Every so often I come across a new and novel way to promote books. In June I found No Names, No Jackets, a site that focused on serving up blind excerpts as a way of drawing the attention of readers, and today I have just come across Stumblary.

Billed by its creator, Raimonds Plavenieks, as the StumbleUpon for books, Stumblary is a minimalist website that serves up book teasers. At the moment it’s drawing the teasers from Hacker News with links to Amazon, but long term plans include encouraging submissions via the related @stumblary twitter account (see the Stumblary website for more details).

Many of the teasers are complete non sequiturs or at best only tenuously related to the book in question, and that tends to detract from the discovery process. Each teaser looks something like this:

What you see in the screenshot is the total sum of the website, so I would say that calling this a StumbleUpon for books is somewhat inaccurate (and there already is one of those: Goodreads). The only actions that a user can take are to click the next button, the title, or the source. There’s no real sorting or ranking options, and there’s only a single sharing option (Twitter).

The site has been public for just over a day, and it’s already gotten some flack on Hacker news. Many commuters expressed criticism for the book teasers, with many of the comments resembling this one:

Fetching books from HN threads is IMO a really good idea, but using the submission title seems to produce completely inaccurate teasers for me. I’d recommend fetching the title from Amazon too, and also somehow weighting the books by comment upvotes.

I have to agree with the dissenters. I found the site novel but not terribly useful. Infact,I have yet to actually discover something I wanted to read, which is kinda the point of a site like Stumblary. The teasers come from far too many genres but primarily focus on nonfiction, and there’s no way to limit the suggestions to a single genre or downvote the bad ones.

But in spite of its faults, I hope Stumblary sticks around longer than No Names, No Jackets. Due to a general lack of interest from authors and publishers, that book discovery site shut down in less than 6 months after it launched

Stumblary

Hacker News

Over the past year a number of gadget makers ranging from Alcatel to Pocketbook have debuted smartphone cases that added a secondary E-ink screen to a smartphone (there’s even a failed Indiegogo campaign to produce one). Out of all of those companies, only one has brought a product to market (so far).

Gajah is a Singapore based device maker which has extensive experience in designing ereaders and tablets. They have used that experience to quickly develop the InkCase, a line of half-shell smartphone cases.

I first reported on the InkCase when it debuted in June, and today I am the first blogger to get my hands on one and post a review.

Sidenote: I am in fact the first to get my hands 6 InkCase review units. Do you want one? If anyone reading this is a gadget blogger with a decent readership, drop me a line and ask if I still have any to give away.

Update: All I have left are a couple cases for the Galaxy Note 2.

There are 2 InkCase models at the moment, the i5 and the N2. One (i5) fits the iPhone 5/5S, and the other (N2) fits the Galaxy Note 2.

I don’t have either smartphone, but I was able to successfully pair the N2 with my Kindle Fire HD and test it. I was also able to pull the cover off and see the innards, so I have more details to share than just a basic user review.

Verdict

Don’t bother getting the InkCase.

While this is a great idea and it shows great potential, the InkCase is hobbled by limited software and a poor implementation of the concept. There’s not a whole lot that the InkCase can do at the moment, and I don’t think it is worth the $99 MSRP.

Hardware

The N2 case has a 4.3″ epaper screen (600 x 800 screen resolution), 1.6GB of usable storage, 830mAh battery, microUSB port, and 3 buttons on the front.

It’s running om a reasonably capable CPU (Allwinner E200) which was designed to be a CPU for an ereader (and is used to run a couple ereader models). The N2 is intended to pair with the Galaxy Note 2 over Bluetooth, and the USB port is currently only used to charge the battery.

I have the white N2 (there’s also a black model). My unit is the same size as the Note 2, and about 4 mm thick. It’s made from a solid feeling plastic which I would describe as being higher quality than the Apple supplied cases for the iPhone 5c. In general I would describe the build quality as good. (Just don’t ask me about the inner shell, which is painted neon green.)

But while the hardware is good, the software leaves a lot to be desired. The N2 cannot do anything on its own besides cycling through a gallery of promo images. If you want to do anything useful you will need to run an app on the paired smartphone.

Software

The InkCase was launched with the promise that you would be able to use the epaper screen for reading, displaying notifications, showing images, weather updates, and more.

