Digitizing Your Own Books Becoming Popular In Japan

from the expect-a-backlash dept

Tim O'Reilly points us to a new report out of Japan, noting that it's becoming increasingly popular for people to digitize their own books (a practice called "jisui"). Yes, they're taking books they legally own and scanning them, so that they can store them as ebooks, and read them on various devices such as the iPad. I would have thought this wasn't a popular practice, but at least one study found that 20% of iPad owners in Japan had done so, and another 30% were interested in doing so.

What's interesting is how this is boosting ancillary businesses: specifically there's a strong demand for scanners that make it easier to scan and backup your books. In Japan, digitizing your own books for personal use is apparently legal under that country's copyright law, but some publishers are getting worried about this practice and are considering what to do about it. And, of course, some copyright "experts" are already saying that Japanese copyright law needs to be updated to deal with this.

Or, perhaps, just this once, we shouldn't change copyright law to limit what new technology allows, and recognize that maybe, just maybe, this action is showing what people want, which book publishers haven't been fulfilling.

Filed Under: books, digitizing, ebooks, japan

Kristin Hersh Turns An Album Into A Book

from the reasons-to-buy dept

Back in 2007, musician Kristin Hersh was one of the first musicians we wrote about who had put in place a "tiered" support offering, which these days are becoming quite common. It looks like she's continuing to break new ground with experimental business models as well. Her latest album is actually going to be released as a book via Harper Collins' The Friday Project. The book/album, called Crooked, will basically be a really nice book, including full color artwork, lyrics, essays by Kristin about each song on the album and (of course) download codes to get all sorts of additional content, including stems for remixing and track-by-track audio commentary. This seems like a good way to give her fans an actual reason to buy the scarce good (the book), rather than just demanding they pick up a piece of obsolete plastic, like some artists.

Filed Under: books, business models, kristin hersh, music

Murakami Releases His Own eBook Without His Publisher

from the do-it-yourself dept

With the increased adoption of the iPad and the Kindle, eBooks are finally becoming a viable alternative to traditional paper-based books. And with this shift, comes an opportunity that some publishers may not like -- it is now easier than ever for authors to self-publish their works. Popular Japanese author Ryu Murakami announced that he will be self-publishing his next novel directly to the iPad, sidestepping his publisher in favor of working directly with a software publishing company on this eBook. Murakami's eBook, "The Singing Whale," will include video content and music by composer Ryuichi Sakamoto that will hopefully leverage some of the strengths of the new platform. By self-publishing, Murakami has the chance to make more money from this book than he has with his previous deals. That said, he's also assuming the risk that it loses money; in order to break even, Murakami needs to sell 5,000 copies of the digital book, which is priced at around $17. To be fair, $17 seems a little high for an eBook, but Murakami's eBook attempts to justify the cost by incorporating video and music, elements not typically found in the run-of-the-mill eBook. But, even if this experiment doesn't succeed, Murakami will probably be just fine -- his publisher, Kodansha, reports that they are in talks with the author about publishing "The Singing Whale" as a traditional book. Since Murakami clearly has other options at this point, undoubtedly those negotiations will play out more favorably for the author. We've seen a few interesting new models arise for book publishing in the recent past, so hopefully this is a sign that we will start to see even more.

Filed Under: books, diy, ebooks, ryu murakami, self-publishing

Reason To Buy? A Sports Star Will Sell You His Book With A Page Made Out Of His Blood

from the hmm dept

Shirshendu Mandal was the first of a few of you to pass along this story of a superstar Indian cricket player, Sachin Tendulkar, who has written a book. And, in figuring out how to sell the book, he's doing an... odd sort of "tiering" option. You see there will be a special edition of the book, which costs merely $75,000... and for that price one of the pages will be made, in part, from his blood. And here's the thing: apparently ten people have already signed up for it. As we've noted when talking about various business models that content creators can use, often it really depends on the person themselves, and the relationship they have with their fans. In this case, it seems pretty clear that this is a rather... unique offering, that works for this guy's fans.

Filed Under: blood, books, reasons to buy, sachin tendulkar

Author Puts Novel Online For Free... And Gets A Book Deal

from the but-free-never-works dept

alex was the first of a few of you to send over the story of how author Marta Acosta posted her "young adult vampire novel" online for free at Scribd, where it became a top download with tons of great reviews... and that helped her get a book deal with Tor, who will be publishing the book in hardcover shortly. Once again, another example of how "obscurity" is a bigger problem than "piracy" for most content creators.

