Rubrica semanal de notícias e artigos relacionados com a edição de livros
digitais.
Apple’s behavior is a modern, sophisticated version of the “embrace, extend, and extinguish” behavior that got Microsoft in so much trouble in the 1990s: Enter a product category supporting a widely used standard, extend that standard with proprietary capabilities, and then use those differences to disadvantage competitors. (The strategy is even more effective if you have a dominant market position in another, related category that you can use for leverage. Think Windows in the 1990s, iPad in 2012.)
If 2010 was the Year of the Many Datasheets, 2012 is looking like the Year of the EBook. We are getting numerous inquiries about how to change publishing processes to accommodate the new requirement to deliver content for EPUB and Kindle. (The Year of the Process Change Driven by New Digital Requirements may be more accurate, but it just doesn’t flow trippingly off the tongue.)There’s been plenty of technical discussion on other sites of the major new developments: the new Kindle format, the new Apple toolset, and, especially, the licensing restrictions attached to Apple’s new iBooks Author.
Now that Apple's latest media disruption announcement has been marinating for a day, education experts and publishing pundits are starting to ask some curious or (dare we say) suspicious questions. With the new and improved iBooks platform, Apple makes its way into the textbook business, not only offering an innovative way to design content for the classroom but also an interesting business model to make it affordable for schools and students. And it's exciting new technology! Not only will the new iBooks realize the possibilities of interactive textbooks, but Apple also announced a free self-publishing app called iBooks Author that lets anybody create and sell an e-book as well as iTunes U, a new portal for education-related content. Let's cut to the chase, though: How much money is Apple trying to squeeze out of writers, readers, students, and teachers with this new publishing venture?
The website is basically an ereader database and comparison engine. Its sole purpose is to allow people to quickly find and compare ereaders according to one’s needs. There is a fairly user friendly (according to feedback I’ve gotten so far) filter form on the home page that allows to play with various ereader parameters, and as you adjust it the list of ereaders that match is being updated below on-the-fly. You can then select the readers you like and compare them side-by-side.
One problem with publisher attempts to save costs is that much too often the effort is focused on editorial costs, the so-called hidden costs, which generally means reducing the compensation paid to freelance editors. I would be less concerned about taking a cut in my compensation if my compensation had risen over the course of years. However, it hasn’t; the rate being offered by many publishers today is the same rate publishers were offering in 1995. Another way of saying it is that publishers have been the beneficiaries of editorial cost savings since 1995 because they haven’t increased the rate of pay in the past 17 years commensurate with the increases in costs of living.
On iMediaConnection, analyst Rebecca Lieb of the Altimeter Group posts a thoughtful look at what the “decline of print” might mean for media. She points to some of the same reports that we have covered over the last few weeks, such as surveys showing that tablet owners are buying less physical media, and projections that on-line advertising spending will this year surpass that for print advertising for the first time. She also notes that a market is growing for “enhanced” books with multimedia features (though plain text versions of the classics will always be with us).
New
York Times E-Book Best Sellers
A version of this
list appears in the February 5, 2012 issue of The New York
Times Book Review. Rankings reflect sales for the week ending January 21, 2012 .
E-Book Fiction
1.
EXTREMELY LOUD AND
INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer
2.
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
3.
AMERICAN GODS, by Neil Gaiman
4.
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON
TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
5.
PRIVATE: #1 SUSPECT, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
E-Book Nonfiction
1.
AMERITOPIA, by Mark R. Levin
2.
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
3.
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
4.
UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
5.
AMERICAN SNIPER, by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
Wall
Street Journal E-Book Best Sellers (Week Ended Jan. 22)
Nonfiction E-Books
TITLE
AUTHOR / PUBLISHER |
THIS WEEK
|
LAST
WEEK |
Ameritopia
|
1
|
New
|
Mark R. Levin/Threshold
Editions
|
||
Heaven Is For Real
|
2
|
1
|
Todd Burpo with Lynn
Vincent/Thomas Nelson Publishers
|
||
Steve Jobs
|
3
|
3
|
Walter Isaacson/Simon &
Schuster
|
||
The Long Walk
|
4
|
—
|
Slavomir Rawicz/Globe Pequot
Press
|
||
American Sniper
|
5
|
2
|
Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen,
Jim DeFelice/William Morrow & Co.
|
||
Unbroken
|
6
|
4
|
Laura Hillenbrand/Random House
|
||
The End of Illness
|
7
|
New
|
David B. Agus/Free Press
|
||
Alone
|
8
|
—
|
Richard E. Byrd/Island Press
|
||
Killing
|
9
|
5
|
Bill O'Reilly, Martin
Dugard/Henry Holt & Co.
|
||
Bossypants
|
10
|
6
|
Tina Fey/Little, Brown
|
||
Fiction E-Books
TITLE
AUTHOR / PUBLISHER |
THIS WEEK
|
LAST
WEEK |
The Hunger Games
|
1
|
1
|
Suzanne Collins/Scholastic
|
||
Mockingjay
|
2
|
2
|
Suzanne Collins/Scholastic
|
||
Catching Fire
|
3
|
3
|
Suzanne Collins/Scholastic
|
||
Extremely Loud and
Incredibly Close
|
4
|
10
|
Jonathan Safran Foer/Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt
|
||
The Help
|
5
|
4
|
Kathryn Stockett/Penguin Group
|
||
American Gods: The Tenth
Anniversary Edition
|
6
|
New
|
Neil Gaiman/HarperCollins
|
||
The Girl With the Dragon
Tattoo
|
7
|
5
|
Stieg Larsson/Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group
|
||
Private: #1 Suspect
|
8
|
—
|
James Patterson, Maxine
Paetro/Little, Brown
|
||
Chasing Rainbows
|
9
|
9
|
Kathleen Long/Kathleen Long
|
||
The Girl Who Played With
Fire
|
10
|
—
|
Stieg Larsson/Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group
|
||
Vídeos
Melanie McBride: TEDxLibrariansTO
Smart E-Book Interface
Prototype Demo
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