Penguin’s e-book sales for the first third of ’08 exceeded the total for last year.
The increase was "more than five times the overall growth in sales, year-on-year, through April 2008" and linked partly to new e-book hardware. Hmm. The Kindle, the Sony Reader or both? My guess is, mostly the Kindle—along with the publicity it stirred up.
Penguin, by the way, has started offering "enhanced" versions of such classics as Pride and Prejudice, in E, complete with such extras as recipes and etiquette notes. I keep dreaming: Will the publishers themselves see the wisdom of killing the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act. Don’t hold your breath, but, long term, no pun intended, you never know.
"Hardcover book market goes soft"
Meanwhile, around the same time Penguin was celebrating its E triumphs at Book Expo America, the Marketplace program on American Public Media was running a text and audio segment titled Hardcover book market goes soft.
Yet another argument for ending DRM and and tearing down the Tower of eBabel? With E, publishers will never have to worry about paper book stores returning books.
It’s an opportunity, dummies
Alas, the Marketplace segment ends with publishing consultant John Rose’s warning—in the reporter’s words—that "the threat to book publishing isn’t about returns and refunds of printed paper. It’s that new technology can bypass publishing companies altogether. Rose says publishers should think about a world where any writer can publish a book cheaply online and any reader can download it freely." Jeez. Someone tell Rose about the possibilities that E is opening up for Penguin, not to mention the value publishers can add through editing and promotion. Or did the segment leave out a little context? Let’s hope his next few words were, "But there’s an opportunity here."
Happy story from p-book word: Local bookstore’s support on the rise, another seg from American Public Radio (found, like the other items, by Bibliofuture for LISNews). Also see a TelePost, How Politics & Prose, a clueful indie bookstore, survives Amazon.
Image: Pip R. Lagenta‘s CC-licensed photo of Copy Doctorow signing p-books—aided, some might say, by the free copies he’s given away online.
That literary reference is upside-down: the building of the tower of babel was enabled by use of a single language, and, after its destruction, similar or replacement projects were impeded by there being many languages.
Thanks, HXA, but I’m using “Tower of eBabel” as in, “This could be another Titanic.” Besides, Amazon and the rest have clearly built an eBabel Tower. Let’s hope ePub will enable the building of a sturdier Tower with a single dialect while not making it high enough to incur the wrath of the Almighty. I’m sure he would approve of horizontal expansion, especially as expressed by greater sales revenue. Thanks. David
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