Archive for Book Expo America 2011
Interview with Mark Lefbvre of Kobo: Writing Life Platform
Posted by: | CommentsKobo launched its new self-publishing dashboard at this morning’s BookExpo event, and the Director of Self-Publishing Services and Author Relations was on hand for an interview with GoodEReader to talk about what Writing Life offers both traditional publishers and self-published authors in terms of real-time sales data, notifications, and foreign language markets.
IDPF Announces Speakers and Program Info for Digital Book 2012
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Book Expo American 2012 is going to be happening in a few months and Good e-Reader will be on the scene bringing you the latest interviews and digital publishing news. One of the great aspects of this conference is all of the other events occurring at the same time. The International Digital Publishing Forum is a can’t-miss-symposium and normally sells out very fast. The company today announced its speaker list for their annual conference.
Featured speakers at Digital Book 2012 will include best-selling authors Seth Godin and Bella Andre, as well as publishing CEOs and senior executives including Jane Friedman (Open Road Media), Madeline McIntosh (Random House), Otis Chandler (Goodreads), Matt MacInnis (Inkling), Vikram Savkar (Nature Group), Ken Brooks (Cengage), Samantha Cohen (Simon & Schuster), Tom Turvey (Google), Kent Freeman (VitalSource), George Coe (Baker & Taylor), Ian Singer (Library Journal), Dominique Raccah (SourceBooks), Richard Nash (Small Demons) Eric Hellman (unglue.it), and Ernie Sander & Laura Owen (paidcontent.org). Noted technologists presenting at Digital Book 2012 include Liz Castro, Peter Meyers, Liza Daly (Safari Books Online), Bill Kasdorf (Apex), Woody Sears (iStoryTime), Micah Bowers (Bluefire), Roger Webster (Barnes & Noble), and Dave Cramer (Hachette Book Group).
Topics covered in the one-and-a-half day program will include “indie” authors discussing how to parlay ebook sales into best-seller status, publishers marketing, and selling directly to readers, and startups enabling breakthrough business models and new forms of book and content-focused online communities. Enhanced, interactive, and high-design eBooks will be covered in-depth from both business and enabling technology perspectives.
The latest digital book delivery options will be reviewed, including ereaders, tablets, apps, websites, and formats, as well as the latest tools, including HTML5, EPUB 3, Kindle KF8, Apple iBooks Author, Inkling Habitat, Adobe InDesign CS6, and more. You’ll get exclusive real-world case studies, not vendor pitches, including a first-person report from a high school finishing its first year as an e-textbook-only campus. You’ll learn about direct distribution and who and what you need to know to get your content distributed in North America and globally.
BookExpo America and IDPF Wrap Up
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There was a lot of pre-show hype surrounding the BookExpo America and the IDPF Digital Book Conference, and it did not disappoint. The Javits Center in Manhatten was overflowing with live product demonstrations, business meetings, a jam-packed exhibit hall, and several presentation stages, all to garner focused attention on the publishing industry as a whole throughout the entire week.
There were definitely a lot of buzzwords coming out of this event. Enhanced e-books from companies like Blio were mentioned every time a new technology was introduced, downloadable apps seemed to be pretty much a requirement for any new device (unless you’re Barnes & Noble, a fact that they are actually very proud of), and cloud-based reading was all the rage across several platforms. Social reading through apps like Reading Life 4.4 was a concept that many exhibitors wanted to promote.
EPUB3 received a lot of coverage and the speculations about Amazon’s adoption of this industry’s standard format were practically the inside joke among interviewees, everyone unanimously smiling through gritted teeth as they insisted they couldn’t answer that question.
Global adoption of EPUB3 and of e-reading capabilities was a very big topic of discussion, especially in light of both the understanding that the new IDPF industry standard now makes it possible for different print-language formats, such as vertical and right-to-left, have been made unilaterally accessible, and in the introduction of an e-reader device from Kobo that is the first to download titles in six different languages. In addition to the Expo’s global focus on Italy this year, a smart move considering how well attended the Bologna Book Fair is among leading publishing professionals, Germany and Japan were talked about everywhere you turned as being the two newest big markets for e-reading. This news is very likely due to Amazon.de’s launch of a Kindle store this year, as well as several publishing projects that have brought a spotlight on Japan, many of which are to benefit the aftermath of the March tsunami.
