Entries tagged with “penguin” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Penguin 2.0 Mashes Up Essays and Short Texts
Mac Slocum
December 8, 2008
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Penguin's new project -- dubbed "Penguin 2.0" -- incorporates elements of customization and remixing found in Web content. Jeff Gomez, Penguin's senior director of online consumer sales and marketing, discusses the program with the New York Observer:
... in 2009 the company will introduce a program that allows customers to choose from a variety of short stories, essays, and other short standalone texts and combine them into custom-made collections. Mr. Gomez said the program is part of Penguin's effort to incorporate elements of so called 'Web 2.0' into publishing without abandoning print ...
... He cautioned, however, that he "would never want to break apart an entire book" and thereby render the full-length volume obsolete the way iTunes has done to the 74-minute LP.
News Roundup: Online's Share Increases, New York's "Amazon" Tax, Open Source Textbooks, Edits Shown in Pan Macmillan Ebooks, Penguin UK's Simultaneous Print-Ebook Plan
Mac Slocum
April 18, 2008
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Amazon Growth Fuels Online's Book Market Share
Online retailers claim 21-30 percent of the consumer trade book market, according to two recent surveys. Publishers Weekly says much of this growth comes from Amazon. (Continue reading ...)
New York Eyes Amazon Affiliates in Tax Move
From the New York Times:
... people owe taxes on what they buy regardless of whom they buy it from. But the seller only has an obligation to collect those taxes (and thus the only time taxes are ever actually paid) when the seller has a physical presence in the state of the purchase. The state is proposing defining Amazon’s affiliates -- Web sites that earn commissions by referring customers to it -- as a physical presence. (Continue reading ...)
Open Source Textbook Adoption Grows
Inside Higher Ed notes the slowly growing open source textbook movement:
Colleges and individual faculty members continue to experiment with putting course information and material online, and "open textbooks" typically are licensed to allow users to download, share and alter the content as they see fit, so long as their purposes aren't commercial and they credit the author for the original material. This allows instructors to customize e-textbooks and offer them to students for free online or as low-cost printed versions.
Pan Macmillan Plans Ebooks Showing Edits and Changes
Pan Macmillan is releasing ebooks with extra sauce. From thedigitalist.net:
The idea that a special edition eBook can contain marginal material produced before, during, or after a print edition features in two other eBooks to be published by Picador this year. Sid Smith’s China Dreams, which we published in hardback in January 2007 and in paperback in January 2008, will be issued in a uniquely up-to-date edition, in the author’s latest version, with corrections, changes, and new material, and a foreword in which he considers the process of composition and revision. (Continue reading ...)
Penguin UK to Release Print and Ebook Editions Simultaneously
Beginning in September, print and ebook versions of Penguin UK's new titles will be available simultaneously for the same price. Digital editions will be made available in .epub format through Penguin's Web sites and via retailers. (Continue reading ...)
[LBF] What Ex-Smokers and Ebook Early Adopters Have in Common
Andrew Savikas
April 15, 2008
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During a seminar today at the London Book Fair titled "How to Digitize your Content" (not to be confused with our own "Digitizing Your Backlist"), Penguin Group Digital Director Genevieve Shore shared some interesting insights about Penguin's growing ebook program:
- Though Penguin USA has been selling ebooks for 10 years, 2007 was the first time they saw "interesting revenue"
- In the first two months of 2008, Penguin USA has sold more ebooks than in all of 2007
- Readers now expect new frontlist titles to be available as ebooks at the same time they show up in bookstores
Genevieve also offered an amusing description of the enthusiasm of early adopters of ebook devices (who she described as wanting to show you all the nooks and crannies of their new toys: "look, I can change the font size!"), likening them to "smokers who've given up" and can't stop talking about how great they feel. Sounds like the old saw about how converts are typically the most fanatic.
(P.S. There's broad coverage of the LBF over at thebookseller.)
Penguin UK to Release Print and Ebook Editions Simultaneously
Mac Slocum
April 11, 2008
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Beginning in September, print and ebook versions of Penguin UK's new titles will be available simultaneously for the same price. Digital editions will be made available in .epub format through Penguin's Web sites and via retailers. From The Bookseller:
[Penguin] digital director Genevieve Shore described the move as "an important step." She said: "We have seen in other markets that the digital bestsellers are the same books making it to the top of the bestseller lists and we know our readers expect both editions to be available at the same time."
The Secret to Penguin's Trade Paperback Success
Mac Slocum
April 11, 2008
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Penguin is carving a niche for its trade paperbacks by treating the titles as entirely new books. From the Associated Press:
... Penguin has mastered the paperback blockbuster, taking a book already out in hardcover and giving it the kind of promotion once reserved for a new release: prominent store placement, author tours, online marketing, appeals to book clubs and community reading organizations.
Norman Lidofsky, head of Penguin's paperback sales, says success is largely driven by a recognition of grassroots growth:
" ... the books grow organically and then we focus on it and never stop. We've coined a phrase, 'These books should be brought up during every sales call, every account, every time'."
(Via Shelf Awareness.)
Experimenting for the Sake of Experimenting
Mac Slocum
April 10, 2008
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Satellite radio companies Sirius and XM are both touting aggregated programming that focuses on a popular artist or topic (e.g. the '08 election) for a period of time, then gives way to the next subject. Sirius calls them "pop-up channels." XM dubs them "microchannels." (They'll have to settle on a name if/when their proposed merger goes through ...)
From the Washington Post:
By any name, they [aggregated programs] are a reflection of a changed entertainment and information culture, a recognition that the American audience is shifting from loyalty toward permanent formats to sudden plunges into topics and trends that flash onto the collective consciousness and then flit away as quickly as they arrived.
What I find interesting about this idea is that it tests bite-sized culture without abandoning traditional long-form or channel-based content.
Penguin Books is embracing this same "try it and see" concept with its We Tell Stories project, which uses digital delivery and Web-based tools to play with different storytelling forms. While I'm sure there's a revenue stream surrounding this idea -- and ideas of its ilk -- the real value comes in trying for the sake of trying, as Joe Wikert notes. This is especially true in a digital environment, where the platform minimizes risk. Penguin isn't abandoning its core business in favor of the We Tell Stories project -- it's just testing an idea.
Ultimately, the game-changing idea that revolutionizes publishing could very well be the end result of theses types of experiments.
Publishers and Amazon Locked in Price War
Mac Slocum
April 8, 2008
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The UK's Times Online says Penguin, Bloomsbury and other publishers are trying to woo customers with steep discounts on their own Web sites. Amazon isn't happy about the cuts:
There are fears that Amazon may retaliate by regarding a publisher’s online price as the recommended retail price and applying its trading terms to that. If a publisher discounts a £20 book to £15 online and Amazon has a contract for a 50 percent discount on the full price, Amazon would pay the company £7.50 instead of £10. Publishers say that this would be unfair and could ultimately drive up prices.
Commentary on Penguin's Missed Ebook Opportunity
Jimmy Guterman
March 19, 2008
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(Updated with excerpt/link instead of repost)
On Penguin's latest e-Book move via the O'Reilly Radar blog:
What's most galling, of course, is that Penguin isn't attempting to increase interest in ebooks as a medium by making these classics, long past copyright, available in free, un-DRM-encumbered formats. In an old-meets-new mashup, publishers could use free distribution of still-in-demand classics to generate interest in a form, ebooks, that is still only in the earliest days of its potential public acceptance. Wouldn't you be more likely to try something new if it was free?
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