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Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Jane Friedman, author, publisher, agent, books, publishing, digital, ebooks

By Porter Ander­son | @Porter_Anderson

 

From May 17, 2012

Part of my series of columns on pub­lish­ing, Writ­ing on the Ether, appear­ing Thurs­days at the invi­ta­tion of Jane Fried­man at JaneFriedman.com

 

Rumors of Water by LL BarkatRumors of Water:
Thoughts on Cre­ativ­ity & Writing

Named a Best Book of 2011: Engle­wood Review of Books and Hearts & Minds Books

“I read it in three sit­tings. Then I read it again. It’s a beau­ti­ful book, eas­ily my favorite book on writ­ing since Bird by Bird.”

—author Kim­ber­lee Con­way Ireton

Find out more on Ama­zon and down­load a sam­ple to your Kindle.

The Dance Darkens

The class-action suit in ques­tion is the one brought by a num­ber of US states, filed on the same day (April 11) as the Depart­ment of Justice’s own action against the com­pa­nies. The num­ber of states involved in the class has since bal­looned from 16 to 31.

Jacqui Cheng, writ­ing from the Ars Tech­nica van­tage point in Judge: Ample evi­dence that Apple “know­ingly joined” e-book con­spir­acy, looks first, of course, for the tech-defendant’s posi­tion after Tuesday’s U.S. Dis­trict Court opinion.

Not a pretty sight. Cheng’s second-deck headline:

Apple hasn’t been found guilty yet, but the judge’s com­ments don’t bode well.

DOJ Law­suit Update: Where Win­dow­ing Becomes Impor­tant http://t.co/F3XdGjLt by @ #TOCCN #Fol­lowReader
Wednes­day 16 May 12 14:31 via bitlyReplyRetweetFavorite
@toc
Tools of Change

 

Ali­son Frankel at Reuters Legal is even clearer in her head­line: Rul­ing in ebooks class action is blow to defense in DoJ antitrust suit. Frankel writes:

The pub­lish­ers were hop­ing that the class action didn’t meet the high plead­ing stan­dard for antitrust com­plaints under the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, but (US Dis­trict Court Judge Denise) Cote found there were plenty of the spe­cific, well-supported alle­ga­tions of col­lu­sion that Twombly demands.

Jim Mil­liot at Pub­lish­ers Weekly head­lined his story with as lit­tle emo­tion as pos­si­ble: Court Rejects Motions to Dis­miss Class Action Against Apple, Pub­lish­ers. He main­tained an admirable level of restraint through­out his write:

In her deci­sion to let the civil suit move into the dis­cov­ery phase, Judge Cote wrote that the suit “plau­si­bly alleges that Apple and the Pub­lisher Defen­dants took part in a con­spir­acy in restraint of trade, that an object of this con­spir­acy was to raise prices for eBooks, and that this restraint was unrea­son­able per se.”

Judge Cote had, as Mil­liot wrote, “rejected all of Apple and the pub­lish­ers’ argu­ments to dismiss.”

ugly “truth” about how agency pric­ing came to be — it blows your mind; this is not clu­bish­ness, this IS col­lu­sion #in http://t.co/SfxnTYAO
Wednes­day 16 May 12 07:07 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@arhomberg
Andrew Rhomberg

 

Judge comes down hard on pub­lish­ers, Apple in e-book case, wrote paidContent’s Jeff John Roberts.

Cote’s opin­ion is at times remark­able for the emphatic lan­guage in which she decries the alleged conspiracy.…(Her) opin­ion is at times remark­able for the emphatic lan­guage in which she decries the alleged conspiracy.

Roberts adds:

Three of the pub­lish­ers (Hachette, Harper Collins and Simon & Schus­ter) have already set­tled an antitrust law­suit with the Depart­ment of Jus­tice and agreed to change their pric­ing prac­tices. The three pub­lish­ers are also in nego­ti­a­tions with state gov­ern­ments under which they are likely to pay tens of mil­lions in con­sumer resti­tu­tion. In plain Eng­lish, this means that peo­ple who bought an e-book in the last few years may receive a small set­tle­ment payment.

Why does Judge Denise Cote want to give the future of pub­lish­ing to Ama­zon? http://t.co/ytJbIjhg via @ @
Wednes­day 16 May 12 12:31 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@RavenRequiem13
PW Creighton

 

Robert’s paid­Con­tent col­league Laura Haz­ard Owen looked over the states’ amended com­plaint paper­work and found that por­tions that had been redacted in April (for unknown rea­sons) now has been left vis­i­ble. Her write is head­lined As 17 more states join class action against book pub­lish­ers and Apple, new details revealed.

For exam­ple:

“The Club”: In Sep­tem­ber 2009 as the pub­lish­ers con­sid­ered “win­dow­ing,” or stag­ger­ing the print and dig­i­tal releases of a book, they “ref­er­enced them­selves in one email as ‘the Club!’” This was in ref­er­ence to win­dow­ing dis­cus­sions and not to agency pric­ing dis­cus­sions with Apple.

@ Because they couldn’t remem­ber the word ‘car­tel’ at the time?
Mon­day 14 May 12 16:31 via Tweet­DeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@DonLinn
Don Linn

 

Indeed, much of the “stu­pid DoJ!” crowd noises that had fol­lowed the orig­i­nal fil­ing in April were miss­ing this week. An email list or two had a few spir­ited exchanges, but with­out the feisty, devil-may-care, you-call-that-collusion? wit we’d seen for a month. Some called the newly revealed bit of the com­plaint in Owen’s story “damn­ing.” Oth­ers took issue with the term.

More fuss, less debate, this time. #haha at best. No #hahaha’s to be heard. It got more seri­ous this week.

And Michael Cader at Pub­lish­ers Lunch wrapped some pretty painful sobri­ety in the  grace of clar­ity. In Judge Cote Rejects Motions to Dis­miss Agency Class Action Suit; Shows Sym­pa­thy for the Plain­tiffs, his rea­soned, help­ful assessment:

The ini­tial read of Tuesday’s rul­ing can only give encour­age­ment to the plain­tiffs and pause to the defen­dants (and their defend­ers) at this stage, as Judge Cote con­fi­dently swats away all of the argu­ments made by the defen­dants in their dis­missal motions.

Cader went even fur­ther, in order to assist book-biz observers parse legal implications:

Some peo­ple in the book indus­try won­dered how a case could be built around mostly cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence and infer­ences, but Judge Cote writes that since “unlaw­ful con­spir­a­cies tend to form in secret, such proof will rarely con­sist of explicit agreements.”

Indeed, Cader explained, Cotes has gone to some length on the lay assump­tion that cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence might be inadequate.

She (Judge Cote) cites case law that indi­cates “the antitrust plain­tiff should present direct or cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence that rea­son­ably tends to prove that the [defen­dant] and oth­ers had a con­scious com­mit­ment to a com­mon scheme designed to achieve an unlaw­ful objective.”

