Even though students have yet to energetically catch on to the digital book revolution, Mashable (@mashable) highlights 6 publishers targeting the digital textbook niche:
1. CourseSmart
2. CafeScribe
3. VitalSource
4. enTourage Systems
5. Inkling
6. Nook Study
How are you preparing for the changes in the textbook publishing market? Let Somersault help.
Publishers, authors, booksellers, and agents are crowded together this week attending the annual BEA (@BookExpoAmerica) (#BEA, #BEA11, #BookExpo) convention in New York City. Read the latest news:
Book Business (@bookbusinessmag) reports “preliminary results from an ambitious new book publishing industry survey show growth in both revenues and units sold across the contemporary book publishing landscape.” The "BookStats" survey shows
Growth was seen for publishers of all sizes with medium- and small-sized publishers leading the way. Over 50% of the publishers surveyed were enjoying growth, Kelly Gallagher, vice president of publishing services at RR Bowker, said.
Data is broken down by content categories (trade fiction and non-fiction, juvenile, religious, K-12, higher education, professional and scholarly); formats (physical and non-physical delivery platforms); and distribution channel.
Not surprisingly, hardcover and softcover markets have seen declines, while digital formats such as e-books and apps are growing.
Adult fiction is "a stalwart category" enjoying healthy growth, as are all categories of juvenile titles, Gallagher said. Nonfiction adult, however is "struggling."
While chain bookstores are registering predicable declines, independent bookstores are holding their own, showing stable sales or just slight declines. "I think it's a great story line that the independents are showing some resiliency," Gallagher said.
Book Business also reports on the International Digital Publishing Forum conference at BEA about “surprising new information on consumer and student ebook reading habits.
Of consumers surveyed in January 2011, 77.3% are "satisfied" or "highly satisfied" with the price of ebooks.... The feature sets most desired in ebooks are affordability (seen by 75% of respondents as "very important"), followed by readability, ease of acquisition, portability (all over 70%) and speed (over 60%). Searchability and eco-friendliness were important to 35% of respondents, though the later is growing as a factor.
Among reading devices, consumers are most satisfied with Amazon's Kindle (75%) followed by the Nook (70%) and iPad (60%).
Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) reports on paidContent (@paidContent) about Barnes & Noble announcing a new WiFi-only Nook and Amazon responding with a cheaper 3G edition of the Kindle.
And Shelf Awareness (@ShelfAwareness) covered the American Booksellers Association's annual meeting, where CEO Oren Teicher called for new business models for the trade; he
dispensed with the usual CEO report reviewing the association's activities of the past year and instead gave a wide-ranging talk outlining how booksellers and publishers "can work more closely together in the common goal of selling more books" and maintaining bricks-and-mortar bookstores' role as "the essential showroom in ensuring the sales of a broad spectrum of titles," a browsing experience no one else can offer.
Also read CBA's coverage, "Ebooks command BEA spotlight, but stores still needed, many say." Then read our wrap-up blog post "BEA, Blog World Expo NY, & BookBloggerCon."
The above chart displays research by MarketTools (@MarketTools) that finds email has definitely NOT lost its usefulness; in fact people say they’re using it MORE these days to stay current in their communication outflow and intake. News stories, such as “The Death of IMing” by Business Insider (@alleyinsider) and another by WebProNews (@WebProNews) that have reported this research, seem to interpret the data as dramatically showing Instant Messaging can now be declared “dead.” We don’t agree. Any research has a margin of error. Even a 1% margin of error in this survey would level-out the “decreased” figure. At worst, IMing can safely be described as “staying the same.”
The above chart clearly shows the importance of strategically using the appropriate social media to effectively (and integratively) communicate a brand’s message.
FYI: Microsoft created the Infographic below (shown vertically at WebProNews) to trace the history of email.
A story in the Los Angeles Times (@latimestech) features Robert Kiyosaki, who’s written more than a dozen titles under his "Rich Dad" brand of financial education books, which together have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. His new book Unfair Advantage released in stores April 12. It’s also available as an ebook. But the signed ebook version will only be available May 26 during a live chat streamed on the author's Facebook page. The special edition of the book will be available only for Amazon Kindle ereaders and will sell for $9.99.
The new version differs from the standard copy by offering a new page with a digital copy of the author's autograph, as well as a bonus chapter about the "corruption of capitalism" and extra photos.
As soon as the streamed chat is done, the special edition of the book will no longer be available for sale, says Shane Caniglia, vice president of the Rich Dad Operating Co., which hosts financial education seminars focused on the advice published in the "Rich Dad" books.
Also see our April 28 blog post, “How Authors Can Autograph Their eBooks.”
What are your thoughts about digitally autographing ebook editions?
The Henry Ford (@OnInnovation) asks “Who’d think of putting ground walnut shells in tires? None other than Bobby Unser.” With a Championship Auto Racing Team record of 35 career wins, Unser recognizes that every performance advantage, even a small one, can spell the difference between winning and losing. In this interview he reveals his passion to win while inspiring one innovation after another. As you watch, consider ways in which you can adapt his auto racing innovative principles to innovative thinking for the future of publishing.
Somersault was invited to attend the recent TEDxGrandRapids (@TEDxGrandRapids) (#TEDxGR), a local event inspired by the internationally known TED talks (@TEDTalks & @TEDNews). On May 12, 16 Innovators from diverse fields and from all over the world came to Grand Rapids, MI to share their personal stories of innovation with over 500 local thinkers and doers.
