HarperCollins steps into the ring of the Amazon vs. Macmillan battle

While Amazon has yet to fully reinstate Macmillan titles on its website, another potential threat looms on the horizon for the online retailer. Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp. – the huge media conglomerate that owns HarperCollins – said about e-readers during a conference call yesterday that “devices and platforms are proliferating, but this clever technology is merely an empty vessel without any great content.” Further taking the side of the publishers in the Amazon vs. Macmillan battle, Murdoch had this to say (via All Things Digital):

We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99. They don’t pay us that. They pay us the full wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge. We think it really devalues books and it hurts all the retailers of the hardcover books. We are not against [inaudible] books. On the contrary, we like them very much indeed. It is low cost to us and so on. But we want some room to maneuver in it.

Murdoch also said that Apple has already agreed to “a variety of higher prices” for e-books, and that Amazon is ready to renegotiate pricing with News Corp. Will the clout of a publisher like HarperCollins force Amazon to allow higher prices? Will customers be willing to cough up more than $9.99 for an e-book, despite online protests? Or will the higher prices deter readers from investing in the high-priced Kindle at all?

One thing’s for sure: the publishing industry is being brought together by a common enemy, as demonstrated today at the America Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute. Galleycat reports that when Macmillan’s stand against Amazon was mentioned at the event, the company received an enthusiastic standing ovation.

Attention Kindle users: soon there will be apps for you, too

Less than a week before Apple is expected to unveil its much-anticipated Tablet, Amazon has announced that it will open up the Kindle e-reader to software developers who can create custom apps à la iPhone. Starting next month, developers will be invited to take part in a beta program testing out the Kindle Development Kit, and the content itself will be available at the Kindle Store later in the year.

Developers will receive 70% of their app’s profits, minus a $0.15 “delivery fee,” according to Amazon. The release states that apps already in the works include restaurant guides from review company Zagat and word games and puzzles from Sonic Boom.

Users will, however, have to abide by Amazon’s guidelines, which prohibit “voiceover IP functionality, advertising, offensive materials, collection of customer information without express customer knowledge and consent, or usage of the Amazon or Kindle brand in any way.”

The Intel Reader is on the menu for the visually impaired

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week saw the unveiling of countless new e-readers eager to knock Amazon’s Kindle off its pedestal. One device that really stood out was the Intel Reader. Designed for visually impaired and dyslexic people, this gadget allows the user to take a photo of any text (menus, letters, magazines) and then immediately reads it aloud. Users also have the ability to download e-books and read or listen to them at their leisure.

While the Kindle shares the Intel Reader’s ability to read text aloud, this new device is unique because it allows people to read things other than typical e-books. For people with impaired vision, the ability to snap a picture of a restaurant menu, and either enlarge its text or have it read aloud is invaluable, providing a level of independence not previously possible.

Tracy Counts, the Intel Reader’s marketing manager, told the Guardian that the product’s developer is dyslexic and knows how hard it is “to get printed text in a format he could listen to and understand. He went to the general manager of our group and pitched the idea, and Intel Health got behind it because it fits with the whole idea of digital health, which is helping people to be independent.”

The $1,500 price tag is a deterrent, but the Guardian suggests that schools and libraries might find it a worthwhile tool. Over at Engadget, there is an informative video explaining all of the Intel Reader’s functions.

One Guardian commenter poses a good question: “At the risk of sounding prejudiced here, how would a profoundly blind person, as opposed to visually impaired or partially sighted person, aim the thing?”

The problem with the e-reader explosion

The glut of e-readers heading to market is liable to result in significant casualties – on the part of both buyers and manufacturers – when all is said and done, according to an article in the Silicone Alley Insider (reprinted from Gizmodo). Reporting on the number of Kindle and Nook knock-offs that cropped up at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which wrapped up yesterday in Las Vegas, Wilson Rothman writes that the people who end up satisfied with their e-readers will be those who purchase a unit sold through a store they already buy books from (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) or those who buy a cheap, disposable reader with a wide range of file compatibilities, then end up pirating the books they want to read from torrent sites. Other purchasers will find to their chagrin that their new readers are incompatible with various digital rights management platforms that publishers insist on, or that they can’t import files from a Kindle or a Nook.

