Category Archives: Publishing Industry News

Bookstore Ideas, Bookstores, Digital Publishing, Publishing Industry News, Technology

Bookstores Make Your Inventory Mobile, Please

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Hello independent bookstore owner. I am Trav. I believe in what you do and what you add to my community. I am your customer… and I have tools. You need to wake up and start participating, so I know you’re still there. Here is one thing all independent bookstore owners need to be aware of and learn how to do:

make your inventory public and accessible from mobile devices.

I use a few bard code scanning app. Currently, Red Laser is my favorite. I was in a big-box home improvement store the other day pricing closet organization systems. Up by the registers, I picked up a $17 book on closet makeovers. It seemed to be just what I needed. I was curious what else was out there, so I scanned it. Here are the results:

See that? There at the bottom? It should list everywhere that I could pick up this book locally. I only see some big-box chain stores and… my wonderful local library system. They understand what’s happening. You need to also.

These things aren’t too hard to learn and don’t cost tons of cash to implement. Bookstores of all sizes need to follow and study folks like LibraryThing (local books app and libanywhere app) and the scanning apps. Just doing that much is the surest way to remain relevant.

Digital Publishing, E-Books, Publishing Industry News

Q&A on eBook Pricing

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The EBookNewser has a short Q&A with SmashWords founder Mark Coker. The whole print book pricing versus eBook pricing discussion is finally boiling down to some concrete ideas. I found it interesting that Coker can see a value divide between fiction and non-fiction:

I think non-fiction can support a higher price than fiction because people read non-fiction usually to solve a problem that has value to them, whereas people read fiction for entertainment and escapism.  There are multiple other opportunities for that, many of which are free.

Though the rest of that paragraph, where I took the above quote was a little too fuzzy for me. Surely more goes into the value/price of an ebook than 1. is it fiction or non-fiction? and 2. do we want to make lots of money or just have a bunch of people buy it?

I was surprised to hear that most of the titles on SmashWords are pushing the $5 mark. It’s been a while since I’ve bought something from SmashWords, I’m going to have to go check them out again.

Birmingham, Book Column, Book Talk, Digital Publishing, E-Books, Free Books, Media, On the Web, Publishing Industry News, Technology

Read Library eBooks on your Apple iOS Device

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You can now download and read free ebooks from the JCLC OverDrive system, on the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. I’ve been doing this for two weeks now, and other than a lack of sleep from all of the reading, I have had no issues. This week I finished up two paper books and three ebooks, all thanks to the BlueFire Reader app and the JCLC eBooks system.

It’s a pretty straight forward process. I get pretty detailed in my steps, so please don’t let the number of steps deter you from trying this. Here is how you check out and read the library eBooks on your iOS device:

  1. Download the free BlueFire Reader app (iTunes link) to your device and create an account.
  2. Download the free Adobe Digital Editions desktop reader and create an account. This puts the Adobe Digital Editions program on your computer, which will act as “home base” and authenticate your ebooks.
  3. Launch the BlueFire Reader app, on your device, tap on “info” and authorize your app with your Adobe Digital Editions password.

Now, that you are all legit you are ready to check out a book!

  1. Go to the JCLC site (or your library’s downloadable site) and sign in.
  2. Check out a book. An .acm “key” file will download to your computer. Use your Adobe Digital Editions program to open this file, this will download the .epub (the actual book) file to your computer. You can now read that book on your computer.
  3. From your computer, send yourself an email, with that .epub file as an attachment.
  4. Now check your email on your iOS device. The attachment will appear with the BlueFire Reader logo.
  5. Tap and hold on that icon until the fly-out menu appears saying “Open with BlueFire Reader”, which you will select.
  6. BlueFire Reader app will now launch and you can start reading! Once your “checkout period” has expired the file will deactivate from your iOS device and your computer desktop.

I’ve also heard of people using free services like DropBox to get the book file on their device, but I haven’t tried it. The BlueFire folks are on Twitter and have been really responsive to all of my support questions. The OverDrive team is on Twitter too. I know that OverDrive and Sony have both promised Adobe DE-friendly apps soon, so BlueFire won’t be the only option. But as of right now, it’s certainly the best.

Let me know what you think and if you read anything good!

Digital Publishing, E-Books, Free Books, On the Web, Publishing Industry News

Free Thanksgiving Cookbook – Martha Stewart

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Sometime over the weekend the folks at Martha Stewart Living Radio (SiriusXM) uploaded a free pdf copy of the 2010 Hotline Recipes Book (pdf download), just in time for this week’s festivities. Though I’m sure the 30 recipes would serve just as well all holiday season.

Screen shot 2010-11-22 at 2.46.54 PM

So click through to download your free copy of the book (pdf download). I don’t know how long it will be up. It’s a neat promo, for the show, with each page having the call-in number for the radio program.

Happy Thanksgiving!