Digital Book Blog: March 2011

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Barnes and Noble business edited Barnes & Noble Said to Be Likely to End Search Without Buyer By Jeffrey McCracken, Matt...

Barnes & Noble Said to Be Likely to End Search Without Buyer
By Jeffrey McCracken, Matt Townsend and Jonathan Keehner - {http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=i7YaWEaoRFLY} Barnes & Noble Said to Be Likely to End Search
Pedestrians pass a Barnes & Noble store as customers upstairs wait in line for a book signing in New York. Photographer: Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg
Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS), the largest U.S. bookstore chain, is likely to end its months-long search for a buyer without a sale of the company, said five people with knowledge of the bidding process.
Private-equity firms and strategic bidders have backed away from the auction, said the people, who asked not to be identified because negotiations aren’t public. Interest from at least seven potential buyers waned after the first round of bidding, the people said.
The auction isn’t over and will probably last a few more weeks before the company officially calls off the search, one person said. Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for New York- based Barnes & Noble, said the process is still ongoing and declined to comment further.
The chain, facing increasing competition as more people buy electronic readers such asAmazon.com Inc. (AMZN)’s Kindle, hired Lazard Ltd. last year to explore a possible sale. Barnes & Noble makes the Nook e-reader, and some potential bidders balked at a purchase because of how long it may take the chain to generate more digital sales, two of the people said.
A few private-equity funds determined Barnes & Noble is relatively unproven in digital sales and would have to compete in that area with companies such as Apple Inc., Amazon.com and Google Inc., said the two people.
Digital Content
Barnes & Noble Chairman and founder Leonard Riggio has sought to improve results after three years of profit declines, hurt by consumers’ switch to digital content. The chain, which suspended its dividend in February and has sacrificed profit to invest in its e-reader, saw its closest rival, Borders Group Inc. (BGP), file for bankruptcy this year.
Remaining public may put more pressure on Barnes & Noble shares as the company tries to transform itself, Michael Souers, an analyst for Standard & Poor’s in New York, said earlier this month.
“Investors don’t have the most patience in the world,” Souers said. He recommends holding Barnes & Noble shares.
Barnes & Noble fell 15 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $9.10 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, giving the company a market capitalization of about $550 million. The shares have plunged 51 percent since Feb. 18, the last trading day before the company eliminated its $1 annual dividend.
Poison Pill
Riggio, the largest shareholder, and the rest of the board began examining a possible sale under pressure from Ron Burkle, who began building a stake in the company in late 2008.
The board responded to Burkle’s stock purchases by introducing a so-called poison pill in November 2009 to limit his ownership to 20 percent. Yucaipa Cos., Burkle’s Los Angeles- based investment fund, sued to overturn the pill and lost.
Yucaipa then waged a proxy contest last year to add Burkle and two other candidates to the board, losing to Riggio’s slate. Yucaipa held almost 19 percent of Barnes & Noble as of October, compared with about 30 percent for Riggio, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Riggio’s empire began in 1965 with a college bookstore in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. In 1971, he bought the Barnes & Noble name and its flagship store in Manhattan. The company expanded through acquisitions, buying B. Dalton Bookseller and Doubleday Bookshops.
U.S. Expansion
The chain shifted from mall-based locations to superstores in the early 1990s. An initial public offering in 1993 provided the capital to expand across the U.S., and by 1996 the company had more than 400 of these locations. The company now has more than 700 superstores and has closed its mall sites.
Barnes & Noble added to its retail locations in August 2009 after buying Barnes & Noble College Booksellers Inc. from Riggio for more than $500 million.
More recently, the company’s investment in developing its Nook digital reader and creating an e-book library have fueled revenue gains. Sales at Barnes & Noble stores open at least a year rose 7.3 percent in the quarter ended Jan. 29, the first gain since 2007. Online revenue, where all digital content purchases are recorded, surged 52 percent to $319.4 million last quarter.
The spending has helped Barnes & Noble narrow the gap with market leader Amazon, which released its Kindle digital book reader in 2007, two years before the Nook’s debut.
E-Book Sales
The Kindle has 67 percent of the e-reader market in the U.S., followed by the Nook at 22 percent, according to a February report from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) Amazon also generates 58 percent of e-book sales, followed by Barnes & Noble’s 27 percent and Apple at 9 percent.
The retailer may also receive a boost from the bankruptcy filing of Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Borders, the second-largest U.S. book chain, in February. Borders plans to close at least 200 of its superstores as part of its restructuring. Barnes & Noble may take over some of those locations, Chief Executive Officer William Lynch said in February.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jeffrey McCracken in New York atjmccracken3@bloomberg.net; Matthew Townsend in New York atmtownsend9@bloomberg.net; Jonathan Keehner in New York at jkeehner@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robin Ajello at rajello@bloomberg.net; Jennifer Sondag at jsondag@bloomberg.net; David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net
No Buyers for Barnes & Noble at 60 Cents on Dollar: Real M&A
March 24, 2011, 9:16 PM EDT

