Zoomii : A Virtual, Virtual "Bookstore"

When Amazon.com burst on to the scene as the world's first virtual bookstore who knew that it would eventually turn an entire industry upside down. Overnight, practically every book in print was made available at discounted prices to anyone with computer access. It wasn't long before the traditional independent new bookstore began to die.

Now comes Zoomii "an online version of a real bookstore with Amazon's low prices, secure payment and fast shipping." Zoomii takes Amazon's entire catalog and turns it into a visual browsing trip. Essentially an Amazon affiliate, with all order processing done by Amazon, that utilizes Amazon's powerful Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) Zoomii is banking on the armies of readers and book buyers who do judge a book by its cover.

While it feels a little gimmicky, and their claim of being "an online version of a real bookstore" is a bit of an oxymoron, I can see potential crossover application to the antiquarian market. I can imagine a bookseller using the technology to create a visual online representation of a catalog or to highlight particular sections of their shop.

Here is a two minute video of how it works:




Thanks to ReadWriteWeb for the lead

Kindle: Smoldering in the Uncanny Valley?

A loupe is something every bookseller should have in their toolbox. I most frequently use mine to help identify prints in books (etching? engraving? woodcut? mezzotint? aquatint?). They are also useful for making out faded, erased, or otherwise-difficult-to-read writing, differentiating between printed and authentically signed autographs, and the like.

Yesterday, I decided to turn my loupe on the Kindleto see what the type looked like under closer examination. I was rather shocked at what I saw. The letters, even under high magnification, look remarkably like type on a physical page. I expected to see at least some evidence of pixelation, and arguably there is a bit of it around the edges. But what this ends up looking like more than anything else is the slight irregularities one sees at the edges of any type on a page due to the tiny variations on a piece of paper. It's a little eerie.

And I began to wonder if perhaps some of the resistance among bookaholics to e-readers such as the Kindle was due in part to a kind of biblio-version of The Uncanny Valley:

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost, but not entirely, like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.

Is the Kindle - in the words of this classic bit from 30 Rock - just a bit too much "Tom Hanks in Polar Express" and not enough "R2-D2"?

Perhaps. But not enough to deter many buyers. Though previous estimates of Kindle sales have hovered rather ridiculously around thirty- to fifty-thousand (Amazon refuses to release sale info), Tim O'Reilly more convincingly argues for unit sales of closer to one million. And in Britain, buyers are snagging Kindles even before they are on sale overseas.

KINDLE: Initial Impressions

Last week I confessed to having bought a Kindle, Amazon's new e-book reader. I've had it for almost a week now and thought I'd report on my initial impressions...

1) Many commentators and Amazon reviewers have talked about how the design of the Kindle makes it too easy for you to accidentally hit one of the side buttons and turn a page when unwanted. There is some truth to this, but I found it no more annoying than pressing the wrong key on the tiny keypad of a Blackberry, hitting the wrong link on the tiny iPhone screen, or for that matter turning two pages at once in a physical book. I also have found that this happens less and less the more I get used to handling the device.

2) The so-called e-ink screen is pretty remarkable. It can be viewed from just about any angle and still be easily read, just as a regular page can - and distinctly unlike most other computer screens. Resolution is excellent. Again, some reviewers have complained about the brief delay between pressing the "next page" button and the new page appearing on the screen, as well as the slight flicker when doing so. And indeed, at first this can be a bit off-putting. But I barely notice the flicker anymore and I quickly learned to time the page turn so I don't get distracted.

3) I hate to say this, but in many ways the Kindle is easier to read than a traditional book. Several factors contribute to this. The first is it's size. It weighs less than most hardbacks and even many paperbacks. Second, it doesn't need to be held open. This means that it can be read hands-free. And finally, the ability to adjust the size of the typeface means for people like me (who wear reading glasses) less strain. Indeed, I've read in several multi-hour long sessions since getting the Kindle and have experienced no difficulties and arguably less fatigue than with a typical book. Those who argue that no one could ever "curl up" with an e-reader are quite simply wrong.

4) So far I've only really read non-fiction on the device (currently making my way through Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemmaand the aforementioned Print is Dead). And somehow, the device seems particularly suited for non-fiction. I have both Junot Diaz's and Harlan Coben's latest novels lined up to read. I'm curious to see if long-form narrative is as easy to digest - whether, as Jeff Bezos claims, "the device disappears" the same way a book does when engrossed in a narrative.