Thirty-one states are now suing Apple and pub­lish­ers over ebook pric­ing http://t.co/BgFpy7LO
Tues­day 15 May 12 09:30 via Hoot­SuiteReplyRetweetFavorite
@NiemanLab
Nie­man Lab

 

The dance being cel­e­brated in Mon­te­v­ideo in our lead Ether image above is a tango, “La cumpar­sita.” You’d know it if you heard it. The 95th anniver­sary of this work by Ger­ardo Matos Rodriguez — orig­i­nally a car­ni­val march — arrived on April 19. Our photo was taken at an event held on the site of the song’s orig­i­nal per­for­mance, at a cafe, La Giralda.

The tango’s open­ing lyric, by Pas­cual Con­tursi, seems to speak to how things felt this week in our unhealthy indus­try. In one translation:

The masked parade
of end­less mis­eries
prom­e­nades
around that sick being…

Click to read this week’s full Writ­ing on the Ether col­umn at JaneFriedman.com.

As 17 more states join e-book class action, prev. redacted details revealed–including Steve Jobs e-mail & B&N deets http://t.co/6ZzMAdRJ
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@laurahazardowen
Laura Haz­ard Owen

 

Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com

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author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of Water, George Davis, Kevin Franco, FrancoMedia, Enthrill Books, PackaDRM, social DRM, watermark, Pottermore, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter

By Porter Ander­son | @Porter_Anderson

From May 10, 2012

Part of my series of columns on pub­lish­ing, Writ­ing on the Ether, appear­ing Thurs­days at the invi­ta­tion of Jane Fried­man at JaneFriedman.com

Rumors of Water by LL BarkatRumors of Water:
Thoughts on Cre­ativ­ity & Writing

Named a Best Book of 2011: Engle­wood Review of Books and Hearts & Minds Books

“I read it in three sit­tings. Then I read it again. It’s a beau­ti­ful book, eas­ily my favorite book on writ­ing since Bird by Bird.”

—author Kim­ber­lee Con­way Ireton

Find out more on Ama­zon and down­load a sam­ple to your Kindle.

Ether Exclu­sive: New Pack­aDRM in the room

We want it to be friendly. It’s all about remind­ing the cus­tomer. We don’t believe that read­ers are pirates.

Hang on. Or as Tarzan would say to a heav­ing ele­phant, “Umgawa!” Won­der if say­ing that to our fine pub­lish­ing obsesserati could slow them down, too.

Putting our mes­sag­ing in there where it’s vis­i­ble reminds them, “You’ve made a bind­ing con­tract with the pub­lisher, with the author.” It’s in the fore­front of the reader expe­ri­ence. It makes them aware, so they won’t share the file.

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of Water, George Davis, Kevin Franco, FrancoMedia, Enthrill Books, PackaDRM, social DRM, watermark, Pottermore, J.K. Rowling, Harry PotterKevin Franco of Calgary’s Enthrill Books has come to the Ether, wise man that he is, to announce to you that Pack­aDRM is going to be made avail­able to pub­lish­ers and to authors who might be inter­ested in using it.

And we’re pack­ag­ing “DRM,” but not Dig­i­tal Rights Man­age­ment. This is Dig­i­tal Rights Mes­sag­ing.

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of Water, George Davis, Kevin Franco, FrancoMedia, Enthrill Books, PackaDRM, social DRM, watermark, Pottermore, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter

Kevin Franco of Enthrill Books and PackaDRM

Pack­aDRM is being devel­oped as part of Enthrill Books, which we wrote about it on the Ether at the end of the year.

Fresh off “Day Against DRM” with Joe Wik­ert and Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media lead­ing the non-DRM charge, plenty of our col­leagues are still dri­ving around with “Death to DRM!” plac­ards in their car trunks.

So let Franco get this much across to you, empha­sis mine:

We’re not try­ing to con­vert peo­ple who are work­ing in strict DRM. And we’re not try­ing to con­vert peo­ple from no-DRM.

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of Water, George Davis, Kevin Franco, FrancoMedia, Enthrill Books, PackaDRM, social DRM, watermark, Pottermore, J.K. Rowling, Harry PotterSee, no push­ing or shov­ing is nec­es­sary. Turn off your bull­horns. What­ever posi­tion you may occupy regard­ing DRM, carry on. Here’s what he wants to say:

What’s impor­tant is that if you’re going to select “social DRM” or water­mark­ing, we’ve come up with the best solu­tion. In water­mark­ing, we think we have a game-changer, the most effec­tive way to use “social DRM.”

To under­stand what Franco’s doing, think Pot­ter­more. (More­Pot­ter­More is com­ing up later in the Ether, too, for you Har­ried ones.)

A part of what’s made Pot­ter­more such a pants-wetting story in pub­lish­ing is that Jo Rowling’s ebooks are non-DRM. They are water­marked. So what does this mean? This means you can get a non-DRM copy of a Pot­ter book (eight copies for one price, in fact, in P’more’s case) and read each copy of that Har­ry­ness on any device you’d like. It’s not locked to a Kin­dle or a Nook or Kobo or your Android refrig­er­a­tor door screen. How­ever, the “water­mark” encodes infor­ma­tion about you as the buyer into the book. So if the copy water­marked to you turns up on a pirate Web site, Hog­warts knows it’s your ver­sion that is in ille­gal hands. You might want a Cloak of Invis­i­bil­ity then.

And this is gen­er­ally called “social DRM.”

be hon­est: you were expect­ing some­thing more from the super moon.
Sun­day 6 May 12 02:06 via Twit­ter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite
@booksquare
Kas­sia Krozser

 

Here’s a lit­tle help from Jelly­books’ Andrew Rhomberg on the terms here. I have his per­mis­sion to quote him from his recent com­ments about DRM on a bois­ter­ous pri­vate email list:

Adobe ebook DRM and sim­i­lar schemes are a form of Restric­tive Access Tech­nol­ogy (RAT) in that they restrict end-users from how they can use the ebook they “bought” (tech­ni­cally speak­ing, licensed).

True DRM restricts how you can use your ebook — by whom and on which device.

Rhomberg goes on, by contrast:

Watermarking…does not restrict access in any way, which is a huge advan­tage to the reader (a.k.a. buyer/consumer/end-user). Dig­i­tal fin­ger­print­ing (water­mark­ing) is a tech­nol­ogy for mak­ing usage track­able and hence TRAC is maybe a more descrip­tive acronym than “social DRM.”

So what Franco is talk­ing about, in Rhombergese, is TRAC. You are not restricted on how you use your ebook. Your copy, how­ever, can be tracked.

