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Reporter Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) writes on paidContent (@paidContent) about the new ebook selling and marketing Web service launched today, Ganxy (@Ganxy). She says, “In just a few minutes, anyone can create a “showcase” for a book that includes its cover, description, video and other marketing materials, and purchase options.”

Authors and publishers can sell books directly through the showcase or simply provide links to retailers. The entire showcase can then be tweeted, embedded in a blog, website, or Facebook page, or can just stand alone as a website....

It’s free to create a showcase, but Ganxy makes money in two ways. The company takes 10% of each sale when an ebook is sold through a showcase (authors and publishers can choose whether they want to sell ebooks directly). Ganxy also makes money through the affiliate links to retail sites that are embedded in the showcase. An author can also request to use his or her own affiliate links in the showcase; in that case, Ganxy displays its affiliate link 25% of the time and the author’s 75% of the time.

Ganxy also wants to appeal to readers. When someone buys an ebook directly through a Ganxy showcase, it’s added to his or her library and can be downloaded in any format (EPUB, iOS, Kindle and so on). All the ebooks Ganxy sells directly are DRM-free. (Publishers who don’t like that can just display retail links and not sell ebooks directly.)

Read this in full.

Read the news release.

And read our previous blogposts:

·         “How Ebook Buyers Discover Books”

·         “Sites That Facilitate Book Discovery”

·         "Family Christian Stores Now Selling Its Own Tablet"

·         "Parable, Mardel Latest to Launch Ebook Sales; Ebooks Now at 500+ Christian Stores"

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically plan your book’s disoverability.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.

In his coverage of the recent Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) Discoverability and Marketing conference, Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid) reports, “Reader behavior is in flux and the ways in which people engage with and discover new content has grown exponentially.”

–     In 2011, nearly half of consumers changed their book-buying behavior (chart below)

–     39% of books are sold online, 26% in stores, and the rest in nearly a dozen other ways (chart below)

–     People discover new books in up to 44 different ways

...Amid all the change in how readers read and discover books, one thing has remained constant: in-person, personal recommendations are the No. 1 way people discover books, no matter who they are or how they read.

Read this in full.

Also see "Discoverability & Marketing Conference: A Diversity of Challenges."

And read our previous blogposts “How Ebook Buyers Discover Books” and “Sites That Facilitate Book Discovery.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically plan your book’s disoverability.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.

The purchase of the music CD Lift Up: Artists and Authors Unite to Feed America’s Hungry Children contributes to food relief services.

For more than 60 years, independent and chain Christian retail stores have represented the crossroads of faith and community for all denominations and walks of life. Also a safe haven for Christian consumers, these wholesome, family-friendly environments provide the best selection of the highest quality products in the Christian market.

It’s in honor of these retailers’ steadfast commitment to create a store culture of dependability and outstanding customer service that we celebrate Christian Store Week.

Visit the official Christian Store Week website.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you reach the Christian store market with your brand message.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

We held an open house this week and invited friends to come see our office in downtown Grand Rapids (@ExperienceGR), MI (@PureMichigan). Also going on downtown (until Oct. 7) is Art Prize (@ArtPrize) (#ArtPrize), where 1,517 pieces of art are scattered throughout the city for people to vote on; the top award is $200,000.

We were thrilled so many came to help us celebrate the beginning of fall in the Midwest. Our general manager, John Topliff, and his wife Debby even joined us via Skype from St. Andrews, Scotland, our international office. (Thanks to Bill Oechsler (@billoechsler) for his photos!)

We asked some of our guests if they’d like to answer the question, “What are major challenges facing Christian publishing today?”. Here are their answers:

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you navigate the turbulent waters of today’s publishing world.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

A report by Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) for paidContent (@paidContent) says, “On Demand Books, the company behind the Espresso Book Machine (@espressobook), and Kodak (@kodakCB) are partnering to add print-on-demand technology to Kodak Picture Kiosks (@KodakKiosks) [of which there are 105,000 nationwide]. That means consumers will be able to print paperback photo books, self-published books, and the seven million backlist and public domain titles in On Demand’s catalog from retail chains such as CVS (@CVSCaremarkFYI).”

Read the paidContent article.

About 30 Espresso Book Machines are installed in stores around the US, with 30 more being readied for installation.

HarperCollinsPublishers (@HarperCollins) says it will make about 5,000 current paperbacks available through the Espresso Book Machine.

Read The Wall Street Journal article.

On Demand also announced a partnership with ReaderLink (@Readerlink), which distributes books to grocery stores, drugstores, mass market and club stores, to make more titles available through the Kodak Picture Kiosks.

“We envision an integrated solution that can substantially redefine the publishing industry and bring exciting new solutions to customers," says Dane Neller, CEO of On Demand Books.

Read the news release.

But according to USA TODAY (@usatodaytech), "this all comes with one huge catch — Kodak is in the midst of selling its photo kiosk business as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy."

Neller said the Kodak agreement, though announced [Sept. 12], was signed before the Rochester printing and imaging company announced last month it had decided to sell a set of businesses that include its photo kiosks, document scanners and still camera film operations. He said On Demand's hope is that whatever company buys Kodak's kiosk operations would also continue the Espresso arrangement.

Read the USA TODAY article.

See our previous blogposts “Mardel Acquires Espresso Book Machine” and “3D Printing a Gun.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you navigate the fast-changing world of book publishing.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Above poster by Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld).

Also see our previous blogposts, “Discoverability in the Digital Age: Personal Recommendations and Bookstores” and “Sites That Facilitate Book Discovery.”

