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According to a survey by GroupM Next (@groupmnext), 43% of US shoppers have used their mobile phone to engage in "showrooming" (#showrooming) the practice of using a mobile device to research products while in a store, including comparing prices online.

"Consumers have shifted their path to purchase to include the store as a step, but not necessarily the final step; and this will likely continue to increase over time," Chris Copeland, CEO of GroupM Next, says.

The study suggests that if bricks-&-mortar stores could stay within 5% of the price available via the Web (e.g., 5% of $17 is 85-cents), almost half of "potential showroomers" say they would finalize their purchase in stores.

Interacting with a member of staff in stores can also make a difference. Consumers who spoke to an associate are 12.5% more likely to purchase from a bricks-&-mortar outlet.

Read this in full.

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This article in The New York Times (@NYTNational) says, “As librarians across the nation struggle with the task of redefining their roles and responsibilities in a digital age, many public libraries are seeing an opportunity to fill the void created by the loss of traditional bookstores. They are increasingly adapting their collections and services based on the demands of library patrons, whom they now call customers.”

“A library has limited shelf space, so you almost have to think of it as a store, and stock it with the things that people want,” said Jason Kuhl, the executive director of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. Renovations will turn part of the library’s first floor into an area resembling a bookshop that officials are calling the Marketplace, with cozy seating, vending machines and, above all, an abundance of best sellers....

Today’s libraries are reinventing themselves as vibrant town squares, showcasing the latest best sellers, lending Kindles loaded with ebooks, and offering grass-roots technology training centers. Faced with the need to compete for shrinking municipal finances, libraries are determined to prove they can respond as quickly to the needs of the taxpayers as the police and fire department can.

While print books, both fiction and nonfiction, still make up the bulk of most library collections — ebooks amount to less than 2% of many collections in part because some publishers limit their availability at libraries — building renovation plans rarely include expanding shelf space for print products. Instead, many libraries are culling their collections and adapting floor plans to accommodate technology training programs, as well as mini-conference rooms that offer private, quiet spaces frequently requested by self-employed consultants meeting with clients, as well as teenagers needing space to huddle over group projects....

Read this in full.

A report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project (@pewinternet) says that 13% of 16-year-olds and older have visited library websites or otherwise accessed library services by mobile device; double from an earlier survey in 2009. Those who are most likely to have connected to a library site include parents of minor children, women, and those with at least some college education.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial, our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

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

Kindle Fire users read, while iPad users surf the Web and catch up on email. Bowker (@Bowker & @DiscoverBowker) reports that “ebook consumers are decidedly shifting to multi-function tablets and away from dedicated e-readers, according to the Book Industry Study Group’s (@BISG) closely watched on-going Consumer Attitudes Toward Ebook Reading.”

...[T]ablets have risen by about 25% over the past year as the first choice for respondents’ e-reading device, while dedicated e-readers have fallen by the same amount. The rise of tablet popularity has been fueled largely by Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which increased over the past year from no use to be the first choice for more than 17% of ebook consumers. Other Android devices, such as Barnes & Noble’s NOOK Tablet, have also increased as the first choice for respondents’ e-reading device, from 2% in August 2011 to nearly 7% in August 2012, while Apple’s iPad has held steady around 10%.

“We’ve discovered throughout the course of this survey work that we can chart the future based on what is currently happening with ebook ‘Power Buyers.’ Their ebook purchasing and e-reader preferences have proven to be reliable predictors of market trends,” said Angela Bole, BISG’s Deputy Executive Director. “Based on this, the introduction of new tablet devices by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Microsoft is likely to continue the trend of preference for tablets over dedicated e-readers through the upcoming holiday season.”

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you develop your ebook publishing and marketing strategy.

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Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) says, according to studies by Bowker Market Research (@Bowker & @DiscoverBowker), as of June, Amazon’s Kindle reading devices were used to read ebooks by 55% of ebook buyers.

Since its introduction in late 2011, Amazon Fire’s share of ebook reading has risen quickly and hit 18% in June. Some of its gains came at the expense of other Kindle devices, but the combination of dedicated e-readers and tablets gave Amazon its highest market share ever, topping the 49% the company had in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Through its iPad and iPhone devices, Apple had a 15% share of e-reading in June, up from 13% in June 2011 with the gain coming entirely from iPads as the use of ebook reading on iPhones fell by two percentage points in the year-to-year period. Barnes & Noble’s Nook devices had a 14% share in the second quarter, a figure that has held steady since the fourth quarter of 2011, but was down from a peak of 22% in the third quarter of 2010.

Read this in full.

The research suggests fewer ebook buyers are using computers to read ebooks, but that conflicts with a survey by Pew Research Group (@pewinternet), “Young People Read Ebooks Mostly on Their Desktops & Laptops.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you develop your ebook publishing and marketing strategy.

