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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.

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.

Family Christian Stores (@FCstores) is the world’s largest Christian-focused retail chain with nearly 300 stores nationwide. Along with its books, Bibles, gifts, and music, it now is selling its own exclusive e-reader, edifi.

Based on a chart comparing edifi with the Nook Color, Nook Tablet, and Kindle Fire, edifi is comparable but a bit smaller (although same screen size), has less resolution and pixel density, runs on Android 2.3.5, comes with its own stand, and is less expensive. It’s uniquely pre-installed with family-friendly features and free apps including Safe Search Wi-Fi Web browsing, 27 Bible translations, and Christian Internet radio. With edifi, users are able to check email, access social networks, watch movies, display photos, and download ebooks and read them with the included FC Reader app.

Read our previous blogposts on the subject of tablets.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish your content for ebooks, pbooks, and audiobooks.

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

GalleyCat (@GalleyCat) reports that net sales revenue from ebooks have now surpassed hardcover books in the first quarter of 2012.

According to the Association of American Publishers’ (@AmericanPublish) March net sales revenue report (collecting data from 1,189 publishers), adult ebook sales were $282.3 million while adult hardcover sales counted $229.6 million during the 1st quarter of 2012. During the same period last year, hardcover accounted for $335 million in sales while ebooks logged $220.4 million.

Here’s more from the report (Q1 2012 chart embedded above): “While ebooks continue to show growth, downloaded audiobooks also keep accelerating vs last year – as some experts have said, tied to ongoing popularity and acquisition of smartphones and mobile devices.”

Read this in full.

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

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish your content as pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

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

The Audio Publishers Association (@AudioPub) (#JIAM2012) has declared June Audiobook Month.

Author Cathryn Prince (@CathrynPrince) writes on her blog about the magic of audiobooks.

I didn’t think about audio books as something for me until I started commuting about 45 minutes to and from an adjunct teaching job. I’m not teaching at the moment, but as Dr. Frasier Crane said: I’m listening. A lot. I discovered a whole new world in audio books. I imagine audio books to be the distant relative of the serial shows of radio days.

Read this in full.

The above video is Jim Dale (@JimnJules), the voice of all the characters in the Harry Potter audiobook series. As a narrator, he's won a Grammy Award (2000), 5 Grammy nominations, and 7 Audie Awards.

NPR Books (@nprbooks) offers a list of audiobooks “that’ll make the family road trip fly by.”

See the list of winners in The Audies competition, the award that “recognizes distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment.”

For a behind-the-scenes description of the making of an audiobook, see Publishers Weekly’s (@PublishersWkly) “How Chef Marcus Samuelsson Records an Audiobook.”

More reporting about audiobooks is available on PW’s audio blog, Listen Up (@PWAudio).

If you’re interested in audiobook reviews, subscribe to AudioFile (@AudioFileMag), the magazine that covers the world of audiobooks.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to create an audiobook for your content.

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

At a media event today in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced its new tablet, Surface (@surface) (#Surface), which, when it debuts (a release date was not announced) will feature a 10.6-inch wide display with Gorilla Glass, its own kickstand, Bluetooth, front & rear camera, a full-size USB port, dual Wi-Fi antennae, a multitouch full-size keyboard, a stylus which writes freehand on the screen, a trackpad, and presumably Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) — and yet is only about a half-inch thick. Models will come with either 64 gigabytes or 128 GB of storage.

Its capacity as an e-reading device was left unexplained. Microsoft has invested $300 million investment in Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader, though B&N was not part of today’s announcement.

Read coverage by USA TODAY, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, VentureBeat, and The Verge.

Somersault (@smrsault) helps you stay abreast of new technology and its impact on publishing.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Publishers Weekly coverage of the just-concluded BEA (@BookExpoAmerica) includes the following: According to Bowker’s (@Bowker & @DiscoverBowker) newest figures of books produced, last year there were 211,269 self-published titles (based on ISBNs) released, up from 133,036 in 2010.

Vice president for Bowker Market Research Kelly Gallagher reports more statistics:

·         The most popular genre in terms of units is fiction (45%), but nonfiction leads in sales (38%)

·         The average price for a self-published fiction book is $6.94, while nonfiction titles command $19.32

·         While ebooks accounted for 41% of self-published units, they only accounted for 11% of sales because the average self-published ebook sold for $3.18, while trade paperbacks had an average price of $12.68 and hardcovers averaged $14.40.

·         Amazon’s CreateSpace (@CreateSpace) was the largest player in the self-publishing space last year, publishing 57,602 titles; Author Solutions' (@authorsolutions) various imprints did 41,605 books.

Gallagher also says Bowker is developing a self-publishing White Paper, and is creating a self-publishing bestsellers list.

In Bowker’s annual report on US print book publishing for 2011 (compiled from its Books In Print® database), preliminary figures from US publishers lead Bowker to estimate that traditional print book output grew 6% in 2011, from 328,259 titles in 2010 to a projected 347,178 in 2011 (that's 951 books published every day), driven almost exclusively by a strong self-publishing market. Bowker says this is the most significant expansion in more than 4 years for America’s traditional publishing sector; but removing self-publishing from the equation would show that the market is relatively flat from 2010.