Of course, it wasn’t possible to take three steps in any direction without bumping into someone who was related to the indie publishing scene, whether it was a self-published author, a company designed specifically around the needs of indie writers, or even sites that existed strictly to publish their catalog of titles digitally. Amazon.com’s CreateSpace was there, along with the press release of the names of the six finalists in the Breakthrough Novel Awards, even bringing a few of their self-published authors to the Expo to speak on how the process of indie publishing with CreateSpace was right for them. In an industry that many still perceive as having a chip on its shoulder towards self-publishing and digital publishing, the atmosphere was very welcoming of those who choose to forgo the traditional model, demonstrating the validation and respect that indie publishing and its technology have earned in recent years.
The real breakthrough of this year’s event was the constant acknowledgment from companies that we have only scratched the surface on the technology behind reading a book. The days of a new technology being touted as the best there ever will be are over; the feelings have shifted towards looking to the future. Even as EPUB3 or the latest e-reader was being introduced for the first time, the discussion would inevitably veer towards how they are already working to improve for the next round. Undoubtedly, the show of support from every corner of the publishing industry at events like this one means the best is yet to come.
Aluratek’s Full Line of Libre E-Readers
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In a market that is overrun with e-reader devices—there are over forty different e-reader product reviews on GoodEReader.com and more than twenty previews for future e-readers, not to mention the e-reading capable tablets and phones—Aluratek has found its niche in being a one-stop location that meets the electronic needs of a wider market. So in light of the competition from retailers who only focus their product design technology on e-readers, can a company with more than twelve vastly different types of products in its assembly really keep up?
If their presence at BookExpo America and its Digital Zone is any indication, they seem to think so. Aluratek brought its four different Libre e-readers to the exhibition hall and was on hand to explain the benefits of each one.
While this year’s Expo saw a return to the simplicity of the e-reader device concept with major companies recognizing that some consumers just want to read a book, Alurtek has already been a provider for the different desires of its reading consumers by offering scaled down inexpensive devices through top-notch machines with downloadable features.
With four very different e-readers in their catalog to choose from, they have a design for every type of reading consumer. From the economically priced low-end Libre PRO, which doesn’t sacrifice features like eye-friendly e-paper LCD technology, over 100 pre-loaded public domain classics, and an installed music player, to their upper scale Libre Touch that boasts full color, wifi, and touch screen user interface, Aluratek has made a name for itself by offering choices to its market base.
So how does Aluratek plan to not get lost in the crowd of the e-reader market? Admittedly, they don’t have the advertising base that Kindle and Nook enjoy, and their platform is limited to epub files, which they recommend acquiring through Kobo content, Google Bookstore, and the Gutenberg Project. The key to their success is going to lie in not trying to compete with other devices, but in offering users something different.
The lower priced Libre PRO doesn’t even have wi-fi, instead requiring its users to connect via USB port in order to download content, a design feature which may not matter to a lot of readers since chances are fairly good that an e-reader owner probably has access to an internet capable computer. The device does offer an SD card reader, so content can be swapped from one device to another or from a computer to the device. The Libre Touch, with its $149 price tag, offers a lot of the features users would find on tablet PCs that can cost twice as much, such as web browser, access to social media, movie download capability, and more. The Libre Air with its wi-fi and Libre Color that seems perfect for reading children’s books fit nicely between those two ends of the Aluratek device spectrum, with price points and features to match.
Autography Enriches E-books, Slows Piracy
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While standing at the Autography booth in the Digital Zone at the BEA2011, author and company co-found Tom Waters did something fairly amazing. He signed my e-book copy of his novel. Only I didn’t have my e-reader with me, and in fact, I didn’t actually own a copy of his work. Don’t tell him I said that.
Even stranger, when Waters told me to check my email, there in my inbox was not only a custom page for my ebook, it was a photograph of Waters and me standing in that very spot, signed with his name and a personal salutation to me.
“Autography allows readers and authors to connect, despite the popularity of ebooks,” says Waters. “And it can be done anywhere.”
Waters was recently participating through Skype in a radio interview with a station out of Dublin, Ireland. During the course of the broadcast, listeners who called in for autographs were directed via email to Waters, who signed e-copies and sent them back to the listeners in real time. Now, instead of waiting for authors to come to a local brick-and-mortar book store, e-book signings are taking place online, allowing readers to have greater access to their favorite authors and giving authors the ability to market themselves like never before. A listing of a few upcoming virtual signings can be found here.
“The idea for this software came out of a recent USO tour I participated in where I visited our troops stationed in the Middle East,” Waters continues. “I found that the soldiers were able to carry e-readers with them, fitting them neatly in the side-leg cargo pockets of their uniforms. I actually did a book signing at 13,000 feet for one pilot. But what I saw was that once I signed that copy for the airman, he wouldn’t loan his ebook to another soldier. It was his own personal copy of the book and he didn’t want to let it go.”
