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Remember when chewing gum was typically packaged in a thick, long rectangular casing that caused a bulge in a person’s shirt pocket?

Today gum packaging has taken on a sleek, slim look, more like a matchbook with a flip-top cover. As always, the relevant and fresh look and feel of a product is just as important to its sale as what the product is and does.

This kind of upgrade is happening in the book world, too. According to an article in The New York Times Media & Advertising (@NYTimesAd) section, publishers are wrapping books like Emma and Jane Eyre in new covers: provocative, modern jackets in bold shades of scarlet and lime green that are explicitly aimed at teenagers raised on “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games.”

The new versions are cutting edge replacements for the traditional (read: stuffy, boring) covers that have been a trademark of the classics for decades, those familiar, dour depictions of women wearing frilly clothing. In their place are images like the one of Romeo in stubble and a tight white tank top on a new Penguin edition of Romeo and Juliet.

The covers are intended to tap into the soaring popularity of the young-adult genre, the most robustly growing category in publishing. In the last decade, publishers have poured energy and resources into books for teenagers, releasing more titles each year. Bookstores have followed suit, creating and expanding special sections devoted to them.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you upgrade the cover design and packaging of your titles.

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

Between traditional publishing, the legitimization of self-publishing, print-on-demand, and Internet technology lowering the barrier to authoring books, roughly 1,000 books are now being published every single day in the USA.

We’ve never had so many books available, yet bookstores are going out of business like never before. With the astronomical number of books in the marketplace and stores closing their doors where books have historically been displayed for serendipitous encountering, the question these days is, “How will people conveniently browse and discover new titles.” The following social websites are one answer:

·         AudioBookFans (@AudioBookFans)

·         AudioFile (@AudioFileMag)

·         Audiobook Jukebox (@audiobkjkbx)

·         Authonomy (@authonomy)

·         BookCrossing.com (@BookCrossing)

·         BookFinder.com (@BookFinder)

·         BookFinder4U.com (@bookfinder4u)

·         Book Genome Project

·         Bookhitch.com (@bookhitch)

·         Bookins (@Bookins)

·         Bookish (@BookishHQ)

·         Booklist Online (@BooklistOnline)

·         Bookmarks Magazine

·         BookMooch (@bookmooch)

·         Booknibblr (@booknibblr)

·         BookPage (@bookpage)

·         BookRabbit (@thebookrabbit)

·         Bookreporter (@Bookreporter)

·         Book Review Index Online

·         BookRiff (@BookRiff)

·         Books & Culture (@booksandculture)

·         Books For Ears

·         BookShout (@BookShout)

·         BookSpot

·         Book TV (@BookTV)

·         Book Verdict

·         Byliner (@TheByliner)

·         DearReader.com (@DearReaderCom)

·         Edelweiss (publishers catalogs) (@weiss_squad)

·         Everyday eBook (@EverydayeBook)

·         Fanado (@Fanadoevents)

·         FiledBy (@filedby)

·         Findings (@findings)

·         FirstChapters (@first_chapters)

·         ForeWord (@ForeWordmag)

·         fReado (@freado)

·         goodreads (@goodreads)

·         Google Books

·         Hyperink (@hyperink)

·         Kirkus Reviews (@KirkusReviews)

·         Lendle (@lendleapp)

·         LibraryThing (@LibraryThing)

·         Listal (@listal)

·         Little Free Library (@LtlFreeLibrary)

·         Los Angeles Times Books (@latimesbooks)

·         Lovereading (@lovereadinguk)

·         The Midwest Book Review

·         NetGalley (@NetGalley)

·         The New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) (@Book Reviews)

·         Oprah's Book Club (@OprahsBookClub)

·         Published.com

·         Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly)

·         Reader2

·         Readmill (@Readmill)

·         Revish

·         Riffle (@Rifflebooks)

·         Shelfari (@shelfari)

·         Shelf Awareness (@ShelfAwareness)

·         ShelfCentered

·         Shelf Unbound (@shelfmagazine)

·         Small Demons (@smalldemons)

·         Togather.com (@TogatherInc)

·         USA TODAY Books (@USATODAYBooks)

·         The Wall Street Journal Books (@WSJBookReviews)

·         Wattpad (@wattpad)

·         Zola Books (@zolabooks)

·         Zooba (@MyZooba)

Also see our blogposts:

·         “Findability, Discoverability, & Marketing" 

·         “Discoverability in the Digital Age: Personal Recommendations and Bookstores" 

·         “How Ebook Buyers Discover Books" 

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to market your books so consumers readily discover them.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, where you’ll find the above list of links in the Book Discovery Sites tab.

