Oyster Launched Netflix For Books

Forbes reporting:
More and more we are transforming into a society of subscribers. Netflix NFLX +0.68% gives us endless, on demand movies and TV. Spotify does the same trick for music. And even though libraries have done this for books, for free, for more than a century, so far there hasn’t been a digital, all you can eat subscription platform for books. Start-up Oyster is changing that.
Today Oyster launches its iPhone platform giving users 100,000 titles, from publishers like HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Workman and self-publishing giant Smashwords , for $9.95 a month. An iPad version will be released later this fall.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2013/09/05/oyster-launches-netflix-for-books/

Online Retail Now Accounts for Nearly Half All U.S. Book Sales

dbw reporting:
Online book retail, including ebooks, accounted for 44% of all spending by consumers on books in the U.S. in 2012, according to a new report from Bowker.
This is up from 39% in 2011, which was the first year when online retail eclipsed physical retail as the No. 1 place U.S. consumers buy books.
The new data also revealed that Amazon increased its lead over other outlets in online book retail in 2012, with ebook sales from Barnes & Noble, the second-leading online outlet, declining as a proportion of overall sales even as ebooks continue to gain popularity nationwide. This bit of data dovetails with marketplace chatter about Barnes & Noble’s declining position among ebook buyers and as a source of revenue for some publishers.
Ebook spending grew in 2012 to an 11% share of the total versus 7% in 2011. While about a quarter of Americans say they read ebooks and many “power buyers” buy huge volumes of them, ebooks typically cost much less than print books, which explains the discrepancy between the number of Americans who read ebooks and the amount spent on them.
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/online-retail-now-accounts-for-nearly-half-all-u-s-book-sales/?et_mid=631491&rid=233619411

U.K. Publishers Hit Book Sales Record for 2012 Amid Digital Growth

LONDON - British publishers brought in their highest-ever annual sales in 2012, with stronger sales for digital formats outweighing a slight decline in printed books.
Overall, spending on printed and digital books rose 4 percent to more than $5.1 billion (£3.3 billion) last year, the Publishers Association said late in the week.
Printed books saw a 1 percent sales drop to $4.5 billion (£2.9 billion), but digital sales jumped 66 percent to $640 million (£411 million).
The Publishers Association didn't mention any specific book titles as drivers of growth, but Nielsen Bookscan previously said that EL James' Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy topped the British chart of retail book sales.
Other big sellers of 2012 included Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series and JK Rowling's first non-Harry Potter novel, The Casual Vacancy.
Digital formats, including e-books, audiobooks and online book subscriptions, accounted for 12 percent of the total value of sales in 2012, up from 8 percent in 2011 and 5 percent in 2010.
Sales of consumer e-books, which are in the field of mainstream fiction and non-fiction, were up 134 percent to $336 million (£216 million).
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/uk-publishers-hit-book-sales-451569

5 Academic Publishing Trends to Watch in 2013

Publishing Perspectives reporting:
2012 was certainly an eventful, some would even say turbulent, year in the unpredictable world of academic publishing. A crescendo of calls for a complete re-imagination of traditional pay-for-access models, the ‘Academic Spring’ campaign, the high profile Cost of Knowledge Elsevier protest, and the launch of a plethora of new initiatives aimed at directly challenging the role of publishers, capped a tempestuous, transitional year. So what can we expect from 2013?
Here are five predictions of what are likely to be the prominent academic publishing trends and developments in the year to come:

1. R.I.P. Impact Factor? The academic and research community has long bemoaned the monopoly that the Impact Factor has had over the scholarly ecosystem.

4. The Inexorable Rise of MobileAfter news that smartphones had reached 50% market penetration in the US last month, and recent Pew Research Center’s latest research indicated that 25% of American consumers now own a tablet, it’s increasingly difficult to argue that the future of computing is not mobile. The trend is even more stark when we look to emerging economies. In India, for example, the mobile web has already surpassed use of desktop internet.