At the moment there are only 2 apps available: a reading app and an image gallery app. The former is rather basic, but the latter has a few interesting features including filters.

There are no other apps, nor are is there any useful system shortcuts like "send this screenshot to the InkCase". That would be useful for transferring a boarding pass, shopping list, or other data which you might want to use while your smartphone is asleep.

There’s also no way to simply load a folder of images or ebooks in the InkCase’s Flash storage and then access them; each image or page from an ebook must be sent over USB – one at a time.

I was really only interested in the reading app, but it did not live up to my expectation. First of all it doesn’t do a very good job of displaying an ebook on my KFHD (it frankly doesn’t look very good), but more importantly I am disappointed and frustrated by how the app worked with the InkCase.

The InkCase has just the power button and the page turn buttons, so there’s not a lot that can be done on the case itself to manipulate the text – no changing the font size, skipping around inside an ebook, nothing.

I am perfectly fine with having to manage the ebook from the app, but I was hoping that the app would simply send an ebook to the InkCase (which would then display the ebook). That is not the case. Instead the app controls the screen on the paired InkCase while running on my Kindle Fire HD.

Each page of text is sent one at a time, and the InkCase doesn’t seem to be able to store more than a handful of pages at once. This means that the app has to be running and paired with the InkCase at all times. Whenever my KFHD went to sleep the connection was lost and the InkCase was useless.

I’m pretty sure that won’t be a problem with the Galaxy Note 2; my regular (non-Amazon) Android devices can ping me with notifications while asleep, so it should be possible for the reading app to continue to function even when the Note 2 appears to be asleep. Of course, it’s going to draw power for the Bluetooth and the CPU, so even if the app is running that is still a sub-optimal solution.

I find this immensely frustrating. The InkCase has the guts of an ereader, so it is capable of operating independently but unfortunately the software isn’t set up to do that.

And to make matters worse, the screen on the InkCase used a double refresh on every page turn. This tended to slow down my reading speed. I also noted that the screen regularly appeared to be blotchy; some text on the screen looked more faded than other text, while some parts were more bolded. This was a real turn off, and it made it a lot harder to read.

Conclusion

Even though it has significantly more capable hardware, the InkCase is effectively more limited as an ereader than the txtr beagle. That device would at least display page images on its own while the InkCase cannot.

I would not buy the InkCase until it either gets a major firmware update or until after it has fallen into the hands of a hacker. Someone needs to liberate the InkCase so it can live up to its full potential.

Seriously, the InkCase is the next best thing to strapping an ereader to the back of a smartphone. I know that might sound like a crazy idea, but given the already high cost of high end smartphones I think the extra cost is worth it. If the inkCase were as capable as the hardware suggested, I would want one.

This case only adds minimal bulk to a smartphone in exchange for a potentially significant increase in function. That is worth the tradeoff, IMO.

Coming out of left field, here’s another reason why ebooks are better than paper books: they’re hygienic.

A pair of Dutch university professors have just finished a new study in which they took the 10 most borrowed books in the Antwerp lending library and ran them through a battery of toxicology and bacteriology tests. The results make me want to go scrub my hands.

The professors found that all 10 books tested positive for cocaine, unfortunately in concentrations that aren’t high enough to get you high but will result in a positive result on a drug test (all the downsides but none of the fun). They also found that 2 of the books, including 50 Shades, tested positive for the herpes virus.

I know you’re saying ewww right now, but I would hold off on that emotion. This result, as gross as it may be, should come as no surprise to anyone who has had Bio 101.

When I took the class years ago there was one section where we swabbed a wide variety of surfaces and grew cultures. If you had seen how many things were growing on a door handle you would probably want to douse yourself in antibacterial soap.

Herpes may be attention getting, but please note that there’s no mention of whether they found Herpes A or B (not even in the original Dutch (Flemish?) sources). For all we know someone might have a serious problem with mouth sores, not an STD.

Also, I can’t find any sign that the professors tested for other bacteria or viruses, and that makes me think that they went for this one detail just to shock us. The original source was a Dutch TV show after all, not an academic paper.

But just to be safe, I suggest that everyone start practicing safe reading. At the very least you could wear gloves and a mask when handling a library book, but I think it better to follow your mother’s maxim: "Don’t touch that. You don’t know where it’s been."

P.S. This post is brought to you by DuPont, maker of HazMat suits, and Trojan, maker of condoms.

