somersault

In New York magazine (@NYMag), Boris Kachka (@Borisk) writes that ebooks are more than a publishing platform — they’re a whole new literary form.

The great hidden virtue of ebooks — hidden beneath the chatter about their effect on the bottom line — is that they allow stories to be exactly as long as we want them to be. It turns out that many of them work best between 10,000 and 35,000 words long — the makings of a whole new nonfiction genre occupying the virgin territory between articles and hardcovers....

From one angle, the short book might look like another manifestation of the shrinking American attention span. From another, it speaks to our longing for a lot more depth than shrinking periodicals can handle.

Read this in full.

Also see our previous post, "In the Year of the Ebook, 5 Lessons From - and For - News Organizations."

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you plan your ebook strategy.

Articles appearing in the media recently have both upheld the virtues of the independent bookstore and heaped disdain on it. In The New York Times’ (@NYTimes) Op-Ed piece, “Amazon’s Jungle Logic,” novelist Richard Russo lashes out against Amazon’s promotions as an attempt to squash local retailers.

....my writer pals and I took personally Amazon’s assault on the kinds of stores that hand-sold our books before anybody knew who we were, back before Amazon or the Internet itself existed. As Anita [Shreve] put it, losing independent bookstores would be “akin to editing ... a critical part of our culture out of American life.”

Read this in full.

But over on Slate (@Slate), technology columnist Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo), in “Don’t Support Your Local Bookseller: Buying books on Amazon is better for authors, better for the economy, and better for you,” criticizes Russo’s argument.

Rather than focus on the ways that Amazon’s promotion would harm businesses whose demise might actually be a cause for alarm,...Russo hangs his tirade on some of the least efficient, least user-friendly, and most mistakenly mythologized local establishments you can find: independent bookstores. Russo and his novelist friends take for granted that sustaining these cultish, moldering institutions is the only way to foster a “real-life literary culture,” as writer Tom Perrotta puts it. Russo claims that Amazon, unlike the bookstore down the street, “doesn’t care about the larger bookselling universe” and has no interest in fostering “literary culture.”

That’s simply bogus. As much as I despise some of its recent tactics, no company in recent years has done more than Amazon to ignite a national passion for buying, reading, and even writing new books. With his creepy laugh and Dr. Evil smile, Bezos is an easy guy to hate, and I’ve previously worried that he’d ruin the book industry. But if you’re a novelist — not to mention a reader, a book publisher, or anyone else who cares about a vibrant book industry — you should thank him for crushing that precious indie on the corner.

Read this in full.

And then, on Huffington Post Books (@HuffPostBooks), Hillary Rettig (@hillaryrettig), author of 7 Secrets of the Prolific, weighs in with an open letter addressed to independent booksellers.

As someone who likes indie bookstores a lot, and who always seeks them out in her travels, I feel bad that so many of you are going through such a hard time. And so I have a suggestion for a solid new book-related revenue stream that not even Amazon can touch. Before I tell it to you, however, I need to share a recent experience I had with a bookseller.

That experience was cold and disheartening for Rettig. She left with the feeling that many “booksellers remain mired in what indie publishing proponents...call the ‘legacy’ publishing world — and a fundamental element of that world is disrespect for, and exploitation of, writers."

Indie booksellers, you have a natural friend in us, the indie authors. Even though Manjoo is right and Amazon is a boon for us, many of us are also discovering, to our chagrin, that sales still often requires a personal touch — and we're also discovering that it's expensive and time consuming to enter a new market.

You've already got those personal contacts, and are in that market. So my humble suggestion is that, in 2012, you resolve to work with us — as equals.

Read this in full.

You may also be interested in visiting the American Booksellers Association (@ABCGroupatABA & @IndieBoundMeg).

For all book lovers, we (@smrsault) invite you to make our SomersaultNOW online dashboard your personal computer homepage (see instructions).

