Booksquare

Today’s links of interest:

• Borders Group Reports Second Quarter 2010 Results
  More worrisome numbers from Borders. Here’s hoping the teddy bears do the trick.

Today’s links of interest:

• Borders Reduces E-reader to $99
  And there you have it. An ereader below $100. Oh, wow, the world is still turning.
• Random House’s Strong Half-Year Results Driven By ‘Dragon Tattoo’ Sales
  Stieg Larsson, who will not likely be producing more books, drives huge dollars to Random House. His ebook sales are phenomenal. Which leads to the question: does the lack of an iBookstore agreement hurt RH in any way?
• A Moment of Jen
  From Jennifer Weiner: Instead of asking which books and which authors deserve the Times’ coverage, maybe we should think about what kind of book review section readers deserve. Not a crazy idea at all.

Today’s links of interest:

• Barnes Noble to Shutter Lincoln Center Store
  This is big news. Store closing due to increased rent costs. You’d think landlords would have a bit more foresight, but one supposes losing a major renter is the cost of taking a stand. In other thoughts, how long will the space remain empty?
• Borders to Sell Build-A-Bear Items as Readers Switch to E-Books
  You know when you can’t tell if something is a genius idea or insane? This is one of those moments.
• Why Is Amazon So Secretive About Its Best Selling Kindle Numbers?
  Why, one wonders, does this matter? Since the Kindle platform is extended across all possible devices, does the number of actual dedicated readers sold really have relevance? Better metrics are actual books sold across the platform versus one single channel that appeals only to a particular type of reader.

Read more…

Today’s links of interest:

• “If it were my money, there’s no way I’d put up with this cr*p”, says young reader
  Is this really how you want the next generation of readers thinking about ebooks? Especially when the competition for reading is so intense?
• Lots of Little Improvements Make the Kindle 3 The Best E-Ink E-reader
  As the holiday shopping season approaches (noooo!), debating on the mother’s gift. Trying to resist urge to be selfish…give her K2, give us K3. Oh, the moral dilemmas we face.
• Publishing Revenue Down at Lagardere
  Not bad, considering it’s the post Stephenie Meyer world.

Today’s links of interest:

• Random House’s Backlist E-Book Deal With Literary Agent Andrew Wylie Leaves Much Unanswered
  Trying not to make it all Wylie, all the time, but much analysis and conjecture. Sarah Weinman does a nice job of the former. One unanswered (but asked) question: what did Random House pay to acquire these rights? No, we won’t get an answer.
• Women Are Not Marshmallow Peeps, And Other Reasons There’s No ‘Chick Lit’
  Nice piece on pundits’ tendency to dismiss legitimate critiques of the Jonathan Franzen coverage by belittling those make the commentary. While not exclusively a male approach, it’s often men who engage in the diminishing of women’s work.
• The RH/Wylie Showdown Ends, New Digital Royalty Rate Is Born
  Technically, a new rate has not been born. The rates being tossed around in today’s press coverage of the end of a very short saga are very much in line with the rates we’ve heard other agents have gotten for backlist titles. And backlist is interesting, but it’s frontlist where the real battles — and precedents — are taking place.

Today’s links of interest:

• RH and Wylie Come to Terms; Random ‘Wins’
  Always worry about headlines that include wins. In this case, one wonders how much it cost Random House to win (presumably higher royalties than they’d been willing to give, possibly some sort of cash consideration). And one wonders how this impacts those who previously purchased the books. Will they be allowed to keep them? Will there be a transfer of publisher, making it invisible to the consumer. And, of course, one wonders which books were impacted by this deal.
• Nook Drives 21% Increase in Revenue for Barnes Noble
  Barnes and Noble also claiming an overall 20% of entire ebook market. Good to see their digital numbers exceeding expectations.

Today’s links of interest:

• Post-Medium Publishing
  Interesting thoughts about the value of content versus format, and how publishing isn’t doing much for the former.
• Seattle libraries to shut down for a week
  While the library is able to keep certain digital services (ebooks and access to databases) open during the budget-induced shutdown, so many other core services will be off limits to citizens.
• Kindle — xkcd Cartoon
  You know you can’t resist…
• Borders Chief Financial Officer Mark Bierley Quits
  At what point do we turn away from Borders news because we can’t take the pain anymore?

Today’s links of interest:

• E-reading: Revolution in the making or fading fad?
  This article makes no sense. The headline implies one thing, the body of the article another, the entire premise yet another. Sigh.
• June e-Book Sales Up 119%
  For those keeping track.
• Jonathan Franzen Stars in Special Rumpus Bookclub
  While this *seems* like an awesome idea, it’s really alienating for all those who a) don’t have time to shop their local indie (i.e., people with jobs, kids, or other commitments), b) people who don’t have local bookstores available, and c) library users. Heck, even digi-book readers are largely left out, since the ABA’s program is less-than-robust.

Today’s links of interest:

• The 1% Windfall: Why Publishers Need to Implement “Dynamic Pricing”
  While we don’t doubt the need for more dynamic pricing in the world of publishing, we doubt experts who misstate how Amazon was selling books. Yes, they were selling *some* ebooks at a loss, but not all ebooks. It seems this distinction makes a huge difference.
• Books and Books Arrives and Sides Are Taken
  Does this have to be ugly? No. Is it ugly? Yes.
• Dents in my Desk: Ellen Hopkins Disinvited to Teen Lit Fest
  Sometimes, there are no words.
• Publishers Behaving Badly–Again
  Macmillan is sending letters to authors — not their agents or attorneys! — asking them to sign amendments to agreements for digital rights. Agent Kristin Nelson has the story and some good advice.

Today’s links of interest:

• Ebook Sanity
  Interesting look at ebooks from the perspective of a librarian.