$200 textbook vs. free. You do the math.

Infuriating Scott G. McNealy has never been easier. Just bring up math textbooks. Mr. McNealy, the fiery co-founder and former chief executive of Sun Microsystems, shuns basic math textbooks as bloated monstrosities: their price keeps rising while the core information inside of them stays the same. “Ten plus 10 has been 20 for a long time,” Mr. McNealy says.

Textbooks get more and more expensive every year.

Early this year, Oracle, the database software maker, acquired Sun for $7.4 billion, leaving Mr. McNealy without a job. He has since decided to aim his energy and some money at Curriki, an online hub for free textbooks and other course material that he spearheaded six years ago.

Thank goodness someone with sufficient resources, money, is doing something about it.

The nonprofit Curriki fits into an ever-expanding list of organizations that seek to bring the blunt force of Internet economics to bear on the education market. Even the traditional textbook publishers agree that the days of tweaking a few pages in a book just to sell a new edition are coming to an end.

They got away with it for a very long time.

“Today, we are engaged in a very different dialogue with our customers,” says Wendy Colby, a senior vice president of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “Our customers are asking us to look at different ways to experiment and to look at different value-based pricing models.”

Huh?

Over the last few years, groups nationwide have adopted the open-source mantra of the software world and started financing open-source books. Experts — often retired teachers or groups of teachers — write these books and allow anyone to distribute them in digital, printed or audio formats. Schools can rearrange the contents of the books to suit their needs and requirements. But progress with these open-source texts has been slow.

Always is.

Aneesh Chopra, the federal chief technology officer, promoted an open physics textbook from CK-12 in his previous role as the secretary of technology for Virginia, which included more up-to-date materials than the state’s printed textbooks. “We still had quotes that said the main component of a television was a cathode ray tube,” Mr. Chopra says. “We had to address the contemporary nature of physics topics.”

And that computer time-sharing was the latest rage?

Amazon gives way on e-Book pricing

By JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

Facing the specter of Apple Inc.'s iPad launch, Amazon.com Inc. has agreed to halt heavy discounting of e-book best sellers in new pricing deals with two major publishers.

The e-book agreements, with CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster and News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers, mirror deals struck this year with Apple for the iPad: Some new best sellers will be priced at $9.99 but most will be priced at $12.99 to $14.99.

The new deals ensure that Amazon will have the same array of titles that rival what Apple will offer on its digital bookstore. Apple has forged deals with five of the six major publishers to provide titles on the iPad, which will compete with Amazon's popular Kindle e-reader.

Amazon declined to comment.

Other deals between publishers and Amazon could follow ahead of Saturday's iPad debut. The online retailer is in advanced talks with Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, and Pearson PLC's Penguin Group, according to people familiar with the situation. Bertelsmann AG's Random House has yet to sign a deal with Apple.

Amazon, which launched its Kindle e-book reader in November 2007, has been a leader in pricing new best sellers at $9.99 in the digital format. Publishers objected to that price, fearing that consumers will come to believe that all books are worth only that much.

The issue of digital book pricing heated up earlier this year after the five major publishers, which also include Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH; Hachette, and Penguin reached an agreement with Apple to make their digital books available for sale on the iPad.

Macmillan then butted heads with Amazon by insisting on the same control over pricing.

HarperCollins Chief Executive Brian Murray said the deal with Amazon followed a month of negotiations. "Our digital future is more assured today than it was two months ago," said Mr. Murray, calling the agreement "fair" for both sides.

News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.

One digital publishing executive warned that there will likely be some near-term glitches. "People shouldn't overreact if an e-book isn't immediately available on one site or another," said Maja Thomas, senior vice president of Hachette

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page B

Magazines get ready for tablets

Sports Illustrated developed a demonstration version of how it might translate its print articles on a tablet computer. The tablet version can pull live sports scores and display videos and other interactive content.

Video: Sports Illustrated's Tablet Demo (YouTube.com)


After letting the Internet slip away from them and watching electronic readers like the Kindle from Amazon develop without their input, publishers are trying again with Apple iPhones and, especially, tablet computers.