Flanders News

Hardly anyone likes DRM on their content, and its various opponents respond in various ways, whether by public advocacy or by voting with their pocketbook. And then there is France, which decided to express their displeasure with a new tax law.

France has amended their tax laws with a new lower tax rate for DRM-free ebooks (or a new higher rate for DRMed ebooks, depending on how you look at it). The new law won’t go into effect until 2015, but once it does Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and all the other major ebookstores will all be penalized for selling DRMed ebooks to French customers.

Update: The law has been unpassed.

Under France’s new tax laws, DRMed ebooks will be taxed at a higher rate (currently 19.6%), while DRM-free ebooks will be taxed at the lower 5.5% rate.

As I am sure many already know, ebooks are already sold in France with a 5.5% VAT, or value added tax, bundled into the list price. Technically that is illegal under current EU regulation; ebooks are defined as a service and thus should have a higher VAT applied. But no penalty has been applied (so far) so at this point it is really a matter of opinion.

And just to add extra confusion to the matter, EU tax law will itself be changing in 2015, and under the new rules ebooks will be taxed at the lower rate (the one that France is not supposed to be charging right now). The new EU tax laws will also require retailers to collect taxes based on the customer’s location and not based on where the retailer is based.

As you can imagine, this is going to close the Luxembourg tax loophole enjoyed by Amazon, Kobo, and a lot of other ebook retailers, but just as importantly this new tax law will create an opportunity for France to penalize the sale of DRMed ebooks.

DRMed ebooks will cost more – theoretically. Speaking as someone who has long been an advocate of DRM-free, I think this is great news, although I’m not sure how much of an effect it will have.

Given that ebook prices vary wildly based on market, publisher, popularity, and sales status, I’m not sure that anyone will notice the difference. Also, France is one of the countries with a fixed price law for books (and ebooks), which further complicates the pricing situation.

There has been a growing movement among French and other European publishers to go DRM-free, and this will likely inspire some to make the switch. But a good part of the French book market is controlled by major publishers who could be immune to the financial pressure.

On a related note, I have to say that I wish they had thought to include audiobooks as well. They could have deDRMed that market as well. It might be relatively tiny at the moment but that’s no reason not to apply the same tax laws to it.

What little info I have on the French ebook market says that it is a 3 way race between Amazon, Kobo, and Apple, with Amazon slightly in the lead.

Actualitte

images by Kimberly Vardeman, Mike Licht

Update (26 October 2014): Here’s the latest on the Earl.

When the Earl tablet was announced earlier this year it got a lot of attention for its rugged design and for its focus on a unique market niche. It has a 6″ flexible epaper screen, long battery life, and runs Android, making it a rare device indeed at the time.

Today I have learned that this back country tablet  is getting even more rugged. There’s a status update on the Earl website with new details about the tablet, and it says that the Earl is losing a few sensors and gaining a better screen.

This tablet is going to be the first to use a 6″ flexible E-ink screen based on E-ink’s recently announced Mobius screen tech. It uses a flexible plastic backplane just like the one found on Sony’s 13.3″ writing slate.

Now, if you’ve been following the news about the Earl then you probably know that it already had a flexible screen (made by LG Display, in fact); this one is better. The Earl developers are reporting that it is more rugged, and they have also mentioned that this panel also integrates the latest Regal waveform refresh tech. That should reduce the number of full page screen refreshes somewhat, although at the expense of a slightly grayer screen.

And that’s not the only change the Earl has gone through since it was announced in May.  The developers tell me that they have swapped out the touchscreen, modified the design to remove components, worked to reduce cost.

This tablet now has a capacitive touchscreen, not IR. The developers made this change because they weren’t sure that the IR sensors could be made rugged enough to meet the IP67 standard. Sure, an IR touchscreen is glove friendly (an important detail), but so is the replacement capacitive touchscreen (or so the developers report).

The Earl has also lost a few sensors. The infrared blaster is gone, a victim of its general uselessness in the outdoors. The developers have also dropped the d-pad found on the Earl prototype; with a larger touch area due to the new capacitive system used in Earl, along with the additional buttons built into Earl’s shell, they thought the d-pad was unnecessary.

The anennometer (wind speed sensor) was removed from the design because it was unreliable and a little power hungry. And finally, the eye-catching kickstand has been droped from the design; the developers decided it wasn’t sturdy enough.

