"retailers" entries

Publishing News: IPG says "no" to Amazon's new terms

IPG doesn't renew with Amazon, B&N launches 8GB Nook, and Ann Patchett banters bookstores with Stephen Colbert.

Amazon changes its terms and IPG says, “no, thank you” to an agreement renewal. Elsewhere, B&N ups the ereader ante, and brick-and-mortar bookstores cycle back to indies.

7 ways ebook apps can help brick-and-mortar bookstores

Book retailers are missing an opportunity to unite the physical and digital worlds.

Bookstores need to build functionality into their mobile apps that makes customers want to go to their brick-and-mortar locations.

Agency model may violate anti-cartel laws in Europe

European investigators have asked publishers for ebook sales records.

The ebook agency model many publishers adopted, in part to be on Apple's iBookstore shelves, may actually qualify as a cartel, according to the European Commission.

Publishers Need to Get In on the Conversation

Kassia Krozser has a Cluetrain-like manifesto for publishers. From Booksquare: It's time to get your hands dirty, to dig into the real-world conversation. It's a weird thing, and sometimes awkward and uncomfortable, especially if you're accustomed to public relations-speak and the cheerleader behavior that accompanies marketing messages. When you talk directly to real people who read and buy books,…

Change Always Leaves Someone Behind

Seth Godin discusses the realities of digital change and free distribution in an interview with HarperStudio's The 26th Story: … the market and the internet don't care if you make money. That's important to say. You have no right to make money from every development in media, and the humility that comes from approaching the market that way matters. It's…

Tracking Amazon's Dominance in the Book Industry

Morris Rosenthal says retail figures point to Amazon eclipsing Barnes & Nobles in U.S. book sales this year: The book selling wars that began four decades ago with the rise of the mall chains, followed by the growing power of the Barnes & Noble, Borders and BAM superstore chains, has been won by Amazon. Amazon sales are on track…

10 Things Ebook Merchants Should Offer

Jane at Dear Author has a wonderful list of 10 things ebook merchants should be providing as a matter of course. Here's just one example, but read the whole list: Buy a for a friend. The only site that offers this feature is Fictionwise. Amazon does not even offer this for Kindle which makes no sense. When a reader…

Kindle vs Sony Reader: Battle of Distribution Channels

Sony is distributing its e-reader through Target, Borders and other retail outlets, while the Kindle remains Amazon-only. Does Amazon have enough pull to trump Sony's traditional model?

BookTour and IndieBound Make Author Events Hyper-Local

BookTour, which provides author-generated pages and a listing of author tour events, has integrated their database with IndieBound. This is an interesting model, which obviously could expand in its breadth. From the BookTour blog: … the trouble is neighborhood bookstores are all different (that's what makes them great). That made it hard to dump all their data into our…

News Roundup: The Crowdsourced Cat Book, Infinite Permutations of the Digital Book, EBay vs. Amazon (Round 2)

The Crowdsourced Cat Book Amazing but True Cat Stories is a 38-page coffee table book born from the combined efforts of Mechanical Turk contributors. The creator/editor of the book, Björn Hartmann, describes the genesis of the project on his blog: The idea for this book was born in Terminal A at Washington Dulles, where I was stranded for some hours…