Kobo Pulse gets to the heart of “social in-book e-reading”

Kobo has released more details about Kobo Pulse, its new “social in-book e-reading experience”

Essentially a social media tool, Kobo Pulse will allow Kobo users to connect with other people reading the same book, comment on passages or the book as a whole, and view statistics (e.g., how many people are reading the title at a given time). According to a press release, readers can also post reviews and engage in online conversations. As more people join the conversation, the Kobo Pulse will turn “larger and brighter,” indicating the level of interaction.

Last Friday at F8, Facebook’s developers conference, Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis spoke about how the company’s e-reading app, Kobo Reading Life, will be seamlessly integrated into the Facebook interface. Today’s press release provided more details on the new features, which include the ability to follow friends’ reading activity; customizable privacy settings; automation of Ticker e-reading updates; and profile “‘call-outs’ for recently read books, most read authors, books that have the most time read and recent awards.”

A release date for Kobo Pulse was not available. However, the Facebook integration features will “roll out gradually over the coming months.”

Amazon looks to Netflix-like e-book rental program

Amazon has approached publishers about launching an e-book rental program, The Wall Street Journal reports. The service would follow a model similar to that of Netflix, requiring subscribers to pay an annual fee for access to a cache of digital books.

From The WSJ:

Amazon has told publishers it is considering creating a digital-book library featuring older titles, people familiar with the talks said. The content would be available to customers of Amazon Prime [now available in the U.S. only], who currently pay the retailer $79 a year for unlimited two-day shipping and for access to a digital library of movies and TV shows.

Amazon would offer book publishers a substantial fee for participating in the program, people familiar with the proposal said. Some of these people said that Amazon would limit the amount of books that Amazon Prime customers could read for free every month.

At this point, details of the new program are sketchy at best. WSJ is uncertain as to whether any publishers have signed on, though one industry source quoted in the article suggests the service could “downgrade the value of the book business,” and Amazon has yet to comment on the story, or on whether Canadian or other international publishers have been consulted.

In the September 2011 issue of Q&Q: Guy Vanderhaeghe completes his iconic Western trilogy

Q&Q speaks to Governor General’s Literary Award–winning Saskatoon author Guy Vanderhaeghe about the final book in his Western trilogy, the ambitious A Good Man.

Also in September, rekindling interest in history with high-profile political biographies, a look at independent U.S. bookstore e-book sales, and touring the country with Doug Gibson. Plus reviews of new books by Brian Francis, David Gilmour, Marina Endicott, and more.

FEATURES
A good guy
After nearly two decades, Guy Vanderhaeghe has completed his iconic Western trilogy – and now he’s ready to move on

Raising the dead white men
Can a handful of high-profile political biographies rekindle interest in Canadian history?

E-reading’s awkward embrace
If the experience of U.S. indies is anything to go by, Canadian booksellers gearing up to begin selling e-books should expect some bumps along the road

FRONTMATTER
Orphaned Key Porter authors take back control of their work
How digital technology has put audiobooks within reach of small presses
In memoriam: Robert Kroetsch
Montreal violin-maker Tom Wilder turns publisher
Snapshot: Knopf Random Canada executive vice-president and publisher Louise Dennys
Cover to cover: R.T. Naylor’s Crass Struggle
Touring the country with Doug Gibson
Guest opinion: Rolf Maurer on rethinking the role of the arts

REVIEWS
Natural Order by Brian Francis
The Perfect Order of Things by David Gilmour
The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott
Our Daily Bread by Lauren B. Davis
Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill

PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and poetry

BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Starfall by Diana Kolpak; Kathleen Finlay, photog.
No Ordinary Day by Deborah Ellis
First Descent by Pam Withers
The Busy Beaver by Nicholas Oldland
Once Every Never by Lesley Livingston

PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and picture books

Q&Q/BOOKNET CANADA BESTSELLERS

THE LAST WORD
Greenpeace International’s Tzeporah Berman on finding a balance between her own voice and that of the organization she represents

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Kobo issues statement about Borders liquidation

Kobo, the Toronto-based e-reading company, has issued an official statement to clarify its position vis-à-vis the recent announcement that the U.S. bookstore chain Borders would be entering liquidation. The statement is in response to “misconceptions about Kobo that have been inaccurately reported by the media and misunderstood by consumers.”

The Borders liquidation is of particular concern to Kobo, since the bookstore chain was an early investor in the e-reading company, with an 11 per cent stake. According to the statement issued today yesterday, “Borders shares are subject to the terms of the Kobo shareholders’ agreement which, among other things, restricts their transfer or disposition.” On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Kobo was one of several creditors to file objections to Borders’ liquidation process in U.S. bankruptcy court.

Where customer service is concerned, Kobo asserts that for some time it has been working to transition Borders’ customers’ e-book accounts to Kobo and will continue to do so.

The Kobo statement quotes CEO Michael Serbinis:

Borders has a minority stake in our company and serves as part of our distribution in the U.S. along with Walmart, Best Buy, Sears, and other leading retailers. As a member of the broader book publishing and retailing community, we are watching Borders’ story and will offer our support to Borders and their employees. Kobo will continue to serve Borders customers – in this time of transition as well as moving forward – to provide the ultimate eReading experience and one of the widest selection of eBooks available to the eReading community worldwide.