This 6″ Android tablet was announced in May and was supposed to ship by the end of the summer. It has unfortunately been delayed until (at least) early 2014.

You can find more details on the Earl website.

Thanks, Nom!

Ask anyone from DBW to Nick Carr to the BISG and they’ll insist that the ebook market is leveling out here in the US, but something tells me that the major publishers didn’t get the memo.

Two different major publishers have reported in the past couple days that their ebook revenues have increased in the past quarter, and I would say that tends to cast a lot of doubt on the idea that ebooks have leveled off.

Yesterday HarperCollins mentioned in their quarterly report that their ebook revenues for the first fiscal quarter increased significantly over that of the same period last year. They cited that ebooks now made up about 22% of revenue ($72 million, by my calculations) up from 15% last year ($53 million, again by my calculations).

I already have a reader who quite reasonably pointed out that a single point doesn’t make an argument; it’s merely anecdotal. This is true, but 3 points make a line. And that’s why I am pleased that Lagardère released a quarterly financial statement today.

Guess what they said about ebooks?

They’re still seeing strong growth.

Hachette, Lagardère’s US sub, saw a revenue increase of 11%. That’s a damned good report for a recession, and part of it was probably due to ebooks. According to Lagardère, ebooks represented 27% of adult book sales in the third quarter, up from 20% in Q3 of last year. They also reported that ebooks accounted for 30% of adult book sales in the UK, up from 20% last year.

Neither publisher released any info on the number of units sold, so we don’t know (for example) whether the end of agency may have affected ebook sales.We also don’t know for sure the actual increase in revenue, but I’m fine with that.

Two major publishers are still seeing excellent growth in ebook revenue year over year. I have 3 data points that suggest that we have yet to hit peak ebooks, so reports that the market has flattened should be taken with a large grain of salt.

image by freetrader57

Intel didn’t mention how much they paid for digital textbook startup Kno when they announced the acquisition last week but inside sources are now saying that the digital textbook startup was picked up for a song. GigaOm reported earlier today that their sources told them that Kno sold effectively for pennies on the dollar:

Well placed sources who were in the know told us that the company sold for $15 million with some retention bonuses for the employees. Intel bought the company mostly for its hardware-related intellectual property and the employees. Intel also was one of the largest investors in the company — having pumped in $20 million via its Intel Capital arm.

Just to put that sale price into perspective, Kno had raised $73 million in venture capital since it was founded 4 years ago, and it picked up another $20 million in debt.

This deal was nothing less than a fire sale, and that does not bode well for the digital textbook market or other startups in this niche. Inkling, for example, just raised $20 million dollars this summer in order to compete in a market that murdered one of their competitors.

GigaOm notes that the death of Kno was a long drawn out affair. The startup almost managed to revive itself with a merger with Coursesmart, but that deal fell through because Coursesmart was reportedly even less healthy than Kno. That digital textbook distributor is supposedly being propped up by the publishers who own it; if that is true then it is news to me.

While I didn’t technically predict the demise of Kno I have been writing about how the digital textbook is a worse value for students than paper textbooks. I wrote that close to 3 years ago and I am still correct today. To put it simply, students are avoiding digital textbooks because buying and then reselling paper textbooks offer a better value. And even when students did use digital textbooks, they tend not to use the flashier components.

I’ve also written that the ongoing trend of students buying fewer textbooks, which I have been tracking for a couple years now, was not a sign of a healthy market. That trend has shown up time after time.

With all that in mind I am not surprised that Kno failed. And given the general lack of growth in that market (only 7% of college students use digital textbooks) I would also bet that they will not be the last.

 images by hackNY, vancouverfilmschool

Several Swedish language sources have reported that Amazon has been quietly negotiating with Swedish publishers, and that the retail giant is planning to launch a local Kindle Store in Sweden in early 2014.

I called it.

Late last month Svenska Dagbladet broke the news that Amazon was interested in the Swedish market. They posted a stump of an article which cited the trade magazine Svensk Bokhandel, and its source Claes-Håkan Johansson. They don’t include much in the way of details, but they do report that it is a widely held belief that Amazon was interested in that market.

