Entries tagged with “aap” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Google Reaches Book Search Settlement
Peter Brantley
October 28, 2008
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Google has announced a settlement plan for the suits filed by the Association of American Publishers and the Authors' Guild. From the Google Book Search site:
Today we're delighted to announce that we've settled that lawsuit and will be working closely with these industry partners to bring even more of the world's books online.Together we'll accomplish far more than any of us could have individually, to the enduring benefit of authors, publishers, researchers and readers alike.
It will take some time for this agreement to be approved and finalized by the Court ...
Publishers' Weekly says Google will pay $125 million and institute a new licensing system as part of the settlement. Section 2.1 of the settlement agreement (pdf) details the settlement payments and licensing structure.
Additional information is available on the primary Book Search site and a separate settlement site.
News Roundup: Digging Around Amazon's Topaz Format, Twitter Novels, June Ebook Sales Up 87% Over '07
Mac Slocum
September 5, 2008
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Digging Around Amazon's Topaz File Format
Late Night Code is popping the hood on Topaz, that mysterious "other" file format used on the Kindle:
Mobipocket files purchased from Amazon have an AZW extension (which presumably stands for Amazon Whispernet - the name of the Kindle wireless download service). Mobipocket files from other sources will have a MOBI or PRC extension. Topaz files will have an AZW1 extension if downloaded directly to the Kindle, and a TPZ extension if downloaded from Your Media Library on Amazon.com.
ReadWriteWeb has a brief survey of mini serialized novels in the U.S.:
In Japan, mobile phone novels called "keitai shousetsu" have become so successful that they accounted for half of the ten best-selling novels in 2007. Here in the Western world several would-be novelists are attempting to use Twitter to create the same phenomenon. Some of the novels tweeted so far have been interesting and engaging, but others, sadly, appear to be abandoned. Will micro-format fiction ever take off here as it did in Japan?
June '08 Ebook Sales Up 87% Over June '07
Wholesale trade ebook sales accounted for $4.9 million in June '08, according to industry stats from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). This is an 87 percent increase over June '07. Year-to-date ebook sales are up 43 percent over last year.
Note: The AAP/IDPF stats aggregate information from 12-15 trade publishers and reflect wholesale sales figures in the U.S.
IDPF: Boundaries of Participation
Peter Brantley
May 20, 2008
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I wanted to add a few of my own thoughts to Andrew's last post on the AAP and the IDPF. I agree that there is too much emphasis on a replication of the print page, and too little engagement in re-envisioning the product so that it supports a diversity of distribution channels and ultimately, product conceptualizations. For that matter, many of us will still opt for some form of print manifestation, for some classes of this content. But regardless, publishers are aware at least cognitively of these transformations, as Sara Lloyd of Pan Macmillan witnesses in her recent manifesto. Indeed, DAISY is not the only actor that is encouraging IDPF to adopt a more profound engagement with newer presentation technologies and a greater diversity in the expectations for interaction, collaboration, and sharing.
One of the harder equations to solve is where the support for some of the features Andrew mentions should actually be located -- are they format bound? What is the value in specifying an explicit framework that supports (e.g.) OpenID and OpenSocial for collaborative reading of texts (viz. texts broadly defined)? How much of that should be a normative consideration of the application environment, vs. how much in a schema? Perhaps we rather need to participate more outbound such that libraries and publishers more actively engage in efforts like OpenSocial and DataPortability, to bring the changing needs of our served communities into those dialogues.
Organizationally, how do publishers and libraries become the type of enterprises where that kind of open technical and policy engagement is not only tolerated but endorsed as a normal run of business, instead of being perceived as a perfidious seduction?
I don't have either cleverness or answers, but I do wonder what goes into the IDPF's court as a work product, and what goes into the court of our community as a responsibility to redefine and rescale the boundaries of the world of participation.
Looking at EPUB's Flexibility and Fidelity
Peter Brantley
May 16, 2008
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Jon Noring at TeleRead discusses the fundamental importance of the AAP's endorsement of the EPUB specification and format:
The following two points in AAP’s letter are germane to this article:
1. AAP sees retailers selling EPUB directly to consumers ... as well as selling derivative formats converted from EPUB. Publishers understand the great flexibility that EPUB provides.
2. AAP uses the phrase “high-fidelity” to describe EPUB. This mention means presentation quality is important to AAP, and thus should be important to everyone else in the ebook industry. It also acknowledges that indeed EPUB is “high-fidelity."
It is clear that publishers consider “flexibility” and “high-fidelity” in ebook formats important, for themselves, for the rest of the industry, and for consumers. And EPUB is a format that meets these requirements.
AAP Passive-Aggressively Endorses EPUB
Andrew Savikas
May 15, 2008
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Note: Most of this post was drafted on the train ride back from New York on Wednesday night, and I held off posting it because I thought it sounded too snarky. Well, a day later I still think it sounds snarky, but that's a consequence of how strongly I feel about this stuff. I really do have a lot of respect for the publishers named in the AAP letter's footnote, many of whom are experimenting and innovating in a lot of very interesting ways. I have no idea who suggested those caveats, or more importantly, who insisted on them, just that they really don't belong there in the first place. Note that O'Reilly is not a member of the AAP. You've been warned, snarkiness ahead...
Timed with yesterday's IDPF's Digital Book 2008, the AAP (Association of American Publishers) has put out a letter in support of the EPUB format (that the letter is posted as the scan of a printed letter is certainly amusing, and also quite telling). While this is a positive development, the "yes, but..." part of the letter reveals a subtle lack of understanding on the part of AAP (not the first time -- two weeks ago at OnCopyright 2008, AAP VP Allan Adler said that Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft all have the same "database" and Google Book Search was how Google was trying to differentiate itself; also not the first time we've disagreed with the AAP).
In particular, the AAP highlights three issues that they "encourage the IDPF to work with its member organizations to develop guidelines/plans for addressing":
Read more…Report: Book Sales Up 7 Percent in Early '08
Mac Slocum
March 25, 2008
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U.S. book sales were up 7.2 percent in Jan. '08, according to the Association of American Publishers.
Sales were driven by the adult categories:
- Adult hardcover -- $94.4 million/+4.2 percent over Jan. '07
- Adult paperback -- $135.2 million/+37.6 percent
- Adult mass market -- $65.3 million/+17.3 percent
The children's market splintered. Children/young-adult paperback sales were up 28.2 percent ($34 million), but hardcover titles were down 21.9 percent ($33.6 million).
Ebooks and audio books saw double-digit growth: ebooks posted $3.1 million in sales, an increase of 26.1 percent over Jan. '07; audio books brought in $13.5 million, a boost of 16.8 percent from the same period a year ago.
Last week, bookstore sales figures from the U.S. Census Bureau showed a 4.7 percent increase in Jan. '08.
(Via GalleyCat).
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