Waters realized he had stumbled on more than just a great way to bring authors and readers together. This capability could easily reduce e-book piracy since it was now a more personalized experience for the consumer. Plus, Autography is also able to embed their watermark into the e-book, basically alerting them to where pirated copies of books are originating. The metadata they are able to recognize through this software can also provide valuable feedback for authors and publishers about who is buying and where particular titles are selling in great numbers.
The software supports both epub and mobi formats, as well as iPhone and Android market smartphones, essentially allowing readers of any device to enjoy the personalization from their favorite authors. Once an author autographs a page for his fans, readers can share those pages on social networking sites as well.
As e-book developments are catching up with the total experience of reading, Autography is one more way to bridge the gap between what many naysayers still dispute as detracting from the classic enjoyment of a good book and the “wave of the future” reading that some readers embrace.
The Rising Popularity of Enhanced E-books
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This year’s BookExpo America and IDPF Digital Book Conference brought exciting announcements in extremely opposite ends of the e-reader spectrum. On the one hand, two major players in the game unveiled to great fanfare and applause new versions of their e-reader devices that brought back the simplicity of reading by promoting a pared down version of a touch screen e-reader. Both Kobo and Barnes and Noble explained the focus behind their new e-ink e-readers, which was “just about reading a good book.”
On the flip side of e-reading, there was just as much excitement and discussion about enhanced e-books, which bring a veritable three-ring circus experience to reading. Enhanced e-books are the laser light show of books, with audio playback, embedded videos, and a cornucopia of photographs and graphics that just weren’t possible at the onset of digital publishing. Much of the discussion about the new features that EPUB3 brings to the table surrounded its ability to have real-time audio and video tracking through media overlays, allowing the words to keep up with the page in order to improve the experience. Several large companies were proudly showing off demonstration stations of their improved voice-over for children’s books, to make it sound a little more like Grandpa reading to you and less like the voice at your local ATM machine.
One of the great things about this trend in digital publishing is that the suppliers are obviously listening to the likes and dislikes of their reading audience. Google E-books’ statistic that there are a growing number of readers who own both a dedicated e-reader as well as a tablet PC indicates that sometimes a reader just wants to enjoy words on the page and there are other times when he wants to be immersed in a complete experience.
Blio, whose company tagline is, “Reading way beyond the book,” was one such enhanced e-book company that had set up an entirely interactive station at the BookExpo for readers to sample enhanced e-books and the ease of navigation of its cloud-based reading concept.
Readers aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit from the entertainment and informational values of enhanced e-books. Indie authors with enough computer skills are finding a lot of satisfaction in developing their own enhanced e-books and self-publishing them. Previously, tablet PCs were pretty much the only platform that could handle the intense graphics levels and video embeds that made reading and writing the book such an experience, but with EPUB3’s launch more and more devices will be able to handle the workload.
Frank Vitale, self-published author of The Metropolis Organism, which is available for purchase through PayPal’s file sharing platform PayLoadz, had a lot of fun creating his book about the idea of a city as a living organism. It’s a manuscript he took a lot of pride in, but from the beginning he realized that his goal for the final product of this book was going to be so photo-heavy that it would be impossible to publish it traditionally and still make it available at a price-point that readers would be willing to spend on a single book. He drew on his experience in filmmaking (Montreal Main) and developed the project as an enhanced e-book; it now contains eleven videos and over 200 color graphics and photos.
“Photo books are expensive for the publisher to make,” comments Vitale, “but e-books aren’t. The cost for enhanced e-books will be less for everyone, the author, the reader, and the publisher.” Vitale’s next project is a photo essay book on the GAGA Art Complex, a book that would have been relegated to the realm of aesthetically pleasing (and expensive) coffee table books, a market without a high consumer base; now, as an enhanced e-book the likelihood that more readers will participate in the book is much greater.
Amazon.com Announces the ABNA Top Six
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With all of the excitement surrounding the launch of new e-reader devices and the data regarding new publishing formats and e-book apps, one voice was eerily silent at the BookExpo America: Amazon. It’s possible that Amazon was still enjoying the aftermath of its colossal announcement that publishing industry expert, agent, and former head of Time Warner Laurence Kirshbaum was joining its new publishing imprint Amazon Publishing, or perhaps the debut of the special-offers specific Kindle 3 was fanfare enough for the book giant.
There was one very special announcement at the BookExpo from the online book giant: the top six finalists in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Awards. The title sponsor, along with its self-publishing imprint CreateSpace and publishing house Penguin Group USA have narrowed down the field of novel entries from 5,000 to just six, with the grand prize winners in both the general fiction and the young adult fiction being announced on June 13.