And in addition to Svenska Dagbladet, there was a new article in Dagens Nyheter on Saturday. The article cites numerous sources in the Swedish publishing industry, including Christer Perslöv, the CEO of the publishing services company Bokrondellen. All are saying that Amazon is negotiating with publishers and distributors, with Perslöv stating that negotiations with his firm had been ongoing for a year.

Update: A reader left a comment with a better translation: "Bokrollenden is owned by all the biggest publishers and therefore has a monopoly-like position for book data there. They say Amazon has come closer in negotiations to Bokrollendens demands, before that Amazon had set “tough demands”. Both p and ebooks have been discussed." Thanks, Jussi!

While no one has any solid info on when Amazon will launch in Sweden, the general consensus is that it will happen early next year. And from the way some of the sources are talking, Amazon might also be interested in selling pbooks as well as ebooks.

Aside from that last detail, none of this comes as a surprise to me; back in September 2013 I was the first to report on Amazon adding new language support to KDP, including Swedish. I suggested that the new support indicated that Amazon was interested in launching more local Kindle Stores.

Right now there are exactly 2 international ebookstores in Sweden, iBooks and Google Play Books. Apple launched there in September 2011 and Google expanded into the country in July 2013.

According to the latest stats, Sweden has a population of around 9.7 million. While that is a relatively small market (compared to the English speaking world), Sweden is probably higher on Amazon’s list than you might think. This is one of 4 countries in the EU that have the highest percentages of consumers who buy paper books online according to a recent poll. With 38% of respondents buying books online, Sweden is right between Germany (41%) and the UK (36%).

Tell me, which are the 2 most developed ebook markets in Europe?

Sweden is also one of a handful of European countries that doesn’t have a fixed price law for books, so if Amazon does launch in Sweden there will be no law to stop aggressive discounting. Publishing contracts might block it, though, so I would not assume Amazon is going to be their usual rapacious self.

images by clunkygirl, axmai

The hot ed tech story of the week is something of a shocker.

Looking to boost their academic division, Intel bought digital textbook provider Kno for an unknown sum. An early report from TechCrunch says that the Kno staff will be integrated into Intel’s existing ed tech division – with the exception of the CEO Osman Rashid, who will be leaving the firm.

While tonight’s news is a shocker, it’s a well-known fact that Intel has been interested in Kno since at least April 2011. The chip maker led the Series C funding round and invested $20 million out of the $30 million raised. All in all Kno has raised just over $73 million in financing; I don’t know whether they were self-supporting yet.

TechCrunch is pitching this deal as being focused on the educational content market, or more specifically the 225,000 interactive textbook titles that Kno sells on behalf of 75 publishers. I don’t think that is quite what Intel is interested in.

It’s my guess that Intel has a broader interest than just textbooks. Look over their website and you’ll see that they aren’t just focused on selling hardware; they pitch a complete solution. Their educational division is akin to NewsCorp’s Amplify,  which is a platform consisting of hardware plus software plus a half dozen different types of academic content besides textbooks.

I think it’s the software that has Intel interested, not the textbooks. Or I could be wrong; I will admit that I am basing that on a couple sentences in the official statement:

… We are working to create an ecosystem of hardware, software and digital content specifically designed to help students learn and to offer educators the tools to effectively integrate technology into the classroom. …

… Even more, the Kno platform provides administrators and teachers with the tools they need to easily assign, manage and monitor their digital learning content and assessments. …

Kno was initially launched in 2009 with the goal of launching a custom tablet as a digital textbook platform. They went public with their dual 14″ screen tablet in late 2010 and then scrapped in in early 2011 after realizing that it wasn’t competitive against the iPad.

Ever since then Kno has been focusing on developing digital textbook apps (first for the iPad and later Android, Windows 7, Windows 8, and web browsers) and the back end to support them, and it is probably that back end that has Intel interested.

I think Intel is interested in kno’s abilities to do things like:

Kno for Schools enables districts to seamlessly deploy and manage devices, engage students with enhanced digital textbooks and empower every teacher and administrator with analytics and insights to make informed decisions.

Whether you’ve moved 1:1, are deploying a BYOD program, or simply helping teachers and students integrate digital content into their classroom activities, Kno provides the end-to-end solution to support the unique needs of every learning environment.

Intel probably feels that they have the hardware end nailed down (or if not then they have an acquisition in mind) and today they moved to strengthen the software components of their complete solution.

