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Central Connecticut State University (@CCSUToday) released its annual list of most literate major cities (population of 250,000 and above) Jan. 25 with Washington, DC #1 (the second year in a row). The study focuses on 6 key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources. CCSU’s president Jack Miller says, “From this data we can better perceive the extent and quality of the long-term literacy essential to individual economic success, civic participation, and the quality of life in a community and a nation.”

Here are CCSU’s ranking of the top 20 most literate cities:

1.    Washington, DC

2.    Seattle, WA

3.    Minneapolis, MN

4.    Atlanta, GA

5.    Boston, MA

6.    Pittsburgh, PA

7.    Cincinnati, OH

8.    St. Louis, MO

9.    San Francisco, CA

10. Denver, CO

11. Portland, OR

12. St. Paul, MN

13. Cleveland, OH

14. Kansas City, MO

15. Oakland, CA

16. Raleigh, NC

17. New Orleans, LA

18. Baltimore, MD

19. Honolulu CDP, HI

20. Virginia Beach, VA

See the overall rankings of 75 cities.

To prioritize cities according to booksellers, 3 variables were used to determine a total score and consequent ranking:

1. Number of retail bookstores per 10,000 population
2. Number of rare and used bookstores per 10,000 population
3. Number of members of the American Booksellers Association per 10,000 population

The following are the top 10 cities for bookstores based on the above 3 criteria:

1.    Seattle, WA

2.    Portland, OR

3.    Minneapolis, MN

4.    Cincinnati, OH

5.    New Orleans, LA

6.    St. Paul, MN

7.    Pittsburgh, PA

8.    St. Louis, MO

9.    Denver, CO

10. Albuquerque, NM

See the full list.

To prioritize cities according to libraries, 4 variables were indexed to determine a total score and consequent ranking:

1. Number of branch libraries per 10,000 library service population
2. Volumes held in the library per capita of library service population
3. Number of circulations per capita of library service population
4. Number of library professional staff per 10,000 library service population

These numbers were then divided by the city population in order to calculate ratios of library services and resources available to the population.

The following are the top 10 cities for libraries based on the above 4 criteria:

1.    Cleveland, OH

2.    St. Louis, MO

3.    Pittsburgh, PA

4.    Seattle, WA

5.    Cincinnati, OH

6.    Toledo, OH

7.    Fort Wayne, IN

8.    Kansas City, MO

9.    Columbus, OH

10. Lincoln, NE

See the full list.

Read this report in full.

Bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, created especially for marketing and publishing professionals.

Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) senior news editor Calvin Reid (@calreid) says, “Despite the constant economic pressures on a book publishing industry in the midst of change, the Digital Book World conference (#dbw12) [that ended yesterday in New York City] offered a snap shot of a range of industry positions and best practices as it comes to grips with digital delivery.... the book industry is indeed reinventing itself on a daily basis.”

There are more electronic reading devices, some 60 million e-readers and tablets, in the hands of consumer and there are more ways to buy books, read them, and talk about them, than ever before. “Books today are elastic and dynamic,” said Hyperion president Ellen Archer.

Read this in full.

Reid also reports

The transition to digitization continues in book publishing, an industry that is both susceptible to digital disruption, but also positioned to benefit tremendously from it, according to Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey (@jmcquivey) who kicked off this year's Digital Book World conference. That said, a survey conducted by Forrester in collaboration with Digital Book World found that while 82% of publishers were optimistic about digital, the number was down from 89% last year. Indeed only 28% of those thought their own company would be stronger in the future, down from 51% last year.

The decline has a lot to do with a realization of hard work ahead for publishers to adapt to the new digital environment, according to McQuivey.

Other stats:

·         25 million people in the US own an e-reader

·         34 million people own tablets

·         8 million homes have at least 2 tablets.

·         75% of publishers have an executive level person responsible for digital

·         63% of publishers report that digital skills are formally integrated into all departments

·         69% of publishers expect to increase digital staffiing in 2012

·         22% expect overall company staffing to go down in 2012.

·         75% of the publishers surveyed produce apps, but 51% said they cost too much to produce; only 19% believe apps will change the future of books and 15% say apps represent significant revenue for them.

Read this in full.

PW’s news editor Gabe Habash (@gabehabash) writes

Perhaps the most eye-opening facet of a study on the children's ebook market discussed at a Digital Book World panel was how great the potential for ebook reading in children really is:

·         27% of 7-12-year-olds own their own computer

·         25% own a cell phone

·         7% own a reading device.

·         teens have tripled their reading rate of ebooks in the last year.

Read this in full.

Ron Hogan (@RonHogan) reports that Shelf Awareness’ (@ShelfAwareness) editor-in-chief John Mutter (@JohnMutter) moderated a panel on “The Bookstore Renaissance” where it was stressed that bookstores must stay relevant. Roxanne Coady of R.J. Julia Booksellers (Madison, Conn.) (@rjjulia) talked about the recently launched JustTheRightBook.com (@JTRBook), which offers subscribers a monthly book selection based on a personal review of their reading tastes — “the opposite of the wisdom of crowds,” she quipped.