Although publishers have not exactly been on the cutting edge of technology, two magazines — Esquire and GQ — have developed iPhone versions, while Wired and Sports Illustrated have made mockups of tablet versions of their print editions, months before any such tablets come to market. Publishers are using the opportunity to fix their business model, too.

End of an era and a name

End of Kirkus Reviews Brings Anguish and Relief
By Motoko Rich
Published: December 11, 2009 - NY Times

The book industry, beleaguered by a battery of dispiriting news about lackluster sales and online price wars, got another taste of the apocalypse on Thursday with the news that Kirkus Reviews, the venerable prepublication review journal, was closing.

Then again, there were those who were not so quietly relieved that a frequent source of author flaying had been subdued.

“When I was a book publicist, the worst part of my job was having to read a Kirkus review over the phone to an author. 2 cigs before, 2 after,” recalled Laura Zigman, an author and former book publicist for Alfred A. Knopf, in a Twitter post.

The decision by the journal’s owner, the Nielsen Company, to close Kirkus stunned the industry, with a reaction that was a mix of “Oh no!” “Good riddance” and “Ho hum.”

Founded in 1933, Kirkus churned out nearly 5,000 reviews a year. Although typically not seen by the general public — except in blurbs on books or excerpted on barnesandnoble.com — Kirkus reviews were often used by librarians and booksellers when deciding how to stock their shelves.

“None of us can read everything we suggest, so we lean fairly heavily on reviews and reviewers as basically our own advisers,” said David Wright, a fiction librarian and readers’ adviser for the Seattle Public Library.

Mr. Wright, who said he read reviews from Kirkus as well as its rivals Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Library Journal, said the reviewers for these publications “always really seemed like this gathering of friends and family that you could gather to get feedback on what really was in a book to see if a reader might like it.” He added, “Kirkus has always anchored that table.”

Booksellers gave mixed reviews about Kirkus’s influence. Some said they read it along with other journals, as well as talking with publishers’ sales representatives and reading advance galleys, when deciding what to buy. Others said they had long since stopped reading Kirkus.

Vivien Jennings, co-owner of Rainy Day Books, an independent bookstore in Fairway, Kan., said she sometimes consulted Kirkus Reviews when a customer inquired about a book that she had not read.

In one instance recently, a customer asked about “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned,” a collection of short stories by Wells Tower that she wanted to buy as a gift. Ms. Jennings, who had actually read — but had not connected with — the book, looked up the Kirkus review.

“When I read the woman the review from Kirkus, she said, ‘That will exactly work for my husband,’ ” and she bought the book, Ms. Jennings recalled.

In some ways it seemed that the passing of Kirkus was mourned much like the local deli that finally closes after a long battle with a landlord — missed as much in theory as because of its practical effect on the market.

“While I hate to see the closing of another major book review outlet, truth be told, it’s been a long time since a review there actually moved the needle in any meaningful way,” wrote Tim Duggan, executive editor at Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, in an e-mail message. “It has less to do with Kirkus than with the way the rest of the media marketplace has evolved.”

Still, some publishers noted that Kirkus reviews, reliably cantankerous, often differed from the other prepublication reviewers. “It wasn’t just broad, it was rigorous, curmudgeonly, and it was often a dissenting or idiosyncratic voice,” said Nan Graham, editor in chief of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

For small presses, Kirkus might be one of the only places a book would get a write-up, other than Publishers Weekly. Martin Shepard, co-publisher of the Permanent Press, an independent publisher in Sag Harbor, N.Y., said Kirkus had generally reviewed about 10 of the 12 to 14 books that the company publishes each year.

Because small presses rely heavily on sales to libraries, Mr. Shepard said, the loss of Kirkus is a significant blow. Although he said the most important trade journal remained Publishers Weekly, he said: “It’s like Hertz and Avis. To have the No. 2 close down is sad.”

Mr. Shepard said he was starting a campaign to persuade the editors of Kirkus to revive the publication online.

Eric Liebetrau, managing editor of Kirkus, declined to comment on the magazine’s closing.

Authors seemed to have a mixed relationship with Kirkus. Not surprisingly, it had to do with what the reviewers said about their books. Julie Klam, the author of a memoir, “Please Excuse My Daughter,” said her editor had told her that while a good review in Kirkus could help a little, “if you get a bad one, it doesn’t matter, because nobody reads it.”

