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The Nook e-reader: Why B&N needs to hire marketers with dirtier minds
October 20, 2009 | 10:31 am
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By David Rothman
Could B&N be screening its marketing people too well—to filter out job applicants or contractors with dirty minds?
Just how could a leading book chain end up with a name for its e-reader as wildly untoward as “Nook,” the name reported in the New York Times?
Danny Bloom and other skeptics are right on target. I don’t care if Book Nook stores, etc., exist. The N word for the reader just isn’t right, especially if B&N wants to, er, pick up readers in their 20s. You can bet they’re thinking of things to do in bed besides reading.
Beyond that, I’ll be interested to know if the Nook has text-to-speech capabilities. Whether it’s walking or driving, I’m finding the Kindle’s TTS to be more than just a minor wrinkle. Oh, and, as much as dislike Amazon’s DRM and closed approach in general, the name certainly beats that of the B&N reader.
Stay tuned for the press conference today. Will a reporter have the nerve to pop a question about the use of the N word?
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Comments:
I can almost hear this conversation now:
MAN (to pretty female bookseller): Do you have Nook– (coughing)– ee — for sale?
Noble bOOK = NOOK?
But really, how much different is this from any other name, other than the Sony Reader and CyBook? Kindle? iLiad? QUE?
My mind isn’t particularly dirty, and I’m old to be a parent of one of those twentysomethings, but the name made me wince.
I also suggest you look up “nook.” It means something more than a small bookstore chain.
I don’t know why I bother since those of you who are the main writers and commentors for this group never pay attention to the information I post here on the way the book business works and the various legalities involved, but here I go again on the subject of TTS.
The real heart of this mess is that most publishers have no legal right to allow TTS with their books because they haven’t contracted those rights with their authors.
In publishing, rights refer to the different types of format sales for a written work. Some of the rights that can be contracted from an author are the right to publish a paperback version, a hardcover version, an ebook version, and an audio version of a work.
TTS really hasn’t been clarified as a right. Some think it is part of the ebook rights, some audio book rights, and some a right by itself. This can only be decided by a major court case, and the TTS right has so little value that no one will bother to take it to court.
The best, but, unfortunately, the most expensive solution, is for publishers to offer a new contract or codicil to the contract of each author for each book for TTS.
Again, TTS has so little value as a right that I doubt this will happen.
In the case of many of the small publishers, the authors have agreed to allow TTS without it being specified as a right in their contract so the ebook is DRM free. Most of us do this for the sight impaired.
Amazon with its Kindle and the other ebook reader sellers are protecting their legal butts by not having TTS or by blocking it with DRM. That’s a simple legal fact of life you will have to live with until a legal situation is applied.
Que is particularly bad.
I can just see a latin comic doing a whole standup routine about it.
So far most ebook readers have done okay namewise which why Nook is drawing all the smirks:
CyBook’s fine = Cybernetic Book.
Opus is generic but inoffensive.
BeBook’s accurate since the firmware doesn’t really rate an “A”.
Astak EZ Reader Pro has quicky been nicknamed PEZ which is cute.
Sony reader is generic but it beats stuff like PRS 505 or the typical japanese TV model numbers…
Product naming is no science, but it can be good for the occasional chuckle…
Don’t think Nook is going to get as much teasing as Nintendo took for it’s, ahem, “wee Wii”.
@Marilynn: Glad you agree re the e-reader name. Please don’t be put off by our disagreements over TTS. Even Paul and I don’t even agree on certain issues–such as whether the Kindle is an open machine. The idea here is to criticize ideas, not people, and to be civil toward other members of the TeleRead commnity. We have regulars who’ve been coming here for years.
In regard to TTS, yes, it is rather subjective, and there are uncertainties, but from the perspective of both a reader and a writer, I see advantages in letting people do what they want for their own private use. I certainly think Amazon has the resources to go to court to get this clarified, or at least to lobby for clarifying legislation.
Thanks, and hang around, whether you agree or disagree with us on TTS!
David
P.S. You didn’t have a father or uncle who lived in Montana and North Carolina, did you? I don’t know how common “Byerly” is, but a fave prof of mine had that last name.
In regard to TTS, its one of those things that’s hard to explain if you don’t have it and/or don’t use it.
For example, did you ever find yourself trying to explain to a ‘joe six-pack’ why Broadband was so much better than dialup — beyond just: “it’s faster”?
I hear about the Kindle2′s TTS, and thought, ‘meh’. I thought it’s easy to do, so you might as well include it, but I also thought it was something I would never use.
However, as someone who just doesn’t like to put a book down I can tell you it is game changing. I still prefer to read, but now I can listen when I drive the car, when I’m at the gym, or when I’m walking in the dark. And then, I can settle down to the couch and go right back to reading at the spot where the TTS ended.