The above video has now achieved 5.2 million views on YouTube. It’s a promotion for BBC One using clips from David Attenborough’s (@davidattenboro) Life series.

What makes it so viral?

·         It’s simple

·         It’s majestic

·         It’s entertaining

·         Its music is familiar, catchy, and appropriate

·         It’s light-hearted

·         It invites repeat viewing

·         It’s emotionally uplifting

Also see our previous blogpost, “The 3 Qualities That Make A YouTube Video Go Viral.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategize and produce videos that effectively communicate your brand’s message to your target audience.

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

The Verge (@verge) reports on a publishing/marketing concept that uses disappearing ink to print books whose text gradually fades away over a period of 2 months as it comes into contact with light and air.

Dubbed "The Book That Can't Wait," the format — an intriguing one in a world increasingly dominated by Kindles and Nooks — is being pioneered by independent Argentinian publishing house Eterna Cadencia, which is using it to promote new authors. As the promo video points out, “if people don't read their first books, they'll never make it to a second.”

Read this in full.

If you’re a book lover like we (@smrsault) are, bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

As the above video reports, this Wall Street Journal Life & Culture (@WSJLife) article focuses on the amount of information about readers that booksellers and their e-readers are now able to glean through ebook technology.

It takes the average reader just seven hours to read the final book in Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games" trilogy on the Kobo e-reader — about 57 pages an hour. Nearly 18,000 Kindle readers have highlighted the same line from the second book in the series: "Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them." And on Barnes & Noble's Nook, the first thing that most readers do upon finishing the first "Hunger Games" book is to download the next one.

In the past, publishers and authors had no way of knowing what happens when a reader sits down with a book. Does the reader quit after three pages, or finish it in a single sitting? Do most readers skip over the introduction, or read it closely, underlining passages and scrawling notes in the margins? Now, ebooks are providing a glimpse into the story behind the sales figures, revealing not only how many people buy particular books, but how intensely they read them.

Read this in full.

Bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) editorial director Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid) says, “Publishers worried that readers who borrow ebooks from libraries don’t buy books can put those worries to rest."

According to a new study from the The Pew Research Center's (@PewResearch) Internet & American Life Project (@pewinternet), those who borrow ebooks from libraries also purchase ebooks. When ebook borrowers were asked by Pew how they acquired the last ebook they read, 41% said they bought it.

Read this in full.

“Ebook borrowers are book lovers,” says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet project. “They the heaviest book-reading cohort of the ones we measured. They are more into books than even ebook readers, the larger group they fall into.”

Findings from the study:

·         12% of readers of ebooks borrowed an ebook from the library in the past year.

·         But 58% of all library card holders say they don’t know if their library provides ebook lending services.

·         55% of all those who say the library is “very important” to them say they don’t know if their library lends ebooks.

·         53% of all tablet computer owners say they don’t know if their library lends ebooks.

·         48% of all owners of ebook reading devices such as original Kindles and NOOKs say they don’t know if their library lends ebooks.

·         47% of all those who read an ebook in the past year say they don’t know if their library lends ebooks.

·         E-book borrowers appreciate the selection of ebooks at their local library, but they often encounter wait lists, unavailable titles, or incompatible file formats.

·         Many Americans would like to learn more about borrowing ebooks.

·         58% of Americans have a library card, and 69% say their local library is important to them and their family.

·         Leading-edge librarians and patrons say the advent of ebooks has produced a major transformation in book searching and borrowing at libraries.

Read the study, Libraries, Patrons, and Ebooks, in full.

In his blogpost, “Does Pew study prove ebooks in libraries are safe for publishers?,” Mike Shatzkin (@MikeShatzkin) says, “The latest Pew ebook study seems to me to confirm that the publishers are doing the right thing for sales by constricting the availability of many of the most attractive books from library shelves.”

Read this in full.

Also see PBS’ MediaShift (@PBSMediaShift), “What Is the Role of Libraries in the Age of Ebooks and Digital Information?” and FOX News’ (@FoxNews) article, “How to borrow Ebooks from the library.”