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To contact the reporters on this story: Tara Lachapelle in New York at tlachapelle@bloomberg.net; Matt Townsend in New York at mtownsend9@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Hauck at dhauck1@bloomberg.net; Katherine Snyder at ksnyder@bloomberg.net; Robin Ajello at rajello@bloomberg.net.

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Borders' Fate By
By Josh Sanburn
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2057760,00.html#ixzz1G2gp2UQt
{http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2011/1103/barnes_noble_0303.jpg}

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Barnes and Noble business edited E-Books: No Buyers for Barnes & Noble at 60 Cents on Dollar: Real M&A March 24,...

~~E-Books:~~No Buyers for Barnes & Noble at 60 Cents on Dollar: Real M&A
March 24, 2011, 9:16 PM EDT
By Tara Lachapelle and Matt Townsend
March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Even with Barnes & Noble Inc. selling for 60 cents on the dollar, the cheapest retailer in America still isn’t cheap enough to entice private-equity buyers looking for cash.
The bookseller founded by Leonard Riggio has fallen 28 percent since putting itself up for sale seven months ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Losses accelerated after the New York-based company eliminated its dividend in February, leaving Barnes & Noble at a 15-year low last week. The chain is the only U.S. retailer with a value of more than $500 million trading at a discount to its net assets, the data show.
Barnes & Noble destroyed 80 percent of its shareholders’ value
since rising to a record five years ago as Riggio, who bought the bookstore in 1971, fell behind Amazon.com Inc. in selling books over the Internet and starting an electronic reader business. Now, with Barnes & Noble piling money into its Nook reader to compete with the Kindle and Apple Inc.’s iPad and analysts projecting its first loss in a decade, the only buyer left may be Riggio himself as private-equity firms back away after the bankruptcy of Borders Group Inc., according to Wall Street Strategies Inc. in New York.
“There’s not much to like,” said Brian Sozzi, Wall Street Strategies’ retail analyst. “One thing I’ve learned in retail is once the model starts to go against you it’s tough to pull yourself out. Assets on their books are losing value so quickly. Other than Riggio, I don’t know who else would want it.”
Digital Divide
Barnes & Noble, which began exploring a sale in August, will likely end its search without a buyer as private-equity firms and strategic bidders backed away from the auction, five people with knowledge of the process said this week.
Some potential bidders balked at a purchase because of how long it may take Barnes & Noble to generate more digital sales, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified because negotiations aren’t public. Still, the auction isn’t over and will probably last a few more weeks before Barnes & Noble officially calls off the search, one of the people said.
The process is still ongoing, Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, said in an e-mail.
Bookstores have been losing customers as more people shop online and switch to reading digital content with devices such as Amazon.com’s Kindle, which has 67 percent of the U.S. e- reader market, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Barnes & Noble, the largest U.S. bookstore chain, released its Nook in October 2009, about two years after the Kindle. Nook has a 22 percent share, New York-based Goldman Sachs said.
Borders Bankruptcy
Barnes & Noble’s closest competitor, Ann Arbor, Michigan- based Borders, filed for bankruptcy protection last month after losses of almost $800 million since 2006. The retailer is trying to restructure in court by closing 200 stores.
“Barnes & Noble needs to do immediately what Borders waited too long to do,” said Jim McTevia, of Bingham Farms, Michigan-based McTevia & Associates, a turnaround consultant. It needs to start closing stores and “taking steps now to restructure this company before it’s forced into a Chapter 11” bankruptcy, he said.
“Borders has had a number of strategic decisions along the way that were very different than Barnes & Noble,” Barnes & Noble’s Chief Financial Officer Joseph Lombardi said in an interview yesterday. “In June of last year we stood up in front of the investment community and said this was our plan we were going to execute. We are well on our way and positioning ourselves beautifully to participate in the e-book market.”
Greenwich Village
Riggio, 70, started in 1965 with a college bookstore in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. In 1971, he bought the Barnes & Noble name and its flagship store in Manhattan. The company expanded through acquisitions, buying B. Dalton Bookseller and Doubleday Bookshops. Since reaching an all-time high of $47.40 on March 16, 2006, shares of Barnes & Noble tumbled to $9.25 through yesterday, wiping out more than $2.5 billion in the company’s market value, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Including dividends, which the bookseller decided to stop paying last month, the drop would still be more than 75 percent, the data show. That compares with a 51 percent return for retailers in the Standard & Poor’s MidCap 400 Index.