Intel, as you may or may not know, has been directly interested in the academic computing market since at least 2006. That’s when they unveiled the first Classmate PC reference design. This was also about the time that OLPC first started showing off their idea for a low-cost, low power educational computer, the XO-1. At the time it seemed pretty clear that the Classmate PC was inspired by the much hyped XO-1.

Since 2006 Intel has released several new educational laptop designs, each one an improvement on the last, while also improving the software they bundled with it. And over the past couple  years Intel has also been dabbling in developing tablets for the educational market. They announced one tablet in April 2012 and released it in early 2013, at which point it was overpriced and under-specced.

And then in August 2013 they announced a couple new tablets (7″ and 10″); no release date has been set. These tablets have relatively unimpressive specs compared to say, the new Nexus 7 or the Nexus 10, but I guess they meet Intel’s standards.

Today’s deal combines Kno’s software with Intel’s hardware, and that has the potential to create a major player in the ed tech market.

But before that can happen Intel is going to have to get serious about this market for its own sake and not as a way to sell more computer chips. They need to stop looking at it from the viewpoint of a chip maker, and until they do I don’t think they’re worth taking seriously.

Feedly is often touted as being the reigning champ of feed readers now that Google Reader is gone, but for a company that is winning the market they sure can make some boneheaded decisions.

Late last night Feedly updated their blog with the news that they had switched from letting users log in with their Google account to requiring that users log in with a Google+ account.

Google has been slowly transitioning from Google OAuth to Google+ as their unifying identity system. This transition opens the door to interesting opportunities like simpler login across devices – and a lot more.

We are following on Google’s lead and transitioning feedly from Google OAuth to Google+ login. You will see this transition surface on cloud.feedly.com this week and on Android and iOS later this month.

The browser version of Feedly has already transitioned to requiring Google+, and that presents a problem for the unknown number of Feedly users that don’t have and don’t want a Google+ account.

Like me, for example. I have been avoiding Google+ because of Google’s obsession with real names and the way that they have cut people off from Google Reader, Gmail, and other Google services for violating the Google+ name policy.

Like many people I depend on Google services on a daily basis, so I wouldn’t dare sign up for Google+. There is simply too great of a risk that Google+ might come up with some dumb reason to decide that my last name (Hoffelder) is too much like a town in Germany (Hoffeld) and thus must be a fake name (stranger shit has happened, I swear). Or Google could decide to cut me off because in some places I use Nathaniel as my given name while in others I use Nate.  Google could cut me off with no recourse, and I can’t risk it.

And based on the responses to Feedly’s blog post I am not the only one to balk. Feedly’s post is only 10 hours old and it already has over 180 comments, the vast majority of which are from unhappy users. Some have even payed to use Feedly, including Lifetime subscriptions, and an unfortunate few are now cut off from their account.

But even if you ignore the users who quite reasonably refuse to sign up for Google+, Feedly’s decision is also a serious issue for anyone that has Google+ blocked in their workplace. At least 3 different commenters have reported that they can’t use Feedly at work any more.

This really should have come as no surprise; not all companies approve of all social networks. LinkedIn, sure. And they might have a Facebook page, but there’s also a chance that some companies will be using a filter service that blocks Google+.

Update: Feedly has updated their post with the news that they are reverting. They expect to let users sign in using a Google account by around 4pm eastern. Thanks, Heather!

There hasn’t been any word from Feedly on how they plan to respond to this fiasco, but I am hoping that they either revert to using a Google account or launch their own log in system. (Why they didn’t launch with one is beyond me.) The blog post also mentions that they are working on enabling users to log in with their Twitter or Facebook accounts, but that doesn’t matter much to those who cannot access their account today.

But if Feedly doesn’t fix this I would bet that their many competitors will pick up a number of new users.

Amazon launched a new affiliate program for indie booksellers yesterday. They’re paying booksellers a small commission on hardware sales and a 10% commission on ebook sales, all the while pitching the program as a great idea. “Now your customers don’t have to choose between e-books and their favorite bookstore,” Amazon says in its pitch to booksellers.

Booksellers, on the other hand,  see things differently.

A number of indie bookstores across the US have spoken out about the program, and there have even been a few negative responses from the UK. (Even though this program is only available in the US, and not even the entire country).