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The above Chart Of The Day (@chartoftheday) depicts a portion of the Pew Research Group’s (@pewinternet) survey of people’s e-reading habits. The most popular way for people under 30 to read ebooks is on their desktop and laptop computers, surpassing e-readers, smartphones, and tablets.

Among the survey’s other findings:

·         83% of Americans between the ages of 16 and 29 read a book in the past year. Some 75% read a print book, 19% read an ebook, and 11% listened to an audiobook.

·         Overall, 47% of younger Americans read long-form e-content such as books, magazines, or newspapers. E-content readers under age 30 are more likely than older e-content readers to say they’re reading more these days due to the availability of e-content (40% vs. 28%).

·         60% of Americans under age 30 used the library in the past year. Some 46% used the library for research, 38% borrowed books (print books, audiobooks, or ebooks), and 23% borrowed newspapers, magazines, or journals.

·         Many of these young readers don’t know they can borrow an ebook from a library, and a majority of them express the wish they could do so on pre-loaded e-readers. Some 10% of the ebook readers in this group have borrowed an ebook from a library and, among those who have not borrowed an ebook, 52% said they were unaware they could do so. About 58% of those under age 30 who don’t currently borrow ebooks from libraries say they would be “very” or “somewhat” likely to borrow pre-loaded e-readers if their library offered that service.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you plan your ebook publishing and marketing strategy.

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

SoLoMo (“social-local-mobile”) is essentially the addition of local information to search engine results in order to capitalize on the increasing use of mobile devices. SoLoMo has also evolved to include mobile-specific offers pushed out to consumers based on their current location.

In this Infographic (enlarge it) from Monetate (@monetate), see how SoLoMo is having an overall impact on traditional ecommerce, and how consumers are using their smartphones to access social and local sites which ultimately influence purchases.

Also see our previous blogpost, "Should Bookstores Become Publishing Genius Bars?"

LifeWay Christian Resources (@LifeWay) has launched a new ebookstore and a new mobile ebook reader.

The LifeWay Reader app is now available as a free download from the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad and from Google Play for Android devices. LifeWay's new app allows users to build a personal library from a growing list of ebooks and resources from the same Christian publishers found in LifeWay Christian Stores and at LifeWay.com. The LifeWay.com ebookstore currently offers more than 8,000 titles.

The LifeWay Reader app comes with a free pre-loaded copy of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). Other free content also is available online.

Read this in full.

LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention (@SBCLife), established in Nashville, TN, in 1891, is one of the world's largest providers of Christian products and services, including Bibles, church literature, books, music, audio and video recordings, church supplies, and Internet services through LifeWay.com. The company also owns and operates 160 LifeWay Christian Stores across the US, as well as one of the largest Christian conference centers in the country.

Read our previous blogposts:

·         "Family Christian Stores Now Selling Its Own Tablet"

·         "Parable, Mardel Latest to Launch Ebook Sales; Ebooks Now at 500+ Christian Stores"

·         “Ganxy Offers an 'Easier Way to Sell & Market Ebooks'”

·         “How Ebook Buyers Discover Books”

·         “Sites That Facilitate Book Discovery”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically plan your book’s disoverability.

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.

Presented by: OnlineDegrees.org

Business Insider (@businessinsider) and Business Insider SAI’s (@SAI) Henry Blodget (@hblodget) and Alex Cocotas (@acocotas) assembled the above presentation on the State Of The Internet: 2012. Notice the predicted continued rise in mobile content consumption, such as ebooks on smartphones and tablets. How should this affect your publishing strategy?

Also see our previous blogposts, “Study: Evangelicals Use Technology in Their Faith Practice,” “The Social Habit 2012 Study,” and “2012 American Media Mom.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you think through your mobile content effectiveness.

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

US Dept. of Education (@usedgov) Secretary Arne Duncan is calling for America to move as fast as possible away from printed textbooks and toward digital ones. “Over the next few years, textbooks should be obsolete,” he declared last week at the National Press Club (@PressClubDC).

Referring primarily to grades K-12, but having implications on the college level as well, Duncan says he’s concerned about competing with other countries whose students are academically leaving behind their US counterparts.

South Korea, which consistently outperforms the US in educational outcomes, is moving far faster than the US in adopting digital learning environments. One of the most wired countries in the world, South Korea has set a goal to go fully digital with its textbooks by 2015....

The transition to digital involves much more than scanning books and uploading them to computers, tablet devices or e-readers. Proponents describe a comprehensive shift to immersive, online learning experiences that engage students in a way a textbook never could.

Read this in full.

The Secretary has made the call before, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle in September.

Read Hack College’s coverage, “Education Secretary Calls for Print Textbooks to Become Obsolete.”

Also see our previous blogpost, “USA Goal: A Digital Textbook for Every US Student.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you plan your textbook publishing and marketing strategy.

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