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of Water, George Davis, Kevin Franco, FrancoMedia, Enthrill Books, PackaDRM, social DRM, watermark, Pottermore, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter

Pack­aDRM places a greet­ing and expla­na­tion for the reader at the start of each book. Click for a read­able size.

If Franco had a chance to breathe Ether with Char­lie Red­mayne, CEO of all Pot­ter­more, how might he explain the dif­fer­ence in most water­mark­ing (“TRAC”) “social DRM” pro­grams and his PackaDRM?

Well, in addi­tion to the trasac­tion ID inserted into the ebook — the one that makes your ebook TRAC-able to you if it gets into pirately hands — Pack­aDRM dis­plays very vis­i­ble mes­sages to the reader at the begin­ning and end of the book. Franco:

The mes­sage can be cus­tomized by the pub­lisher and con­tain infor­ma­tion from the ebook file in com­bi­na­tion with the consumer’s information.

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of Water, George Davis, Kevin Franco, FrancoMedia, Enthrill Books, PackaDRM, social DRM, watermark, Pottermore, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter

Pack­aDRM also places a reminder state­ment to the reader at the end of an ebook. Click for a read­able size.

Front and back of the book. A spe­cial mes­sage, com­plete with the customer’s email address. Here’s an exam­ple of the text:

This book is yours to read and it’s reg­is­tered to you alone — see how we’ve embed­ded your email address to it? This mes­sage serves as a reminder that trans­fer­ring dig­i­tal files such as this book to third par­ties is pro­hib­ited by inter­na­tional copy­right law. … If you think some­one you know would love it (the book in ques­tion), rec­om­mend it to him or her and let them know where they can pick up their very own. When they are done, you can meet up for a cof­fee or tea and discuss!

Per­mis­sion granted: you may discuss.

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of Water, George Davis, Kevin Franco, FrancoMedia, Enthrill Books, PackaDRM, social DRM, watermark, Pottermore, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter

Image: Samir (the scope) / CC

As I told Franco, this is very Cana­dian stuff. (One of his own board mem­bers said the same thing, it turns out, so I don’t feel too crassly Amer­i­can for mak­ing the obser­va­tion.) It turns out that Cana­dian cor­dial­ity comes in with an expressly respect­ful tone — exactly what Franco is after here.

That word­ing took a long time to set­tle on. We had to get the mes­sage across in a firm way, but at the same time, we have to respect the rela­tion­ship between the reader, the pub­lisher, the author. Respect for the reader — the cus­tomer — is ter­ri­bly important.

Brian O’Leary, ear­lier this week, wrote in The Sky Is Ris­ing, about the Macmillan/Tor deci­sion to stop using DRM.

If I sound cau­tiously opti­mistic, it reflects a sense that the tide has not turned when it comes to the use of DRM or the study of the true impact of piracy. As I’ve cov­ered before, DRM locks pub­lish­ers and read­ers into spe­cific plat­forms. It does not sup­press piracy. Link­ing the two, as many com­men­tors did when Macmil­lan made the announce­ment, con­flates two dif­fer­ent activities.

And oth­ers have spo­ken out this week in var­i­ous con­ver­sa­tions, with a clar­i­fi­ca­tion that the DRM issue really doesn’t dove­tail well with those who’d like to back the car over Jeff Bezos. As one astute observer puts it: “There are many rea­sons not to use DRM, but it seems that the dream of drop­ping DRM and tak­ing down Ama­zon is highly improbable.”

So why “PackaDRM?”

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of Water, George Davis, Kevin Franco, FrancoMedia, Enthrill Books, PackaDRM, social DRM, watermark, Pottermore, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter

Mat­teo Berluc­chi / Photo: Anobii

Franco was with many of us at New York’s Dig­i­tal Book World Con­fer­ence in Jan­u­ary, when Mike Shatzkin staged Anobii’s Mat­teo Berluc­chi in a major denun­ci­a­tion of DRM. As I wrote then on the Ether: “DRM went from gum on a shoe to a rebel yell once Mat­teo Berluc­chi was given the floor.”

And Franco tells me he remem­bers exactly how Berluc­chi started his pre­sen­ta­tion to the conference:

Berluc­chi said, “Let’s talk about the ele­phant in the room.”

For more info on the Pack­aDRM in this room, be in touch with Franco. His col­umn, just out with the Ether, on the sub­ject is Pack­aged Dig­i­tal Rights Mes­sag­ing.

Click to read this week’s full Writ­ing on the Ether col­umn at JaneFriedman.com.

We sold 22,000 ebooks in our #DayA­gain­st­DRM cel­e­bra­tion. Not bad, con­sid­er­ing how other pub­lish­ers think they need DRM to make peo­ple pay
Sat­ur­day 5 May 12 10:09 via bitlyReplyRetweetFavorite
@timoreilly
Tim O’Reilly

Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com

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author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Sotheby's, The Scream, Edvard Munch, Fran Toolan, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of Water

By Porter Ander­son | @Porter_Anderson

From May 3, 2012

Part of my series of columns on pub­lish­ing, Writ­ing on the Ether, appear­ing Thurs­days at the invi­ta­tion of Jane Fried­man at JaneFriedman.com

 

Note from Jane: For the first time ever, you will notice a spon­sor this month for Writ­ing on the Ether by Porter Ander­son. Our ini­tial spon­sor is L.L. Barkat, author of Rumors of Water, as well as the man­ag­ing edi­tor behind Tweet­s­peak Poetry. I am grate­ful to Laura for offer­ing her sup­port of this weekly fea­ture, which takes con­sid­er­able time and effort to deliver. Thank you!

Rumors of Water by LL BarkatRumors of Water:
Thoughts on Cre­ativ­ity & Writing

Named a Best Book of 2011: Engle­wood Review of Books and Hearts & Minds Books

“I read it in three sit­tings. Then I read it again. It’s a beau­ti­ful book, eas­ily my favorite book on writ­ing since Bird by Bird.”

—author Kim­ber­lee Con­way Ireton

Find out more on Ama­zon and down­load a sam­ple to your Kindle.

Worth more than a thou­sand words

Microsoft Mon­day had them all bet­ting on Barnes & Noble’s chances.

Screamin’ Mike Cane raised everyone’s blood pres­sure with an imme­di­ate pooh-pooh, lack­ing only the caps-lock of his tweets, in Microsoft Reduces Nook To An App For $300M:

Barnes & Noble doesn’t real­ize it yet, but Microsoft just stole their col­lege text­book busi­ness and wiped out the Nook tablets.

Ver­ti­cal that it is, every­thing was look­ing up at Dig­i­tal Book World, Jeremy Green­field man­ning the pom­poms in Pos­si­bil­i­ties Abound in Microsoft, Barnes & Noble Deal:

Imag­ine a Windows-powered Nook tablet that breaks the iOS and Android stran­gle­hold on the mobile device market.

