“Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food.”
― Douglas Adams
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Amazon asks Spanish Publishers to lower ebook prices
The ecommerce company estimates that new ebooks should become cheaper over 20% on current prices.
La multinacional de comercio electrónico estima que novedades o `best sellers´ digitales tendrÃan que abaratarse más del 20% sobre los precios actuales.  Amazon reitera que en paÃses de mayores hábitos digitales, como Estados Unidos o Reino Unido, esos precios producen que se venda más libros electrónicos que de papel. . Noticias, última hora, vÃdeos y fotos de Literatura en lainformacion.com
Amazon going after short shorts
*sigh* Amazon, I really mean you no ill will but you are really working hard to be a dick. ~ eP
Today I received an e-mail from Amazon about one of my short stories (the shortest one I have ever written). The email was as follows:
Hello,
During a quality assurance review of your KDP catalog we have found that the following book(s) are extremely short and may create a poor reading experience and do not meet our content quality expectations:
<Name of Short>
In the best interest of Kindle customers, we remove titles from sale that may create a poor customer experience. Content that is less than 2,500 words is often disappointing to our customers and does not provide an enjoyable reading experience.
We ask that you fix the above book(s), as well as all of your catalog’s affected books, with additional content that is both unique and related to your book. Once you have ensured your book(s) would create a good customer experience, re-submit them for publishing within 5 business days. If your books have not been corrected by that time, they will be removed from sale in the Kindle Store. If the updates require more time, please unpublish your books.
This is causing some lively debate online. What are your thoughts?
Amazon.com Announces the Most Well-Read Cities in America
From Amazon Press Release a rare peek at the results of some of Amazon’s actual captured sales data. ~ eP
SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Apr. 24, 2013— (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon.com today announced its third annual list of the Most Well-Read Cities in America. The ranking was determined by compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format since June 1, 2012, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents. The Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities are:
- Alexandria, Va.
- Knoxville, Tenn.
- Miami, Fla.
- Cambridge, Mass.
- Orlando, Fla.
- Ann Arbor, Mich.
- Berkeley, Calif.
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Columbia, S.C.
- Pittsburgh, Penn.
- St. Louis, Mo.
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Seattle, Wash.
- Vancouver, Wash.
- Gainesville, Fla.
- Atlanta, Ga.
- Dayton, Ohio
- Richmond, Va.
- Clearwater, Fla.
- Tallahassee, Fla.
In taking a closer look at the data, Amazon also found that:
- Welcome to the club: Vancouver, Wash., Dayton, Ohio, Clearwater, Fla. and Tallahassee, Fla. are all new on the list this year.
- Knoxville, Tenn. made the biggest gain this year, jumping from the #12 spot in 2012 to #2 this year. Knoxville residents also purchased the most books in the Romance category—top titles include Fifty Shades of Grey and Married by Mistake.
- Blockbuster novel Gone Girl was the best-selling book overall in Alexandria, Va., followed by the three titles in the Fifty Shades trilogy.
- Cambridge, Mass. continues to grow the most budding entrepreneurs. This locale topped the list for ordering the most books in the Business & Investing category, as well as overall nonfiction, with the top titles purchased being Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most and StrengthsFinder 2.0.
Value of Book recommendations
According to data from Bowker presented by the company’s vice president of publishing services Kelly Gallagher at the Digital Book World Discoverability and Marketing:
- Andrew Gelman of Columbia University writes in The New York Times: Despite the large number of acquaintances, most Americans know just 10 to 25 people well enough to trust them.
- Almost half of book purchasing decisions on Amazon were made before a customer visited the Amazon site … They talk with their friends just like we do, they listen to the views of those they respect just like we do, they get together with like minded people, just like we do — they use Google as a 6th sense just like we do. Source
- Family and friends are the primary source of book discovery for Americans 16 and older, especially so for suburban (66%) and urban residents (66%). Some 60% of rural residents say they get book recommendations from family and friends. Similarly, city dwellers (25%) and suburbanites (24%) are more likely than rural residents (18%) to have gotten recommendations from book stores they visit. Source
- Number 1 way online shoppers discover new books: in-person, personal recommendations (~15% of new books discovered this way).
The newest trend I’ve noticed is the republishing of the same book. What I see happening is that familiar books that were competitive on Amazon’s crime fiction list, dropped off the list, then came roaring back with a new pub date and a high profile.
Novelist L.J. Sellers
I woke up with 8,058 books in my nook library: The Case of Schrodinger’s eBook
So here is the question: If you have 8,058 ebooks on your ereader that you never intend to read - and they cost the publisher $0 and the author was never going to get a royalty for them in the first place - did a crime actually take place? Do these ebooks actually exist or are they just literary packing peanuts? What if this person reads Carl Sagan’s Cosmos soley because it showed up unexpectedly and then seeks out Sagan’s other work legitimately in print because of it? Is this now marketing? What if this person decides to rent Girl With A Dragon Tattoo from Netflix because of this? Is this now promotional?
Before the torrent download none of these works may have even been in the consciousness of the reader. Since the download the latent potential for a positive commercial impact has been increased 8,058 times. Withing this torrent file the infinite vastness of the internet that competes with a book like Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 for attention shrank to just 8,057 competitors. For this reader has this torrent just become one of the greatest book discovery engines available today? ~ eP
I torrented a kindle library final and I had no idea how much was in it. Wow what, I could never read all these books in a lifetime. Like I have my own personal library. I checked my nook and it has about two thousand of them on it and they all work, I feel like I’m in a dream…
Worldreader Launches Free eBooks App for Underdeveloped Countries
Hurrah for Worldreader but it’s a shame that Amazon and Barnes and Noble are not doing this directly.
I have seen… Amazon creep into library lending with Kindle ebook availability. The convenience of getting the format balanced by the understanding that Amazon knows your library history - at least your digital one. The courtesy reminders that your ebook is coming due accompanied by the ability to “buy it to continue reading.” Above all, Amazon is a business, and they do it quite successfully, if not without questions and concerns. I fully expect to see this same creep into Goodreads. One of these days one of the Amazon emails will state: “You listed X in your Goodreads profile; would you like to read Y?” That may be my tipping point. Until then, I am using the Goodreads export feature to update my LibraryThing account. So, come find me in both places, for now. Is all of this affecting how you are handling your Goodreads, LibraryThing or other online book account?
The entire publishing zeitgeist in a single video. Ron Charles is the funniest man who still reads books! ~ eP
A new video from the hilarious Ron Charles! I love everything about this.
In metadata news...
IMDB is the only reason my wife has a smartphone. This made her head explode ~eP
X-Ray for Movies & TV (available on Kindle Fire and Wii U devices)
While watching an Amazon Instant Video title, tap the screen or pause the video to launch X-Ray feature which accesses IMDB then lets you see who the actors in the current scene are. You then tap the screen again (or start Play) to continue the video.
IMDB plans to “add X-Ray to more television content each week.”
IMDB’s pages say that to see if a title supports X-Ray, you should look for the “Includes X-Ray” icon on the title’s Amazon Instant Video detail page. (I’m not sure it always shows up — maybe they’re behind on that, or I’m just missing it.)