Amazon.com of Seattle, the largest online retailer, has given shareholders an almost fivefold return on their investment in the same period, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Relative Value
Barnes & Noble is now the only U.S. retailer valued at a discount to its net assets. The company sells for 0.6 times its book value, or assets minus liabilities, which is less than 94 other U.S. retailers with market values of more than $500 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The bookstore chain also commands less per dollar of revenue than any of its competitors, with its shares trading at 0.08 times sales in the past 12 months, the data show.
The valuation discounts are “synonymous with companies that are really struggling,” said Michael Souers, an analyst for Standard & Poor’s in New York. “From a valuation perspective, it does look attractive but there’s concern about longer-term trends and little momentum in the near term.”
Even with Barnes & Noble trading at a level suggesting shareholders have more to gain from firing its managers and liquidating the company, private equity firms are wary of putting money into Barnes & Noble because it doesn’t generate enough cash to support a leveraged buyout and lacks property to sell off, according to Oscar Gruss & Son Inc.’s Bill Kavaler.
Cash Flow
Barnes & Noble ran a deficit from operations, after deducting capital spending, of $166 million in the past 12 months, one of only two mid-sized U.S. retailers with a shortfall in free cash flow, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
“It’s not generating cash, the future is too uncertain, the ability to lever the company is constrained,” said Kavaler, a special situations analyst at Oscar Gruss in New York. “It’s not a private-equity thing.”
Barnes & Noble has sacrificed profits over the past year to invest in its digital strategy, losing $14.5 million in the nine months through January. Competition has increased as Cupertino, California-based Apple started selling e-books and released the iPad, which can be used to buy and read digital titles.
While the Nook line of readers has become the company’s best-selling product and boosted same-store sales last quarter for the first time since 2007, Barnes & Noble only retained 26 cents for each dollar of sales in the past 12 months after subtracting the cost of goods sold, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s the lowest of any mid-sized U.S. retailer.
‘Transitioning Itself’
Net income has fallen in each of the past three years and analysts now estimate that Barnes & Noble will lose money this year and next. The company doesn’t disclose how much income it makes on its e-readers and analysts including S&P’s Souers say the Nook is sold for a minimal profit or a loss.
“Barnes & Noble is trying to work on transitioning itself, it’s just the answers aren’t clear,” said Timothy Ghriskey, chief investment officer at the Solaris Group LLC in Bedford Hills, New York, which manages $2 billion. “A potential acquirer hasn’t stepped forward and said this is a great value here and I’m just not sure who that acquirer would be.”
Riggio, the largest shareholder, and the rest of the board began examining a possible sale under pressure from Ron Burkle, who began building a stake in the company in late 2008.
The board responded to Burkle’s purchases by introducing a so-called poison pill in November 2009 to limit his ownership to 20 percent. Yucaipa Cos., Burkle’s Los Angeles-based investment fund, sued to overturn the pill and lost. Yucaipa held almost 19 percent of Barnes & Noble as of October, compared with about 30 percent for Riggio, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
‘Lot of Money’
Since August, the company’s market value has dwindled from more than $750 million to $557 million, the data show.
By taking Barnes & Noble private himself, Riggio would be able to run the company without having to answer to other shareholders, according to Kavaler at Oscar Gruss. Riggio told the company’s board he would consider joining an investor group to acquire Barnes & Noble, according to a statement in August.
“This shouldn’t be a public company and it shouldn’t be a private equity company,” Kavaler said. “It should be a private, family-held company. When it works they make a lot of money, and when it doesn’t work it doesn’t cost anybody outside of the family anything.”
Overall, there have been 5,358 deals announced globally this year, totaling $543.9 billion, a 22 percent increase from the $444.3 billion in the same period in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
--With assistance from Sarah Rabil, Jeffrey McCracken and Jonathan Keehner in New York. Editors: Michael Tsang, Daniel Hauck.
To contact the reporters on this story: Tara Lachapelle in New York at tlachapelle@bloomberg.net; Matt Townsend in New York at mtownsend9@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Hauck at dhauck1@bloomberg.net; Katherine Snyder at ksnyder@bloomberg.net; Robin Ajello at rajello@bloomberg.net.
E-Books: Why Barnes
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Borders' Fate
By By Josh Sanburn
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2057760,00.html#ixzz1G2gp2UQt
{http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2011/1103/barnes_noble_0303.jpg}

