publishing

Microsoft And Barnes And Noble Team Up On eBooks And Education?

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If you haven’t heard for a legitimate reason, like a coma or temporary death, Barnes and Noble has teamed up with Apple in a ‘strategic partnership” involving e-Books.

Yeah. Process that one for a bit.

Basically there’s a new B&N subsidiary that rolls the Nook and college/educational businesses together. Microsoft invested in it. The results are this could be a separate business, an adsorbed one . . . or one, say, sold to Microsoft. Think about that for a moment.

We just saw two of Apple’s competitors team up with a “daughter” company in powerful markets.

Heree’s your takeaways:

  • I’ve suspected something is up with B&N’s plans in education, and I think this was coming for awhile. Protip: don’t write B&N off, they’re obviously working quietly behind the scenes.
  • This is to Apple’s disadvantage of course, but also note this settled B&N vs Microsoft patent litigation. Apple’s still facing plenty over ebooks, while this clears the air.
  • Lots in all of this is Amazon’s reasonably-priced 300 pound gorilla. A Microsoft-B&N partnership or spinoff is also a challenge to Amazon.
  • B&N supports the more universal ePub format. Just saying’ this could give it a shot in the arm.
  • Job opportunities will clearly come of this. Take a look at the opportunities (if you’re lucky it’s near B&N’s offices in Palo Alto, which is an awesome city).
  • Microsoft can probably leverage this partnership for their e-devices, which are needless to say behind the market.
  • If this is done as a spinoff company it could be huge. Imagine a company created just as a rival to Apple/Amazon, backed by these two. Imagine a company using a universal format. Imagine a company, say . . . I dunno, buying Lulu . . . .

Things just got a lot more interesting in the eBook world.

– Steven Savage

How Amazon’s Success Destroys Itself?

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Earlier, Serdar linked to an excellent article by Baldur Bjarnson (current winner of ‘The Most Viking Name Ever’ six years running) and his fascinating analysis of Amazon’s situation and what they (or someone else) should do.

Of course I say “read the article” but part of why you come here is hard-hitting analysis, deep insight, and guys making fun of people’s names.

His essential argument is that Amazon has a surprisingly weak position, margin issues, technical issues, and strengths with vulnerabilities.  The end result could be a market like the ever-dismalifying comics market in his opinion.  His arguments are pretty solid.

However his most fascinating argument is that Amazon’s integration could destroy it.  As bookstores disappear and less publications are seen, Amazon could end up catering to a specialist audience.  It’s sad to say, but people already aren’t reading enough books anyway (in my opinion), and I can see a case where e-Books end up having issues finding audience due to lack of awareness and competition that never existed before.

I’ve chewed over this idea as it seems to fit some other models – extraction models.  Amazon runs on pretty tight margins (if not “no margins” in some ways).  This could be seen like any extraction industry, or even as a flashback to the “getting eyeballs” from the pre dot-bomb day, neither of which are exactly encouraging metaphors.  There’s already plenty of competition in the form of open formats or even that clunky but beloved format PDF.

So after reading this article, here I sit, teetering on the abyss, and wondering if Amazon actually will turned out to have messed up.  Having been through many Comic Meltdowns, the metaphor sits in my mind uncomfortably – weird variants, cool promotions, hopeful indies, price arguments, and even a narrow channel (Diamond).

– Steven Savage

 

Further Thoughts on E-Publishing And Missing Out

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Serdar brought up the point that in a way, publishers brought the Amazon mess on themselves because they resisted e-book technology. I think he had a brilliant insight, and want to expand on it further.

Let’s take a look at the whole Kindle idea. In many ways it’s a bare-bones thing (at least before the Tablet), a black-and-white-display (however with cool e-Ink), simple delivery, basic formatting. The Kindle is impressive as a unified system, but except for that e-ink, it doesn’t seem that innovative, from file format to the menu

But what Amazon did is string the links together in a chain that worked. They pushed it, they stuck buy it, they evolved it. I myself used to think the Kindle sounded ridiculous, now I own one. The Nook sounded like a runner-up, and now I not only hear great things, I have a friend who can’t put her’s down.

The iPad? Yeah.  Some issues but the big lawsuit shows Apple was big enough to talk with . . .

Of course each “link” chain should be obvious, but the Publishers didn’t  follow that.

All those publishers had money. They had technology. They had allies in book chains. They had people talking about eBooks and playing with formats.

They didn’t do anything. They left it to Amazon and Apple and Barnes and Noble. The Publishers avoided or dodged, didn’t take risks, and by and large let everyone else into the mobile space.

An alliance of publishers could have rallied around ePub. It could have backed a new device. It could have done all sorts of things. It didn’t exist and it didn’t happen.

Now what? I’ve launched books on my own, and the only reason to have a publisher is the marketing advantage (and there’s several small and mids for that). So many are exploring e-books. EVERYONE has to be on Kindle, and B&N is coming from behind (which I need to address in my own books).

It’s going to get wild, isn’t it?  Maybe people thinking of working for traditional publishing need to be thinking outside the box . . .

– Steven Savage