t bother as much about DRM.

If Tobold wants to find people worried over e-book piracy, he should probably talk to the publishers. Historically, they’ve been the ones pushing for stronger DRM, more protection, and one format per sale. (Back when they were allowed to talk to us, the Pendergrasts of Fictionwise explained this.) And if he thinks e-book piracy isn’t happening, a quick BitTorrent search on “e-books” should change his perspective.

Tobold notes that he doesn’t pirate, but he’s well-off enough he can afford to buy his media. But on the other hand, he doesn’t like the idea of having to pay again for e-versions of books he already bought in print. He doesn’t say what he’s going to do about that, but there are a lot of people in that situation who wouldn’t hesitate to turn to pirate editions.

But even so, most of the remaining booksellers don’t seem to subscribe to the gloom and doom going around that e-books are going to kill bookstores altogether. They think they have at least a good chance of sticking around for years to come.

The article discusses the possibility of holiday sales giving independent bookstores a boost, and actions bookstores are taking to try to alleviate some of the most pressing non-Amazon problems facing them (such as high parking rates that don’t give shoppers sufficient time to browse). It also goes into ways bookstores are looking at surviving in the long term, such as diversifying their inventory to add non-book items.

Of interest to telereaders is a section on how the bookstores are dealing with e-books, which a number of stores are finding their customers are starting to buy.

But meeting the new demand for e-books isn’t straightforward, says Frances Smith of Warwick Books and Kenilworth Books, who thinks independents need far greater support in their efforts. "We should be able to sell e-books but no one has been able to tell us how we can physically do it, or how we can make any money. At the moment it’s just not worth the candle." Jo de Guia of Victoria Park Books agrees that the days of independents selling e-books are some way off. "We’re far from technophobes and we’ve looked at it very closely, but the profits as they stand are tiny and the upfront costs make it totally impossible."

Apparently for UK bookstores, selling e-books alongside print books could be some distance away.

The bookstores also report seeing “hit and miss” support from publishers, complaining of the discounts publishers offer to the bigger chain stores, and the higher prices that result (so that publishers can offer those discounts and still make money). Others report having good relationships with and support from publishers, however. The stores seem to have similar mixed feelings about the Booksellers Association, which seems to have to support the supermarkets that are causing them problems as well as independent shops.

The article closes with ten survival tips for independent bookstores, which mostly seem to center around getting involved with customers and learning what they want, then stocking it.

We are in a time of transition for bookstores of all kinds. It’s hard to predict how many of them will survive, or what they will look like if they do. One thing to consider is that the UK seems to be at least a couple of years behind the US in development of its e-book market. I would expect that if UK booksellers want to know what the future holds for them, they should be looking west across the Atlantic to get some clues.

An excited author of mine downloaded the Nook PC app and bought a copy of his e-enhanced book this weekend and was hugely impressed (The London of Sherlock Holmes hyperlinking to Google Maps). I tried to do the same, and indeed also tried to download the exciting new Nook iPad app too so I could see how the new book works on the iPad. Apparently the world according to B&N doesn’t stretch too far.

Barnes & Noble’s North America-centrism has also caused problems for self-publishing authors who live outside the US. Diane Duane would have published some works through B&N except that “I can’t publish directly into the Nook store because I don’t have a US bank account, so the heck with you until you sort yourself out, B&N.”

One would think that, as much as bookstores have been financially struggling lately (including B&N itself, which tried putting itself up for sale but couldn’t find a buyer), Barnes & Noble would be trying to expand into international markets before its competitors could completely own them. But I suppose the company must know its own business best.