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In a deal that will unite the country’s two largest religion book publishers, HarperCollinsPublishers (@HarperCollins), parent company of Zondervan (@zondervan), has reached an agreement to acquire Thomas Nelson (@ThomasNelson) for $200 million. HC expects to close the purchase before the end of the year. Here’s the report by Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly):

HC CEO Brian Murray said the publisher was attracted to Nelson because of its “great content and great authors.” He sees Nelson as being more broad based than Zondervan, pointing to Nelson lines in such areas as business and leadership. Nelson, he added, “is a leader in the inspirational market and we are always looking for good content.” Nelson has had one of the bestselling books of the year in Heaven Is for Real. The area where the two are in the most direct competition is the Bible category. Nelson and Zondervan are the dominant Bible publishers in the Christian market, and they license or own translations that compete head to head.

HC also has a religion imprint called HarperOne (@HarperOne) and its Avon (@avonbooks) romance imprint has a Christian fiction line called Avon Inspire.

Read the PW report in full.

Read the news release.

Read coverage by The New York Times.

Read coverage by The Wall Street Journal.

Read coverage by Christianity Today.

See "Perspective on the Sale of Thomas Nelson Publishers" by Steve Laube of The Steve Laube Agency (@stevelaubeagent).

Chaves, professor of sociology, religion, and divinity at Duke University in Durham, NC, and director of the National Congregations Study, says the number of Protestants attending independent churches increased from 14% in 1989 to 19% in 2006.

“If the unaffiliated congregations were all in one denomination, they would constitute the second largest in number of participants (behind only the Roman Catholic Church) and the largest number of congregations,” Chaves writes. “Although most Protestant churches are denominational, a noticeable and growing minority are not formally affiliated with any denomination.”

Chaves says an increase of 5 percentage points in the number of people attending independent churches may not seem like much, but he notes that growth occurred over a period of just 8 years. He adds those numbers probably understate the cultural significance of the trend, because denominational affiliations seem to be decreasingly important to congregations and their members even when they do exist.

Read this in full.

Humor columnist W. Bruce Cameron (@wbrucecameron) takes on the electronic ereader industry with this essay:

Move over, Kindle: Cameron Industries, a mono-national corporation headed by CEO W. Bruce Cameron (no relation), announced today it will soon be marketing the "next generation" of portable readers. Dubbed the "book," Cameron predicts it will take the world by storm.

As described by Cameron, the book will mark major advances in current reader technology. Among them:

Battery life: While some manufacturers boast that their reading machines can have as much as 150 hours of battery life, Cameron claims that the (pat. pend.) "always on" technology used by the book means the battery life is actually longer than human life.

Read it in full.

It makes us think of another humorous look at the printed format: the Bio-Optical Organized Knowledge Device (BOOK):

Introducing the new Bio-Optical Organized Knowledge device, trade named B.O.O.K.

BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology; no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use, even a child can operate it. Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere -- even sitting in an armchair by the fire -- yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc.

Here's how it works.

BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. The pages are locked together with a custom fit device called a binder which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence. Opaque Paper Technology (OPT) allows manufacturers to use both sides of the sheet, doubling the information density and cutting costs. Experts are divided on the prospects for further increases in information density; for now, BOOKs with more information simply use more pages. Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain.

A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet.

BOOK may be taken up at any time and used merely by opening it.

Read this in full.

In an article in AdAge (@adage), B.L. Ochman, of What’s Next? (@whatsnext), explains why QR code campaigns fail:

·         Unreadable codes on billboards, too high up for people to get a clear scan; on ads in subways, where there is no cellphone reception for scans.

·         QR codes in TV ads. By time you run and get your phone, find the scanner, and try to take a shot, the ad's over.

·         No instructions. Not everyone knows what a QR code is and how to scan it.

·         Using a proprietary code so you need a specific type of QR reader to scan it.

Read this in full.

Although Adweek (@Adweek) derides this “World’s Largest QR Code” (able to be seen 2 miles in the sky), it may have the last laugh because of its PR value.

And AXA Bank in Belgium arranged thousands of different colors of cans of paint to form a gigantic QR code.

In an article for Media Post (@MediaPost), brand marketer Maryanne Conlin (@mcmilker) extols the convenience of QR codes as the overriding benefit when marketing to busy moms.

Read this in full.

And this article in Target Marketing (@TargetMktg) asks “QR Codes Vs. Short Codes, and Does Your Campaign Need Them?”

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you think through your QR code marketing strategy. Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

According to CBC News (@CBCNews), Canadian-based ebook seller and ereader Kobo (@kobo) is following in Amazon's footsteps and will create a publishing arm sometime next year that will deal directly with authors.

Like Amazon, which announced two weeks ago that it would be publishing 122 original titles this fall, Kobo will be offering complete publishing services for authors, including book editing and design.

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, "Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal."

Google Analytics (@googleanalytics) created this humorous video to showcase the frustration of consumers when they encounter complicated buying procedures online. It reminds us to keep the consumer experience uppermost in our thinking whenever we serve them, whether through etailing procedures or even intuitive website navigation and valuable immediate marketing content.

Writer Edward Willett (@ewillett) asks, “Despite passion on the printed-book side, ebook sales continue to soar, and ebook readers are becoming better, cheaper, and more ubiquitous. How can a lover of text-on-dead-trees continue to defend his/her choice?”

Science may offer some ammunition in the ongoing debate. For instance, a study conducted last year by Jacob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group, a California-based usability consulting firm, tested three different ways to read e-books – on the PC, the Kindle 2, and the iPad – against the reading of paper books. Nielsen found that those reading any of the ebook versions were as much as 10% slower than those reading the printed versions. (Reading on the PC was the slowest — and least popular — of all.)

[Also see Singularity Hub’s (@singularityhub) “New Study: You Read Slower on Kindle, iPad than with Print.”]

[For a contrasting article, see TeleRead’s (@paulkbiba) “Jakob Nielsen’s e-reading speed study isn’t the final word].”

But “another study emerged from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz that, according to the lead researcher, Professor Dr. Stephan Füssel, provides a scientific basis ‘for dispelling the widespread misconception that reading from a screen has negative effects.’”

Perhaps, in the end, it all comes down to personal preference.

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you set your publishing agenda while taking into account the personal preference of your consumers.

A new comScore (@comScore) survey says mobile social networking is on the rise, with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn seeing their mobile audiences grow by at least 50% each in the past year.

More than 72 million Americans accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device in August 2011, an increase of 37% in the past year. The study also finds that more than half of mobile users read a post from an organization, brand, or event while on their mobile device.

Over the last year, Facebook’s mobile audience doubled to 57 million users. Twitter saw its mobile audience grow 75% to 13.4 million people. LinkedIn has the smallest mobile audience of the three, but still experienced a boom in the past 12 months, expanding by 69% to 5.4 million users.

Read the news release in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you identify blue ocean strategy for your brand, especially in the mobile environment. And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Above Infographic by Schools.com (@schoolsEDU)

Also see our previous blogpost, “College Students Use eReaders More, But Still Like Print.”