The innovation that made the flood of e-readers possible – the introduction of e-ink – is itself responsible for the current situation, writes Rothman:

But the introduction of e-ink-based readers by many big tech companies and a handful of feisty little ones threatens to sow confusion in the market place, encourage piracy, and screw over any company who gets in and then can’t really hack it against Kindle and Nook. And all of it will be a pointless exercise when long-lasting slates are a reality.

E-ink is an interim technology, a stopgap measure to keep our attention till we have full-color video tablets (slates?) whose batteries last for “days.” A flood in the market might ensure that everyone buys one by this coming Christmas, but it’ll become increasingly hard to distinguish the good from the bad, will emphasize cheap devices over quality of interface and service, and will render most people completely confused and off-put.

Whereas the Kindle vs. Nook showdown was once positioned as the VHS vs. Betamax of the e-reader technology, it now appears that a different comparison is more appropriate. Rothman points out that the number of imitation e-readers currently appearing in the marketplace more closely resemble the dozens of MP3 players that cropped up to compete with the iPod. And what happened to all of those, again?

Harvard library director says the book is NOT dead

Despite Google’s “colonization of e-books,” the advent of the Kindle Reader, and today’s publication of The Lost Symbol, Harvard University’s library director, Robert Darnton, argues in Publisher’s Weekly that the book is not dead, nor shall it ever be.

As a way of promoting his new book, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future, to be published by Public Affairs in October, Darnton counters the Nietzschean proclamation of the book’s impending death with the prediction that “one million new books will soon be produced each year.” He further argues:

… the general lack of concern for history among Americans has made us vulnerable to exaggerated notions of historic change–and so has our fascination with technology. The current obsession with cellular devices, electronic readers and digitization has produced a colossal case of false consciousness.

As new electronic devices arrive on the market, we think we have been precipitated into a new era. We tout “the Information Age” as if information did not exist in the past. Meanwhile, e-books and devices like the Kindle represent less than 1% of the expenditure on books in the United States.

Take courage, old-fashioned book lovers. The end of the printed word may be farther away than previously predicted. 

Bookmarks: Google gets friendly, Quartet Press shuts down, and more

Sundry links from around the Web:

• Google will allow rivals to sell copies of its digital books
• Upstart digital publisher Quartet Press shuts down before it ever really got started
• Marion Boyers, the venerable independent U.K. publishing house, is also closing its doors
• U.K. advances are down by as much as 50%
• Boston school library nixes books, opts for e-readers instead

Will Kindle be the Betamax of the decade?

In the race to win consumer confidence (or, well, interest) in e-readers, one can’t help but wonder how we’ll look back on the recent Kindle vs. Sony hardware wars. With Google planting flags, and Amazon opposing the Google settlement, The Globe and Mail‘s king of tech nerds, Brian Joseph Davis, suggests the Kindle could go the way of ColecoVision, the Commodore 64, or even the once beloved Betamax.

My money is still on Sony this week as they’ve entered the fray of the Google settlement crisis. They’re on the side of Google Books. Sony’s Reader displays any e-book format and supports file copying on up to six devices. The Reader and Google are a good match.

On the other side is Amazon with their Kindle (which is a proprietary-file-laden piece of poo). Stepping into that corner with legal and monetary support, just because they hate Google, is the axis of Microsoft and Yahoo.

Meanwhile, blogger B.Kienapple weighs in on the e-reader battle, discussing the Google-supported, UK-based Interead, the company behind the Cool-er e-reader. Now that Google has provided “books” for the terribly named Cool-er, she wonders who will actually read said materials:

Academics? School kids? Everyone knows that Amazon has the selection and pricing down pat. This is the sad fact of the matter.

Also, while the Cool-er e-store is now well stocked, you may not want to read them on the Cool-er’s own e-reader. The review that came in from Gizmodo earlier this year indicated that problems abound. My biggest complaint, from what I can see in the review, is the computer-like font. The Sony and Kindle both mimic print type (easier on the eyes, I do think). The Cool-er’s functionality looks entirely primitive, too.