The responses so far (as reported by Wired, PW, MobyLives, and even The Bookseller) have been uniformly negative (with a single neutral response). It’s not clear whether the coverage is biased, but I would tend to think it is not. All of the responses I have found so far match with what I was expecting to read.

Lissa Muscatine, co-owner of the Politics and Prose bookstore in DC, said: “We are not enticed in the least by the latest ‘offer’ from Amazon. It’s a dagger disguised as an olive branch – the latest effort by Amazon to gain traction with indie customers and loyalists.”

Her opinion was echoed by Suzanna Hermans, co-owner of Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and president of the New England Independent Booksellers Association: “If Amazon thinks indie bookstores will become agents for the Kindle, they are sorely mistaken. There is no way I will promote Amazon products in my stores after the havoc they have wreaked on our industry as a whole. Sorry, Jeff. I’m not buying it.”

Several booksellers iterated the "Amazon is out to steal customers" theme. Michael Tucker, president and CEO of Books Inc., a 12-store indie chain based in San Francisco, described it as more or less a form of suicide. "In the long term, for anyone who gets into it, they would be losing their customers for what would end up a very small return."

Steve Bercu, co-owner of BookPeople in Austin, Texas, and current president of the ABA, agrees: "They’re attempting to acquire independent bookstores’ customers for two years of commission. This is simply in general not aligned with the interests of most independents."

I must say that my favorite response was the one from Left Bank Books.

Author and owner Kris Kleindienst has a skill for sarcasm that exceeds my own: "Left Bank Books announces its new program whereby Amazon.com buys its books from us at a fifty percent markup over list price. They will also be charged shipping. We believe this will allow Amazon to be a part of the bricks and mortar experience that they can’t do without. Prior to this program Amazon was forced to make do with warehouses in tax free environments that did not leave their customers with that satisfied,  ’I supported my local economy’ feeling they increasingly want. Now with the innovative Left Bank Books program they are easily able to stay relevant in a world that demands more integrity from its retail experience."

And finally, the generally negative response is coming from more than just US booksellers. While this program is still limited to the US, booksellers in the UK have already weighed in with their opinion.

 Tim Walker, owner of Walkers bookshops, said: "One would have to ask the question ‘Why would Amazon want to take that step? Where is the motivation?’ Because at the end of the day, they haven’t really ever given a stuff about everyone else in the book trade . . . My worry would be that by selling Kindle devices, we would be converting customers to using Amazon for their physical book sales as well as e-books. I would be very reluctant to jump in."

Sheila O’Reilly, owner of Dulwich Books in London, said: "I think I would search my heart and find that morally I just couldn’t stock the Kindle. I know Amazon employ lots of people in this country but they also have head offices in Luxembourg and Ireland for tax avoidance reasons and I couldn’t ignore that. If it was more of a level playing field between Amazon and independents then maybe I would think about it, but it isn’t."

To be honest, none of this comes as a surprise. The general tenor of the responses matches with what the very first bookseller said when news about this program broke in June.

Though I do find it strange that a few of these booksellers participate in the ABA partnership with Kobo; I don’t see how only Amazon is going to steal away customers.

Sources:

• Amazon’s New Kindle Offer Rejected by Indie Bookstores (Wired)
• Booksellers Say “No” to Amazon Source (PW)
• "We are not Amazon franchises": booksellers respond to Amazon Source (MobyLives)
• UK indies: 'We won’t stock Kindle' (The Bookseller)

Kobo doesn’t have a large hacking community to support it but what the hackers lack in mass they more than make up for in inventiveness.

One such hacker is reporting that they have Android running on his Kobo Glo. SyreKron posted a proof of concept photo over on Mobileread a couple days ago. For the record, this is not the Kobo Glo’s normal home screen:

This hack, which has been attempted on other Kobo hardware like the Mini without success, is based on the extracted firmware from a Tolino Shine. That 6″ ereader runs Android, and apparently it has enough hardware in common with the Kobo Glo that the code could be ported over with minimal effort.

The Shine runs Android 2.3, and it has a frontlight, touchscreen, internal storage, a microSD card slot, and Wifi. And like the Kobo Glo, it is intended strictly as an ereader.

Of course, the firmware for the Shine isn’t worth much unless you root it and gain access to the underlying Android, which is exactly what someone has done. Yes, there are now at least 2 hackers playing with Android on a Kobo Glo:

Pretty cool, huh?

