Rubrica semanal de notícias e artigos relacionados com a edição de livros digitais.
“Nunca precisámos, como hoje, de defender os direitos dos autores e da criação. Se não tomarmos providências, uma atitude legislativa, daqui a uns tempos vai restar-nos apenas o veículo [Internet], o que é muito injusto para os criadores, para a nossa História, e é injusto que o talento seja confundido [com o meio]”, frisou.
The developments in the book world are regularly compared to those in the music industry. The outposts warn time and again that publishers now, shouldn’t make the same mistakes as the record bosses did then, substantiated with data, studies and their own experiences. Unfortunately, these comparisons and warnings are not always heard by their colleagues. So, this requires action. Therefore, a joint series of blog posts was written by Timo Boezeman and Niels Aalberts, with important additions and nuances by Erwin Blom, Eric Rigters and Jelte Nieuwenhuis. All work(ed) in book world and/or music industry. The goal: the ultimate overview of the digitization that is taking place in both worlds.
Cambridge University Press’s new integrated eBook and digital content offering, University Publishing Online, launched today (31 October).University Publishing Online, at www.universitypublishingonline.org, provides aggregated content from the Mathematical Association of America (based in Washington D.C.), Liverpool University Press, Foundation Books (based in India), and Cambridge University Press. Access to content from Edinburgh University Press and Nottingham University Press will be available from early 2012.
Just last month, Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) rolled out its Kindle Fire, the first Kindle designed as a full media device—not an e-reader with some frills. That announcement was followed by Kobo’s announcement of the Vox. And, as expected, Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS)—which already had a touchscreen color e-reader that some hackers were converting into an inexpensive Android tablet—announced its Nook Tablet.Each wants to offer its current e-reader users an option that keeps them from shifting to the iPad when they go tablet and to appeal to new users who will spend money on books, magazines, apps and more after the hardware investment. In Amazon’s case, it literally is unlocking the video experience it has been building for computers and connected TVs but that has been unreachable from anywhere else. These aren’t just e-readers on steroids—they are playing in a new category now.
The new service worries Wall Street, too, because it increases Amazon’s out-of-pocket costs. The company is paying wholesale prices for some of the books in the lending library. For others, such as the titles from Lonely Planet travel guides, it is paying a flat fee for a group of books over a period of time. (It will report sales figures on individual titles back to those publishers.)Beyond short-term earnings, however, the lending library is just the latest innovation to raise big questions about the whole publishing ecosystem. In an environment where books are increasingly digital, what’s the most effective way to create value for readers, for authors and for intermediaries? And -- the biggest question -- which intermediaries will survive the transition?
In fact, going bookless is not particularly popular. Books are strongly and positively identified with libraries, and libraries that ditch them get into trouble with the communities they serve, even when they have good reasons for reducing the number of books sitting on shelves. But there's no denying that academic libraries now spend far more of their budgets renting temporary access to knowledge controlled by a few big corporations than they do on buying and cataloging paper things.
My prediction about books in the early years of the 21st century: readers, writers, and bibliophiles in general will look back on the cross-fertilisation of the digital world with the global recession, and marvel at the strange fruit that flourished in the paradise of texts.
These may not be sustainable advantages. Tools can be provided. Workflows can be changed to permit faster responses when that’s necessary. The established houses can raise their royalty rates. How fast things will change in the big houses is an open question (and the answer is different for every house), but it is undeniable that the decision-making structures that worked for print books readily accepted time lags that are a real handicap in the evolving ebook world.
New York Times E-Book Best Sellers
A version of this list appears in the November 27, 2011 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings reflect sales for the week ending November 12, 2011 .
E-Book Fiction
1. 11/22/63 , by Stephen King
2. THE LITIGATORS, by John Grisham
3. ZERO DAY, by David Baldacci
4. THE NEXT ALWAYS, by Nora Roberts
5. THE BEST OF ME, by Nicholas Sparks
E-Book Nonfiction
1. STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
2. SEAL TARGET GERONIMO, by Chuck Pfarrer
3. HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
4. BACK TO WORK, by Bill Clinton
5. KILLING LINCOLN
Wall Street Journal E-Book Best Sellers
Nonfiction E-Books
TITLE AUTHOR / PUBLISHER | THIS WEEK | LAST WEEK |
Steve Jobs | 1 | 1 |
Walter Isaacson/Simon & Schuster | ||
Heaven Is For Real | 2 | 5 |
Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent/Thomas Nelson Publishers | ||
SEAL Target Geronimo | 3 | New |
Chuck Pfarrer/ | ||
Killing | 4 | 2 |
Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard/Henry Holt & Co. | ||
Back to Work | 5 | New |
Bill Clinton/Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group | ||
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) | 6 | 3 |
Mindy Kaling/Crown Publishing Group | ||
Unbroken | 7 | 6 |
Laura Hillenbrand/Random House | ||
Catherine the Great | 8 | New |
Robert K. Massie/Random House | ||
Boomerang | 9 | 9 |
Michael Lewis/W.W. Norton & Co. | ||
Jack Kennedy | 10 | 4 |
Chris Matthews/Simon & Schuster | ||
Fiction E-Books
TITLE AUTHOR / PUBLISHER | THIS WEEK | LAST WEEK |
Inheritance | 1 | New |
Christopher Paolini/Random House Children's Books | ||
2 | New | |
Stephen King/Scribner | ||
The Litigators | 3 | 3 |
John Grisham/Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group | ||
Zero Day | 4 | 2 |
David Baldacci/Grand Central Publishing | ||
The Next Always | 5 | 1 |
Nora Roberts/Penguin Group | ||
The Best of Me | 6 | 6 |
Nicholas Sparks/Grand Central Publishing | ||
Unfinished Business | 7 | 7 |
Nora Roberts/Silhouette Special Releases | ||
The Hunger Games | 8 | 10 |
Suzanne Collins/Scholastic | ||
Last Breath | 9 | 9 |
Michael Prescott/Michael | ||
Catching Fire | 10 | — |
Suzanne Collins/Scholastic | ||