“Transformation of our industry has brought on a time of rich innovation in the publishing models we now have today. What was once relegated to the outskirts of our industry — and even took on demeaning names like ‘vanity press’ — is now not only a viable alternative but what is driving the title growth of our industry today,” says Gallagher. “From that standpoint, self-publishing is a true legitimate power to be reckoned with. Coupled with the explosive growth of ebooks and digital content – these two forces are moving the industry in dramatic ways.”

Genres that contributed to the robust growth in the Traditional sector include:

·         Education, with a hefty 20% increase

·         Music (up 14%)

·         Philosophy & Psychology (up 14%)

·         Religion (up 12%)

·         Juveniles (up 11%

·         Biography (up 11%)

·         Business (up 11%).

·         Publishing mainstay Fiction – the largest genre – turned around a multi-year decline with a notable 13% increase.

Read the news release.

And according to a report by the Association of American Publishers (@AmericanPublish), US publishers in the Trade sector saw significant sales increases worldwide in both print and e-format English-language books in 2011.  

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you manage your content creation.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Publishers tab, which includes links to self-publishing publishers.

The above film, EPILOGUE: the future of print (@EPILOGUEdoc) (vimeo channel) by Hanah Ryu Chung, is a documentary that explores the world of print books, scratching the surface of its future. Chung says:

The act of reading a “tangible tome” has evolved, devolved, and changed many times over, especially in recent years. I hope for the film to stir thought and elicit discussion about the immersive reading experience and the lost craft of the book arts, from the people who are still passionate about reading on paper as well as those who are not.

Also see our previous blogposts:

• "Paper is Stronger than Tech and Now its Aroma Comes Bottled"
• "Home Libraries Despite the Ebook Era"
• "Birth of a Book: The Handmade Bookbinding Process"
• "Book Seller Believes in Video's Marketing Power"
• "A Video About a Poster Masks a Bookstore's Promotion"
• "Video: What Books Do After Hours"
• "The Technology of Storytelling"
• "Photos: The 20 Coolest Bookstores in the World"
• "Introducing the New Book"
• "Even E-reader Owners Still Like Printed Books, Survey Finds"
• "In a Flood Tide of Digital Data, an Ark Full of Books"
• "The 'End' of Print and TV."

If you love books like we (@smrsault) do, we invite you to make our SomersaultNOW online dashboard your personal computer homepage (see instructions).

New data from Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ (@PwC_LLP & @pwc_press) Global Entertainment and Media Outlook predicts ebooks will constitute 50% of the US trade book market by 2016.

Reporter Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) writes in paidContent (@paidContent) that PwC expects total book spending in North America to remain relatively flat; “1.1% compound annual rate” of increase between 2011 and 2016.

PwC thinks that while total spending on print trade books will decline, the ebook market will be growing fast enough by 2013 to offset those declines. In the US, the company estimates that “around 30% of adults had at least one portable reading device [an e-reader or tablet] in the first quarter of 2012.”

By 2016, PwC expects, “ebooks will account for half of total spending on consumer books” in the US and the total US consumer book market (print + digital) will be worth $21 billion, up from $19.5 billion in 2011.

Read this in full.

According to PwC’s blog, the E&M Outlook says 3 behavioral changes are driving global shifts in industry structure and value:

1.    From print to digital: Electronic books’ share of total global spending on consumer and educational books will rise from 5% in 2011 to 18% by 2016.

2.    From fixed to mobile consumption: Global mobile Internet access increased from 26% of total Internet access spending in 2007 to 40% in 2011 – and will grow to 46% by 2016.

3.    From West to East, and North to South: Total revenue growth to 2016 in Central and Eastern Europe/Asia Pacific will be almost double that of North America/Western Europe. And growth in the southern Latin America/Middle East/Africa market will average more than twice that of North America/Europe by 2016.

Read the news release.

In the video below, Marcel Fenez, Global Leader, Entertainment & Media at PwC, explains how PwC sees this time period as being “the end of the digital beginning.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you take advantage of publishing’s digital growth for your content.

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

Digital Book World’s (@DigiBookWorld) editorial director, Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid) says, “For the first time ever, more than half of Americans 65 and older are on the Internet, according to a new report — and this could mean a whole new growing market for ebook publishers and retailers.”

According to the study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project (@pewinternet), 53% of American adults age 65 or older use the Internet or email, up from about 40% less than a year ago. By comparison, 82% of all adults say they use the Internet or email at least occasionally.

Readers in that age group are among the most prolific book buyers, according to the Codex Group, a New York-based book-focused research firm. Book buyers 65 and older buy more books a month than those in the 18-to-24, 25-to-34, and 35-to-44 age groups. Book-buying peaks in the 45-to-54 and 55-to-64 age groups and drops off at 65 and up, possibly due to less disposable income to spend on books.

...“Seniors that read ebooks like the ability to change the type size and appreciate that they can get them at home without having to leave,” says Pew research specialist and report co-author Kathryn Zickuhr (@kzickuhr), referring to an upcoming study from Pew that will discuss libraries and ebooks, and contains feedback from older adults on how they got started reading ebooks and what they like and don’t like about them.

Read this in full.

Read the Pew report in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you effectively communicate your brand’s content in this digital age.

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