A good could help, a bad didn't matter as nobody read it: then how could a good one help?

Ms. Klam, who received a good review in Kirkus, recalled seeing fellow writers get starred reviews — the highest honor — and being jealous. “They were so rare,” Ms. Klam said. “So you think, ‘Wow, that’s major.’ ”

Correction: December 12, 2009

An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of a co-owner of Rainy Day Books. She is Vivien Jennings, not Vivienne.

Stephen King E-Book delayed

Stephen King's publisher is keeping the e-book edition of his novel "Under the Dome" under wraps until the day before Christmas, as tensions mount between book publishers and retailers over the crucial issue of pricing industry blockbusters.

Aiming to preserve the value of the hardcover edition, Scribner, an imprint of CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster publishing arm, is delaying the electronic-book publication of the King thriller until Dec. 24, or six weeks after the $35 hardcover hits the bookstores on Nov. 10.

In an interview, Mr. King said that he wanted to delay the e-book edition in hopes of helping independent bookstores and the national bookstore chains sell the hardcover edition.

"I never thought we'd see people preordering a copy for $8.98," he said. "My thinking was to give bookstores a chance to make some money."

Mr. King, who described himself as a happy owner of Amazon's e-book reader Kindle, noted that the discounting by the three major retailers means that he will likely sell more copies of "Under the Dome."

However, he expressed concern for the impact the sharp discounting may have on other writers--established authors as well as up-and-comers--saying, "Who is going to buy a book for $25 when you can preorder a best seller for $9?" He noted that at $9, a new hardcover will be cheaper than the later fancy paperback edition.

"All the guys in ties want to talk about is whether a new delivery system is going to work," he added. "Nobody seems to care about the book."

Wal-Mart Strafes Amazon in Book War

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched a brash price war against Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday, saying it would sell 10 hotly anticipated new books for just $10 apiece through its online site, Walmart.com.

That was just the beginning.
Hours later, Amazon matched the $10 price, squaring off in a battle for low-price and e-commerce leadership heading into the crucial holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart soon fired back with a promise to drop its prices to $9 by Friday morning -- and made good on that vow by early evening Thursday.

Wal-Mart said the splashy move to discount pre-orders of popular books such as Stephen King's "Under the Dome" and Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" was part of a larger strategy to establish Walmart.com as the biggest and cheapest online retailer.

Going rouge cheap.

"If there is going to be a 'Wal-Mart of the Web,' it is going to be Walmart.com," said Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez in an interview. "Our goal is to be the biggest and most visited retail Web site."

Walmart has such a strong capital base that its website will do the same to e-commerce as it did to commerce.

Wal-Mart's $10 promotion applies to the top 10 books coming out in November but the company is also selling 200 best-sellers for 50% of their list price.

Who eats that 50% discount? Consumers get lower prices, someone doesn't get that revenue (or profit).

The price war sent shivers through the publishing world. Wal-Mart's move, and similarly low prices for electronic books, may ultimately condition consumers to expect new titles to cost $10, a price that would force the publishing industry to re-scale its entire business, including the advances paid to writers.

"The endgame is rather scary for authors," said one book executive.

Publishing is the latest industry to be forced to change, rather than to decide how to change.

Some big authors, however, are looking on the bright side. Dean Koontz, whose soon-to-be released novel "Breathless" is being discounted to $10 from $28, said that he thinks the discounting may prove a good thing for the authors involved.

"Any time people are fighting over your work it's a good thing, especially when you've worked all those years hoping it would be fought over," he said. "I don't think this is going to be a long-term thing. Rather, it sounds like a promotional strategy designed to call attention to Wal-Mart's decision to enter the digital marketplace more heartily than in the past."

Perhaps. But expecting discounting becomes an ingrained shopping expectation.

Mr. Koontz said that Crown Books Corp., a now-defunct book chain that grew to 170 stores in only seven years after launching in 1977, paved the way for book discounting. "They're no longer with us, and perhaps that tells us something, but after they started to discount books hardcover sales simply exploded."

Fascinating point, and logical: lower prices stimulate shopping.