Borders gives up the fight: UPDATED

The embattled U.S. book chain Borders has run out of options in its attempts to find a buyer and will begin the process of liquidating, according to the Detroit Free Press. The liquidation plan, which was presented to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court last Thursday, is the only option left to the big-box bookstore chain after it failed to meet Sunday’s deadline for finding a buyer.

From the Free Press:

“Following the best efforts of all parties, we are saddened by this development,” said Borders Group President Mike Edwards, in a statement. “We were all working hard towards a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time including the rapidly changing book industry, eReader revolution and turbulent economy have brought us to where we are now.”

An article on Paid Content.org states that Borders is closing all of its 399 remaining stores and laying off close to 11,000 employees. Paid Content includes Borders’ official statement, which reads in part:

Subject to the Court’s approval, under the proposal, liquidation is expected to commence for some stores and facilities as soon as Friday, July 22, with a phased rollout of the program which is expected to conclude by the end of September. Borders intends to liquidate under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and, as a result, Borders expects to be able to pay vendors in the ordinary course for all expenses incurred during the bankruptcy cases.

UPDATE: In the face of Borders’ liquidation announcement, the Canadian e-book company Kobo has voiced objections to the procedure, according to Bloomberg. Creditors filed official objections in bankruptcy court in Manhattan on Monday.

From Bloomberg:

“The debtors are proposing a hurried and confusing sale process that leaves parties such as Kobo uninformed as to precisely what will be sold or how the debtors intend to proceed,” lawyers for Kobo wrote.

Kobo, a Toronto-based maker of electronic books, said it should have the right of first refusal for any transfer of Borders’ 11 percent stake in its equity, and Borders shouldn’t be allowed to sell information that Kobo has licensed to Borders.

Book links round-up: Google’s eBookstore, e-mail woes, Q&A with Chester Brown, and more

• Chasing the story behind the story: exploring literary journalism
• The nominees for the inaugural Independent Booksellers’ Choice Awards
• Is the eBookstore worth it for Google?
• Crime writer Robert Rotenberg goes to town on e-mail
• Graphic novelist Chester Brown discusses why he has no problem with Paying for It
• Amazon selling more e-books than printed titles
• The unique world of Zsuzsi Gartner

Book links round-up: Sarah Palin is not one of the Common people, Random House U.K. signs to agency model, and more

• Sarah Palin creates “outrage” over the White House inviting rapper Common to its Evening of Poetry
• Random House U.K. signs to agency model, with over 6,000 titles to appear in the iBookstore
• E-bookseller iFlow shuts down, blames Apple for its “eviction notice”
• Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan to write a spiritual memoir
• Veteran N.Y.C. book editor Robert Loomis retires at the age of 84

Book links round-up: Harper Lee’s unauthorized biography, vulgar Dorian Gray, and more

• Harper Lee denies cooperating with writer on upcoming biography
• Uncensored, “vulgar” Dorian Gray text published 120 years later
• Natalie Portman’s doctor dad self-publishes “fertility thriller”
• UNESCO names Buenos Aires 2011 World Book Capital, thanks to its 200 bookstores and 70 libraries
• Would you like a Pepsi with that? N.Y.C. author releases e-book with built-in ads and narrative product placement

E-books will account for 40 per cent of book revenue within five years, predicts Reisman

Two years ago, Heather Reisman, CEO and “chief booklover” of Indigo Books and Music, predicted that e-books would cannibalize 15 per cent of traditional book sales at her stores  in five years’ time. Reisman has since revised that prediction. She now puts the figure at as much as 40 per cent.

The Globe and Mail‘s Marina Strauss interviewed Reisman about how Indigo plans to cope in a market in which e-books are gaining popularity faster than anyone had expected. How do traditional booksellers survive in a world in which a large minority of sales doesn’t require physical stock to move through the store? In a word, says Reisman, they don’t.

“In the book industry, when you are in a situation where you know that 40 per cent of your business is going to go digital – you need to change,” Ms. Reisman, chief executive officer at Indigo, said in an interview in her office, which she recently cleared of decorative penguin figures and other mementos in a nod to her company’s transformation in the digital age.

Her road map for the country’s largest book seller takes a detour from physical books. Indigo, like many book retailers worldwide, has a toehold in the digital books business, with a majority stake in Kobo. But in the stores, Ms. Reisman, who had a head start in envisaging Indigo as a “cultural department store,” is betting more than ever on other categories. Indigo is stepping up its offerings of tableware, toys and tote bags – even putting comfy chairs back in the stores, in the hope of stemming the tide of consumers abandoning the retailer for Web-based alternatives.

Strauss points out that although Indigo owns a majority stake in Kobo, the e-book retailer posted a loss last quarter, and Reisman doesn’t expect it to start turning a profit until at least next year. In the meantime, she is betting the house on the kind of product diversification that could make Indigo, in Reisman’s own words, “the world’s first lifestyle store for booklovers.”

Book links roundup: Kobo expands, Bezmozgis racks up the raves, and more

Sundry links from around the Web:

• Deirdre Baker’s tribute to the life and work of fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones
• Kobo kicks off European expansion: e-book stores set to open in Spain and Germany in May, with France, Italy, and the Netherlands to follow
• The New York Times calls David Bezmozgis’s The Free World “self-assured, elegant, and perceptive”; read Q&Q‘s review
• Simon & Schuster confirms it will publish authorized Steve Jobs bio; iSteve: The Book of Jobs to appear in early 2012