Thad McIl­roy, came up with an “inspir­ing haiku-styled poem,” based on part of the Microsoft-B&N press release:

With rapid growth
To solid­ify our posi­tion
A leader in an explod­ing mar­ket
Our excit­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion
Our world-class tech­nolo­gies
and content

It is the begin­ning of a jour­ney
For our com­ple­men­tary assets
We’re at the cusp of a revolution

But McIlroy’s piece was head­lined Barnes & Noble Mar­ries Microsoft, and described the “strate­gic part­ner­ship” this way:

Two losers stum­bling to the altar with­out brides­maids or witnesses…Worse still it’s a mar­riage of the Hat­fields and the McCoys. They were feud­ing some­thing nasty, and if they hadn’t exchanged vows they were about to exchange bullets.

Another view of the record-breaking #Scream at our post sale press con­fer­ence tonight. http://t.co/LK7g4XyH
Wednes­day 2 May 12 23:13 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@Sothebys
Sotheby’s

 

Mary Jo Foley at CNET was in and out of her Could Microsoft-B&N deal fore­tell Win­dows 8-powered Nook? as answers to ques­tions turned up. (Part of report­ing in the dig­i­tal age is that you have to pub­lish before either shoe drops. I’m impressed with how clearly Foley updates her mate­r­ial in the body of the story.)

Was today’s cre­ation of NewCo pred­i­cated on B&N set­tling with Microsoft? Does B&N still have to pay Microsoft roy­al­ties on every Nook sold as part of the set­tle­ment? (Update: The answer to that one is yes, accord­ing to a Microsoft spokesper­son.) No word on any of these ques­tions so far…

Clear, con­cise. Way to keep up.

Art prices. They’re a scream. RT @: The Scream that shat­tered an art world record http://t.co/tnKb5Let #the­scream
Thurs­day 3 May 12 06:15 via Twit­ter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

 

At Pub­lish­ers Lunch, Sarah Wein­man ably made the ini­tial announce­ment, of course, in BN Puts Nook and Col­lege Busi­ness Into New Sub­sidiary, With Microsoft Invest­ing $300 Mil­lion, quot­ing Microsoft’s pres­i­dent, Andy Lees, saying:

We’re going to have a larger role to play than just being the plat­form provider; that’s what this part­ner­ship allows us to do.

Weinman’s col­league Michael Cader then went to work in the fol­lowup, Is the Barnes & Noble Spin­off Really A Leave Behind?

Many in the pub­lish­ing world greeted yesterday’s news with excite­ment that the Nook busi­ness is assured of sub­stan­tial fund­ing in order to both com­pete and grow, and is aligned with the inter­ests of a cash rich tech­nol­ogy com­pany. Rather than a spin-off of Nook and asso­ci­ated busi­nesses, how­ever, peo­ple may come to the rea­soned con­clu­sion that Barnes & Noble is really prepar­ing to leave behind the retail stores, quar­an­tined in a unit of their own.

The 120 mil­lion dol­lar emoti­con: 😱 #the­scream
Thurs­day 3 May 12 02:51 via Twit­ter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
@Ryyyan_
Ryan Giroux

Laura Haz­ard Owen duti­fully quoted B&N’s CEO happy-talking in her timely Microsoft invests $300m in Barnes & Noble’s Nook; more e-books for Win­dows. The quotes here are William Lynch’s:

Part of that expan­sion is a Nook app for Win­dows 8, “which will extend the reach of Barnes & Noble’s dig­i­tal book­store by pro­vid­ing one of the world’s largest dig­i­tal cat­a­logues of e-books, mag­a­zines and news­pa­pers to hun­dreds of mil­lions of Win­dows cus­tomers in the U.S. and internationally.”

Being in the sale­room when a big pic­ture sells is amaz­ing #the­scream ($107m)-memories of days @ when Van Gogh & Picasso went crazy
Thurs­day 3 May 12 01:58 via Twit­ter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
@VintageExpert
Kather­ine Higgins

 

Look hard at the CNN­Money inter­view JP Man­galin­dan did with Lynch — Barnes & Noble CEO: NFC com­ing to the Nook — and you’ll find Lynch appar­ently includ­ing self-publishing authors in his “hun­dreds of thou­sands of publishers.”

Really the most valu­able part is a vast dig­i­tal con­tent repos­i­tory that we’ve built with our rela­tion­ships with now hun­dreds of thou­sands of publishers…

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram, Sotheby's, The Scream, Edvard Munch, Fran Toolan, Jason Allen Ashlock, Rachelle Gardner, auction, L.L. Barkat, Rumors of WaterWhile Laura Daw­son in B&N and Microsoft joined the shove-off cho­rus –“I do believe the @Nook arm will be spun off sep­a­rately from the B&N moth­er­ship” — she had good com­pany in Jay Yarow at Busi­nessIn­sider in Microsoft Is Invest­ing $300 Mil­lion In Barnes & Noble! who con­curred, and added: “Amus­ingly, Barnes & Noble’s entire mar­ket cap was $792 mil­lion at the time of the investment.”

#the­scream Art “means noth­ing if it sim­ply dec­o­rates the din­ner table of the power which holds it hostage.”
Thurs­day 3 May 12 01:35 via Twit­ter for Black­Berry®ReplyRetweetFavorite
@d_w_wright
Daniel W Wright

 

Kevin C. Tofel at GigaOM joined Philp Jones at The­Fu­ture­Book in recall­ing ear­lier efforts in ebooks by Microsoft.

Jones, in Microsoft look­ing to be third time lucky in its bid for ebooks, wrote:

Twelve years ago I attended the first ever Frank­furt E-book Awards, a lav­ish evening held at the Frank­furt Opera House…At the time Microsoft was tout­ing its Microsoft® Reader with ClearType™ dis­play tech­nol­ogy that allowed dig­i­tal books to be read on home com­put­ers (this was pre-smart phones and pre-tablets).

The drama! RT @: Seven bid­ders bat­tled for more than twelve min­utes for Munch’s #The­Scream
Wednes­day 2 May 12 20:23 via Echo­fonReplyRetweetFavorite
@hannahtpsky
Han­nah Thomas-Peter

 

Joe Wik­ert at O’Reilly Media, in B&N and Microsoft: Why It’s Not About Ebooks, spec­u­lated on how B&N’s brick-and-mortar stores could come into play:

What if B&N stores added mini Microsoft Stores in each of their loca­tions? The foot traf­fic is already there and what a great place to show­case and sell that new Win­dows 8-based nook they’ll undoubt­edly create…Xbox is one of the bright­est stars in the Microsoft prod­uct portfolio…Given the ongo­ing decline of print book sales it might make a lot of sense for B&N to reduce their super­store title count inven­tory and make even more room for that Microsoft sec­tion I described above.