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Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2057760,00.html#ixzz1G2gexpm7
On a recent afternoon at a Borders bookstore in midtown Manhattan, everything seemed normal. Customers came and went, browsing stocked shelves as employees helped them navigate the store's mazelike three floors.

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around much ~~longer.(Read~~longer.
(Read about Nook
Last month, Borders Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection,
announcing plans to close a third of its 659 stores (the Manhattan location on Park Avenue is one of them), which could lead to layoffs of 6,000 employees. That has many asking whether it's only time before the venerable Barnes & Noble, and indeed bookstores in general, vanish as well.
For now, Barnes & Noble seems to be far from its final chapter. The company still has about $900 million more in assets than debt. Borders, as of its last fiscal statements, actually owed about $40 million more to creditors than the total value of its assets.

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appeal has ~~faded.(Read~~faded.
(Read about Borders
"Barnes & Noble is just a better-run bookstore.
They have better locations, their stores are brighter and it's better stocked," says Bill Kavaler, a senior analyst at brokerage firm Oscar Gruss & Son. "And while there's some discomfort with Barnes & Noble's management, you can't say they're not trying to run a good book chain."
But the question is how long Barnes & Noble can stay ahead of the gradual shift from print to digital. Barnes & Noble still has 705 bookstores in the U.S., and those locations are less profitable than they used to be, though that drop seems to be slowing. Worse, its online operation continues to lose money. Overall, Barnes & Noble's profits in its most recent quarter, which ended in January, fell 25% from a year earlier to $60.6 million. In order to stem the losses, Barnes & Noble's executives decided recently to stop paying stockholders a dividend and invest the money in its online and e-books division to boost growth.

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in the ~~short-term."(Read~~short-term."
(Read TIME's review
Barnes & Noble launched its electronic device the Nook in 2009
to compete directly with Amazon's Kindle. But unlike the Kindle, the Nook is in color, and it's much easier to carry around than the iPad because of its smaller size. Yes, the Kindle still dominates the market, but the Nook's popularity is growing and has almost become the Mac to Amazon's PC. So far the move seems to be paying off. The Nook boosted Barnes & Noble's sales almost 10% during the holiday season.

