Book Bus. News! 7-26-11

The madness of crowds? Crowd-sourcing publishing.. by Dennis Loy Johnson/MobyLives

“These are dark days for the book business,” an article in The Economist tells us, citing the shrinking retail space available to book buyers and sellers with the demise of Borders. “Yet the problem is not the supply: writers will still scribble for scraps. Nor demand: American book publishers reported growth across all platforms in 2010. It is just that no one is making money.” In other words, it’s as Mobylives put it in a commentary last week:  it’s not that fewer people want to buy books, it’s that fewer corporate retailers want to sell them.

Plus, “The business needs fresh ideas,” The Economist continues. “Enter Unbound, a British effort to ‘crowd-fund’ books. Visitors to its website can pledge money for a book that is only part-written. If enough money is raised, the author can afford to finish it—and the pledgers will get a copy.” In other words, it’s kickstarter.com for books. Just get rid of those pesky gatekeeper editors, and we’ll really get the books we all want! The motto of Unbound’s site is: “Books are now in your hands.”
That’s a big responsibility for readers. But the site seems to be featuring, and having success with, already famous people —writers among them. According to the Economist report, “Having launched in May, the firm announced its first success on July 18th. Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame, has secured the funds to finish a book of quirky stories.” Read more at: http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/?p=34901

Why Book Reviews Are Important for Self-Publishing Authors

by Shelby R. Lee III

When developing your book promotion strategy, it is important to prioritize your activities. The first items on your list should always be the things that will have the greatest impact on your bottom line and require the least effort – especially if you are publishing your book to make money. Writing is about earning a passive income. Thus, the less time you “spend” earning money, the better your return on investment.
Believe it or not – one of the best ways to sell your book is to give it away! That may seem rather strange at first, but allow me to explain…
Most authors look at their book like a baby. It’s beautiful to them, and they are sure that people will want to buy it and read it many times over. That may be very true, but people can’t buy a book if they don’t know it exists. What if they learned about the book from a trusted associate/friend? What if they found a gleaming review for the book online? Wouldn’t they be more likely to purchase your book then? Definitely.
Read more at: http://selfpublishingnews.com/2011/07/21/book-reviews-for-self-publishing-authors/

PW~Searching for the Right Response to Borders Closing  by Elizabeth Bluemle

It’s tricky to field Borders-related comments and questions from customers, and even trickier to figure out how to reach out to Borders customers as an indie bookseller, without seeming graceless or unworthily triumphant. It is not a good thing to lose bookstores from neighborhoods, regardless of their provenance, and seeing good people lose their jobs through no fault of their own is truly disheartening.
And yet, there is an opportunity here that bricks-and-mortar stores can’t ignore: the opportunity to reach a new audience, a soon-to-be unserved audience. We want to bring them into the bookstores that are still standing — OUR bookstores, full of deep book knowledge and expertise and amazing selection — instead of relinquishing them to online sales gobblers that don’t put money back into the communities of their customers.
How do we do that most effectively, and without any schadenfreude? The conversation at: http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=5423

HOW TO: Self Publish Your Book with Amazon’s CreateSpace by Yuli Ziv

It’s been six years since Amazon acquired CreateSpace, an on-demand publishing platform, and almost four years since they announced the free online setup for self-publishing. While four years seems like a long time in our fast-paced world, self-publishing still hasn’t reached the mass audience. Even the biggest social media gurus still take the traditional route, only choosing to self-publish when they’ve been rejected by mainstream publishing houses.
The truth is, print-on-demand publishing is the fastest, most profitable and easiest way to get your written thoughts out there. Today, self-published books are even distributed to traditional outlets like Barnes & Noble and academic libraries. Most people searching Amazon or shopping the book shelves don’t even think to question whether the book was self-published or printed by a publishing company. They wouldn’t ever know unless they checked the product details.
Of course, self-publishing means you don’t get the marketing resources that come with a traditional publishing deal, but in our world of social media, that can be easily fixed. So if self publishing is so easy, why don’t we see more authors using it? Most people are simply not aware of the low barrier to entry. I didn’t even realize how easy it was to publish a book, until I decided to write one. Read more at: http://mashable.com/2011/07/19/self-publish-amazon-createspace/



PW~CleanSlate2011: iPads, Tablets and the App'lification of Consumer Tech by Calvin Reid

The ever-growing public interest in and popularity of the iPad has spawned a new conference platform, in this case one narrowly focused on the tablet, a relatively new multimedia device. Held at the Westin Hotel in Times Square, CleanSlate 2011 was a one-day conference on tablet devices that surveyed the dramatic sales growth and cultural impact of tablet devices after the launch of the iPad in 2010.

20% of U.S. households are expected to get a tablet in the next two years. Research shows that 62% of the people with tablets use them at night; they are a “pass-around” item in families and a tablet's ability to distract (and silence) small children is transforming parenting, according to many of the speakers at CleanSlate.

But tablets have also led to the "App’lification" of the consumer technology industry and "transformed software development by encouraging developers to focus on discretionary, disaposable software," said Shawn DuBravac, chief economist and director of research, Consumer Electronics Association, who said the average consumer uses a newly downloaded app for about a month. "Software was not like that in the past." Gigi Wang, chief research officer at the Yankee Group, said that 2010 was "a year of change for the tablet, driven by the growth of mobile networks; 4G networks and a perfect storm of consumer interest."

"Tablets and e-readers are the fastest growing category of devices in recent history," said Ross Rubin, executive director of Industry analysis consumer technology at the NPD Group. Core tablet users, he said, skew young and the average owner is 35 years old. Women tablet owners on average are 3 years younger than male tablet owners and the number of women owners increases as the age demographic increases. Rubin attributes the popularity of the device to its "versatility," noting that people use it for watching video, playing games, reading books and magazine and reading to children—in the dark—and even reading sheet music. "Video, podcasts, reading all at hand on the device; touchscreens are a breakthrough and iPads are in a class unto themselves," said John Kosner, sr. v-p, digital & print at ESPN, “we’re discovering things you can do on it." Read more at: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/trade-shows-events/article/48068-cleanslate2011-ipads-tablets-and-the-app-lification-of-consumer-tech.html