Filed Under: books, free, marta acosta
Companies: tor

An Open Letter To Scott Turow About Not Freaking Out About Book 'Piracy'

from the you're-doing-it-wrong dept

We recently noted that author Scott Turow had been elected as President of the Authors Guild, where his initial focus seemed to be all about the evils of file sharing. Thankfully, some are trying to talk some sense into Turow. Michael Scott points us to a fantastic open letter to Turow, from Brian O'Leary, about why his kneejerk reaction isn't helping, and that he should be focused on understanding unauthorized file sharing, and what impacts it has (both good and bad), before jumping to the conclusion that it's evil and must be stopped at all costs. Here's just an excerpt, though you should read the whole thing:

First, though: I am not a pirate.  I value intellectual property and believe its prudent defense can return value to its creators.  But I've also come to believe, in this increasingly digital landscape, that the greater threat to many authors is obscurity, not piracy.

....

That's why we started studying the impact of piracy on paid sales almost two years ago.  On an admittedly limited sample... we've found an apparent correlation between piracy and subsequent growth in paid sales.

Now, you recently told GalleyCat's Jason Boog that "...the larger problem for us is the pirating of books".  I ask, simply, "How do you know?"

There are no reliable studies of the impact of piracy in the book business.  Because our sample set is limited, I include our own work to date in that bucket.  The studies that are cited most often are based on sampling techniques that try to track the instance of piracy, then apply an assumed number for "substitution rates" (lost sales).

The Government Accounting Office recently "assessed the assessments" of digital piracy and found them all lacking.  That's not the final word, but it's an indication that conclusions drawn on the limited data available are premature, at least.

In talking with GalleyCat, you went on to say that "(piracy) has killed large parts of the music industry." But, the music industry is not dead, and there are studies that suggest that the more likely shift in buying patterns occurred when vinyl owners finished replacing treasured albums with CDs.

As replacement sales declined, purchase patterns also shifted from whole albums to individual songs.  This was a trend that the music industry actively resisted, in the end fostering the piracy it wanted to prevent.  The lesson here could be more readily distilled as: "Don't take actions (like delaying the release of e-books) that frustrate consumer demand."

There's much more in the full letter, and it's well worth the read. O'Leary suggests not that Turow ignores the issue, but that he takes a more open-minded, data- and evidence-driven approach to responding to this market issue. That is, don't immediately assume the best response is "stopping" unauthorized copies, but collect some data to figure out how to best respond to the market situation. Hopefully Turow will actually pay attention and maybe rethink his position.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, scott turow
Companies: authors guild

Author Joe Konrath Experiments With 'Piracy' To See How It Impacts Sales

from the give-it-away dept

Last week, we wrote about how author Joe Konrath felt that authors were going a bit overboard worrying about file sharing, noting that there was no way to stop it, and fighting it was just a waste of effort. Instead, he wanted to focus on providing more value for his fans. Joe has since followed up his original post with a bit of an experiment: purposely putting one of his ebooks online for free to see what happens, even though it's also available for sale:

I'll keep track of my free downloads, Kindle numbers, Paypal donations, and my rankings on Amazon and B&N for the next 30 days, then post the results.

And he's hoping people will help by promoting the book on various file sharing systems:

Also, I encourage pirates to post this everywhere. Go ahead and proliferate the internet with JACK DANIELS STORIES. You can explain that I'm encouraging it, or you can just take it and not say a word. I'd appreciate it if you post in the comments section where you're uploaded it, which you can do anonymously. Or you don't have to.

If anyone sees this ebook on file sharing sites, I also ask that you please post a link to it in the comments. The more places I can see this being shared, the better I can compare ebooks sold to ebooks shared.

Of course, some will complain that this is hardly a scientific experiment, but it should still be interesting to follow. My only worry with these types of experiments -- of which we've seen many -- is that it's in the give it away and pray variety. That can and does work for some, but is something less than a complete business model that purposely ties a business model to the shared files. If I had to guess, I'd bet that Konrath will see a boost in sales for this particular book and other books. And that's because he's using this as a pure promotional strategy. Others will complain, of course, that such a strategy doesn't work if every author does this. That's true -- and one of the reasons why I prefer more complete business models beyond "give it away and pray." However, one of the key things of a good business model is recognizing good promotional strategies that remain "low hanging fruit." And, in a time when you still have many authors freaking out about file sharing, embracing it is probably a good bit of low hanging fruit in building up an audience.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, joe konrath, piracy

For Small Authors, eBooks Are Much Better Than Being Printed On Pulp

from the new-models dept

Hephaestus writes "This is a different perspective on the e-books as the killer of the book publishing industry. It's a take from the small author perspective."