It’s inter­est­ing that Wik­ert was one of the few who men­tioned Ama­zon at any length in the con­text of the Microsoft-B&N news. And even as he was talk­ing about ter­res­trial stores — and the fact, of course, that Ama­zon doesn’t have any nor want any — CNBC was run­ning a quick-vote viewer poll, ask­ing, “If Barnes and Noble goes extinct, what would you do with all that real estate?”

Sotheby’s pretty much cleared out after #the­scream. $BID should get a nice pop in the morning.
Wednes­day 2 May 12 20:52 via Twit­ter for AndroidReplyRetweetFavorite
@coombscnbc
Bertha Coombs

 

A good bit of real estate away from CNBC’s stu­dios, Eoin Pur­cell in Dublin was tak­ing the broader look, On THE Plat­form And What That Means.

Purcell’s not talk­ing author plat­form­ing here, by the way, but dig­i­tal plat­forms. I like the quick-view line-up of plat­form assets he puts together here to open his piece:

When you look at this ebook game from a dis­tance it seems to make a lit­tle sense:

1) Microsoft & NewCo. [for the moment, the name of the entity formed with B&N] = 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

Pur­cell then goes on to note that while each of the major play­ers has “some fash­ion of a flaw,” the entire exer­cise of adding up can­non vs. bat­ter­ing rams is largely pointless.

Just as Google is fail­ing to main­tain its grip on atten­tion and Face­book is grow­ing stronger every day, some­one will rise to take Facebook’s place and then another will rise to take theirs. This imper­ma­nence of pre­dom­i­nance is, for me, a defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of the web, and it is dri­ven by the incred­i­bly low to non-existent bar­ri­ers to entry online because the WEB IS THE PLATFORM, which fos­ters com­pe­ti­tion, inno­va­tion and experimentation.

Can’t wait for my new pur­chase to be deliv­ered– shouldn’t be allowed to online shop a $120 mil­lion later and a new paint­ing #the­scream
Thurs­day 3 May 12 06:36 via Twit­ter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
@letitiataylor
Leti­tia Taylor

 

Now, take a breath. Fre­quently one of the com­ments I get from Eth­er­nauts is that they feel their heads are spin­ning after read­ing the weekly gas. Light-headed? Are you ready to believe my announce­ment that Apple and Amana are team­ing up to intro­duce Iced iPads, and just in time for summer?

Good. Then you’re ready to lis­ten to Fran Toolan. And so am I.

@ stan­dards are already break­ing down in the walled gar­dens of ebooks. you know that as well as anyone
Wednes­day 2 May 12 14:42 via Tweet­DeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@ftoolan
Fran Toolan

 

Pub­lish­ing: The here and now

In his sharply ground­ing piece, The Book Indus­try is Dead, Long Live the Book Cus­tomer, Toolan of Fire­brand Tech­nolo­gies starts with the gemut­lichkeit out there on Ninth Avenue:

Microsoft’s part­ner­ship with Barnes & Noble is prob­a­bly wel­come news in many pub­lish­ers’ board­rooms. After all, this rep­re­sents the hope that some­one can loosen Amazon’s grip on read­ing pub­lic and hence loosen the grip on those that sup­ply that con­tent. But does any­one really think that Microsoft is get­ting into the book game because they care about books?

“Relent­less” comes to mind, as Toolan just scrubs the silly grin right off the moment.

If any­thing, Microsoft going into busi­ness with Barnes & Noble sig­nals some­thing more omi­nous in my opin­ion. It sig­nals Barnes & Nobles’ depar­ture from the book indus­try and for­mal entrance into the tech­nol­ogy industry.

There’s some courage here, as Toolan talks about years when “every­one was happy to live in a bub­ble called the book industry.”

We were free to cre­ate our own rules, set our own stan­dards, and be proud that our work was not only for profit, but was sort of a pub­lic ser­vice. There was always con­tention between the pub­lish­ers and the retail com­mu­nity, but it was gen­teel, as each side real­ized that they ulti­mately needed the other to survive.

In recount­ing what has hap­pened, Toolan observes the rise of the Inter­net, the multi-channeling of dig­i­tal dis­tri­b­u­tion, the Bor­ders collapse.

The result, aside from Barnes & Noble, (is that) the four or five largest cus­tomers of every pub­lisher have com­pletely turned over into dif­fer­ent enti­ties. Even the major whole­salers, Ingram and Baker & Tay­lor, who were used and abused by Ama­zon, are in deep peril as the num­ber of retail part­ners they have con­tinue to dimin­ish. The new behe­moths are all tech­nol­ogy com­pa­nies, Ama­zon, Apple, Google, and to a far lesser extent, Sony.

Which sets the stage for Toolan’s coup de grace:

With Barnes & Nobles’ depar­ture to the tech­nol­ogy indus­try, I think it’s fair to say that book indus­try that we all know and love is on its deathbed.

Could Microsoft influ­ence B&N to deeply dis­count nooks w/ 2-year con­tent pur­chase require­ment like Xbox plan? http://t.co/7peFYoXS #TOC­con
Wednes­day 2 May 12 14:35 via Tweet­DeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@jwikert
Joe Wik­ert

 

There is, how­ever, in Toolan’s purview, what might be called dif­fi­cult hope.

The good news is that cus­tomers for books and book-like prod­ucts are still out there, con­sum­ing as much as ever…What we need to rec­og­nize is that the rules have all changed, our stan­dards and trade orga­ni­za­tions are los­ing their rel­e­vance every day, and that really the new retail giants do have some objec­tives in align­ment with those of publishers.

I’d like to rec­om­mend this to our good col­league Mike Shatzkin, who’s ask­ing in a col­umn this week what’s needed in the DBW Con­fer­ence next year. This is an hon­est con­fer­ence scene-setter, if ever there was one. I’d like to see DBW con­sider mak­ing it the lead blurb for the con­fer­ence. Here you go:

To sur­vive and thrive, pub­lish­ers need to accept their demoted sta­tus in the bal­ance of power and move on… Pub­lish­ers need to work with the new retail giants in order to best under­stand how to build, mar­ket, and pro­mote their prod­ucts in a way that achieves the max­i­mum return for all involved.

I’m going to get us back to our big theme here — the indus­try! the indus­try! — in a bit. And we’ll be hear­ing more from Shatzkin. If you’d like to move right on to those parts of the Ether, just use the table of con­tents above to drop down to the sec­tions with “Pub­lish­ing” in their titles.

If you’re feel­ing lin­ear, come along as we head off in a few other inter­est­ing direc­tions before return­ing to Our Com­mon Crisis.

In unre­lated news, last night I tweeted this photo. Best photo I have ever taken of myself: http://t.co/uB1tMX8g
Tues­day 1 May 12 12:50 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@Ginger_Clark
Gin­ger Clark

 

Click to read this week’s full Writ­ing on the Ether col­umn at JaneFriedman.com.