5. The Future is DataDynamic data, or the ability to publish and commercialize data so that users can manipulate and interact with it, is by no means a new concept, but certainly something that NGOs and journal publishers in particular are exploring with increasing vigour. Instead of simply supplying complicated raw data that can only be interpreted by the most judicious of statisticians, publishers are now creating interfaces with formatting templates, filters and tools that can generate customised reports. This new form of data provision opens up a publisher’s data to wider audiences, so that economists, for example, can delve deeper into economic trends and market analysis.

http://publishingperspectives.com/2013/01/5-academic-publishing-trends-to-watch-in-2013/ 

 

 

eBook Pricing: State of Play and Analysis

Good E-reader reporting:
At the Digital Book World conference in New York City, two industry leaders sat down and discussed the semantics of ebook pricing, and how it is currently affecting the industry and looking into the inner workings.
Jeremy Greenfield, Editorial Director, Digital Book World, was the moderator and discussed his site developing their own best seller list that took the price of the ebook into account.  Jeremy started to notice a trend that fewer high priced books are best sellers and that there was a  pretty good chance that books on the Kindle best seller list are priced lower than a year ago.  Deep discounting, when combined with promotion, is very successful.
Dan Lubart, Principal, Iobyte Solutions, SVP Sales Analytics HarperCollins also weighed in on the subject. He started to notice that electronic book prices decreased for Kindle bestsellers since last April and it is the same with the NOOK list.  He agreed with Jeremy that fewer high priced books are on the main bestseller lists. The publishing industry is starting to see the price of new books over $10 is trending down. There was a sustained shift from ebooks over $10 to $3-$7.99 over the 2012 holiday season, and started to rise in price again in the second week of January.
One of the main aspects of discounted ebook prices from over a year ago was due to the recent Justice Department settlement with the big six publishers. This abolished the agency model and now offers flexibility for online retailers to strike down the prices. Four of the major publishers are now allowing discounting and this is being reflected in the lower pricing across the board. The volume in sales is staying the same after the holidays, though. Everyone is seeing sales going back to normal now that the holiday season is over. So we should be seeing the “new normal” appearing soon. Publishers are starting not to worry as much about the market bottoming out.
The next thing they talked about was the sales at a higher or lower price.  When price drops on some books, they saw a significant increase in the Amazon sales. They also saw the same with NOOK sales. In many cases, when retailers drop the price, the sales increase, making up for the loss in revenue. When looking at the highest price point that actually sells any type of volume, $14.99 seems to be the ceiling in most cases for ebook bestsellers. The silver bullet in the publishing world is when they establish an entry level price and never change it. The best thing for publishers to do right now is to experiment with pricing and learn what is happening in the market.
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/digital-book-world-ebook-pricing-state-of-play-and-analysis/

Why 2012 was the year of the e-single

paidcontent reporting:

E-singles — stories somewhere between 5,000 and 30,000 words, usually nonfiction, and sold as inexpensive ebooks — are the format for our time. Here’s why.