Dwight Silverman (@dsilverman), tech blogger/columnist and blog editor for the Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron), says, “The book business is not changing fast enough.... Most of the changes still involve readers paying a publisher for one book, written by an author. Digital formats can enable more creative and reader-friendly innovations. Here are five things I'd like to see book publishers and retailers do that would really kick off a reading revolution.”

·         Let me subscribe to my favorite authors….

·         Keep books updated for one price….

·         Buy a print copy, get an electronic copy, too….

·         Give more of my money to authors….

·         Indie bookstores should sell ebooks….

Read this in full.

Bookmark and use daily our (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard created especially for publishing and marketing executives.

Book lover Sean Ohlenkamp (@ohkamp), an associate art director at Lowe Roche (@loweroche), spent 4 nights at independent Canadian bookstore Type Books (@typebooks) shooting this whimsical stop-motion video tribute to books.

The above video was inspired by the one below, which Ohlenkamp and his wife created last year with the books in his home.

Read The Huffington Post (@HuffPostCanada) story in full.

Bookmark and use daily our (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard, designed for book lovers.

As reported in The Christian Post, BibleGateway.com, the highest ranked (according to Alexa) website in the world for Bible search activity, is now featuring the Common English Bible (Twitter @CommonEngBible – http://twitter.com/CommonEngBible) in its Verse of the Day free email subscription (http://www.biblegateway.com/newsletters/). And Patheos.com, the international online hub for faith communities, is now featuring the Common English Bible as its Daily Verse, appearing on its Library Bible Resources page (http://www.patheos.com/Library/Bible-Resources.html), Evangelical Portal (http://www.patheos.com/Religion-Portals/Evangelical.html), and Progressive Christian Portal (http://www.patheos.com/Religion-Portals/Progressive-Christian.html).

The free-to-search text of the Common English Bible, including the Apocrypha, is available online at the translation’s website (http://www.commonenglishbible.com/Explore/PassageLookup/tabid/210/Default.aspx), Bible Gateway (http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/Common-English-Bible-CEB/), and YouVersion (http://www.youversion.com/bible/ceb). A Bible Passage Lookup widget is also available (http://www.commonenglishbible.com/Explore/PassageLookupWidget/tabid/393/Default.aspx) for placement on personal websites.

The Common English Bible is on the January CBA Bible Translation Best Seller list (based on actual unit sales in Christian retail stores in the United States through Dec. 3, 2011) (http://cbaonline.org/nm/documents/BSLs/Bible_Translations.pdf). Its debut on the list in December came after being in stores just less than three months.

More than 150 international bloggers are currently participating in the three-month long “Thank You-Come Again-I Promise” blog tour (from November 2011 through January 2012). The tour’s Twitter hashtag is #CEBtour (http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23CEBTour). The complete tour schedule, and information about joining the tour, is available at CommonEnglishBible.com/CEB/blogtour (http://www.CommonEnglishBible.com/CEB/blogtour).

And the completion of the Common English Bible after four years of translation work was named one of the top 10 religion stories of 2011 as decided by leading international religion journalists in the 30th annual Religion Newswriters Association survey (http://www.rna.org/news/79176/2011-Top-10-Religion-Stories-of-the-Year.htm) and by editors of the Associated Baptist Press (http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/7035/53/).

“There’s a reason the Common English Bible is receiving such a positive and popular reception,” says Paul Franklin, PhD, associate publisher. “It’s probably the most literal Bible translation, built on common ground with academic rigor and denomination neutrality, which clearly communicates ancient sacred text in understandable 21st century English.”

The Common English Bible is a collaboration of 120 Bible scholars and editors, 77 reading group leaders, and more than 500 average readers from around the world. The translators – from 24 denominations in American, African, Asian, European, and Latino communities – represent such academic institutions as Asbury Theological Seminary, Azusa Pacific University, Bethel Seminary, Denver Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, Seattle Pacific University, Wheaton College, Yale University, and many others.

