The Twilight of the Book Industry? Maybe Not.

Right in the middle of the excitement about the opening of the latest movie based on Stephanie Meyer’s phenomenally selling Twilight series, it’s interesting to think about what all of this hoopla says about books and where we are with them now.

When the film, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, opens later today, it is expected to break ticket records. The first film, Twilight, grossed more than $190 million in North American revenues after it opened last year.

While much is said about just why Meyer’s series is so beloved, what interests me today is what this rabid outpouring is saying about the book industry.

Let’s face it: one way or another, book publishing has had a rough year. Much of it self-inflicted. Between shaky international financial news and the uncertainty many parts of the industry are forecasting through the final arrival of the electronic book, the industry has been stumbling. And through the stumbles we hear the chanting of cynical voices about the death of the book. It has always been thus, but now it’s more.

And then there is Twilight. And then there is The Lost Symbol. And then there is just about anything J.K. Rowling would care to put her name on. Others, as well. Books that create excitement and cause line-ups and watercooler chatter. And no: bestsellers do not an industry make, but they sure don’t hurt anything. For one thing, a book that is discussed, is talked about, is pressed on even friends who usually do not read gets a culture talking about books. More importantly, it spreads the very real joy of reading around. It gets people reading who might not otherwise have had a chance to be properly exposed to the full body experience of being immersed in a good story and the emotional virtual reality that reading offers.

The publishing industry, like so many others, is going through changes. Sure, things in the future are going to be different. But millions of girls and young women excitedly sharing a book that they feel simply must be read indicates a certain vibrance for that future. And not all change is bad.

Google Kindles Electronic Book War

The announcement that Google is going into the electronic book vending business is surprising absolutely no one. Nor, as Information Week notes here, is it making already nervous authors and publishers feel any better about the company’s controversial Book Search Settlement.

Google didn’t immediately respond to questions about whether it would sell e-books in an open or protected format. The company already offers over 1.5 million public domain books for free to users of Android mobile phones, Apple’s iPhone, and the Internet. It also allows people to search through millions more books sold online and provides links to online stores selling those books.

Once Google starts selling e-books directly, Amazon may have to add a caveat to its claim that it “offers Earth's Biggest Selection.”

Meanwhile, Amazon’s latest electronic reader, the Kindle DX, will be available later this month. The new larger format is meant to support electronic versions of magazines and newspapers. However, at $489. US, the new larger price tag might prove to be the most interesting feature on the latest model. Will consumers go for it? With interest in and adoption of electronic book technologies at an all-time high, I’m betting the answer will be in the affirmative.

Tiny Kindle Contender: Cute But Lightweight?

After over a decade of thrashing about, Amazon’s Kindle device -- with a push from Oprah -- has established the electronic book industry in a way that feels unassailable. That is, after years and years and years of everybody talkin’ ’bout it, electronic books aren’t just coming anymore, they’re here. That being the case, electronic makers and marketers are jumping on board in a gratifying way with ever more manufacturers introducing the coolest new contender.

The winner of this week’s Kindle Killer Contest looks to go to iPod Nano-like Cool-er, from Interead. The Cool-er is small and -- as the name implies -- very cool-looking, and the machine is a lot cheaper than Amazon’s offering. USA Today compares the potentially Cool-er Kindle:

The Cool-er beats the Kindle on style, at least on the surface. It comes in eight colors: hot pink, racing green and the ruby model I tested, among them. The fact that these bring to mind colorful iPod Nanos is no accident. Cool-er creator Neil Jones says his goal was to create an "iPod moment" for e-books.

At just over 6 ounces, Cool-er is about 40% lighter than Kindle 2. Its 6-inch display is the same size as the Kindle 2. It has 1 gigabyte of memory for storing hundreds of books, half the memory of Kindle 2. But it comes with a slot for an SD memory card to bolster storage, which Kindle doesn't have.

But while USA Today’s Edward C. Baig found a lot to like, he points out several shortcomings, including such important things as navigation and title cost and availability. You can see his assessment here.