Personally, I like the name. The device “looks” slick. We’ll see how it performs and if it’s sturdy to survive rigors of being carried around.
What I don’t like is that they will restrict the device to just one store. In the end the customers will vote and we’ll find out what approach is best.
It’s so early in the development in this industry it’s hard to know where we will end up. My feeling is in the end competing technologies to e-ink will result in every device being a ereader and trying to be “proprietary” will be a losing battle.
That is, unless someone become dominant before the competing tech is widespread.
Clint Brauer
General Manager
http://www.cyberread.com
I’m not talking disagreements about the attitude toward TTS, I’m talking the legal aspects of TTS.
As of now, TTS is considered a right by most people in publishing. Those who disagree don’t think its valuable is enough to take the issue to court to decide.
Publishers, unless they specify that right in their contract with their authors, can’t allow its use.
If a publisher allows TTS or some other right that haven’t contracted to be used, they are stealing. If someone else takes this right without the author or publisher’s agreement, they are stealing.
The Author’s Guild attack on Amazon over this issue and Amazon’s backing away from a legal fight proves that this is a real issue, but it isn’t a financially valuable enough issue to be worth a court fight.
In other words, the legal folks define this issue, and what we say or don’t say here doesn’t matter unless we take someone to court about the issue.
Byerly isn’t that common a name. I am one of the few authors at Amazon, for example, with that last name.
My brother, Dr. William Boyce Byerly, has taught at several universities and is currently developing some specialized courses on computer and Internet subjects for a university. My SIL, Dr. Ingrid Byerly, teaches at Duke and UNC in musical anthropology. I have taught at several place, and I currently teach writing online.
Definition for nook via urbandictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nook
If you look “nook” up in a regular dictionary, instead of the slang dictionary link above, you’ll discover that is a small space or corner, often used to store things.
In the American South, we usually pair the word with cranny– “I have looked in every nook and cranny for my car keys.”
If you say out loud “Nook E-Reader”…..
And to think they paid some corporate name/logo artist like the guy who named the Kindle around US$100,000 or more, just for a name, and a rather sexual name like NOOK, aka Nookie, “let’s have some nookie tonight, Honey!” — how could BN be so “in the dark” on this?
Sure, breakfast nook, attic nook, as an architectural term, it’s nice and comfy and homey….a good place to curl up with a book, er, e-book, so one level, it is a great name, perfect name, and since BN already has their Book Nook club, it makes inhouse sense.
But BN, there’s a big world out there, and Jay Leno and David Letterman are gonna have a field day with this. I only have one word to say: oi
Yes, Marilyn, on the first level, you are right: nook and cranny, i have used that term all my life (1949-2032) and breakfast nook and attic nook, a small space to store things, a corner space, yes.
But MB, we live in a world of sex-crazed hormone-fueld teenagers too (not to mention the rest of us!) and that was just a poor choice of words. But then again, nobody cottoned to Google when that word first came out, and nobody cottoned to Kleenex when that first came out, and nobody liked Kindle when that word was first announced, so maybe you are right, NOOK will catch on slowly, step by step, dirty minds be damned!
But still, $100,000 to pay someone to come up with that name? Why not just call it The Barn…..? Has a nice ring to it, no? Send the check BN ty my cave in Taiwan at PO BOX, oh, forget it, NOOK it is!
David, so dish: Did ….”a reporter have the nerve to pop a question about the use of the N word?”
Did anyone ask about the name and what was the response, other than blushing cheeks?
I am now told by someone who was the press con that:
“No, nobody mentioned it. It would have been in rather bad taste to bring it up.”
I am now told by someone who was at the press con that:
“No, nobody mentioned it. It would have been in rather bad taste to bring it up.”
It could simply be a generational thing; I’m pretty sure nookie wasn’t in common usage in the 19th century…
“Nook E-reader”…
Yeah, that does induce the odd giggle…
Oh, I picked up on the sexual context immediately. I was just commenting that the urban slang site listed here only had the slang definitions.
According to my copy of AMERICAN SLANG and several other of my slang research books, “nookie” or “nooky” came into use in England in the 1880s and gained popularity in America in the 1920s.
Most people think of the Victorians as prudes, but a majority of our sexual slang comes from that period.
Talk about “nookie” aside, I do have to admit that—thanks to the power of association—the word “nook” does tend to evoke book-related imagery in my head in a way that “kindle” does not (apart from perhaps using paper books to start a fire).
That’s something anyway.
Hey I’m in my 20s and “nookie” isn’t the first thing I thought of when I heard about the Nook. The word “nook” is a pretty common word. “I searched every nook and cranny.” I think it’s a great name… makes me think of a little corner where someone curls up with a book.