Coady elaborated on how the site’s “human algorithm” drew on one of their biggest strengths as booksellers: “We know how to put the right book in the right hands,” she said, “and we are early discoverers.” She noted that 67% of the visitors to the site who took their quiz wound up buying or borrowing one of the recommended titles (though not always from R.J. Julia).

Read this in full.

Also see DBW conference coverage by paidContent (@paidContent), especially its article about e-singles (and its “guide to e-singles”).

Read Porter Anderson’s (@Porter_Anderson) conference wrap-up on the Jane Friedman site (@JaneFriedman).

See GalleyCat's (@galleycat) coverage.

See DBW’s (@DigiBookWorld) own coverage of the show at “Video: Seen and Heard at Digital Book World.”

And see conference photos.

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

On Publishing Perspectives (@pubperspectives), Drew Nellins writes about the offense he took when he was presented with a fully stuffed publicity kit promoting a book by an author he likes. It raises the question, “When does zealous publicity information oversell and actually become a detriment?”

...It didn’t come with a page or two of information about the author or the book itself. No, it came with a folder overflowing with material, the contents of which I would like to share with you....

Now, imagine opening a folder, and the second you open it, pages spew out of it like fake snakes from a can of gag peanut brittle, because the folder is so overstuffed that no matter how great its quality (and its quality is pretty damn great) this volume of pages simply cannot be contained by this folder. Now dial that image back a few notches, and you’ve got a pretty close approximation of what we have here. A brief inventory included therein follows:....

I think the reason the “Folder of Acclaim” bothered me so much is that, taken in total, it arguably leaves the realm of standard corporate supportiveness and enters the terrifying realm of intellectual bullying....

I don’t want to have books marketed to me the way that Hot Wheels are marketed to eight-year-old boys. You don’t have to show me images of other kids crashing their cars and smashing them into one another. Just give me the toy already, and if I have fun with it, then I have fun with it. Sheesh! It all just seems so... aggressive....

Read it in full.

What do you think? Do you agree? How do you keep from crossing the line in creating publicity that might be over-the-top? Write your comments below.

Making ebooks just became easier (at least ebooks only for the iPad). That’s the outcome from today’s announcement at the Apple event in New York City (see the QuickTime video of it). Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) says

Apple's event was first rumored to be a self-publishing venture then called an "education" venture. It turned out to be both. Apple is launching iBooks 2, a new multimedia textbook platform and iBooks Author, a shockingly easy authoring tool to create them – indeed to create any kind of book – and publish them instantly to the iBookstore. Both the new iBooks 2 app and iBooks Author app are free and available today.

On top of all that, iBooks 2 textbooks will be priced at $14.99 or less. The new iBooks 2 app will provide the usual access to the iBookstore but will also feature a new category: textbooks….They feature beautiful layouts, endless multimedia (audio, video, animation, animated 3D models, interactive quizzes, the list goes on). And iBooks Author makes it really easy--any author can follow the template or make up a new one and drag-and-drop prepared materials like text and video right into the new book. Once complete, a push of the button places it in the iBookstore in a digital marketplace holding hundreds of millions of credit card numbers....

In addition, Apple is relaunching iTunes University with a new free app. Originally focused on offering videos of university lectures, the new iTunes U app will make it possible for professors to offer full online courses, complete with assignments, notes and communications with the students, all situated on iTunes U and all for free. Several universities, including Duke and Yale, have already started posting courses.

Read it in full.

The Washington Post covered the event live, quoting Apple’s iWork vice president, Roger Rosner, “In like 5 minutes flat, we created an ebook and deployed it to the iPad. I hope you find that as inspiring and empowering as I do.”

Read it in full.

Lindsey Turrentine (@lturrentine), editor-in-chief of CNET Reviews, offers her commentary in “Apple iBooks in schools: Devil is in the hardware.” She says the high cost of outfitting classrooms with an iPad for each child and the blunt-force trauma students would inflict on the tablets, coupled with rapid advancements in technology leaving the school’s investment soon outdated, make her skeptical that today’s announcement is actually practical.

Read it in full.

Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid), editorial director, Digital Book World (@digibookworld), says of today’s event:

In a stunning display of ebook creation acrobatics, Apple executives dragged images and video into an e-book page and text wrapped seamlessly around it. 

The company also demonstrated completed textbooks, showing off interactive features, including: Images that come alive with explanations when tapped; fluid layouts that shift smoothly from portrait to landscape view; and index and glossary functions that are integrated directly into each page.

Read this in full.

As for the ease of creating ebooks, CNET’s (@CNET & @CNETNews) technology columnist Don Reisinger (@donreisinger) explains it in “Apple’s new iBooks Author targets ebook creators.” Also see "Apple revamps iTunes U, makes it class portal."

Other articles to read are "6 things we don't know about Apple's e-textbooks strategy" by CNET's David Carnoy (@DavidCarnoy) and Scott Stein (@jetscott), and "This is Apple At Its Absolute Worst: It Thinks It Owns Any Book You Make Through iBooks Author" by Business Insider's (@sai) Steve Kovach (@stevekovach). 