Kindle Killers Coming

Amazon’s Kindle might have led the pack to a standard platform for the reading of electronic books, but it is unlikely to keep its #1 position for long. For one thing, a lot of people really dislike the company that brings the Kindle and would do just about anything to avoid supporting it. For another, successfully launching a technology always inspires other companies to get on that boat.

Today the technology magazine Slippery Brick takes a quick look at all of the potential Kindle killers, including the brand new Cybook Opus, due out in June.

According to Slippery Brick, the Cybook Opus goes beyond the Kindle’s standard of usability, in part because it’s pocket-sized and has built-in PDF support:

Software features would let users pick one of 12 font sizes for readability as well as let owners organize e-books by folders. Battery life will give you about 8,000 page flips, which is quite a few novels (Or one Robert Jordan Wheel Of Time novel). No 3G wireless feature, but you’ll get 21 days at standby.

We say: Bring it!

The Changing Face of P.O.D.

This is what micropublishers have been dreaming about for decades, really. One machine that does it all and makes it possible to have books printed and delivered, a single copy at a time. Is this what Print On Demand technology will look like in the not-so-distant future? From The Telegraph:

Crime and Punishment may take the average reader several months to complete, but Britain’s first “book vending machine” can print you a copy in just nine minutes.

A freshly-bound edition of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic -- ordered by The Daily Telegraph -- was one of the first tomes to drop out of the Espresso Book Machine when it opened for business for the first time yesterday.

The novel is one of more than 400,000 titles including many rare and out-of-print books that can be printed on demand at Blackwell bookshop on Charing Cross Road in central London.

The bookstore of the future, then, might look very different, indeed. Not shelf upon shelf of books, but row upon row of machines churning out custom copies for waiting customers. Between that and the electronic streams of the e-books whizzing by, it’s possible that, a few years hence, bookstores will be very different places, indeed.

While that idea makes me a little sad, it has a hopeful edge. Back at Blackwell, The Telegraph’s copy of Crime and Punishment was better than all right:

The hefty work that skidded out of the chute, while slightly sticky to the touch, looked and felt like a standard edition, even down to the correct ISBN number on the back.

The paper and ink are the same quality used in larger presses, and the binding appeared flawless.

Phill Jamieson, head of marketing at Blackwell, said that the firm was uncertain how the £68,000 machine -- one of only three such printers in the world -- would be used during its three-month trial period.

And the moral of the story? It seems entirely possible that the death of the book so many have been forceasting will never come. We love our books. Witness the many thousands of readers that pass through January Magazine every day, not to mention other online magazines and blogs and discussion groups and book groups and all of this without even leaving the online world.

At their core and at heart, books themselves will not change. However, how the publishing industry delivers our books, how they sell and market and get them to the consumer, all of that might change quite a bit.

Consider a world without remainders. Now that doesn’t sound so bad.

#Amazonfail Fiasco Leaves Bookbuyers Suspicious

The big story in the book world yesterday was the fact that Amazon went on a shopping trip. The Seattle-based bookseller acquired Lexcycle, the company that makes Stanza, which is a free e-book application for the Apple iPhone. From The New York Times:

Stanza allows users to browse a library of around 100,000 books and periodicals for the iPhone, many of them in the ePub format -- a widely accepted standard for e-books that Amazon has yet to support with its proprietary Kindle platform.

After the news was announced yesterday, the blogosphere and the Twitterverse (did I just seriously type those words?) started talking about what the move might mean: was there something darker and more sinister behind the announcement? Something beyond what Amazon “spokeswoman” Cinthia Portugal told the Times, that “Lexcycle is a smart, innovative company, and we look forward to working with them to innovate on behalf of readers.”

Consumer suspicion is understandable. The Amazon-Lexcycle deal comes just weeks after a “glitch” in Amazon’s ranking system was seen to be dropping many books with possible gay or lesbian content from its ranking system.

