Amazon’s sales to libraries and patron-driven acquisitions have many interesting marketplace parallels, but Amazon works only with print for libraries, whereas PDA is mostly digital. This could lead Amazon to enter the PDA market through acquisition.
Patron-driven acquisitions programs may supplant inter-library loans for ebooks, which in turn could get more publishers to support both PDA and ILL.
Barnes & Noble can compete more effectively with Amazon by moving to a strategy of making its infrastructure available to numerous companies, many of which formerly saw B&N as a rival.
A new book edited by David Swords on patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) provides a good background on the topic, but there is a broader context of PDA, which is not fully addressed.
A boycott is being organized in California against Amazon to oppose Amazon’s resistance to collecting state sales tax. But Amazon may be too interwoven in the world today to be effectively opposed.
Scandal sends shockwaves through library community. Publishers, meanwhile, see business in counter-culture books aimed at naughty librarians.
Innovation requires planning for adoption. Publishers can win in the long-haul by following maps others have drawn.
The recent brouhaha about HarperCollins’ policy of restricting ebook circulation in libraries misses the larger point that libraries and publishers can work toward satisfying their respective interests.
Books take the shape of their containers, and the containers in turn shape the kinds of books we create. The new ebook containers have different affordances, which must be studied to develop a successful ebook program.
The sale of e-books over the Internet will lead to a restructuring of the book business and the evolution of truly global publishers.
Publishers today fall into 3 broad categories when discussing the role of digital media, and these categories almost have the outlines of political parties. But which party is equipped to lead?
The next new e-book reading device is already here. (You may already own one.)
Technological platform wars have taken control of the book business, and publishers are now collateral damage in the fight.
Publishers may have won the pricing war, but the real struggle is now on for users’ attention. Because the iPad is not a dedicated e-book reader there are, unfortunately, many things that users can do with the device other than read books. Unlike the Kindle, where publishers have the device all to themselves iPad users will be able to surf the Web, play games, watch movies, view their photo collections, listen to music, watch TV, send e-mail, work on a presentation, or access over one hundred thousand applications that do any number of distracting things.
The iPad moves electronic reading to a multi-function device, marking the end of proprietary interfaces controlling commerce for e-reading.