Every now and again, missives like this one entitled “How the rise of e-readers takes the fun out of giving books” from the Canadian Globe and Mail by Leah McLaren pop up and bounce around the web. They make me chuckle. Their common theme is that, essentially, you can’t wrap ebooks and stick them under your Christmas tree. They are only one step away from those “but what about the smell of books” rants bemoaning the changing of technology. Don’t get me know – if people don’t like ebooks, and enjoy dead trees with words on them, that’s their right. But call a spade...

The ebook-related interwebs are buzzing with news that Mark Coker and his Smashwords ebook-publishing site is adopting the anti-competitive, price-fixing “agency model” favoured by publishing monoliths everywhere. He wrote a long and detailed missive on the Smashwords blog the other day, justifying the move, and if we didn’t know any better, after reading it you’d say his explanation makes sense. But of course he can justify the move. In practice, when buying directly from individual amateur authors, it won’t make much difference. They set their own prices then and now, and would see "discounting" rarely, and on tiny turnover it wouldn't...

A day or so after those in the US finished celebrating Thanksgiving, I had reason to thank my lucky stars for pirates. In particular, the ebook pirate who ripped off my book and posted it on a well-known non-legitimate download site. I’d name the site, but I don’t think that’s the done thing. People can use Google any way they like. I’m a journalist who became an author in 2006 when my book Baby Steps: a Bloke’s-Eye View of IVF was published by a major Australia publisher. It went out in paperback and, as an afterthought – as it was back then...

“Hi everyone, and thanks for tuning in! Welcome to another episode of Publishing Hypocrisy … the game where we show both faces of the bookselling industry!” “Our first contestant tonight - is Jane from Melbourne! Hi Jane.” [Applause] “Hi, Brad! I’m a bit nervous!” “Jane! [Pulls her in close] You’ve got nothing to worry about – you know exactly how the game works … You pick a topic and then simply rank three examples of modern publishing and bookselling hypocrisy in order of heinousness – and hilarity.” “Let’s go to the big board! And you folks at home - don’t forget to play along!” “Well...

Colour me excited. In recent months, a few things have happened in our sunburnt country that have left it teetering on the brink of the ebook mainstream. And they said it would never happen in our backwards, sundrenched, animals-made-from-bits-of-other-animals land. So look out North America, Britain and others … Here are five reasons why we’re about to enter the ebook big-time. (Please suppress any laughter – we’re painfully aware you’ve been enjoying these conditions for years). 1. Amazon just dropped the “Whispernet tax” for Aussies Early this week, some eagle-eyed readers here noticed that books they had on their Kindle wishlists got $A2...

Little more than a day since the launch of paid Aussie titles in Apple’s local iBookstore, Borders has hit back with price cuts across their ebook range. Due to the “old publishing” paradigm of geographical restriction, Borders in Australia can’t formally guarantee to beat Amazon’s price on ebooks, as they do (incl. postage) with paper books. However, a quick check of Borders.com.au reveals that they are selling most books cheaper than Amazon. Parent company REDgroup Retail is the first to sign all of Australia’s major publishers to ebook deals, as well as many of the small indie publishers missing from the iBookstore. In...

Yesterday’s announcement of the first Australian paid content released into Apple’s iBookstore has been met with a mixed response locally. In a market only boasting one major player – REDgroup Retail, with their Angus & Robinson and Borders/Kobo offering – the more the merrier, right? Maybe. Some are worried about Apple propensity to adopt the “agency model” of ebook pricing. Some are underwhelmed by Apple’s initial range, which is said to be 40,000 titles, 10,000 of which are self-published Smashwords books. And others have expressed disappointment at the prices, which seem to be commonly $A12 or above. (Keep in mind the...

Would you buy an ebook if it had advertising embedded in it? No? What about if those ads were full-page ads added at the start and end of the ebooks? No? What about if they meant that the ebooks was free? Hmmmm. Even though the whole concept of advertising embedded in ebooks usually sparks howls of outrage, shortly followed by irate blog flaming, under the above conditions the issue starts to look less black and white. I, for one, would at least try an ebook with a couple of pages of ads at the front or back, if they were whole pages...

Upbeat outlook Despite all the RED(group) ink, the firm’s communications manager Malcolm Neil said the company was “relatively happy with the result in a tough market”. “We took $30m in writedowns, and a large part of that was CD and DVD inventory,” he said. REDgroup's balance sheet also suffered under the weight of a $24m interest payment on borrowing. They also announced a refinancing deal, as Bookseller + Publisher is reporting... Backed by its long-term bank BOS International and new financier Fortress Investment Group that will ‘refinance REDgroup's senior debt to December 2012' and redeem its NZX listed Retail Notes (valued at NZ$35...

Just got an email from the team behindBooki.sh – a new in-browser HTML5 ebook-reading platform. They’re out of Melbourne – Come on, Aussies! – and they’ve used open-source HTML5 Monocle software to create a nice way to read ebooks in you browser – any browser – and/or on your phone. Is it a platform or a bookstore, or both? "A little bit of both," says Joseph Pearson, the software guru behind the project. "Booki.sh is a platform that will power the ebook stores for a number of independent booksellers. Since it doesn't require a particular device and doesn't lock users to a...

Two days ago I had a long exchange with REDgroup Retail’s head of publicity, Malcolm Neil, about the company’s efforts in almost single-handedly dragging the country into the ebook era You can read the post here, but the upshot is that they are currently chasing a deal with Hachette, who are the only publishers in Australia yet to sign a deal to supply ebooks to REDgroup’s brands Borders.com.au, Angus & Robertson and Whitcoulls in New Zealand. A few months ago, the knives were out for REDgroup. A story about their finances broke, was largely beaten up to sound more serious than it...

Hold onto your hats, folks. We have raw data on the Australian digital book industry. Yes – actual data. Which really means we have data on Borders. Locally, Borders are the only ebookseller that has made decent progress in collecting “the full set”. That is, signing contracts with every major of Australian publisher to sell their ebooks. The fact that we are nearing the end of 2010 and no-one has cracked this yetis distressing. But we’ll ignore that whine for now. In talking with harassing REDgroup Retail head of publicity Malcolm Neil, I’ve weasled some data out of him about how many...