There are two factors which are influencing the current revolution in the publishing industry. The first is the desire of readers to have easy access to large amounts of written information. Stewart Brand’s famous statement that, “Information wants to be free”, is not a reference to the pricing of information available to consumers. Brand’s statement is actually an understanding that information will find a way to flow freely. Much like a river cutting through rock, information over time finds a way to follow the path of least resistance to the recipient.
The second factor is that the cost of manufacturing, moving, and storing physical printed material is unsustainable. Bringing physical books to market is no longer profitable as costs of labor, shipping, and retail space rise.
Much like the codex replaced the scroll as the best technology available to transfer information over distances, new information technologies are emerging in response to these two market forces. The future of publishing is in developing those new technologies.
The Apple iTunes store which is the marketplace for eBooks on the iPad, iPod, and iPhone currently has unusually long wait times for books to be placed in their store. If you are waiting for your book to appear in the iTunes store please be patient and feel free to send us an email requesting an update. We may be able to fill you in with more specific information.
We have contacted them about the issue and we hope they get caught up soon.
Thank you,
John Mcalester
Founder
We are making some big changes to our website. Please stay tuned for new features. Thank you.
Figuring out how to send readers directly to your book on the iBookstore can be challenging because Apple markets their book offerings mostly through their iTunes media store. However, it is possible to get to your content at the iBookstore by going to a URL. There are a couple of ways to get the URL for your eBook at the iBookstore.
1) If you are using iTunes you can navigate to your content in the iBookstore, searching for your book title is probably the best option. Once you have found your book you can either right click on the book title or the cover image and select “Copy Link” to copy the URL to your clipboard. When the URL is in your clipboard you can Copy and Paste (control + V on PC, command + V on a Mac) it into and email, a webpage, or a browser.
2) The second option for getting your URL is to simply use the URL format that Apple uses for all of the books at the iTunes store and add your book’s title and Apple ID to the end of the URL. The beginning of the standard format for the URL is:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/
By adding your book’s title and then “/id” and your book’s Apple ID you can make a complete URL. Here is an example for Moby Dick:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/moby-dick/id427802472
Don’t forget to sneak the forward slash and the letters i and d into the URL after the title and before the Apple ID for your book.
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I was reading an interview with Mark Coker of Smashwords. In the interview, contrary to some eBook big wigs, Coker makes a prediction that eBook prices will continue to go down.
An Article in the Wall Street Journal is quoting a source from Google who is saying that Google Editions will be launching before the end of the year. This could potentially open up the eBook market to a huge new segment of readers.
“Google Inc. is in the final stages of launching its long-awaited e-book retailing venture, Google Editions, a move that could shake up the way digital books are sold.
Google’s long-awaited Google Editions online bookstore appears closer to coming online. Rex Crum talks with Amir Efrati of the Wall Street Journal about what Google’s entry means for the online book market.”
The New York Times is going to launch bestseller lists for eBooks in early 2011. Like other Times’ bestseller lists, there will be a fiction and non-fiction list for eBooks.
The timing makes sense, as eBook sales are up and Forrester predicts that eBook sales in the U.S. will grow from just less than $1 billion in 2010 to more than $2.8 billion in 2015. There is not currently a centralized list of the top eBook sales.
It won’t be without its challenges to compile. Amazon is notoriously tight lipped about sharing numbers and Nielsen’s BookScan does not currently track eBook sales. Wired has more: “The Timesdoesn’t specify but it seems logical to assume that Amazon’s rankings will significantly inform theTimes’ lists. The newspaper says only that their lists will be ‘compiled from weekly data from publishers, chain bookstores, independent booksellers and online retailers, among other sources.’”
Nook readers can currently shop The New York Times bestsellers lists from within the eReader. We expect that Barnes & Noble will update this feature to include these new eBook lists.
Source: MediaBistro