photo: Flickr / B_Zedan

In January 2012, Evan Ratliff, the CEO of Brooklyn publishing platform Atavist, semi-jokingly described e-singles as “[replicating] journalism’s extraordinary challenges in an entirely new place.” A little under a year later, publishers of all types are looking to e-singles to give them a boost in a digital era...
This weekend I sat on my in-laws’ living room couch and read “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek,” a longform story in the New York Times , on my iPad. “Snow Fall” marks the launch of a new publishing effort at the Times. The paper is partnering with Byliner, the e-singles startup run by former magazine folk and based in San Francisco, to publish around a dozen e-singles in 2013. (Working definition of e-single: A story somewhere between 5,000 and 30,000 words — shorter than most books, longer than most magazine articles — usually nonfiction, and sold as an inexpensive ebook.) Byliner is selling an expanded version of “Snow Fall,” for $2.99, at digital bookstores....
Amazon’s U.S. Kindle Singles store now contains 283 singles. In February, I reported that the company had sold two million Kindle Singles; as of September, that number was up to 3.5 million, and Amazon just expanded the program to the U.K., where it will include new entries by bestselling British authors as well as most of the American Kindle Singles. Many Byliner Originals are available through Kindle Singles, and they’ll be crossing the Atlantic for the first time with the program’s U.K. expansion.
How are e-singles actually selling? Several of them hit the New York Times ebook bestseller list this year. A few of Amazon’s Kindle Singles authors have done quite well. That’s a lot for an individual, but not so much for a company. E-singles are cheap, a couple bucks a pop, so they are not likely to drive major revenue for publishers: With most Kindle Singles priced at $1.99, that’s only $7 million or so — and Amazon only takes 30 percent of it, making the revenue basically a rounding error....
http://paidcontent.org/2012/12/24/why-2012-was-the-year-of-the-e-single/

New York Times set to launch mini-books for tablets

TabTimes reporting:

Call them "e-singles" "mini-books" or shorter read digital books designed for the tablets and e-book readers.

The New York Times is experimenting with selling the new digital books with content that can read in a few hours or less.
”Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek,” the first mini-book, will go on sale Monday, according to a report by the Associated Press. It will be an 18,000-word piece about skiers caught in an avalanche, written by Times reporter John Branch.
Leveraging the flexibility of digital storage, "Snow Fall," is actually an expanded version of an upcoming piece planned for Monday's newspaper.
AP says Snow Fall will sell for $2.99 in Amazon.com's Kindle store, Apple's iBooks, and on Barnes & Noble's Nook.
Gerald Marzorati, the Times' editor for editorial development, told the AP that his company is betting the new format will make long-form journalism easy to read and reach people who don't visit the Times' website or read the newspaper.
http://tabtimes.com/news/media/2012/12/13/new-york-times-set-launch-mini-books-tablets

How the E-Book Ruling Will Affect the Way You Read

care2 reporting: A long-running controversy has shaken the book industry, and it could affect the way you buy, access and read the books you love. On Friday, three major book publishers agreed to pay $69 million in a settlement of the highly-publicized lawsuit alleging that five of the “big six” publishers colluded with Apple to fix e-book prices, and possibly changed the future of book publishing forever.. 

What does the settlement mean for you?

1. It hurts traditional book publishers by taking away their control to price their own books in the marketplace. Take a look at the kind of books these publishers develop, market and sell. If you have ever read and loved one of these books, then the DOJ settlement is one to keep an eye on.
2. It hurts brick-and-mortar bookstores by allowing competitors such as Amazon to price books below cost. Most physical bookstores are unable to give such steep discounts because they have to pay rent and employees. But many consumers are looking for the best bargain and will go for Amazon every time.
3. It hurts our communities by making it more difficult for local shops to sell books. When the only way to buy a book is to order it on the internet, Amazon will have won. Do you really want to live in a world with no bookstores to browse?
4. It hurts authors by allowing their books to be sold at deep discounts and putting financial strain on their publishers. A number of authors, including Richard Russo and Ann Patchett, have spoken out against the DOJ lawsuit and its potentially harmful consequences for the book industry.
5. It hurts each individual reader by reducing the diversity of the reading market. Publishers develop a variety of authors and books to appeal to virtually every taste on the planet.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/how-the-doj-e-book-ruling-will-affect-the-way-you-read.html#ixzz25aBLFEXl

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/how-the-doj-e-book-ruling-will-affect-the-way-you-read.html#ixzz25aBEN7xK

 

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/how-the-doj-e-book-ruling-will-affect-the-way-you-read.html#ixzz25aAmfVPQ

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/how-the-doj-e-book-ruling-will-affect-the-way-you-read.html#ixzz25aAbQcfj