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its largest ~~outlets.(Check~~outlets.
(Check out TIME's
And it's not just Amazon that Barnes & Noble has to deal with.
Independent bookstores seem to be making a surprising comeback as well. In New York City, for instance, at least half a dozen indie booksellers have opened in the past couple years. One of those success stories is Greenlight Bookstore in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, which had $1 million in sales in 2010, more than its owners had expected. Co-owner Jessica Stockton Bagnulo says that's all thanks to knowing what her customers want.
"We tailor our inventory to fit our community," says Bagnulo, whose bookstore often focuses on local authors and events. "These are things that work for us that wouldn't work for anyone else."

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Barnes & ~~Noble.(Comment~~Noble.
(Comment on this
So what will Borders' bankruptcy mean for Barnes & Noble? In the next few months, Barnes & Noble might see its sales drop as closing Borders stores slash prices in liquidation sales. But once the stores close, Borders' bankruptcy might even provide a boost. Wall Street firm Credit Suisse estimates that Barnes & Noble will take more than 50% of the business that is up for grabs from Borders' store closings. Almost 70% of the two retailers' stores overlap, good news for Barnes & Noble as it tries to pick up former Borders customers. Barnes & Noble's CEO William Lynch has said the company might be interested in a "minority" of Borders stores.
"There are still reasons for the big bookstores to exist," says Oscar Gruss & Son analyst Kavaler.

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ebook Publishing edited {http://cdn.oreilly.com/radar/images/people/photo_mslocum_s.jpg} Mac
epub Standards edited How to create an e-book? TNN | Mar 23, 2011, 04.40pm IST Please suggest a tool to create...
ebook Publishing edited Short eBooks or online books are the future of technical publishing Veteran technical author,...
Libraries digitize edited **E-generations: From children to retirees, electronic readers win users**

Short eBooks or online books are the future of technical publishing
Veteran technical author, David Mercer, discusses how the global economy and rapid pace of advancement in technical subjects like software development are changing the face of technical publishing.
PRLog (Press Release) – Mar 20, 2011 – When I began making books over ten years ago we had a completely different outlook to publishing. At the risk of sounding nostalgic, it was more about making the best 500 page tome possible and hang the expense. This led to us creating titles that were, quite literally, difficult to pick up, let alone read from cover to cover. Still, they sold well - people needed the information and paid $60 a copy for it.
Those days are long gone. The problem is not that people don't want that information. The problem is that in the time it takes to create anything over a few hundred pages, the technology itself has moved on. The writers have to go back to the start and update their book before its even published. That notwithstanding, for a popular technology, the book has a very limited shelf life before the next edition needs to come out.
Another factor limiting the size and amount of resources that can go into a contemporary technology book, is the amount people are prepared to spend. It's been steadily dropping since the first major recession hit after 9/11. There's a much bigger market for books around $20 than there ever was for the big, $50 dollar books. There's an even bigger market for the $10 booklets, or eBooks.
Visit: http://www.siteprebuilder.com/ content/short- ebooks-or-on ... for the complete article.
The book is dead -long live the ebook

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take over==
By Peter Darbyshire, The ProvinceMarch 5, 2011 9:00 PM
Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/book+dead+long+live+ebook/4391644/story.html#ixzz1FoCl7qVB

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ebook revolution.=
Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/book+dead+long+live+ebook/4391644/story.html#ixzz1FoCrRbTE
I recently managed to generate some controversy in the usually quiet and conservative world of CanLit by publishing a book.