 

Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com

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author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, TOC Latin America, Buenos Aires, London Book Fair, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram

By Porter Ander­son | @Porter_Anderson


From April 26, 2012

Part of my series of columns on pub­lish­ing, Writ­ing on the Ether, appear­ing Thurs­days at the invi­ta­tion of Jane Fried­man at JaneFriedman.com


Spring­time for Amazon

As the mar­ket evolves, Ama­zon is becom­ing a home for readers.

Say what? “A home for read­ers?” The Evil Ama­zon? Did the jun­gle drums just miss a beat?

There is so much for read­ers to do on Ama­zon – so much book-related con­tent for them to peruse before buying.

There it was again. I could swear I just heard a friendly word for Seattle.

We have to ask our­selves, with the col­lapse of phys­i­cal retail for books, which com­pany will book sup­pli­ers want to deal with most? Just as iTunes sup­planted record stores, Ama­zon is sup­plant­ing book­stores. Of all the book­selling options out there, only the remain­ing indie book­stores and B&N are more “book­ish.” Should they even­tu­ally col­lapse (or trans­form or get sold), Ama­zon will be the most book­ish place for read­ers to go to buy books.

You’re not hear­ing from some Prime-drunk refugee of the Bor­ders wars here. These are the thoughts of Laura Daw­son, Firebrand’s reign­ing Queen of Meta­data, one of our best-regarded pub­lish­ing spe­cial­ists, and she’s pack­ing knit­ting nee­dles, don’t cross her.

@ And as you say, Barnes & Noble started adding book­ish things & ser­vices that made peo­ple feel bet­ter about it. So will Amazon.
Thurs­day 26 April 12 11:40 via Yoru­FukurouReplyRetweetFavorite
@tcarmody
Tim Car­mody

 

In Why Ama­zon Will Be the Good Guy, Daw­son is echo­ing a jazzy new coun­ter­point to the shrill call of the poison-dart frog we’ve heard so relent­lessly in deep­est, dark­est Amazonia.

A new slant on the aggres­sive retailer is begin­ning to be felt. And this angle doesn’t always turn up along the same lines of debate, which indi­cates that a sub­tle but broad-based recon­sid­er­a­tion may be under­way. Dawson’s not drop­ping a stitch:

In the late 1990s, the Amer­i­can Book­sellers Asso­ci­a­tion sued Barnes & Noble and Bor­ders over what they felt were unfair trade prac­tices… B&N was the king of the dis­count. And for “book­ish” folks, this was a source of fric­tion – the cheap­en­ing of books made them seem com­modi­tized, and our beloved inde­pen­dent book­stores were going out of business.

Hun­ker with me here. This is an argu­ment many can’t see yet.

Ama­zon has been regarded as less than entirely “book­ish” since its incep­tion, when Bezos made it clear that books were just the begin­ning (and only because books were the eas­i­est prod­ucts to build a store around).

@ The premise of “book­ish­ness” made me a lit­tle ner­vous, but it is unde­ni­ably a Thing.
Wednes­day 25 April 12 10:30 via Tweet­DeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@ljndawson
ljn­daw­son

 

Imme­di­ately there’s col­le­gial push-back in Dawson’s post’s com­ments start­ing here, from another favorite expert, Joe Wik­ert of O’Reilly Media. After all, Daw­son has just asserted:

When any com­pany is gen­er­at­ing the bulk of sales for pub­lish­ers, they are by def­i­n­i­tion “the good guys.”

There may be a pretty prac­ti­cal truth to that line. What do you think?

@ @ yes, a lot of read­ers feel like an attack against ama­zon is an attack against them (and their con­sump­tion choices)
Thurs­day 26 April 12 11:42 via Tweet­bot for iOSReplyRetweetFavorite
@jane_l
Jane L

 

Keep lis­ten­ing. There’s more than one line of think­ing being updated on Ama­zon at the moment. You hear it between the blind hate-Amazon mon­key chat­ter and the reluc­tant growls of slow-moving traditionalists.

The night­mare nar­ra­tive being spun by the pub­lish­ing echo cham­ber is trag­i­cally unaware of how Ama­zon works. Maybe it’s because pub­lish­ers imag­ine that Ama­zon will do what they would do if they had Amazon’s mar­ket power.

That art­ful zinger is launched by another of our community’s well-respected fig­ures, Eric Hell­man. In Publishing’s Ama­zon Pow­ered Future, Hell­man pro­poses one of the most intrigu­ing rays of light to make it through the rain­for­est canopy, swat­ting aside the fre­quently heard fear that once most com­peti­tors have lan­guished, Ama­zon will jack up its now-low prices. The empha­sis here is his:

Ama­zon won’t extort huge sums of money from pow­er­less con­sumers. Instead, they will ruth­lessly bring effi­ciency to every process involved in pub­lish­ing. And then they’ll invite every­one to use their ruth­lessly effi­cient services.

What Hell­man is say­ing is that the the real profit cen­ters for Seat­tle lie in scale-enabling sys­tems, the for­mi­da­ble tidal pow­ers such as Ama­zon Web Ser­vices, which ebb and flow accord­ing to sup­ply and demand. He has climbed way up to get a much airier view of Amazon’s cor­po­rate basin than most of us book-grubbing ground-dwellers have done.

sobre posi­ción dom­i­nante de #ama­zon dice @: “inno­va­tion is bet­ter than preda­tory pricing”>What if DRM Goes Away? http://t.co/0C1687sK
Thurs­day 26 April 12 07:49 via Tweet­DeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@martingomez78
martín gómez

 

And even as Hell­man calls to us from his high perch, there’s news of Ama­zon Sup­ply launch­ing, what Michael Kanel­los writes up at Forbes as Another Step Toward B2B, and describes as:

A beta site ded­i­cated to sell­ing office equip­ment and indus­trial sup­plies to busi­nesses. Ama­zon Sup­ply offers more than 500,000 prod­ucts, accord­ing to the com­pany, includ­ing hose clamps, roller chain sprock­ets, drill bits, sheet alu­minum, brass and other items. The site grew out of Small Parts, a sup­plier of equip­ment for sci­ence labs, Ama­zon bought in 2005.

How are we going to keep them down in Seat­tle, now that they’ve seen the Micro Essen­tial Lab 94 Hydrion Spec­tral Insta-Chek Wide Range pH Test Paper Dis­penser, 1 — 14 pH, Sin­gle Roll?

Stomp­ing around our small clear­ing called pub­lish­ing really may not be this giant’s great­est ambition.

In 2 weeks, Apple lost one Ama­zon in mar­ket cap. In 1 clock tick Wednes­day, it gained a Gold­man Sachs $AAPL $AMZN $GS http://t.co/jc2TGkCD
Thurs­day 26 April 12 07:38 via Twit­ter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite
@philiped
Philip Elmer-DeWitt

 

And one of our very best heads, Brian O’Leary is also lead­ing the porters and this Porter toward “Dr. Hell­man, I pre­sume,” In A More Likely View.

