Ideal e-Book Reading Device
Posted on July 27, 2010
It’s increasingly evident that book publishing is undergoing a fundamental transformation. First, for two-and-a-half years Amazon.com pioneered the e-book market toward critical mass, largely keeping industry statistics to themselves. Second, the March iPad launch accelerated matters by initiating an irrevocable chain reaction that has only just begun. Cascading new developments seem to materialize monthly, if not faster.
For example, by unit volume June e-book sales at Amazon.com were eighty-percent greater than hard covers. Earlier this month notable authors such as Pat Conroy and Philip Roth contracted with powerful agents to publish their pre-Internet-era novels as e-books. The arrangement circumvents traditional publishers and increases author royalties. Simultaneously e-book reading devices are proliferating and prices are dropping. Visiting a typical Barnes & Noble store symbolically underscores the magnitude of change. As the leading terrestrial book chain few companies could be more dependent upon physical book sales. Nonetheless, each store now normally exhibits the Nook electronic reader prominently at the entrance. Read more…
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Rewriting Apple’s History
Posted on February 6, 2010
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As Mark Twain put it, “Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest don’t happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.” Normally the winners write history, but Apple’s success and lofty stock price has given a number of media executives a bad case of P/E envy. They’re distorting the past by accusing Apple of dictating terms of media consumption on the Internet.
For example, when Apple convinced the recorded music industry to sell digital downloads in 2003 it allocated seventy percent of the sales proceeds to the record labels and music publishers. One might suppose a business partner would be happy with a 70% share of incremental revenues, especially when that partner incurs almost no added cost. Perhaps they actually were smugly pleased with the deal originally. Maybe they figured Apple had been suckered into giving them more than twice as much as it kept for itself. Read more…
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A Christmas Lesson for Publishers
Posted on December 19, 2009
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One February night in 1938 Philip Van Doren Stern had a dream. The 38 year-old published historian also had a deep interest in fantasy and the macabre. As with most dreams his morning recollections were vague and conflicting. It had something to do with a man who had never been born, or wished he had never been born.
Stern decided to write down his recollections. A narrative began to take shape and with later revisions became a short story he titled The Greatest Gift. It was a simple celebration of things taken for granted. Read more…
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