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© Copyright (c) The Province
Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/book+dead+long+live+ebook/4391644/story.html#ixzz1FoC2lizT

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OF READING
Book publishers see their role as gatekeepers shrink
Writers are bypassing the traditional route to bookstore shelves and self-publishing their works online. By selling directly to readers, authors get a

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|| Science fiction writers Greg Bear, left, and Neal Stephenson created a subscription-based historical novel about Genghis Khan’s conquests. (Kevin P. Casey, For The Times / December 18, 2010) ||
By Alex Pham, Los Angeles Times December 26, 2010

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inSchaumburg, Ill.
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"I doubt I'll ever have another traditional print deal," said the author of "Whiskey Sour," "Bloody Mary" and other titles. "I can earn more money on my own." For more than a century, writers have made the fabled pilgrimage to New York, offering their stories to publishing houses and dreaming of bound editions on bookstore shelves. Publishers had the power of the purse and the press. They doled out advances to writers they deemed worthy and paid the cost of printing, binding and delivering books to bookstores. In the world of print, few authors could afford to self-publish. The Internet has changed all that, allowing writers to sell their works directly to readers, bypassing agents and publishers who once were the gatekeepers. It's difficult to gauge just how many authors are dumping their publishing houses to self-publish online, though for now, the overall share remains small. But hardly a month goes by without a well-known writer taking the leap or declaring an intention to do so. In addition to Konrath, bestselling author Seth Godin, science fiction writer Greg Bear and action novelist David Morrell recently have used Internet tools to put their works online themselves. Earlier this year, suspense master Stephen King, Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho and Stephen Covey, the author of bestselling self-help books, self-published some of their works exclusively on Amazon's Kindle bookstore. Godin, the author of a dozen books on marketing, including "Purple Cow" and "The Dip," cut ties to Penguin Group Inc. in August. This month, he announced plans to self-publish a series of "idea manifestos" on Amazon.com. Godin, 50, said he realized that he no longer needed a publisher to distribute his work or to find an audience: He had cultivated a following of millions through his blog and speaking tours. "If an author has the choice of two distribution models, one that costs nothing and has no gatekeeper and the other has lots of gatekeepers and costs a lot of money, a lot of people will go with the free one," he said. Amazon's Digital Text Platform lets authors sell their works through its Kindle bookstore. Those who set their prices between $2.99 and $9.99 per copy receive 70% of the sale price, minus a few pennies per book to cover the cost of distributing files over a cellular network. Sony Corp.'s online ReaderStore also lets authors sell their works directly to buyers, giving writers 70% to 85% of the sale price. In October, Barnes & Noble Inc. launched its PubIt! self-publishing platform, promising royalty rates of 40% to 65%. The upshot is that writers can find virtual shelf space in the world's largest bookstores without the help of conventional publishers. And the number of forums for online bookselling continues to grow. This fall, Amazon and Google Inc. unveiled online tools that can turn any website into a bookstore. Google launched an online bookstore with millions of titles and said it would let independent booksellers sell those works on their own sites. Amazon said it would allow any website to sell Kindle books and would pay a referral fee for every sale. "Publishers used to be the gatekeepers," said Mike Shatzkin, a New York publishing consultant and editor of the Shatzkin Files (www.idealog.com/blog), a blog about the book industry. "Going through the gate still has certain benefits, but it's no longer the only way for authors to get to where they want to go." For now, those benefits include editing, cover design, marketing support, accounting and advances on royalties. In exchange, publishers control the copyrights to works and take a larger slice of the sale price. Authors typically get 10% to 25% of the proceeds of digital sales if they go through a publisher, compared with 40% to 70% if they self-publish.

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Arthur Klebanoff, a former agent and now head of the e-book publisher Rosetta, announced this week a new royalty structure on his e-books that begins at 50% and rises quickly to 60%. Enterprising authors — the ones who write because they have to — will get the bigger reward for having taken the risk. Inverting the royalty relationship by making the publisher take the minority share of the book’s revenue is the future of publishing. That will benefit publishers, writers and, in the end, our literary culture.
Image courtesy of Timonoko via Flickr

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Reading Future
By Tim Carmody {http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/wp-content/themes/wired/images/envelope.gif} Email AuthorSeptember 17, 2010 |
{YouTube Video}