O’Leary writes:

Hellman’s work is always worth a full read, and I encour­age you to take some time with his post.

Me, too. Quot­ing Hell­man at length, O’Leary comes to this intrigu­ing conclusion:

This is the rea­son pub­lish­ers can’t beat Ama­zon: they aren’t even play­ing the same game.

pH Test Paper Dis­pensers, remember.

O’Leary goes back to Hell­man for a sec­ond post. In What Are We About?, he cred­its Hell­man for out­lin­ing “how pub­lish­ers are fun­da­men­tally mis­un­der­stand­ing the retailer’s long-term com­pet­i­tive strat­egy.” And he ends by asking:

If Ama­zon is all about scale, what are we about?

Need­less to say, there are dis­agree­ments on the for­est floor.

THIS is what is killing pub­lish­ing –> Ama­zon: Buy New PB for $10.95. Or the Kin­dle Book for $13.99. #FAIL
Thurs­day 26 April 12 07:37 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@mikecane
Mike Cane

 

In After­math — notes on the Ama­zon post, another fine observer of the realm, Bal­dur Bjar­na­son, weighs in with seri­ous qualms. They don’t nec­es­sar­ily go head-to-head with Hellman’s con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion. But they indi­cate a mis­trust of Seattle’s model.

Ama­zon is tak­ing risks every­where. They are treat­ing their sup­pli­ers, pub­lish­ers, badly, essen­tially behav­ing like monop­o­lists before they have an actual monop­oly. Their share price is mas­sively over­val­ued by any mea­sure. The more they rely on their pri­vate ebook for­mat for some sort of lock-in, the more they cut them­selves off a grow­ing ecosys­tem of ebook pro­duc­tion and devel­op­ment tools, which requires them to make their own devel­op­ment tools, which fur­ther dri­ves down their margins.

@ @ @ and they say that pub­lish­ers don’t need to worry about their brands. Heh. Right.
Thurs­day 26 April 12 11:46 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@pablod
Pablo Defen­dini

 

And our friend jour­nal­ist Philip Jones of The­Fu­ture­Book and The­Book­seller is skep­ti­cal of what he sees as Hell­man con­flat­ing Ama­zon Web Ser­vices and Ama­zon Pub­lish­ing. In Scale and syn­ergy do not drive pub­lish­ing, peo­ple do, Jones writes:

I’ve heard time and time again recently that Ama­zon is all about scale, and it is this that will kill off pub­lish­ers… But I am not sure pub­lish­ing books is scal­able, or will be greatly impacted by it: at least not on the cre­ative side.

Oh, and in case you’ve felt the Depart­ment of Jus­tice is los­ing steam with its law­suit of the “col­lud­ing five” and Apple, out­go­ing Act­ing Asst. Attor­ney Gen­eral for Antitrust Sharis A. Pozen wants to dis­agree with you. She was speak­ing (full text) at the Brook­ings Insti­tute:

At its heart, this case is about pro­tect­ing com­pe­ti­tion, not com­peti­tors. And most impor­tantly, it is about lower ebook prices for consumers.

With all due respect, @, the dom­i­nant player is rarely the “good guy” in my eyes. http://t.co/kbZGpGYO #TOC­con
Wednes­day 25 April 12 11:10 via Tweet­DeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@jwikert
Joe Wik­ert

 

Con­fab images: Mis­souri Writ­ers Conference

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesville, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, TOC Latin America, Buenos Aires, London Book Fair, Mike Shatzkin, Mathew Ingram

From Jane Friedman’s pre­sen­ta­tion on first-page red flags at the Mis­souri Writ­ers’ Guild Conference.

The series of hand­some ecru slides you see in this edi­tion of the gas are from Ether-eal host Jane Friedman’s deck for her recent pre­sen­ta­tion at the Mis­souri Writ­ers’ Guild Conference.

Fried­man spoke, as did another sis­ter in the Ether, Christina Katz.

In keep­ing with a back-to-basics trend you might pick up on in the writing/craft sec­tions of the Ether, Friedman’s approach is an excel­lent exam­i­na­tion of what to do — and what to avoid — on a manuscript’s first page.

And if you ever won­der why writ­ers can seem so crazed about the dif­fi­culty of their pri­mary task (that would be writ­ing, Yuvi Zalkow will remind us a bit later), con­sider that all the points on these slides are meant to go into a mar­velous Page One so that the reader does what? — blows right through it and turns eagerly to Page Two. Where the bat­tle is fought again.

Jane’s the one in the flak jacket. Here is her com­plete slide deck.

Every time you tweet some­thing com­pletely unsup­ported by evi­dence or data as a fact , a kit­ten dies.
Wednes­day 25 April 12 16:55 via Tweet­DeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@DonLinn
Don Linn

Click to read this week’s full Writ­ing on the Ether col­umn at JaneFriedman.com.

Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com

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author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesvill, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, David Carr, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuitFrom April 19, 2012

Part of my series of columns on pub­lish­ing, Writ­ing on the Ether, appear­ing Thurs­days at the invi­ta­tion of Jane Fried­man at JaneFriedman.com

 


Post-DoJ: Pun­dits over the edge

Is that a chip on your shoul­der, or are you just car­ry­ing John Sar­gent around the room one more time?

In a week of some­times ran­corous debate about the actions of the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice and the responses from sued pub­lish­ers, an ini­tially zany-disaster mode has dark­ened into a more seri­ous tone.

The sense of a real and present cri­sis should by now have caught up with you.

Some of our bet­ter heads have, as ever, pro­duced use­ful, thought­ful com­men­tary. Even so, a lot of folks prob­a­bly feel bat­tered by the back and forth between pun­dits, some of whom seem more eager to look smart than to advance much under­stand­ing of what’s going on.

It’s a time when no one seems able to just be quiet.

Every­thing you need to know about the e-book law­suit in one post. Con­tin­u­ing to update it. http://t.co/zcTvYIvw
Thurs­day 12 April 12 09:31 via Tweet­DeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@laurahazardowen
Laura Haz­ard Owen

 

There is some minor news, as the Ether begins float­ing for this week, of progress in the suits brought against pub­lish­ers by 15 states’ attor­neys general.

In E-Books Case Judge Told Pub­lish­ers Set­tling With States, Bob Van Voris at Bloomberg writes that Harper­Collins and Hachette have signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing with the states and “hope to extend the agree­ment to all 50 states and com­plete a deal within 60 days.”

Love the fact that the Euro Com­mis­sion enjoyed a “very close and pro­duc­tive coop­er­a­tion” with the DOJ over the agency case
Thurs­day 12 April 12 04:50 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@philipdsjones
Philip Jones

 

And before I offer you a lit­tle romp at the clifftop of the pun­dits’ party, I’d like to give you the view of an observer who stands just out­side the main coterie — not one of our usual suspects.

