The Joss Group

An Open Plea to Book Publishers: Make It Work With Libraries!

Dear Book Publishers:

This is an open plea for the book publishers of the world to find a way to make peace with public libraries and to start offering every book available through the library system. Also, please make a single, easy-to-use platform for delivering such materials. Too many publishers have decided to make only a few titles available for lending, and some (you know who you are) have decided to not make any titles available.

To put it simply, if book publishers do not make it work with libraries, other companies will. Case in point: the other day I finished reading (on my iPad) a book I had borrowed from my local library. I read it through the Kindle Cloud, which is a simple, easy way to read Kindle books on any digital platform, including the rivals from Barnes & Noble and Apple. I can read a Kindle book through the Kindle Cloud reader on any device on which I can access the Web. When I got to the end of the book, the device displayed a brief message: should I elect to purchase the book I had just finished reading from Amazon, any notes or highlights I had made in the text would be preserved. This is a nice touch, but it is not so very far away from Amazon including a buy-now button on the last page of the book!

And, it would not be such a bad thing for Amazon to try—striking some sort of deal with libraries to bypass book publishers completely and offering Amazon (and perhaps Amazon-only) titles to public lending libraries. And, to make the deal even sweeter, Amazon could cut the libraries in on part of the action. Win-win all around, except not for book publishers. Again.

So, book publishers, I end my open plea to you by asking you to stop being so short-sighted and open your eyes to the possibilities around you. Make a deal with benefits for you, public libraries, and the reading public before another player in the industry does.

Scott Turow Agrees With Me

Although he does not come right out and say the DOJ should be shaking a finger at Amazon and not Apple and major publishers, he certainly has the same kinds of feelings I do about what Amazon is trying to do to the publishing industry.

Read the full text of the post he wrote for the Authors Guild blog by clicking here.

Who is Your Daddy (Part Two)?

The Wall Street Journal (yes, I read it every day) is reporting rumors to the effect the Department of Justice has told Apple and several big book publishing firms it is not happy with the way it (the DOJ) thinks the companies (Apple et.al) are going about setting the pricing for e-books. What, nobody is talking about involving Amazon?? If the problem is collusion about setting prices, why is Apple more at fault than Amazon?

Read the full WSJ article by clicking here.

Did you get a tablet or e-reader this past holiday season?

Sadly, I did not, but then again I already have a tablet and two e-readers. And, I guess, potential gift givers would have decided if I wanted a new one or the other I could always buy it and mark it down as a business expense. However, according to a recent report by the Pew Research folks, lots of people here in the United States did get one or the other, and according to early numbers from Amazon a lot of those people promptly downloaded a book or two or three from Amazon. No word on how many of the downloads were free books, though.

Publishing on the iPad Without an App

Hmm, an interesting idea. I came across this blog post today (chuckdude,  and immediately felt Chuck might be on to something. He says the reason Amazon is not commenting publically on Apple's 30% demand for sub revenue on the iPad is that Amazon won't need the Apple channel for the iPad much longer.

Amazon is beta testing a Web-based reader for its Kindle books, probably based on HTML5. With such a reader, people could still read Kindle books on the iPad but not have to get them in an iPad app. Which means Amazon could still sell its Kindle books through its store and not pay the 30% highway robber fee to Apple. Safe passage for all Kindle books on all platforms! Yes! Thank you, standards!

Here's the lesson for all publishers--stick to standards such as HTML5 and EPUB for your multi-channel development work, and your content will be available on as many platforms (Web, tablet, smartphone, etc.) as possible with the least investment.

If Publishing is Dying, Why are Google and Amazon So Interested?

This is not a comment specifically on the WSJ's recent article about Google Digital Newsstand taking aim at Amazon. Apple is in the mix, too. Of course, Google has to do this. Amazon got there first, but now Google has the Android platform and needs content for it. What the story makes me wonder, and will make me ask the next time someone tells me publishing is dead: if it is true publishing is dead, why are these two huge tech companies so interested?