What do you expect today’s announcement will mean for your publishing plans? Write your comments below.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you with your textbook and reference publishing. Veterans with more than 100 combined years of experience in the field, we eagerly embrace current technology and the revolutionary changes it’s making in the publishing world.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially see the list of self-publishers in the Publishers tab.

In Publishing Executive (@pubexec), Dianne Kennedy (@DianneKennedy), head of nextPub and Vice President of Emerging Technologies for IDEAlliance (@IDEAlliance, @IdeasINprint, @IdeasINemedia, @IdeasINcreation), writes a summary of the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (@intlCES), especially as it pertains to publishers.

For publishers, last year the star of CES was clearly the "Tablet.” The tablet onslaught clearly had huge implications for publishers racing to deliver their content as widely as possible across the emerging tablet publishing channel. This year, while we saw refinements and hybridization in the tablet market space, the lack of overwhelming leaps in publication delivery technologies was good news. CES 2012 predicts we will have a year to refine production tools and workflows to deliver content to a relatively stable delivery platform environment.

Here’s what she predicts based on her observations:

·         Tablet display size seems to be standardizing at 7.7 inch and 10.1 inch This is good news for publishers who are designing publications for a target device size.

·         Tablet display resolution is increasing, and for these tablets battery life is decreasing.

·         The functionality of tablets is rapidly increasing while the price is dropping. Price point for new Ice Cream Sandwich tablets sets a new price point of about $250. This means a larger audience for content will be in place by the end of 2012.

·         Office Tablets are emerging to provide more PC-like interfaces and functionality while maintaining the mobility of Internet Appliance Tablets

·         Ultrabook PCs will begin to compete head-to-head with tablets.

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you navigate the churning and fast-changing waters of 21st century publishing.

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

This article in GigaOM (@gigaom) by Trey Ratcliff (@TreyRatcliff), founder of FlatBooks and the travel photography blog Stuck In Customs (@StuckInCustoms), says, “The ebook business will grow faster than people think. Innovations from Amazon and Apple have increased the velocity at which we consume ebooks, but there are two emergent behaviors that will increase the rate of overall consumption.”

Emergent behavior 1: Ebooks are not 1-for-1 with the traditional book business.

Most ebook projections are wrong. They anticipate for every $1 billion lost in the traditional book business that $1 billion will be gained in the ebook business. This ratio is actually closer to 1-to-2 because people are collecting ebooks like nuts for the winter. They are easy to buy and download, much like music. And, frankly, it’s fun to fill up your iPad with a colorful, robust set of thumbnails in your library. I don’t know why this is a good feeling, but it is.

Emergent behavior 2: Social media is a marketing multiplier.

The best way to successfully market something is to have true believers with big followings talk about it on the Internet. Since we have many authors who are socially popular, a multiplier effect begins to take place....The spread of good books has always been a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Now, with social media, ebooks are word-of-mouth-on-steroids.

Read this in full.

As ebooks grow, a concurrent problem will need to be addressed. Read paidContent's (@paidContent) "Why Amazon's Plagiarism Problem Is More Than A Public Relations Issue," by Jeff Roberts (@jeffjohnroberts) and Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen).

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you identify blue ocean strategy for your ebook publishing agenda.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, the online dashboard especially for marketing and publishing executives.

An article by Nick DeSantis (@njdesantis) on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s (@chronicle) technology blog Wired Campus (@wiredcampus) says, “Despite the promise that digital textbooks can lead to huge cost savings for students, a new study at Daytona State College has found that many who tried e-textbooks saved only 1 dollar, compared with their counterparts who purchased traditional printed material.”

The study, conducted over 4 semesters, compared 4 different means of textbook distribution: traditional print purchase, print rental, e-textbook rental, and e-textbook rental with an e-reader device. It found that e-textbooks still face several hurdles as universities mull the switch to a digital textbook distribution model.

Read this in full. Also see “A Study of Four Textbook Distribution Models” reported by Educause Quarterly (@educause).

Another article you’ll want to read is USA TODAY’s (@USATODAY & @USATODAYtech) “Technology, costs, lack of appeal slow e-textbook adoption” by tech reporter Roger Yu (@RogerYu_USAT).

With their promise of ubiquity, convenience, and perhaps affordability, e-textbooks have arrived in fits and starts throughout college campuses. And publishers and book resellers are spending millions wooing students to their online stores and e-reader platforms as mobile technology improves the readability of the material on devices such as tablet computers. Silicon Valley start-ups, such as Inkling (@inkling) and Kno (@GoodtoKNO), are also aggressively reinventing textbooks with interactive graphics, videos and social-media features.

Despite emerging attempts at innovation, the industry has been slowed by clunky technology, the lasting appeal of print books, skeptical students who scour online for cheaper alternatives, and customer confusion stemming from too many me-too e-textbook platforms that have failed to stand out.

Read this in full.

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

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard for marketing and publishing professionals.

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).