Tizra’s web-based publishing platform
A viable option for ebooks and direct ebook businesses
I’ve written a lot about how important it is for publishers to create direct sales channels. Building your own online destinations and user relationships is key if you want to protect your margins and market access. And building community and interactivity around your content is key if you want users to keep coming back. But I know none of these things come easy, especially if you want to avoid getting locked into proprietary technologies and platforms.
Three questions for…Christian Damke of Skoobe
Subscription models improve discovery and offer a new revenue stream
1. What is Skoobe?
Skoobe is an ebook subscription service for smartphones and tablets featuring fiction and non-fiction trade books. Members can read as many books as they want. There are no out-of-stock titles at Skoobe; every ebook is available always and everywhere. The free app allows you to read extracts of all available books without registration or payment and is also widely used [as a discovery tool] to find new books for later purchase. The membership costs 9.99 Euros per month and is automatically renewed every month. Since our launch in February 2012 we have been consistently among the most downloaded apps in the books category and have been awarded 4.5 stars on average both in the Appstore as well as in Google Play.
Wiley & O’Reilly Media sign ebook distribution deal
3,000+ technology ebooks added to the oreilly.com catalog
I’ve mentioned before that O’Reilly’s direct ebook channel is an extremely important sales outlet for us. We want our content to be in all stores but the direct channel is pretty much the only one where we can establish an ongoing relationship with readers.
The business case for TOC
Don't settle for where the industry is...see where it's actually heading
Tomorrow is the last chance you have to get the best price for TOC NY 2013. We realize that with the current economic conditions we’re all being asked to justify every expense, even ones that contribute to our ongoing education. With that in mind, we’ve developed a list of some of the more important points to help you make the case for attending TOC.
We’ve got the tools. Let’s start using them.
Today's technologies used for tomorrow's content creation and development tools
Our industry has made significant investments in production systems over the years. We’ve all had to evolve from print-only to the various digital formats (e.g., PDF, mobi, EPUB, web, apps, etc.). I’m always amazed to think about how the emphasis has always been on the back end and yet most of us are still using the same authoring and editing tools today that we used 20 years ago. Sure, new versions of those tools have been released in that time but have they really evolved as much as our production systems have? I don’t think so.
Free and the medium vs. the message
Valuable lessons from "Information Wants to Be Shared"
I wrote a short piece earlier about an interesting ebook from HBR by Joshua Gans. It’s called Information Wants to Be Shared and I’m declaring it the must-read ebook of 2012. If you buy it direct from HBR’s website and use the code ADINFO1 you’ll only pay 99 cents, btw.
Amazon and Wall Street
Investor confidence is likely buoyed by past performance
I’m a big fan of The Week news magazine. It’s one of the last print products I still subscribe to (and I prefer the print version over the digital one). They deliver short summaries of what’s happening around the world and they’re careful to provide all sides of every story. Most of the content delivered in The Week is excerpted from other news sources.
The slow pace of ebook innovation
The Android ecosystem shares some of the same obstacles
I love this comment from Dave Bricker regarding an earlier post, EPUB 3 facts and forecasts:
Ebook vendors enjoy a closed loop ecosystem. They have millions of reader/customers who are satisfied with EPUB 2 display capabilities and devices. Amazon readers, for example, are largely content with the offerings in the proprietary Kindle store; they’re not lining up with torches and pitchforks to push for improvements. While publishers wait for eReader device manufacturers to add new features and EPUB 3 support, eBooksellers are just as happy to wait.
TOC Trifecta: This week’s must-reads (11/8/12)
Fixing what's broken, avoiding the commodity trap, Amazon as publisher
TOC’s Global Ebook Market report
The only resource you need for current conditions & future projections
One year ago we published the first edition of our Global Ebook Market report. We focused on the major English language territories but also featured coverage of several other popular languages as well.