I admire Macmil­lan CEO John Sargent.

He had the courage to pre-emptively send an email to hun­dreds of indus­try insid­ers this past Wednes­day. In that email, Sar­gent did some­thing that gives me great hope about the future of publishing.

He used the word “I.”

“I am Macmillan’s CEO and I made the deci­sion to move Macmil­lan to the agency model.”

Pub­lish­ing vet­eran Shawn Coyne blogs at Steve Pressfield’s site. His series of posts there is called “What It Takes,” and it runs on Fridays.

Today, John Sar­gent believes that noth­ing less than the entire book pub­lish­ing busi­ness is at risk of being over­run by a sin­is­ter force. He’s not alone. With the agency model gone, the think­ing is that Ama­zon will go back to slash­ing eBook prices and the now inevitable race to the eBook price bot­tom will resume. With its deep pock­ets and rapidly expand­ing global dis­tri­b­u­tion, Ama­zon will slowly lure the big best­selling writ­ers from the big pub­lish­ing com­pa­nies over to its side.

In Pub­lish­ing is Per­sonal, Coyne acknowl­edges com­pet­ing forces of change in pub­lish­ing today. In doing so, the guy does a rare job of show­ing the poise of good pun­ditry. I wish we saw more of this.

The only prob­lem is that John Sar­gent chose the wrong fight. He’s on the east­ern front when he should be shoring up the western.

The North Kore­ans didn’t put enough kim­chi in that mis­sile obviously.
Thurs­day 12 April 12 19:49 via Tweet­DeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@arjunbasu
Arjun Basu

 

At the foot of the cliff, Coyne minces no words.

The fact is that the agency model is dead. And the real­ity is that it was only a stop gap any­way. I think John Sar­gent should swal­low his anger and good old-fashioned Amer­i­can stub­born­ness about this foot­note in pub­lish­ing his­tory and redi­rect his passion.

Here, in three sen­tences, he now gives you the problem:

Let’s face it; the future of book pub­lish­ing is B2C — busi­ness directly to the con­sumer. If you can talk to the con­sumer and the con­sumer trusts you, you’ll sur­vive. If you rely on other peo­ple to talk to cus­tomers for you, you’re in deep trouble.

Coyne goes on to pin­point the right response:

(Sar­gent) and his fel­low publishers—separately of course—should focus their ener­gies and resources on inno­va­tion. Not strate­gies to manip­u­late “terms of sale,” but real innovation.

All does not have to be lost.

Rest assured, book nerds are still in-house. They just get shot down try­ing to acquire the odd books that the cat­e­gory buy­ers at the retail chains “wouldn’t get.” So those strange book phe­nom­ena like the Fifty Shade of Grey tril­ogy are only pub­lished by the Bigs after they’ve emerged from the pri­mor­dial self-publishing soup.

Break­ing: Apple says hasn’t col­luded on e-book pric­ing and has helped break Amazon’s “monop­o­lis­tic grip.” @. http://t.co/ItBLL22i
Thurs­day 12 April 12 22:27 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@JVascellaro
Jes­sica Vascellaro

 

And it’s time for the real genius of Coyne’s essay. In say­ing that pub­lish­ing is “per­sonal,” he hasn’t meant only what a lot of us have learned, that pub­lish­ers must forge their con­nec­tions with read­ers instead of dis­trib­u­tors. No, Coyne has some­thing inter­nal in mind, as well. He wants it “per­sonal” with the pub­lish­ing staffers who are busiest fear­ing for their jobs these days:

Come up with busi­ness mod­els that allow the strange crea­tures within your citadels that ded­i­cate their lives to books shine. You know who they are—editors, artists, sales peo­ple, pub­li­cists, mar­keters. Intro­duce these peo­ple to read­ers. Let them be weird. Let the con­ver­sa­tions begin…and make sure to have your own store. Sell direct.

And that’s the crux of Coyne’s mes­sage. The mis­take has been these defen­sive dodges, these snip­ing guer­rilla efforts to get around Bezos with agency pric­ing or alleged col­lu­sion, mar­ket­place skir­mishes, feints in the kasbah.

The strat­egy has been reac­tive, not proac­tive. Don’t skip the end of Coyne’s piece. It’s the attempt of a vet­eran to rally a weak and tat­tered field, among a dour debate that has exhausted most of us.

Rather than “stop­ping Ama­zon!” from tak­ing over book pub­lish­ing, I think John Sar­gent and all of the incred­i­ble peo­ple who work at Macmil­lan should focus on “out Ama­zon­ing, Amazon.”

“Why the crum­bling book busi­ness is wor­thy of… atten­tion from [DOJ] while Wall Street skates is a broader ques­tion” http://t.co/5fC8YNmK
Mon­day 16 April 12 13:55 via bitlyReplyRetweetFavorite
@timoreilly
Tim O’Reilly

 

From TOC Bologna: The kids’ market

author, authors, book, critic, criticism, critique, e-book, e-reader, ebook, publishing, publisher, writer, writing, Jane Friedman, VQR, Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Cincinnati, University of Virginia, UVA, Charlottesvill, Porter Anderson, Writing on the Ether, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google, Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, reading, Joe Wikert, David Carr, Mike Cane, Don Linn, Jenn Webb, Kat Meyer, pundits, Department of Justice, DoJ, legacy publishers, Apple, lawsuit, Thomas Mallon, Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bookigee, WriterCube, Kristen McLean, TOC Bologna

Bookigee’s Kris­ten McLean made her pre­sen­ta­tion on trends in the children’s con­sumer mar­ket at TOC Bologna. This slide is from her deck.

Many of the images in this edi­tion of the Ether are from Kris­ten McLean’s slide deck for her pre­sen­ta­tion at TOC Bologna.

As the intro­duc­tory notes on the con­fer­ence clar­i­fied, “As tra­di­tional children’s books increas­ingly merge with dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy to expand across devices and plat­forms, the way chil­dren find, enjoy, and learn from books is rapidly changing.”

McLean, whose com­pany, Bookigee, is build­ing the Writer­Cube ser­vice for authors, cov­ers a range of issues, both short– and long-term, in her pre­sen­ta­tion from which these slides are drawn.

Here is her com­plete deck, Trends in the Kid’s Con­sumer Mar­ket.

49th annual Bologna Children’s Book Fair dis­cusses new trends in pub­lish­ing. What lies ahead? See here http://t.co/NcJI5FOk
Wednes­day 18 April 12 09:00 via SocialOomphReplyRetweetFavorite
@VervantePublish
Ver­vante Publishing

Click to read this week’s full Writ­ing on the Ether col­umn at JaneFriedman.com.