Also see our previous blogposts, “Ebooks Projected to Comprise 50% of US Trade Book Market By 2016” and “Extensive New Study: The Rise of E-reading.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market your brand’s content in pbooks and ebooks.

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

More homeowners are designing libraries and reading rooms in their homes. See the above video by The Wall Street Journal (@WSJVideo) (although note: the Encyclopædia Britannica (@Britannica) has not gone out of business as the reporter says around 1:15 into the video; it has ceased print publication and is concentrating on digital editions — see our blogpost "Encyclopædia Britannica Stops the Presses").

If you’re a book lover like we (@smrsault) are, bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In a column for BBC Business (@BBCBusiness), Coca-Cola (@CocaCola) CEO Muhtar Kent cites 5 global mega-trends from a Consumer Goods Forum report on the "Future Value Chain," and stresses how fundamentally important they are to the future of retail and consumer goods.

2020 Future Value Chain Webcast Presentation

1.    Mass Urbanization. The proportion of people living in cities has now surpassed 50% worldwide, and should reach 70% by 2050, necessitating new supply chain and logistical models.

2.    We're Getting Older. By 2047, the number of individuals over 60 years of age will be higher than those under 15 years of age, a shift presenting substantial possibilities for suitably adaptive organizations.

3.    The Middle Class Cometh. The world is experiencing the greatest economic shift in history as the global middle class grows by another billion people in the next 10 years. By 2030, over 90% of this audience are set to reside in emerging nations, compared with 50% today.

4.    Consumers in the Driving Seat. Evolving technologies are transforming customers’ expectations and ability to influence companies. By 2013, for example, there will be 2 billion mobile users, while a third of purchases are due to be completed online by 2020. Among the requirements on companies will be finding the right channels through which to converse with shoppers, alongside leveraging big data and embracing collaboration.

5.    What About the Planet? Sustainability will assume heightened importance. By 2030, the global population should hit 8.3 billion, while the demand for food and energy is anticipated to leap by 50%, an acceleration standing at 30% for fresh water.

Read this in full.

Coca-Cola also shares it’s branding vision:

How do the above mega-trends impact your publishing plans? Write your comments below.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you identify and maximize trends impacting your brand’s message.

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

MarketingVox (@marketingvox) reports, “The 74 million estimated tablet users in the USA are not just playing around online. Half are getting weather information, more than a third are getting national news, and just under a third read newspaper and magazine content.”

The Online Publishers Association (@OPA_PamHoran) collaborated with Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc. to evaluate attitudes and behaviors of media and entertainment consumers. The OPA surveyed 2,540 Internet users between the ages of 8 and 64 for a one-week period (March 19 through March 26, 2012) and released the results in its report A Portrait of Today's Tablet User – Wave II.

·         94% of tablet users access content and information weekly (41% consume local news, 37% consume national news)

·         72% of tablet owners have paid for apps

·         67% go online

·         66% check email

·         54% watch video

·         53% access social networks

·         39% of readers have bought a single issue or digital subscription for their tablets

·         35% have bought an ebook

·         15% have bought a digital newspaper subscription

Read this in full at:

·         Tablet Users Want Content & Information Over Fun & Games

·         OPA: What Content Do Tablet Owners Buy?

·         A Portrait of Today’s Tablet User, Part I of III: Introduction & Overall Tablet Audience

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market content for tablet users.

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

Thad McIlroy (@ThadMcIlroy), publisher of The Future of Publishing, writes that the word “‘discoverability’ is being used carelessly and doesn’t provide ready answers” in the never-ending quest to help consumers become aware of new books. He says, “Metadata’s first task is mere findability – and the distinction is important.”

·         Findability is the challenge of locating exactly what you’re looking for (even if you have incomplete or inaccurate information about the book).

·         Discoverability is the process by which a book appears in front of you at a point where you were not looking for that specific title (although you are looking for something other than a pound of butter).

·         Marketing a book involves reaching out to a community that should be interested in that particular title and bringing it into focus in a way that captures their attention.

Metadata plays an important role in all of these tasks, although the role it plays is substantially different in each.

Read this in full.

Also see Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) article, "BISG Releases Report on Book Product Metadata," and the Book Industry Study Group (@BISG) press release.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you make your books more findable, discoverable, and marketable.

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