Amazon’s ABNA page features excerpts from the six finalists’ books, as well as a link where readers can rate and vote for their favorite entries and read professional reviews of the works. While the results of the readers’ voting ultimately decide the outcome of the awards, the entire process gives the participants an idea of the likes and dislikes of their reading audience, as well as a professional through Publisher’s Weekly.
Between now and June 1, it falls to the reading fans of general and young adult fiction to read the excerpts and make the difficult choice of promoting the next popular novel. Readers can select from the works posted at http://amazon.com/abna. Their votes may be swayed by the reviews from publishers, authors, and literary agents that will be posted to the ABNA site in order to give insight into the finalists’ works.
One of the stronger lures for authors considering entering the ABNA competition is the possibility of earning a publishing contract with Penguin Group USA. “It’s always wonderful to be able to offer talented writers an opportunity to be published at Penguin, and we look forward to the long and fruitful relationships we’ve developed with the writers we’ve discovered in this competition,” remarks Tim McCall, VP, Director of Online Sales and Marketing at Penguin Group.
Another crucial draw for authors are the supporting names behind the competition, most notably CreateSpace, the imprint of Amazon that is branded by On-Demand Publishing, LLC. Their self-publishing model has been providing inventory-free physical distribution of books, CDs, DVDs, MP3s, and video downloads and is now paving the way for indie publishers to produce a quality work while retaining some of the widespread respectability afforded Amazon.com.
Jetbook K12 Color to Hit USA 2012
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A few days ago we reported from the Book Expo America conference in New York where we spoke with Ectaco. They showed off their new K12 and K12 Color e-readers designed for the educational system. We have word today that the Ectaco K12 Color will hit the USA market for the back to school year in September 2011.
Both the Jetbook K12 and the K12 color were designed exclusively for the student market and are highly tailored towards kids in highschool. Both e-readers will have Speaking Oxford English Dictionaries, Speaking Oxford English-Spanish (or one of the soon available 38 languages) Dictionaries, the most comprehensive electronic SAT preparation course with endless lessons, Speed Reading courses to aid students in learning to read faster, English-Spanish (or one of 12 available language pairs) Text Translation System that can translate any text in full, English, Spanish and other language grammar courses, Interactive Phonetic Language Teacher program to teach virtually any language step by step, Linguistic crosswords, Graphing, Scientific and Accounting Calculators, Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Earth Science reference books, interactive course of US History and Facts, interactive Periodic Table of Elements, Text and Voice Note storage, Audiobooks Player, and much more.
The most interesting of the two e-readers is the K12 Color; it is a re-branded Havon 9.7 inch e-reader. We first saw the Havon color e-ink reader using e-inks new Triton technology when were at CES. The color e-reader had great refresh rate and displayed comic books and ebooks very well. It featured a 9.7 inch screen and a resolution of 1600×1200. The unit is powered by a Freescale 800 MHZ cpu processor and uses WI-FI to connect to the internet. It also has a built in accelerometer to switch between landscape and portrait mode.
Ectaco confirmed with us today that the company is providing the firmware for the K12 Color in the European, American, and Russian markets. This ensures that that the device is moving in a direction that Ectaco is familiar with, while releasing a device supporting many different languages with a ton of custom firmware. Although Ectaco has released many different e-readers before, the K12 series moves the company into a modern direction with a device brimming with custom software.
via Press Release
Hewlett Packard Brings New Life to Old Books through POD
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Hewlett Packard, a long-time industry leader in printing, introduced two new business models at this year’s BookExpo. The first was very similar to OnDemand Books’ Espresso Business Machine, in which individual titles of books can be printed, bound, and covered on-site in any location that it services with the HP product. While this model may not be ideal for every retail bookseller, both formats are gaining popularity with smaller, independent bookstores that cannot afford to carry or store a large stock, as well as academic and campus bookstores that need to meet the proportionally small consumer demand for very specific titles.
The second methodology behind HP’s new design is the ability to preserve older, out-of-print texts by creating exact copies of the original and then treating those digital copies as any other print-on-demand title. The software that makes it possible to preserve an out-of-print book in this way allows for the choice between original text or updated and error-correction print to reflect current language conventions, as well resizing and reformatting of the texts to eliminate the page numbers that would not be compatible with increased or decreased font size on e-reader devices.
Additionally, once the text is preserved, it can now be stored and remain available as an electronic text, ready for distribution to any of the platforms that are compatible with the industry standard EPUB. The preserved titles can also be read for free on the HP website.
Google eBooks at BookExpo America
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Undoubtedly, Google is one of a select few internet power players, and the launch of the Google e-books division in 2004 is no different. Playing off its savvy online presence, the e-bookstore made over four million e-books available to almost every e-reader, Apple, or Android powered device. Since March 2011, there have been more than 2.5 million unique downloads of the Google e-book app.