As I write this, I suspect that things still aren’t what they should be with Amazon results. At 12:15 am Tuesday morning, the number one result Amazon returned when the word “homosexual” was typed into its search bar was Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would: A Fresh Christian Approach (Brazos Press). Somehow that result doesn’t feel quite right. It’s possible Amazon needs to poke at their search algorithms still further. More importantly, it illustrates consumer’s wariness of Amazon right now, a wariness that has many former customers researching alternatives for online book purchasing and vending.

Vook, Book, Blook: A Rose By Any Other Name Still Has Thorns

When it comes to the future of the book, a lot of people are running around trying to come up with answers. Yet I’m still not convinced we’ve dreamed up the right questions thus far. Take. for instance, yet another bookish innovation, the slightly ridiculous sounding “vook.” From The New York Times:

Bradley Inman wants to create great fiction, dramatic online video and compelling Twitter stream -- and then roll them all into a multimedia hybrid that is tailored to the rapidly growing number of digital reading devices.

Mr. Inman, a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, calls this digital amalgam a “Vook,” (vook.tv) and the fledgling company he has created with that name just might represent a possible future for the beleaguered book industry.

The fact that the electronic book in present form has challenges is no secret:

Vook tries to address a big problem for book publishers as they expand onto digital formats. For all the hype and initial success of devices like the Kindle, they threaten to strip traditional books of much of their transportive appeal. Images on the jacket cover, inviting fonts and the satisfying feel of quality paper are all largely absent, replaced by humdrum pixels on a virtual page.

In short, words aside, some of the stuff we love about books is lost in electronic form.

And though in this piece, Inman and his ilk come across practically giddy about bringing home neo-book technology, a couple of things come to mind. One: this isn’t the first time we’ve been down this particular road and, Two: the classic form of the book is a time-tested design that has endured very well over the years. Want my attention in the new book wars? Don’t simply give me something different. At this stage, it has to be better, as well.

Apple Censors Electronic Book

Is Apple aiming at being this decade’s Wal-Mart? From CNET:

An e-book submitted to Apple’s App Store has been approved after the author removed language that apparently offended Apple.

CNET’s David Carnoy wrote a book called Knife Music last year, and attempted to submit it to the App Store as an e-book. Apple rejected his application for containing “objectionable content,” which appeared to be a couple of uses of that four-letter word that starts with F.

I’m a little less proud of being a Mac user today.

The story is here.

Kindle May Be Headed for Court

The outfit that powers Discovery Channel has slapped a patent infringement suit against Amazon. They say the Kindle device violates a patent they registered in 1999. Arts Technica has the story:

Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader was introduced to the world back in November 2007. Most people would be forgiven, however, for thinking that the device’s legal problems only started with the 2.0 version of the device, which has gotten Amazon in hot water with the Authors Guild, and prompted the company to lash out at those who attempted to put unsanctioned content onto its hardware.

But, as it turns out, Amazon’s biggest legal worries may have begun in the very month that the device was first introduced. That's when a patent that anticipates most of the Kindle’s major features was granted to someone else. That someone else, Discovery Communications, has now filed suit against Amazon for patent infringement.

John Timmer’s take for Arts Technica is here.

It’s a Phone, It’s a Camera, It’s a ... Book?

The editors at MacWorld seem reasonably excited about the fact that Amazon has released an application that will let Apple iPhone users read Kindle-formatted books on their mobile phones.

The arrival of Amazon.com’s Kindle for iPhone app certainly raises the profile of Apple’s handheld wonder as an e-book platform. Of the many fine things the iPhone is already -- planner, organizer, Internet and e-mail portal, MP3 player… and, oh yeah, a phone -- add reading tool to the list.

When one looks at what the success of the iPod has done to the music industry -- turned it upside down -- I’m a little cautious about this move by Amazon, a company known for not doing much of anything that isn’t both cagey and well thought out.