While it’s easy to mock twitchy-texting, Twitter-obsessed blogger-types, many of those same tech-savvy users remain staunchly old-fashioned when it comes to e-readers. Maybe if one came in a swag bag filled with free “books” this Quillblogger might accept it, if only to take on a plane thereby avoiding the ache of heavy luggage.

But you may want to hum a bar of “Video Killed the Radio Star” and keep a curious eye on the tech pages as the e-reader war unfolds. You wouldn’t want to resemble your uncle clinging to his eight-track tapes.

Is Kindle the environmentally friendly option?

A recent report from the Cleantech Group analyzed the environmental impact of traditional publishing as measured against e-book publishing, and declared the latter to be the clear winner on environmental grounds. Calling the publishing industry “one of the world’s most polluting sectors,” the Cleantech report asserted that a concerted move to e-book publishing could drastically reduce the negative impact the industry has on the environment.

In 2008, the U.S. book and newspaper industries combined resulted in the harvesting of 125 million trees, not to mention wastewater that was produced or its massive carbon footprint.

The Cleantech Group’s report, The environmental impact of Amazon’s Kindle, suggests that e-readers are still a niche technology, with a little more than 1 million units sold to date. So they really haven’t had much impact on the environment, be it good or bad.

But with sales projected to see an uptick, reaching to 14.4 million in 2012, the report looks at the emissions that devices like the market leader, Amazon’s Kindle, could produce and prevent.

According to the Cleantech report, “the carbon emitted in the lifecycle of a Kindle is fully offset after the first year of use.” Further, the report estimates that between 2009 and 2012, projected purchases of e-readers could be responsible for preventing the production of 5.3 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide.

However, an article on the Daily Finance website questions whether the Kindle itself is quite as environmentally friendly as the Cleantech Group suggests.

According to the Cleantech report, an Amazon Kindle must be used for a year before the carbon emissions required to make the electronic device are offset by a corresponding reduction in purchases of paper-based media products. That’s important. If the e-reader market is anything like the iPod and handset market – the closest comparable consumer electronics categories to date – then e-readers might not be as green and carbon-busting as they first look.

The Cleantech Group assumes that Kindle owners will hold onto their devices for four years before replacing them; if Kindle users were to swap out their devices after a period of 24 months, the Daily Finance article contends, many of the stated environmental advantages would be nullified. Moreover, the Cleantech report assumes that Kindle users will purchase 22.4 titles per year – an improbably high number.

Still, Daily Finance agrees that publishers are among the worst environmental offenders ; the only disagreement is on what the best solution might be.

Bookmarks: new e-reader from Sony, Ignatieff’s a union man, censorship in Iraq, reading in Venezuela, and more

Some book-related links:

• Sony to release two new e-readers
• Michael Ignatieff re-joins the Writers’ Union
• Iraqi publishers worry about new censorship laws
• Venezuela’s Revolutionary Reading Plan
• Arsenal Pulp re-designs and re-releases Hard Core Logo
• Even short book inscriptions say a lot
• Could Raymond Carver have written manga?
• The author – and daughter – behind Little House on the Prairie

Barnes & Noble launches world’s biggest e-book store

U.S. mega-chain Barnes & Noble announced in a press release yesterday the creation of the world’s biggest e-book store comprising “more than 700,000 titles, including hundreds of new releases and bestsellers at only $9.99.” Unlike Amazon’s Kindle-only e-books, e-books purchased through B&N’s store will be compatible with a number of platforms (aside from the Kindle, of course): iPhone, BlackBerry, and most Windows and Mac computers. Through a partnership with Google Books, the B&N e-book store will also offer more than 500,000 free and downloadable public domain e-books.

B&N als announced an exclusive agreement to provide e-books for the forthcoming Plastic Logic e-reader, a device that is geared toward business professionals. From Fortune:

Plastic Logic vice president of business development Daren Benzi says his device is geared for business travelers, and as such will support the display of PDF files, Microsoft’s MS Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, as well as newspapers and magazines. But e-books are a big part of the game plan. “Will we carry every single one of those 700,000-plus titles? I don’t know. We’ll announce that as we get further along,” said Benzi. “But we will have access to them all.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere, The Book Oven analyzes how B&N’s move will affect the e-book market.