INFOGRAPHIC: 66 Percent Of College Students Believe Tablets Help Them Study More Efficiently

mediabistro reporting:
OnlineUniversities.com created an infographic called “Teaching with Tablets” that looks at the technology adoption among high school and college students.
We’ve embedded the whole infographic below for digital textbook creators to learn more about this audience.
Here is more from the infographic: “Ninety percent of college students and high school seniors believe tablets are valuable for both educational and personal purposes.”
http://www.mediabistro.com/appnewser/infographic-66-percent-of-college-students-believe-tablets-help-them-study-more-efficiently_b25955

Victoria Barnsley: 'We can't think of ourselves as book publishers any more'

Guardian reporting:
As the trays of cheese and wine begin to circulate for this autumn's book launch season, one of the UK's biggest publishing houses will be pinning its hopes not on a hardback, but on an app designed for tablet computers.
Alongside celebrity autobiographies from Victoria Pendleton and Cheryl Cole, and John Major's history of music hall, HarperCollins will be unveiling a digital reinvention of the Collins World Atlas. "It's the culmination of years of work, and it's going to be really ground-breaking," says Victoria Barnsley, UK and international chief executive of the book publishing arm of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
The app presents a collection of globes suspended in space. One shows a satellite view; others are themed by population, energy or telecommunications. A few swipes, and the world lights up according to which areas have mobile coverage, or consume most oil. The information is, of course, always up to date.
"We can't think of ourselves as book publishers any longer. We have to see ourselves as, you know," Barnsley hesitates to use the cliché, "multimedia content producers."
Her flower-scented Hammersmith office, with its plush upholstery and charcoal-grey walls so dark the eyes have to adjust, is a world away from the warehouses across town on east London's Silicon Roundabout, where most new digital products are being produced.
But HarperCollins appears to have wholeheartedly embraced the e-book revolution that followed the arrival of Amazon's Kindle reader in the UK in 2009. Barnsley predicts that within 18 months, over half of revenues from her fiction titles will be digital: they already are in America. While sales of HarperCollins's paper books are flat year on year at about £120m, according to Nielsen Bookscan, digital titles are up 250% and now account for 20% of UK income.
With self-published 50 Shades of Grey author EL James as its poster child, romantic fiction is by far the biggest-selling digital category. Nearly half of sales at HarperCollins's Avon imprint, which specialises in the genre, are now in e-book format. It has responded with a me-too 50 Ways to Play and the revival of a 10-year-old title, The Bride Stripped Bare, but more importantly with "dynamic pricing".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/26/victoria-barnsley-harpercollins-cant-think-book-publishers

Interactive E-Book Introduces World's First Instant Collaboration

 PR Newswire reporting:
Pinksheets: DEMO) and VOOK ePublishing in San Francisco, today announced the arrival of the world's first two-way interactive e-book, which features a new technology that allows real-time author and reader-to-reader dialog and collaboration from inside an e-book.
The newly-released book grabbing all the attention, 11 Days in May, published by Waterfront Press, will offer readers the opportunity to communicate directly with both author JD Messinger, and also with other readers, from right inside the e-book. This groundbreaking discussion capability is made possible by a new cloud-based collaboration technology developed by Democrasoft, which links any reader with a book's author, other readers or any other person with access to the Internet. The new technology is called "WeJIT," and it promises to forever change the way authors, their books and their readers come together.
According to Democrasoft Chairman & CEO Richard Lang, WeJIT is a new approach to collaboration that allows instant communities to form around any topic of common interest. With a few clicks, an individual WeJIT is formed by any individual wanting to enable an instant, collaborative community. In essence, the WeJIT is a one-page website, with a unique URL, dedicated to a particular topic of discussion, debate or even decision-making, in a multitude of engagement models. It can be formed in a matter of seconds, free of charge for individual use (www.MyWeJIT.com). In the case of 11 Days in May, author JD Messinger has created and embedded 32 WeJITs inside his new e-book, on an assortment of topics covered in the book.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/20/4741401/interactive-e-book-introduces.html

