Book Publishing News! Part I

Google Faces Antitrust Subpoena by Dan Lyons 

The FTC has subpoenaed Google in an antitrust case—the kind of probe that turned Microsoft from king of tech to an also-ran. Will the same thing happen to Google? Dan Lyons reports.

For years people have been saying that Google has become the new Microsoft—the big bully that has attained an unassailable monopoly and uses its power to push around smaller rivals and gain advantage in new markets. 


Now it looks as if the government agrees. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that FTC investigators are going to serve Google with subpoenas and launch an antitrust probe.  


This is huge news that will affect everyone in tech, especially companies that compete with Google, like Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Those companies might not gloat publicly, but behind closed doors there must be champagne corks popping all over Silicon Valley and up in Redmond, Wash., where Microsoft is headquartered.

If history is a guide, the probe may represent the beginning of the end of Google’s dominance. That’s what happened to Microsoft. The software maker was never the same after going through a three-year antitrust trial brought against it by the Department of Justice. The trial ran from 1998 to 2001 and ended up with Microsoft agreeing to relatively minor settlement terms.

But the settlement wasn’t what hurt Microsoft. The trial itself was such a distraction that Microsoft lost focus. Afterward, the company became timid and slow, almost afraid to compete for fear of arousing more scrutiny.  

In the decade since the trial ended, Microsoft has utterly lost its way, missing out on almost every big trend in tech—Internet search, digital music and movies, social networking, Internet advertising, tablet computers. Its stock has done nothing, and today stands at almost exactly the same price as when the DOJ case was settled. Read more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/23/google-subpoenaed-by-ftc-for-anti-trust.html?om_rid=Dc2ycs&om_mid=_BOA5IRB8cCgsIy

Thoughts on the Economics of Self-Publishing ~ Blog Post by David Friedman

A Kindle at $2.95 pays about $2/copy in royalties—one consequence of the fact that the cost of making and delivering one more copy is close to zero. My Salamander seems to be selling about two copies a day at this point, and it looks as though the rate is drifting up despite no serious further promotion by me, possibly as positive word of mouth spreads. Suppose I assume, optimistically, that it makes it to ten copies a day, hardly a best seller. It could maintain such a rate for a very long time without significantly reducing the pool of potential fantasy readers who had not yet read it.The result would be an income stream of about seven thousand dollars a year—not wealth, but a sizable trickle for someone willing to live at a starving artist level. For an author who could add one more book each year to the inventory, the trickle would be growing.

What about the POD alternative? How to Milk an Almond, Stuff an Egg, and Armor a Turnip: A Thousand Years of Recipes is available on CreateSpace for $9, paying us about $4 in royalties for each copy sold—less for copies sold through Amazon and only about a dollar for any copies sold through brick and mortar stores. As best I can tell it has so far sold about three copies. My guess, from past self-publishing experience within the medieval recreation hobby, is that we can expect to eventually sell a thousand or so into that market, probably over a period of several years. Again a significant amount of money, but nothing close to enough for an author to live on, at least in this part of the world.  Read more at: http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2011/06/thoughts-on-economics-of-self.html

Authors Bypass E-Readers to Self-Publish Book Apps by Mercy Pilkington

With the new technology available to authors considering digital publishing, a new breed of self-publishing is opening up to authors with a minimum of computer skills: the book as app. Rather than a fairly simple formatted text document, the app book can be considered book overkill, offering interactive features, embedded videos, full-color graphics, real-time audio, and more. While app books are currently best suited to tablet PCs rather than reading-specific devices, some of the full-color e-readers are able to support the app book format. Considering, then, that app books may have closed the door to readers who still use an e-reader, why would an indie author pursue the arduous task of developing an app for his self-publishing platform instead of the farther reaching e-reader market and far simpler conversion to a reading-specific device?
Karen Robertson, author of the Treasure Kai children’s book series and founder of the Digital Kids’ Author site, has published a report entitled “The Top 5 Things You Must Know About Publishing App Books for Kids,” which not only details the ins-and-outs of creating app books, but also shares her logic in why authors should consider taking the technological leap and explains some of the mistakes she made when she first decided to publish her children’s book as an iPad-specific app. Read more at: http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/authors-bypass-e-readers-to-self-publish-book-apps/