Entries tagged with “booksellers” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Tracking Amazon's Dominance in the Book Industry
Mac Slocum
October 17, 2008
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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 for double-digit gains again this year, aided in part by high fuel prices discouraging trips to the regional superstores that have replaced so many local bookstores. Amazon's North American growth in media sales (books, music and movies) may exceed the incredible 23% gain they turned in last year. Amazon is on pace to sell more books in the US than the entire Barnes & Noble chain in 2008, even allowing for a higher music and video mix. If you add Amazon's international stores to the mix, they will easily sell more books than Barnes & Nobles plus Borders this year.
BookTour and IndieBound Make Author Events Hyper-Local
Peter Brantley
August 26, 2008
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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 hoppers in one go ...
Now, throughout BookTour, events taking place at IndieBound-represented bookstores will be added automatically to our database. Equally important, on both author and venue pages, when an event is taking place at an IndieBound-repped store, you'll have the option to purchase the book directly from that store.
News Roundup: B&N Won't Buy Borders, Kindle Roadblocks and Sightings, Pirates Convince Game Developer to Drop DRM
Mac Slocum
August 15, 2008
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Report: No Borders Bid for Barnes & Noble
It looks like Barnes & Noble won't acquire Borders after all. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) says B&N is changing course from earlier this year and will not submit a bid for Borders.
Kindle Projections, Roadblocks and Sightings
Theresa Poletti from MarketWatch comments on the relative absence of Kindle sightings, particularly in Silicon Valley:
The biggest problem is the fact that the Kindle is only available online, via the Amazon.com Website. For many consumer electronics products, potential buyers need to touch and feel the device, to pick it up and play with it, before making any kind of purchasing commitment ... (Continue reading)
Pirates Convince Game Developer to Drop DRM
"Why do people pirate my games?"
Game developer Cliff Harris recently posed this question on his blog and the onslaught of responses caught him (and his blog host) by surprise. Harris offers some interesting conclusions, but most notable is this passage on digital rights management (DRM):
People don't like DRM, we knew that, but the extent to which DRM is turning away people who have no other complaints is possibly misunderstood. If you wanted to change ONE thing to get more pirates to buy games, scrapping DRM is it. These gamers are the low hanging fruit of this whole debate.
Harris says his company will no longer use DRM on its games.
Report: No Borders Bid for Barnes & Noble
Mac Slocum
August 14, 2008
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It looks like Barnes & Noble won't acquire Borders after all. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) says B&N is changing course from earlier this year and will not submit a bid for Borders.
Amazon Buys AbeBooks
Mac Slocum
August 1, 2008
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Amazon has acquired AbeBooks for an undisclosed amount, reports The Bookseller. Russell Grandinetti, vice president of books for Amazon.com, is quoted in an Amazon press release announcing the deal:
As a leader in rare and hard-to-find books, AbeBooks brings added breadth and expanded selection to our customers worldwide ... AbeBooks provides a wide range of services to both sellers and customers, and we look forward to working with them to further grow their business.
Update: Peter Brantley notes via his Read 20 list that Amazon's acquisition of AbeBooks will also make it a minority investor in LibraryThing. From the LibraryThing blog:
AbeBooks owns a minority stake in LibraryThing. This means that, after regulatory approval and finalization, Amazon will become, through AbeBooks, a minority investor in LibraryThing.
Amazon has also invested in Shelfari, one of LibraryThing's competitors.
Mobile Barcode Scanners and Retail Stores on Collision Course
Peter Brantley
July 15, 2008
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Ilya Vedrashko points out a near-term future scenario in which retail sites are going to have to entirely rethink what integration into online services means:
The obvious future of in-store experience: you find something you like, reach into your pocket for a small device, scan the barcode, and the device tells you whether and where the same product is available for a lower price. Brick-and-mortar stores become little more than showrooms for merchandise bought elsewhere.
This future just got one step closer today [July 12] with the release of an iPhone app Checkout SmartShop, "a shopping assistant meant to help you find online and local prices when you're out and about shopping." For now, you still need to type in the UPS code; they are working on converting the iPhone camera into a barcode scanner.
Indiana's "Explicit" Law Struck Down
Mac Slocum
July 2, 2008
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An Indiana law requiring retailers who sell explicit material to register with the state was struck down by a U.S. Federal Court on First Amendment grounds. From the Indianapolis Star:
The law would have required anyone who intended to sell sexually explicit materials -- which plaintiffs say could have included classic literature, as well as pornography -- to register with Indiana's secretary of state, pay a $250 fee and submit a statement with details about the materials. It would have applied to new businesses and existing ones that relocated or began selling the materials after June 30.
As the article notes, the law's intent was to restrict businesses that sell pornographic content from moving into areas with limited zoning regulations, but the legislation's broad framing of "explicit" material put other retailers -- including booksellers -- at risk.
Update 7/3 -- Indiana's attorney general says the state will not appeal the ruling.
Amazon's Road to Profitability: Toll Booths on Your Road to Readers
Andrew Savikas
June 17, 2008
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Though mentioned here back in May, some recent strong-arm tactics by Amazon UK have been picked up by the New York Times, which is referring to the removal of the "Buy Now" button as "the literary equivalent of a nuclear option for rebellious publishers who balk at its demands":
“Amazon seems each year to go from one publisher to another, making increasing demands in order to achieve richer terms at our expense and sometimes at yours,” Mr. Hutchinson said in the letter. “If this continued, it would not be long before Amazon got virtually all of the revenue that is presently shared between author, publisher, retailer, printer and other parties."
This kind of aggression from Amazon is becoming commonplace, but it's worth a step back to try and understand the broader strategic context that might underlie these moves.
Read more…Borders Sells Stores in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore
Mac Slocum
June 5, 2008
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From Shelf Awareness:
Borders Group has sold its stores in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore to A&R Whitcoulls, the major Australian and New Zealand bookseller that is owned by private equity firm Pacific Equity Partners. The deal is valued at US $104 million (about $90 million now and up to $14 million in deferred payments next year) and should close next week.
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