If, on the other hand, you’re among the millions of iPhone users our there, this will be big news for you, indeed. In that case, MacWorld is certainly the place to get the skinny. They’ve recently run related pieces here and here.

When Books Are Electric

The medium is not the relevant bit. Sure: books on paper are wonderful. They smell good to me. They feel good in my hand. I like the weight and heft of books on paper. I like how books never run out of batteries and don’t ever need to be plugged in. And how I can take a book to the beach/ski slope/on rapid transit and not worry if it will work in that place. I know that it will.

Let’s face it: the design of the traditional book is a good one. It’s timeworn amd time-shaped and it works. Sometimes all the kerfuffle about e-books seems like a lot of inventing better mousetraps. And sure: there are some good ideas. But when the dust settles, what’s in my hand? A book. Always, a book.

In the end, it will be preference, won’t it? A good book transports us, does it not? It lifts us from the place where we are -- with a paper book or an e-book reader in hand -- and drops us into the world of that story. The message does that, then. Not the medium.

As is so often the case in life, it’s all about the journey. The method of transportation barely factors in.

Bezos’ Jon Stewart Visit Kindles Laughter

The best thing about the launch of Amazon’s shiny new Kindle was watching Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos laugh his fool head off on the Jon Stewart Show last night. If you missed it, you must see it. And, fortunately, Gawker makes that possible here as well as in a snarky piece on the same page and quoted below:

Jeff Bezos turned up on the Daily Show couch to promote Amazon.com's newest Kindle e-book reader. And as this clip shows, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Why wouldn't he?

Host Jon Stewart seemed discomfited by his guest’s wild, table-slapping howls. But any tech reporter who's interviewed Bezos knows that the Amazon.com’s CEO hooting laughter is his most distinctive personal quality, the hook of every headline.

I don’t agree: I didn’t think Stewart seemed at all discomfited. Let’s face it: Stewart is a comedian. He likes making people laugh. And Bezos really did laugh.

That’s all the time I feel like spending writing about the new Kindle right now. And why? I’m just sick of hearing about it. In case you’re not, you can get the 4-1-1 here and here and here.

Kindle Revamp Sparks Speculation

The portion of the book industry that’s mad for electronics is abuzz with what Amazon’s redesign of its popular Kindle e-book reader might mean in real-world terms. From Information Week:

With Amazon expected to unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader in less than two weeks, tech enthusiasts on the Web are taking their best guesses as to what the online retailer has planned for the popular device....

Despite the Kindle's popularity, most experts agree the $359 device is in need of a facelift. While the Kindle gets high marks for ease of use and a free wireless connection that lets users buy books from Amazon, the gadget, which is more than a year old, is ready for a redesign.

Information Week rounds up the speculation here.

No Kindle for Christmas, Thanks to Oprah

Even though many readers were keen to see a Kindle in their stocking this year, Amazon has announced that not only are they out of stock, but new supplies won’t be available until well into the new year. From The Wall Street Journal:

For the second holiday shopping season in a row, Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle e-book reader is out of stock, and more of the devices won't be available until mid-February, at the earliest.

Amazon thought it had plenty in stock, but then the most powerful person in book publishing intervened. In late October, Oprah Winfrey described it as her “favorite new gadget” on her TV show. And just as Ms. Winfrey’s reading selections turn no-name books into best sellers, the demand for Kindles soon overwhelmed Amazon.

The full piece is here.

The iPod Effect

Over just a very few years, Apple’s iPod has changed the music industry practically beyond recognition. Today The Telegraph suggests that the latest generation of e-book readers might well be on their way to doing that for the book industry:

Electronic book readers -- also known as e-readers -- are the book equivalent of the iPod. Just as your MP3 player allows you to store thousands of songs and CDs on the device, so e-readers enable you to cram thousands of books into a slimline, lightweight gadget that’s less than the size of a paperback.

And while e-readers have been around for a while, it’s only in the last year or two that the technology has got to a point where they are a viable alternative to a real, dog-eared book. One of the biggest challenges was developing screens and fonts that would be easy on the eye - after all, no one wants to feel as though they are staring at a computer monitor while reading a novel. The introduction of “eInk” technology and the creation of low-glare screens has made electronic type more readable.