The Common English Bible is written in contemporary idiom at the same reading level as the newspaper USA TODAY—using language that’s comfortable and accessible for today’s English readers. More than half-a-million copies of the Bible are already in print, including an edition with the Apocrypha. The Common English Bible is available for purchase online and in 20 digital formats. A Reference Bible edition and a Daily Companion devotional edition are now also available. Additionally, in 2012, Church/Pew Bibles, Gift and Award Bibles, Large Print Bibles, and Children’s Bible editions will be in stores, joining the existing Thinline Bibles, Compact Thin Bibles, and Pocket-Size Bibles, bringing the total variety of Common English Bible stock-keeping units (SKUs) to more than 40.

Visit CommonEnglishBible.com to see comparison translations, learn about the translators, get free downloads, and more.

The Common English Bible is sponsored by the Common English Bible Committee, an alliance of five publishers that serve the general market, as well as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Chalice Press), Presbyterian Church (USA) (Westminster John Knox Press), Episcopal Church (Church Publishing, Inc.), United Church of Christ (The Pilgrim Press), and The United Methodist Church (Abingdon Press).

For a media review copy of the Common English Bible and to schedule an interview with Paul Franklyn, please contact Audra Jennings, ajennings@tbbmedia.com at 1.800.927.1517.

It is no exaggeration to say that the widespread acceptance of digital devices and a simultaneous contraction of shelf-space in stores qualify as a historic shift. The demise of Borders, the country's second-largest book chain as recently as a year ago, was largely offset by the sale of millions of e-readers and electronic books on a vast scale in a market now dominated by Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Google. In May, Amazon announced that it was selling more ebooks than print books. On "Black Friday," November 25, Amazon said it had sold four times as many Kindles in a single day as it did in 2010. At this rate, it seems increasingly likely that ebooks will match printed books in the next few years, and eventually overtake them.

The popularity of multi-use tablets – Apple's iPads, the Kindle Fire (which has drawn criticism for a variety of technical glitches), B&N's Nook, and several others – has been another dominant feature of the year, serving up thousands of apps for games, music, magazines, and news sites, depending on your choice of device and price. As measured by IHS iSuppli research, and reported in the New York Times, Apple will ship about 18.6 million iPads in this quarter; the Kindle Fire, which went on sale in November, will sell about four million devices; and the Nook tablet will ship 1.3 million. While tablets have scores of uses, ebooks have so far held their own as defining attractions in the digital era. Their role is reminiscent of the way DVDs transformed the movie business in the 1990s, posing a major challenge for theaters while expanding the market for players to be used at home.

Bookstores have finally recognized the enormous potential of ebooks and the threat they pose to bookstores’ future share of the market. Hundreds of independent stores, with the strong backing of the American Booksellers Association, have signed on to a Google-supported system for ebook sales and now need to persuade customers that they can serve them digital products as well as Amazon, Apple, and the other industry leaders. The ABA said that members’ website sales were up 60% over last year, and that business overall was noticeably stronger.

Read this in full.

For digital book world (@DigiBookWorld), Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid) wrote the article, “Five Big Stories of 2011 That Will Bleed Into 2012.” He advises readers to watch the following in the coming months:

·         As bookstores are closing, the issue of how new books will be discovered by consumers will continue to grow in urgency.

·         The new standard in ebook production, EPUB 3 and its inability to “play” with Amazon’s KF8.

·         The rise of the Kindle Fire and the role it will play in driving ebook sales, as well as its effect on other tablet sales.

·         The opportunity for US publishers to expand into foreign language ebook sales on the international market.

·         The “agency pricing model” for ebooks and the corresponding investigation of that model by the US Dept. of Justice.

Read this in full.

paidContent (@paidContent) has an entire series reviewing the Highlights of 2011, including "The Year in Book Publishing, By the Numbers" by Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen).