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/20/4741401/interactive-e-book-introduces.html#storylink=cpy

Huge rise in ebook sales offsets decline in printed titles

theguardian reporting:
Consumer ebook sales in the UK increased by 366% last year helping to offset a decline in the market for printed books, according to new official figures.
Drawing its data from information provided by 250 publishers, the Publishers Association's Statistics Yearbook put the value of consumer ebook sales – fiction, non-fiction and children's digital titles – at £92m in 2011. This is a 366% increase on the previous year, the Publishers Association said, and consumer ebooks are now equivalent to 6% of consumer physical book sales by value.
But the strong digital sales come at the expense of print, the yearbook reveals: consumer print sales were down by about 7% in 2011 to £1.579bn. And last year's decline in print sales is continuing in 2012: £313.6m was spent on printed titles in the first quarter of this year, according to the Bookseller, the lowest first-quarter figure since 2003. Physical book sales in the first three months of 2012 were down 11%, or £39m, compared with the same period in 2011, the Bookseller says, with fiction down 18%, non-fiction down 9% and children's down 2%.
"The story of [2011] is a decline in physical sales almost being compensated for by a strong performance in digital," said Publishers Association chief executive Richard Mollet. "That said, physical books remain the format of choice for the vast majority of British readers, underlining the continued importance of a strong high street sector."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/02/rise-ebook-sales-decline-print-titles?newsfeed=true

eBook Revenues Top Hardcover

TechCrunch reporting:
Net sales revenue from eBooks have surpassed hardcover books in the first quarter of 2012.
According to the March Association of American Publishers (AAP) net sales revenue report (collecting data from 1,189 publishers), adult eBook sales were $282.3 million while adult hardcover sales counted $229.6 million during the first quarter of 2012. During the same period last year, hardcover accounted for $335 million in sales while eBooks logged $220.4 million.
Here’s more from the report (Q1 2012 chart embedded above): “In Q1 2012, net sales revenue for eBooks was higher than that for Hardcover; this represents a switch of  positions in the category vs Q1 2011.  In both quarters, however, Trade Paperback remained a clear #1 in net sales revenue despite some erosion. While eBooks continue to show growth, downloaded audiobooks also keep accelerating vs last year – as some experts have said, tied to ongoing popularity and acquisition of smartphones and mobile devices.”

At the same time, the YA/Children’s category saw hardcover growth.
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/ebooks-top-hardcover-revenues-in-q1_b53090

How Rodale approaches tablet design

emedia/vitals reporting:
The rise of the tablet edition has arguably placed the biggest operational burden on a publication’s design staff. Publishers are addressing tablet edition staffing, skills and budget issues through plenty of trial and occasional error.
At Rodale, tablet editions have spurred the creation of a dedicated interactive design team that serves the enthusiast publisher’s Healthy Living Group, which includes Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Prevention and Organic Gardening. Sean Bumgarner, the group’s interactive design director, leads an eight-person team that focuses exclusively on tablet editions. The group, with a mix of full-time and freelance staff, works closely with the brands but has tablet-specific expertise.
Deciding whether to keep app design and development in-house is one of the key decisions publishers face as they build up their mobile offerings. Some prefer to outsource all aspects of mobile app development to remain focused on their core competency: content development. Others attempt to layer mobile onto existing design and production workflows – often placing an undue burden on existing staff. Still others, like Rodale, have created dedicated digital edition teams, which tend to have a little more freedom to experiment with new techniques and are not hidebound by traditional print conventions.
“We have experts with the technology who work with the experts on the brand experience,” Bumgarner said in a recent phone interview. “This allows us to be more agile, more responsive and more thoughtful about our digital editions.”
http://www.emediavitals.com/content/how-rodale-approaches-tablet-design?utm_source=Daily+Buzz&utm_campaign=db8b129045-_nb_DB_06-13-2012&utm_medium=email