As the eBook experience improves, especially with the increased adoption of the Kindle and iPad, authors now have the same opportunity that exists now for musicians to exploit new opportunities. Like the music world, most writers also don't expect to make a great living from writing, so for them, exposure to readers is more valuable than revenue:

If you give a writer a choice between $10,000 and 10,000 readers, the writer will always choose the latter.

After all, having 10,000 readers is a fantastic connection with which to work -- at that point, all an author would have to do to make money would be to give the readers a reason to buy. For writers, there's already a fantastic finite good that they can sell, the printed book. While this may seem counter-intuitive, we've seen this model work before: after a publisher gave away digital copies of a book for free, they saw their physical book sales increase 20x. So, like the musicians who embrace the opportunities that the new economy offers, writers have a similar entrepreneurial opportunity.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, writers

Publisher Warns Fans That Liking A Book Too Much May Be Illegal

from the seriously? dept

When will they learn? Apparently, one of the hot book series out there is the "Millennium Trilogy" by author Stieg Larsson. Apparently, the first couple of books have become incredibly popular in the US, but the third in the series has been released elsewhere, but not in the US yet. So, not surprisingly, many fans are ordering it from abroad. Most of the article is about the fans' excitement for the book, and their demand for it:

"Once you know you can have it, once you know it exists in English and you can buy it, it would be crazy not to."

But, the US publisher is quoted towards the end threatening those doing so, claiming it's illegal:

"What I would say to readers is, I would encourage them to shop at their local bookseller here in the United States or their online bookseller in the United States, where no laws are being broken and you are supporting the continuing discovery of world literature."

As the anonymous reader who submitted this story notes, rather than just reading this statement, you really should hear the audio version of what Paul Bogaards from publisher Knoph says, because it's not fully conveyed in the written article. First, what he says in the audio version:

"Because it's against the law. It's a violation of copyright law."

But you have to hear the sheer condescension in the tone. He says it as if he's speaking to pre-schoolers, not huge fans of these books. The problem here isn't people violating copyright law, it's Knopf not realizing that we live in a global world, and then failing to satisfy the needs of consumers, who are seeking alternative providers. It was a business model mistake on the part of Knopf, and insulting the biggest fans of the books doesn't seem like the best way to handle the situation.

Filed Under: books, copyright, fans, publishers, stieg larsson
Companies: knopf

Misguided Outrage At NY Times' Ethicist Over Ethics Of Downloading A Book

from the we're-still-having-this-argument? dept

We recently wrote about the NY Times' ethicist, Randy Cohen, and his perceptive claim that downloading an unauthorized digital copy of a book you already own is likely illegal, but not unethical. It resulted in quite a discussion in our comments, with people taking both sides. However, an anonymous reader points us to a blog post at Mediabistro, where it appears readers sent in a whole bunch of ridiculous strawman arguments to claim that downloading such a book was clearly unethical. According to Mediabistro, not a single reader agreed with Cohen. While some commenters on the post do take the "infringement is unethical, no question" type statements to task, the blog post doesn't bother to point out the serious confusion by the complainers. Take, for example, the following:

"So, if you own the hardcover you should get the paperback for free? Different platform, right? Maybe you can use the hardcover to get into the movie version as well. That's a different platform. Maybe the audiobook as well? It's really a deeply irresponsible post. Some ethics!"

But that's missing the entire point of what Cohen said. First of all, the situation he was discussing was one where the ebooks were not even available -- so it wasn't even a question of the author losing any money. And that's the key point that Cohen is making, which seems lost on the people attacking him. Morality only really comes into play when there's a question of who wins and who loses. When you need to make such a choice, that's a moral question. If there are no losers, there's no moral question to deal with. What Cohen is pointing out -- quite accurately and ethically -- is that in a scenario in which there is no loss, but only gain, then it cannot be seen as unethical. What the person above was stating is totally different. In each of those examples there is a real loss. Something scarce is taken, and that means others can't have it. But with the ebook of a book that hasn't been released in that format, that's not even a question.

It's really a question of whether or not you should be allowed to format change the works you've purchased, and there are many reasonable arguments in favor of that -- especially in situations where there is no loss in the system.

Filed Under: books, downloading, ethics
Companies: nytimes