An insightful summary of the day’s speakers is provided by Sharon Oleniczak, strategist at Peopledesign (@peopledesign). For example, she writes: Robert Fuller: Innovate Wonder. Professor of Religious Studies at Bradley University (@bradleyu). Robert Fuller wants all of us to live in a state of wonder every day. “A life shaped by wonder is much different than a life shaped by fear or guilt,” he said.
If you have a chance to participate in a TED or TEDx event, you’ll want to prepare for it by reading these helpful tips from Ben Brousch (@brousch).
One of the videos shown at the event was this one, a life lesson presented by Mark Bezos, a volunteer firefighter:
How are you going to innovate today? Let Somersault help. And remember to daily use the SomersaultNOW online dashboard to read inspiring articles of innovation.
Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) reports “the number of books produced by traditional publishers rose 5% in 2010, to a projected 316,480, according to preliminary figures released from R. R. Bowker (@Bowker). That number, however, is dwarfed by the growth in output of nontraditional titles, which jumped 169% to 2,766,260. As Bowker notes, the majority of nontraditional titles consists largely of print-on-demand editions of public domain titles. Self-published titles are also included in the figure. Based on the preliminary figures, the combination of traditional and nontraditional books totaled a projected 3,092,740 in 2010, up 132% from 2010.
The Religion category of publishing ranked 5th overall in 2010, behind Fiction, Juveniles, Sociology/Economics, and Science.
Since 2002, the production of traditional books has increased 47%, while nontraditional titles have risen 8,460%.
Another report, this one by the AAP (@AmericanPublish), says ebook sales increased 169% in the first two months of 2011 and 146% in March (to $69 million), bringing the total sales for the first quarter of 2011 to $233 million. Religion ebook sales were up 27% in March and up 14% for the quarter. Digital audiobook sales rose 9% in the quarter. Read the Publishers Weekly article.
And Amazon (@amazon) just announced it now sells more Kindle (@AmazonKindle) ebooks than pbooks – paperback and hardcover – combined. Since April it’s sold 105 Kindle editions for every 100 print books. Read the PW article.
This article by Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) on paidContent.org (@paidContent) says a company called Enthrill Entertainment Inc. (@Enthrill) plans to partner with bookstores to sell “physical” copies of ebooks in brick-and-mortar bookstores.
Enthrill’s model will allow bookstore to sell physical cards with an image of the book’s cover on one side and a QR code (which provides access to extras like sample chapters and trailers) and download code on the other side. After consumers purchase the card, they go to Enthrill’s website and use their code to download the book as a PDF or EPUB file, which is readable on any device. If they then download other titles as well, those sales are credited back to the bookstore where the customer made his or her original purchase.
Read Enthrill’s news release (pdf).
Enthrill’s explanatory video above looks much like Zondervan’s (@zondervan) Symtio (@Symtio) business model (see video below) when it was first launched in 2008, but then was divided in two in 2010, with the online portion sold to LibreDigital (@LibreDigital) and the in-store portion discontinued (see Christian Retailing‘s (@ChristianRetail) “Zondervan suspends, sells Symtio ebook program”).
Also see our Feb. 10 blog post “Is there hope for small bookstores in a digital age?”.
Do you tend to read at least one review of a book before purchasing it?
Web consultant, blogger, and author Tim Challies (@challies) surveyed his readers to find out where they buy Christian books and why they buy the books where they do. More than 1,800 people completed the survey; 67% of the respondents were male; 82% lived in the USA; 88% identified themselves as Reformed in theology. His conclusions:
First, Christian bookstores are barely competing with one another; they are competing together against Amazon. Even in a relatively niche market Amazon is dominant. Of course books are popular and even a small share of the market is significant, so those Christian bookstores can still make a go of it. But they need to fight this perception that Amazon offers the best prices.
Second, if we are truly committed to good prices, we should shop carefully and compare pricing before hitting the “checkout” button at Amazon. Unless there are other reasons to buy from Amazon (we are Prime members; we want to buy other items at the same time), we should look carefully at the Christian e-commerce stores to see if they offer better pricing.
Third, Christian bookstores need to maintain (or increase) their commitment to ebooks. The market is heading in that direction and the stores will need to be certain that they do not miss their opportunity. The big challenge, of course, is that Kindle owners will almost always get their books from Amazon; the most popular device has pretty much guaranteed that you will also use it to buy your books.
According to the US Census Bureau (@uscensusbureau), the US population is 308,745,538. And it says the exact midpoint of America’s population has now moved to Plato, Missouri. Researchers determine the country’s center as the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all residents were of identical weight. CNN (@CNN & @cnnbrk) reports the news this way:
Plato is a quaint and rural place in a nation that, according to the 2010 Census, is becoming less so, as more people move to urban areas, especially the suburbs and exurbs.
Forget big-city lights and traffic jams. Here, you can drive through town in 1 minute and 9 seconds, going the speed limit of 40 mph. On that drive, you’ll pass two churches, several fields of horses, a post office, a school, and five businesses....
...Plato feels different from other places, too. No one here is in a hurry. It’s a place where people still use “visit” as a verb that refers to the act of chatting with neighbors for hours on end with absolutely nothing pressing to discuss. People here get “tickled” by things like fishing, baseball games, turkey hunts, town gossip, and wading in the local streams....
...Plato very well may be stuck in a Norman Rockwell painting that the rest of us decided to toss in the garage decades ago. But this tiny community is more central to 2011 America than it might seem. America sometimes wishes it were a little more like Plato....
Average people in average, America. How are you publishing and marketing to meet their needs?