True Confessions Of A Book Lover

Huffpost reporting:
Here's a dirty secret: I like books.
And I mean books, with pages made of real paper. In fact, I like them so much that I used to consider digital publishing a personal threat. I was such a loyal foot soldier in the war of paper vs. platform, that when the Kindle came out, I spent hours researching its burning point to demonstrate the absurdity of Fahrenheit 451 in a world of eReaders. (The "correct" title should be Fahrenheit 361.)
So imagine my surprise when three years later, I, a professed book lover, found myself presenting Tumblr, the microblogging service, as an ideal distribution channel and reading platform for a new fiction magazine.
I overcame my radical devotion to the printed word when I started working at Electric Literature, an indie publisher perhaps best known for being the first fiction magazine to the iPhone and also for tweeting an entire story by Rick Moody.
The fiction in Electric Literature's recently retired quarterly journal was extraordinary on any platform--including paper, though we didn't publish online. I'm now co-editor of our new magazine: Recommended Reading, which is an exclusively digital publication (online and Kindle to start). Why the drastic change to our publishing model? By publishing online, Recommended Reading is easy to share between friends, can be accessed directly through social media, and read on any smartphone. It means we can publish weekly, charge nothing, and more people will read the fiction we believe in.
We live in a culture of distraction: there's TV, Hulu, and Netflix; there's Facebook, Twitter, and OK Cupid; there are all the books you've been planning to read, the stack of New Yorkers on your coffee table, and (hopefully) some fiction journals you've been meaning to get to. Not to mention, if you have an iPhone, just like 100 million other people, all these services are always available and competing for your attention. With the world's largest library at your fingertips, how do you know which page to turn to? Here's where we step into the fray.
Recommended Reading will publish one piece of fiction a week, each curated by the best writers and editors working today...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-samuel/true-confessions-of-a-boo_1_b_1467482.html?ref=books

This book plays itself on TV: E-book bestsellers breakdown

paidcontent reporting:
The book: “A Brewing Storm” by Richard Castle (Hyperion, list price $2.99). “A Brewing Storm,” an e-single, is #13 on the New York Times e-book bestseller list this week, and #39 on the USA Today list. As of this writing, it’s #30 on the Nook bestseller list and does not appear on the Kindle bestseller list.
What it’s about: To be clear, Richard Castle is not a real person — he’s a character on the ABC show “Castle,” where he’s played by actor Nathan Fillion. On the show, Castle is a mystery novelist and author of the “Heat Wave” series. Hyperion, which is owned by ABC, released the “Heat Wave” titles as actual books. “A Brewing Storm” is the first in Castle’s “Derrick Storm” CIA series, which he also writes on the show. (Um…get it?) ABC will release two more Derrick Storm e-singles this summer.
How it became a bestseller: “Castle” fans had requested Derrick Storm books, which are often mentioned on the show. Hyperion hopes the “Storm” series will serve as a bridge between seasons 4 and 5 of “Castle” — the season 4 finale aired on May 7.
Members of “Club Castle,” the fan community on ABC’s Castle website, got early access to “A Brewing Storm”‘s cover by completing a trivia challenge March 26-28. They saw the cover before retailers did. ABC.com also posted three free chapters of the book. And the full-length “Heat Wave” was chosen as an Amazon Kindle Daily Deal on May 8, which likely drove readers to the e-single as well.
“A Brewing Storm” on … Amazon ($1.99) | Apple ($2.99) | Barnes & Noble ($1.97) | Google ($2.51) | Kobo ($2.99)New York Times bestseller list, week of 5/20/12 ...
Here are the titles in the top-35 that appear on the e-book bestseller list, but not on the print bestseller list (click the link to expand the chart).
...http://paidcontent.org/2012/05/11/e-book-bestsellers-richard-castle/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=5a2caf71a5-c%3Amed+d%3A05-14&utm_medium=email

Books Have a Bright Future, Just Not Like You Expect

Publishing Perspectives reporting:

As the function of reading is disrupted by convenience of consumption and construction, it changes “the book.”