Mr. Koontz said he's more worried about the independent bookstores. Although most limit their stock of best-sellers, a price war on the most popular books may hurt.

James Patterson, whose coming novel, "I, Alex Cross," is being discounted from $27.99 to $10, said he was happy to be in Wal-Mart's top 10. However, he warned any industry that sets low price points may later have a difficult time re-establishing those prices. "Obviously e-books have gotten this thing going," said Mr. Patterson. "E-books are terrific and here to stay. But I think that people need to think through the repercussions....But I'm not taking sides....I'm not the endangered species here."

No, Patterson is not endangered. His new book has 516 holds on first copy returned of 1 copy (ISBN 9780316018784, 179 on order), and 145 holds on first copy returned of 1 copy (ISBN 9780316043731, 14 on order) in the Nassau County OPAC (excluding Great Neck, which has 48 holds on 1 copy, and 14 copies on order, and Syosset, which has 86 holds on 1 copy, and 10 on order: these two libraries have independent OPACs).

Wal-Mart said it wasn't trying to match the price of electronic books. Still, the $10 price tag coincides with the $9.99 that Amazon.com charges for its Kindle e-reader best-sellers.

Coincidence?

Wal-Mart declined to discuss whether it was losing money on the $10 book promotion, which includes free shipping. But the answer is almost certainly yes. Retailers traditionally pay half the list price for a hardcover book. Assuming that's the case with Wal-Mart, its $10 sale price on "Under the Dome" represents a 71% discount of the $35 cover price, which suggests the discounter will lose $7 to $7.50 on every copy it sells.

Loss leader to establish its e-commerce site.

Ten dollars for a hardcover book is a slashing of margins to the bone," said Richard Curtis, a New York literary agent and e-book publisher.

And into the bone, as it were.

Diana Abbott, manager of the Bookworm, an independent bookstore in Omaha, Neb., said that some independents will likely lose some business on the titles involved. "We've been fighting deep discounting for a long time, although $10 is obviously an extreme," said Ms. Abbott. "But there is a strong element of loyalty to independents....We'll survive this."

There is loyalty, but, will it be sufficient?

Wal-Mart is far and away the planet's largest mass merchant with annual sales topping $400 billion. It doesn't release its on-line sales, but analysts say they trail those of Amazon, which notched $19.2 billion in sales last fiscal year, a 29% increase.

Well put: the planet's largest.

A reputation made, and ...

Once popular, an author has a built-in audience. Witness Dan Brown, whose Da Vinci Code made his name: his new book, The Lost Symbol, has 231 holds in the large print version, and 688 on the regular-type version.

Equally, Pat Conroy's new book, South of Broad, has 569 holds on first copy returned of 203 copies. Nicholas Sparks is also an established favorite; his latest, The Last Song, has 390 holds on first copy returned of 57 copies.

Publishing thrives, perhaps even survives, on this phenomenon: guaranteed readers.

*

In contrast, consider this book:
The study of counterpoint from Johann Joseph Fux's Gradus ad parnassum ; translated and edited by Alfred Mann, with the collaboration of John Edmunds. New York : W.W. Norton, 1971. [Call No. 781.42 F]

It has circulated once.

Cheney to Publish His Memoir

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is working on a book.


The deal was negotiated by Robert Barnett, a Washington lawyer who also represents Mr. Bush, former President Bill Clinton and President Obama.


Is there any better proof of what C. Wright Mills called the Power Elite?

A reputation made ...

Once a reputation is made ... this book is not yet out, and it has 135 holds on it already.

A New Era in Publishing

For the last 500 years, publishers have relied on paper to distribute information. Now their readers are going online for their morning news, movie schedules, and restaurant reviews. It’s no surprise that publishing is going through seismic changes that affect how content is created, produced, distributed, discovered, and sold.

How I accessed this very article is a case in point: wanting to not just read it on paper, I entered a Google search term: netconnect judy luther, and clicked on the second hit (http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6547057.html).

The convenience of anywhere, anytime access to information is driving the rapid conversion of print content onto the web. Over the last decade, there has been a progressive migration of content beginning with indexes and reference tools, journals and their back files, and now books propelled by investments from Google and Microsoft. Readers also have the option of hearing an audiobook, listening to music, or watching videos.