Stay current with news about the publishing world by bookmarking Somersault’s (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Nielsen BookScan's Tops of 2011

Parable and Mardel launched in partnership with Ingram/Spring Arbor’s digital services division, joining Berean and Christian Supply. Signature Websites launched its ebook capabilities in a partnership with eChristian (@eChristianInc), formerly Christianaudio.com. Other independent bookstores sell ebooks in partnership with Google eBooks.

Ebook selling in brick-and-mortar stores is a main topic at CBA’s Next 2012: Meeting the Challenge, an event in cooperation with Atlanta’s AmericasMart (@AmericasMartATL) gift mart show Jan. 12-13.

Read this in full.

Ebook sales in general continue to grow. For the first 10 months of 2011, ebook sales were up 131.1%, to $807.7 million.

As for physical books, according to Nielsen BookScan (@NielsenWire), sales of print books in the stores it covers totaled 12.0 million the week ending Nov. 27 and then jumped to 15.5 million units the week ending Dec. 4. The following week, units rose again, to 18.6 million, and increased 26% the week of Dec. 18, to 23.4 million.

Compared to the same week in 2010, unit sales the week of Dec. 18 were down 14%, with the closing of Borders and the growth of ebook sales likely the two biggest factors in the decline. During the last week, print backlist was doing better than frontlist, with backlist sales down 9% compared to a year ago and frontlist off 19%.

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you navigate the churning waters of 21^st century publishing. And remember to bookmark and use daily our SomersaultNOW online dashboard of news and information from more than 300 sources.

“We’re delighted the Common English Bible is receiving such early overwhelming support and acceptance,” says Paul Franklin, PhD, associate publisher. “We see this as confirming our decision to create an academically rigorous yet naturally understandable translation for 21st century English readers; a translation from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that’s built on common ground.”

The best seller achievement comes at the same time the completion of the Common English Bible after four years of translation work was named one of the top 10 religion stories of 2011 as decided by leading religion journalists in the 30th annual Religion Newswriters Association survey.

The Common English Bible is a collaboration of 120 Bible scholars and editors, 77 reading group leaders, and more than 500 average readers from around the world. The translators – from 24 denominations in American, African, Asian, European, and Latino communities – represent such academic institutions as Asbury Theological Seminary, Azusa Pacific University, Bethel Seminary, Denver Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, Seattle Pacific University, Wheaton College, Yale University, and many others.

The Common English Bible is written in contemporary idiom at the same reading level as the newspaper USA TODAY—using language that’s comfortable and accessible for today’s English readers. More than half-a-million copies of the Bible are already in print, including an edition with the Apocrypha. The Common English Bible is available online and in 20 digital formats. A Reference Bible edition and a Daily Companion devotional edition are now also available. Additionally, in 2012, Church/Pew Bibles, Gift and Award Bibles, Large Print Bibles, and Children’s Bible editions will be in stores, joining the existing Thinline Bibles, Compact Thin Bibles, and Pocket-Size Bibles, bringing the total variety of Common English Bible stock-keeping units (SKUs) to more than 40.

More than 140 international bloggers are currently participating in the three-month long “Thank You-Come Again-I Promise” blog tour (from November 2011 through January 2012). The tour’s Twitter hashtag is #CEBtour. The complete tour schedule, and information about joining the tour, is available at CommonEnglishBible.com/CEB/blogtour.

Visit CommonEnglishBible.com to see comparison translations, learn about the translators, get free downloads, and more.

The Common English Bible is sponsored by the Common English Bible Committee, an alliance of five publishers that serve the general market, as well as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Chalice Press), Presbyterian Church (USA) (Westminster John Knox Press), Episcopal Church (Church Publishing, Inc.), United Church of Christ (The Pilgrim Press), and The United Methodist Church (Abingdon Press).

For a media review copy of the Common English Bible and to schedule an interview with Paul Franklyn, please contact Audra Jennings, ajennings@tbbmedia.com at 1.800.927.1517.

Infographic by KISSmetrics (@KISSmetrics).