Editorial by Chris Rechtsteiner
This week the future of the book has been widely lamented. From the Wall Street Journal to Slate, everyone seems to think the book is doomed — or at least in for a very bumpy ride.

Fortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The future of the book is actually very bright. It just won’t look anything like you expect.
To be fair, there are similarities between the past, present and future of the book. Books have always been one of the purest points of intersection between form and function. The proper form of the time (parchment to paper to pixels) has had limited to no impact on the proper function (reading) throughout its history.
We’ve seen, time and again, that form follows function.
However, right now, a debate is raging about form — and the debate is seriously misguided.
While everyone’s arguing about HTML vs. apps vs. ePub vs. KF8 (form) — the function of reading is being seriously disrupted by the convenience of SMS, Twitter, Hashtags, Facebook and a host of other new elements — and very few people are paying attention.
The function of reading is being disrupted by convenience — convenience of consumption where information or a story can be read or played back, regardless of medium, at the reader’s discretion — and the convenience of construction — where authors can leverage every single technology and vehicle imaginable to tell their story.
Let’s look at two examples that are far closer to reality than most authors and publishers care to admit...
http://publishingperspectives.com/2012/05/books-have-a-bright-future-just-not-like-you-expect/

iDoLVine Offers Long-Distance Autographs for Books and More

Publishing perspectives reporting:

iDoLVine is not a mere substitute for the traditional signing but rather as a new kind of experience with different and exciting possibilities.

In 2004 Margaret Atwood made headlines when, tired of traveling long distances to attend book signings, she came up with the idea of the LongPen — a remote signing device which would enable her to inscribe books in far-off locales without leaving the comfort of her own home. With little more than a tablet PC, an Internet connection, a remote signing device and audio/video link at the other end, it was now possible for an author in Ontario to sign books for fans in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia. Although a novel idea, the LongPen was no mere novelty and soon government, banks and corporations around the world were using it to centralize the execution of documents as a cost-saving and productivity increasing measure. Now the LA-based firm iDoLVine hopes to massively expand its usage in entertainment applications.“I joined iDoLVine last August as Executive Chair,” says Edelman. “I’m based in Los Angeles, which is where we will next expand the company as we launch into the various entertainment industries — sports, music, publishing (including graphic novels) and film/TV celebrities. I started my career in talent management, ended up in film production and in between ran the London-based literary agency, Curtis Brown, through a period of transition and growth. Margaret Atwood was and still is a client of Curtis Brown, which is how we met.”
...http://publishingperspectives.com/2012/05/idolvine-offers-long-distance-autographs-for-books-and-more/

'Real Simple’ Gets Into Direct Sales With Gift Guide App

Mashable reporting: Real Simple magazine is making its first foray into mobile commerce with the launch of a gift guide app for iPhones Tuesday.
The app is fairly standard as far as gift guides go, featuring 50 Mother’s Day gifts selected by the magazine’s editorial team. In keeping with Real Simple‘s budget-conscious audience, no item is priced above $50. Next month, the title will add gifts deemed suitable for Father’s Day and graduation.
Where the app deviates from your standard, one-off magazine app is in its shopping capabilities. Rather than sending users to third-party retail sites, the magazine partnered with DropWallet to enable users to purchase any of the items directly within the app. Real Simple receives an (undisclosed) cut of each sale, managing editor Kathleen Harris tells Mashable, which is stated in a disclaimer in the app.
Shannon King, general manager of realsimple.com, says the gift guide could be the beginning of a new revenue stream for the magazine and parent company Time Inc. Should it prove successful, the team plans to look into adding shopping capabilities to its other offerings: namely, the iPad edition of Real Simple and its website.
The app also marks an opportunity, says Harris, to provide a service to Real Simple‘s audience. Allowing direct purchase saves readers the effort of hunting down products.
http://mashable.com/2012/04/17/real-simple-mcommerc/