This is the second replacement firmware hack for the Kobo Glo that has been discovered in the past few months. Back in September I psoted about a firmware hack that turned the Kobo Glo and the Kobo Mini into Linux tablets.

This hack is much more useful, IMO. While it will probably reduce battery life it also offers readers the opportunity to load other reading apps besides Kobo.

Mobileread

Amazon is getting a new competitor in China today, and it’s one that cribs from Amazon’s own playbook.

The Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has launched a new ebookstore and pay-as-you-go reading app. The ebookstore is integrated into MIUI, Xiaomi’s forked Android firmware, and as developed by Duokan, the ebook/AppleTV developer that Xiaomi acquired last year.

It’s not clear how many titles are in the catalog, but we do know that Xiaomi is using a rather unusual sales model. Rather than simply sell the ebooks, Xiaomi charges readers .03 yuan for every thousand characters read, with the revenue evenly split between Xiaomi and the content provider. That is far closer to a Spotify model than a typical ebookstore, and at this point there’s no way to tell that it will generate enough revenue for the authors.

Xiaomi is not a major player outside of China, but when it comes to that market they present a serious threat to Amazon. This 3 year old company now has a valuation of over $10 billion and recently snagged Google’s VP for Android, Hugo Barra, who was likely hired to oversee Xiaomi’s international expansion.

In China Xiaomi is known for selling high end smartphones with specs comparable to Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones but only charging about half the price. Like Amazon, Xiaomi makes their profit not from hardware but when users buy apps and other content.

Back in September 2013 Xiaomi boasted of selling 7 million smartphones in the first half of 2013. They generated revenues of over $2 billion from content and hardware sales in that period, or about what Xiaomi reported earning for all of 2012.

I’m keeping a list of potential movers and shakers in the international ebook market, and Xiaomi is going on it. This is a company to watch.

TenCent Tech

The greatest publisher in the UK has announced a new partnership with Foyles, a London based bookseller.

Foyles, a chain of 8 bookstores, will be running a pilot bundle program. They plan to sell 8 HarperCollins titles, including Catastrophe by Max Hastings, The Demon Dentist by David Walliams, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Faster Than Lightning by Usain Bolt, as paper/ebook bundles. Each paper book will come shrink-wrapped and include a voucher which can be redeemed online for a digital copy of the book.

The voucher will only be valid in Foyles' own ebookstore, which is powered by txtr, and cannot be redeemed in the Kindle Store or elsewhere. A Foyles spokesperson said the price of the bundles will be around £5 more than buying the hardback title alone, but that’s not quite true.

A quick comparison of Foyles and Amazon UK reveals that the bundle price for, say, Americanah is higher than if you had bought the Kindle edition and hardback separately on Amazon (£25 vs £22.20). The bundle for Catastrophe by Max Hastings also costs more at Foyles than at Amazon UK (£36 vs £23), and that’s not the only example.

Charlie Redmayne, CEO of HarperCollins UK, said the bundling scheme was a first for a UK bookshop. He said: “HarperCollins is always keen to experiment with getting our authors’ work into the hands of readers in as many different formats as possible. We are delighted to be part of this industry first with Foyles, and are very much looking forward to seeing how readers respond.”

If these prices are any indication then readers will probably respond by buying content elsewhere. While I am all in favor of bundles, I would think that the point would be to offer customers a better deal. This program certainly doesn’t seem to do that.

The Bookseller

image by fadilbotak

Amazon has long been the parent of a number of publishing imprints as well as a few niche book and gadget blogs, and today they added a weekly magazine to their stable.

Day One, which was initially announced in March as a short fiction publishing imprint, is going to be published weekly and will only be available in the Kindle Store. It will include poetry, works from debut authors, and stories from around the world translated into English.

This magazine, which could arguably be considered a subscription-based extension of the Kindle Single Store, is produced by Amazon Publishing. It will showcase one writer and one poet in each weekly issue. The first issue is available today and features the short story Sheila by Rebecca Adams Wright, and Wrought, a poem by Zack Strait.

Day One will cost $20 for an annual subscription, and is currently available at an introductory price of $9.99.

Amazon has long been rumored to be planning to launch more blogs, but this is probably not what anyone was picturing when that rumor circulated. But even so, Day One will give Amazon a toehold in yet another part of the publishing industry.