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How to create an e-book?
TNN | Mar 23, 2011, 04.40pm IST
Please suggest a tool to create e-books with the proper design and layout features that I can download for free from the Net.
--Manoranjan Mishra
Most ebook readers support the PDF format. So if you have a document on your PC that you want to convert to PDF, you can simply use the BullZip PDF printer software (www.bullzip.com). It installs as a printer on your machine, so to convert any file or document to PDF, simply give the print command.
If you prefer to create an ebook in the more open epub format, you can go to www.epub2go.com. Using the simple web interface, you can convert any PDF file to epub while keeping the formatting intact. You can also download Calibre for Windows, MAC and Linux from http:// calibre-ebook .com. Calibre is an open-source , all-in-one software that can manage your library of ebooks, convert from one format to another, convert news from the web into an ebook or transfer to various devices.
Spooked By iPad, ePub’s Custodians Promise Overhaul
Robert Andrews ~~@robertandrews~~@robertandrews Apr 7,
The agency that oversees the ePub digital publishing format had plenty of warning a revolution was coming. It’s now published a paper, four days after iPad’s release, admitting the electronic book standard has a litany of failings compared with tablets’ snazzier features.
According to a working group established by the International Digital Publishing Forum to improve.ePub, there are “13 main problems with the format”, including no support for rich media or interactivity, no support for newspaper or magazine articles, insufficient metadata and layout options, no support for languages like those in fast-growing China, and more.

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ebook Sales edited Ebook sales in the US double year-on-year, paper books suffer double-digit losses By Vlad...

Ebook sales in the US double year-on-year, paper books suffer double-digit losses
By Vlad Savov {http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/writer_rss.gif} posted Mar 20th 2011 5:01PM {http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/post_icon_pr.gif} {http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/post_icon_stats.gif}
Net ebook sales in January were this week reported to have accumulated $69.9 million in revenue for their publishers, which amounts to a 116 percent jump from last year's total for the month. During the same period, adult hardcovers were down 11.3 percent to $49.1 million and paperbacks faced a similar reduction in demand and fell to $83.6 million, a precipitous drop of 19.7 percent year-on-year. Educational and children's books weren't spared from this cull of the physical tome, either -- skip past the break to see the full statistical breakdown.
E-Books, Downloadable Audio Books Continue Growth
Based on AAP Publishers January 2011 Sales Report
March 17, 2011, New York, NY– E-books and downloadable audio books continue to grow in popularity according to the January 2011 sales report of the Association of American Publishers. Figures for the first month of the new year show that E-book net sales increased by 115.8% vs January 2010 (from $32.4 Million to $69.9M). Sales of Downloadable Audio Books also rose by 8.8% vs the previous year ($6.0M to $6.5M). As AAP reported last month in its December 2010 monthly report and full 2010 analysis, E-book sales have increased annually and significantly in all nine years of tracking the category.
Among the other highlights of the January 2011 report:
Total books sales on all platforms, in all categories, hit $805.7 Million for January. This was a slight drop from January 2010's $821.5M sales (-1.9%).
Adult Hardcover category fell from $55.4M to $49.1M (-11.3%), Adult Paperback dropped from $104.2M to $83.6 (-19.7%) and Adult Mass Market declined from $56.4M to $39.0 (-30.9%)
In the Children's/Young Adult category, Hardcover sales were $31.2M in January 2011 vs $31.8M in January 2010 (-1.9%) while Paperbacks were $25.4M, down 17.7% from $30.9M in January 2010.
Physical Audio Books sales were $7.3M vs $7.9M the previous year (-6.7%).
Sales of Religious Books grew by 5.6%, from $49.8M to $52.6M.
Sales in the Higher Education category were $382.0M for January 2011, a slight drop (-1.4%) from $387.6M the previous year. K-12 sales hit $82.6M for the month vs $97.0M for the previous year (-14.9%).
In Professional and Scholarly Books, sales grew 1.3%, from $51.2M to $51.8M. Sales of University Press Hardcovers were $3.9M in January 2011 vs $4.5M the previous year (-14.0%) while University Press Paperbacks were $6.2M vs $6.7M (-7.8%).
All figures cited represent domestic net sales for U.S. book publishers.
E-Book sales jump at the start of 2011
NEW YORK | Thu Mar 17, 2011 3:31pm EDT

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