Stay current with publishing news when you bookmark and use daily our (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

A consistent problem with promotional book readings and signings is that they're often barely attended. Now Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) senior news editor Calvin Reid (@calreid) reports, “Science author Andrew Kessler is launching a new online venture called Togather.com (@TogatherInc), a ‘fansourcing’ platform that allows authors or their fans to propose an author event and get commitments from fans planning to attend well before the event is held.”

Much like a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter, Togather.com allows an author to know in advance whether there’s enough interest and support to hold an event at all.

Togather.com is free for authors. Writers establish an account that will allow them to plan events on a custom author event page that can be circulated through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. “The event page allows authors to set up a tour, schedule events, tweak the details, and solicit support for the event before the author arrives,” Kessler said.

In a phone interview with PW, Kessler outlined how Togather works. Using the Togather account, an author can decide what kind of support he or she will require to actually hold the event — sell, say, 20 books, or get RSVPs from 60 people if it’s a school or free event, or sell tickets. Since one of the criteria for an event can be book sales, Togather is also organized to sell books. Fans can go to the page and propose additional events, and the author can review the proposal, accept it or ask for changes, or tweak the level of commitments.

The site lets authors notify their fans how many people it will take to reach a certain level of book sales (Kessler consulted with booksellers on this)....For book buys or other financial transactions, the site will take credit card numbers but not process the sale until the desired commitment level is achieved — if there’s not enough interest, the event is canceled and no one is charged....Kessler said, “[Togather] turns fans into your publicists.”

Read this in full.

Also see coverage by PaidContent, GalleyCat, and TNW.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you stay current with publishing and marketing opportunities for your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.

Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) says, “In another sign that the industry is moving toward a hybrid market, fewer ebook buyers reported buying only digital titles this spring than a year ago.”

According to Book Industry Study Group’s (@BISG) newest edition of Consumer Attitudes Toward Ebook Reading report, the percentage of ebook consumers who exclusively or mostly purchase ebooks fell from nearly 70% in August 2011 to 60% in May 2012. Over the same period, the percentage of survey respondents who have no preference for either ebook or print formats, or who buy some genres in ebook format and others in print, rose from 25% percent to 34%.

Read this in full.

Read the news release.

See a copy of the core survey question set (pdf).

The following are slide presentations of this year's and last year's reports:

Also see our previous blogposts, “Even E-reader Owners Still Like Printed Books, Survey Finds,” “EPILOGUE: the future of print,” and others tagged “Ebook.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market your content in both ebook and pbook formats.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

New York-based start-up Zola Books (@zolabooks) is planning to replace the Google eBooks re-seller progam (to end in January; originally embraced by the American Booksellers Association), as the ecommerce platform of choice for independent bookstores selling ebooks.

According to Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld), “Zola will offer readers a social e-reader and bookstore, independent bookstores a new place to sell ebooks, and publishers another storefront to display their wares. When it launches to the public on September 19, the company plans to make a splash, offering readers a sizable selection of ebooks, including titles that will only be available on Zola.”

The plan is to offer a selling experience for independent bookstores that is easier, more attractive and more profitable than Google eBooks was.

Zola allows each independent bookstore to create its own storefront that it curates with titles it thinks its readers will like. Each bookseller is responsible for marketing their storefront but the proceeds could be worth it. Zola will pay independent bookstores 60% of net proceeds from every sale.

With Zola, publishers get a straight 70% of every sale and then Zola and its partners split the rest after paying a 4% credit card transaction fee....

In addition to providing a storefront for bookstores, Zola is providing pages for publishers, book reviewers and influential bloggers. Books sold through those pages will net whoever maintains the page an affiliate commission, which will vary in size depending on who or what the affiliate is. Each storefront comes with tools that allow for simple integration with all major social platforms so pages can be kept up-to-date by tweeting.

Read this in full.

Tech Crunch (@TechCrunch) reports, “The company’s Zola Social Reader will work on the Kindle Fire, Nook, and iPad. Zola Books will make both native apps as well as HTML5 apps available for its readers.”

Given the controversy surrounding ebook pricing right now, the company has decided to hold off from selling books until the publishers and the US Department of Justice have settled their current issues. Zola Books plans to use an agency model for selling books, meaning it will give authors and/or publishers full control over the pricing of content their are publishing exclusively on the site. By the time it launches publicly, the company expects to have every publisher on board. Exclusive content on the site will be offered DRM free.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market ebooks and pbooks, as well as stay current with the quickly changing digital publishing world.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Christian Retailing (@ChristianRetail) reports on CBA-commissioned research by the Barna Group (@barnagroup) that Christians are using computer tablets and e-readers at a faster pace than most consumers.

Barna President David Kinnaman (@davidkinnaman) summarized the findings of The Rise of E-Reading: What Digital Content Means for Customer Loyalty, Products, and Retailing study in a video presentation July 15 during the opening general session of the International Christian Retail Show (@ICRShow) (#ICRS) in Orlando, Fla.

The study shows that

·         44% of pastors

·         30% of Christian store shoppers

·         25% of practicing Catholics all report they own a mobile tablet device or e-reader, compared to 18% of shoppers who don't visit Christian stores.

Also, the most popular device is the iPad — 44% of tablet-owning Christian store shoppers.

And nearly 70% of Christian store shoppers said they would definitely or probably buy an ebook or digital download from a Christian store.

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, “Family Christian Stores Now Selling Its Own Tablet,” and our other posts about tablets.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market pbooks and ebooks.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, created specifically for publishing and marketing executives.