The piece includes reviews of Amazon’s Kindle, the iRex iLiad, Sony’s PRS-505, the Ectato JetBook and the Netronix EB-210 and it’s here.

Waxing Poetic About Kindle

In Monday’s Wall Street Journal “Information Age” column, Journal big cheese L. Gordon Crovitz gets excited about Amazon’s Kindle… of all things.

To an info-snacker of many years, the prospect of a gourmet meal sounds pretty good. Perhaps a new digital device like the Kindle can help us regain the attention spans earlier devices helped us lose. If so, this could become a great era for books, or more accurately for the future of words that for centuries could be delivered only in book form.

Intellectually, I’m not sure a lot of his arguments hold water. From a purely artistic standpoint, almost no one writes this kind of stuff better than Crovitz. I’ll tell you what I mean. At one point, he says:

Much is at stake. As Mr. Gomez concluded, “what’s really important is the culture of ideas and innovation” books represent. But “to expect future generations to be satisfied with printed books is like expecting the BlackBerry users of today to start communicating by writing letters, stuffing envelopes and licking stamps.”

See? Lovely stuff. Except, even what he describes here is already happening, as shops like this begin to spring up and the very stuffing of envelopes and licking of stamps that Crovitz scoffs at actually are beginning to make a sort of sweetly kitschy return.

Upshot? The jury is still out. As regular readers of this space know, I’ve never been particularly nuts about the Kindle (starting with that extra-goofy name) but the electronic book as a fixture is not a question, merely a reality that has yet to come to pass.

More on the Death of the Book

I don’t want to hear another word about the death of the book. I’m not suggesting that electronic options won’t do well in the market. If they’re well priced and well designed, they very well might. But that won’t kill the book as we know it, the book that we love.

Did satellite kill television? Ultimately it altered it. But that’s nothing like death. Both things are still around. They co-exist. If anything, satellite options forced commercial television to be better, smarter. Competition that integrates into existing technology has a way of doing that.

A healthy, well accepted electronic book reader will enhance the print market. It will alter it, but it will make it better. People will talk about books more easily, they will even talk more about them electronically. For some people, it will make books easier to interact with, easier to purchase. Easier to read.

And will it change things? Of course it will change things. Is change necessarily bad? I don’t think so. But what do I know? I used to be the fastest paste up artist in the production department. I could have curled up in a ball in the corner and cried about the changes in my world. I did not. By the time those changes could have touched my life, I had already moved on.

Revoltech vs. Kindle

“Forget Kindle,” says Gizmodo, “this is much more awesome.”

We have to agree.

Meanwhile, Forbes posits that the Apple iPhone made the Kindle obsolete before it left the shop. And PC Magazine wonders if the Kindle will, in fact, kindle e-book sales. (Groan.) We still think it looks goofy and has a funny name.

Meanwhile, in the unlikely event you feel the burning need to rush out and get your very own Kindle, the Amazon product page is here.

But Did They Have to Give It Such a Stupid Name?

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will unveil the company’s new e-book reader tomorrow. Kindle will be introduced at a media event in New York on Monday. No: you read that right. Kindle. That’s gotta be a dealbreaker, right?

“Hey mom: pass me my Kindle.”

I don’t think so.

CNET says that “the device will retail for $399 and receive automatic downloads from major newspapers, magazines and other publications. The source also said that Kindle features e-mail.” Hey, cool! Amazon has invented to the laptop.

More from CNET:

Amazon is banking a lot on the e-reader. The retailer held up the release for more than a year in an attempt to deliver a superior product than predecessors, a source told CNET News.com. Previous attempts to convince the public to switch to digital books have largely failed.

Seriously: you want success? Think of a better name than “Kindle.” Sheesh.

More on this as the story develops. Unless it doesn’t seem worth repeating.