So if they’ve got things under control, why such a large presence at the BookExpo America event? Answer: to find out more about how the world is perceiving e-reading in order to stay on top of the market that they worked so hard to build.
One of the interesting points that Abe Murray, project manager for Google Books, made in his opening remarks at the IDPF Digital Book Conference is that Google has discovered that e-ink isn’t going anywhere. This is proven by two different dedicated e-readers being launched during the opening two days of this event, both of them incorporating both the Pearl e-ink and the touch-screen features. According to Murray, the number of people who choose to do their reading on dedicated e-reader devices has not gone down in the face of widespread tablet availability and selection, although a growing number of people own both an e-reader and a tablet, and a still tiny sliver of the population owns three or more of these devices.
That’s a profound statement given his prior statistics concerning e-reader platforms: one in four users does their e-reading on a phone app, one in five reads via a dedicated e-reader from any of the sources, but nearly one-fourth of all readers are doing so on tablets.
Throughout this Expo and the various press conferences associated with it, there has been an undercurrent of a return to simplicity in the typical e-reading experience, a drive to bring reading back to a basic enjoyable pastime, as evidenced by two of the major e-reader platforms—Kobo and Barnes & Noble—introducing scaled-down elegant simplicity in their newest launches. Google reiterated that sentiment with the acknowledgement that any of their titles can be read on any open format-compatible device and by announcing that of their more than 7,000 publishing partners in the U.S., most are already e-publishing partners and the rest hopefully will be forthcoming in an effort to continue the popularity of e-reading.
Google’s presence at the BookExpo America event was part of its ongoing effort to bring e-book titles to its catalog by bringing publishers, authors, retailers, and readers together, according to PR manager Jeannie Hornung. It is also bringing more of a spotlight to some of the interactive features that are making their way into Google’s titles, as well as highlighting the fact that it has integrated reading on the cloud for those e-book enthusiasts who have not limited themselves to one specific device for digital reading.
BookBaby Launches a New Feature for Indie Publishing
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BookBaby, the self-publishing platform that has been successfully meeting the needs of indie authors after getting its feet wet with musicians through CDBaby, is now launching a division for website hosting called HostBaby. HostBaby will work in the same way as the other widely popular models of its company, which is to say it simply provides artists and authors the tools they need to design the best product they can for themselves.
“HostBaby is our newest exciting feature,” says Steven Spatz, VP Marketing, in an interview with GoodEReader.com at the BookExpo America event. “We’re basically giving authors the power to develop their own author pages, while still giving them the power to self-publish their works.” Author pages play an indispensable role in putting the author’s name in front of an internet full of potential readers and expanding a fan base. The walk-through format of HostBaby will give any user, regardless of web design understanding and experience, the capability to create a vibrant author-centric site in a matter of minutes.
“We’ve also added on some new products in our self-publishing division, one of which is the option to purchase the services of professional artists to design the cover. We are also currently in the final stages of having a list of independent publicists that authors can retain for themselves. While they are not working for BookBaby directly, these publicists will be professionals whom we have identified as being the best at what they do and able to meet the needs of the indie author in terms of helping them market self-published works,” says Spatz of BookBaby’s recent improvements.
BookBaby continues to focus on providing indie authors with everything they need to produce a satisfactory book and the additional incremental features will mean a greater sense of control and uniformity to author output. The additional suite of marketing tools for indie authors will translate into an even higher quality product for both the author and the retail marketplace of indie books, improving on the professionalism that is so crucial to getting a book the attention that a dedicated author needs in order to succeed.
Kobo Launches “Read on” Program – Offering $10 Million in Community Funds
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Kobo has been making waves lately with their new Kobo Touch e-Reader, launched at Book Expo 2011. We also caught up with the CEO of Kobo Michael Serbinis yesterday in an exclusive interview on the future of the company. Today Kobo announced that they were taking part in a $10 million dollar program offering people who love to read the chance to have money donated to schools and charitable causes.
The new Kobo program is encouraging people to read and not be mindless zombies in front of the TV or just watching HULU on the computer. For every 10 million minutes of reading by their 3.6 million readers using the Kobo platform, Kobo will make a contribution of eReading valued between $1,000 and $20,000 to a recipient chosen through the Read On program. Recipients will receive Read On kits including eReaders, eBooks, and the materials needed to start digital reading programs in their community. Kobo is contributing the first million dollars and will work to enlist additional partners inspired by this innovative new program.
You can find out more about this great new program kobo.com/ReadOn.