5) Another negative: I miss book design. I like the work of typographers and cover artists and the other people involved in how commercial books look. On the Kindle, everything appears in the same typeface; covers are often reproduced poorly. This uniformity could become a bit boring over time. My guess, however, is as the technology improves, so will the publishers' ability to present the texts as they would like.

6) I find that I mark more passages and jot more marginalia notes than I did before. Generally, I am loath to write in my books as it feels a bit like defacement. Sometimes I do, but not often. That the Kindle includes this ability without the guilt is a feature I like. That said, the itty-bitty keyboard is, well, itty-bitty. And there is a noticeable lag between typing and the letters appearing on the screen. Short notes are fine, but anything much longer can be frustrating.

7) Also nice: the onboard dictionary. Only needed it a couple of times, but probably wouldn't have looked the words up otherwise.

8) Selection of titles is decent, but still lacking. Again, I expect this will improve over time. Once plus: MANY public domain titles are available for free in Kindle format from manybooks.net. I've already downloaded the complete Sherlock Holmes.

9) Downloads are easy, seemless and on the Kindle in less than a minute. The ability to buy directly from the device really is one of the best features. And the price is right. I paid less for Kindle version of Omnivore's Dilemma than any other edition available anywhere else, including used (assuming you factor in shipping).

So overall, I'm impressed so far. I have a lot more to say about the Kindle, including how it could be a good development for both booksellers and book collectors, but that will have to wait a bit. Until then, Paul Krugman has some interesting things to say on the subject in today's New York Times, including this:

Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors’ other activities, such as live readings with paid admission.

I'll talk over the coming days about why such a development might not be so terrible.

And though Michael and I don't say it very often, your thoughts and feedback are always welcome. Just click the comments link immediately below these words.

I have a confession to make...

I bought a Kindle.

It arrived today.

I feel a bit like a pastor caught with a Playboy under his arm.

I've been considering (albeit rather idly) a purchase for some time. After all, the reviews and press have been largely positive. Yes, I love gadgets and technology (I'm not quite sure how I checked email before my iPhone). And I really like the idea of being able to carry around enough titles to satisfy most any reading mood that strikes me, as well as the ability to get a book immediatelyfor those times I don't. And I'm as curious as anyone to see the e-ink screen for myself. Plus, the overwhelming demand impressed me and Amazon's marketing campaign (prominent author endorsements, Jeff Bezos' hour-long Charlie Rose interview) was persuasive.

But as someone who for the better part of the last dozen years has made his living in one form or another from books (real, physical books), none of these reasons were enough to convince me.

Until I found an ugly and seemingly innocuous ex-library tome at the bottom of a box of books.

You see - about a month ago, I was evaluating some new acquisitions, either cataloging them in my database for sale online or tossing them aside. Most were scholarly texts - university press titles and the like. And when I came across an ex-library book, I almost rejected it right away. But the fact that it otherwise looked unread made me take a second glance. Only a couple of years old and on a very technical and obscure subject, it was the kind of book that even as an ex-lib can retain value. And indeed, a bit of poking around online found only two other copies being offered, both listed at well over $100.00 each. These prices struck me as optimistic, so I listed it at a still healthy $75.00 and was about to forget about it when I noticed something on the title's Amazon page.

"Kindle price: $44.95"

And I knew.

I knew - in a way that was much more immediate than any previous exposure to e-books had been - that this device's ability to offer scarce out-of-print titles at cheaper prices had huge implications for my business in particular and for the future of bookselling as a whole. And it would be foolhardy not to begin to understand and appreciate (and adapt to) those changes as soon as possible.

At least, that's what I told myself.

Of course, the fact that Amazon cut the price by forty bucks on Tuesday didn't hurt either.

And so now I - avid reader, casual book collector, irrepressible book accumulator, devoted lover of the codex, former independent bookstore employee and current purveyor of used, rare, collectible and antiquarian titles of all sorts - I am the unlikely owner of an e-book.

Over the coming weeks, my plan is to blog (in addition to the usual posts) my impressions of and experiences with the Kindle, and to consider what it and similar devices might mean for the future of the book and of reading and bookselling.

But right now, I have to go play with my new toy.

Oh. And the first book I downloaded to read? Jeff Gomez's Print Is Dead: Books in our Digital Age.

The Book Divide

A colleague of mine recently received this feedback from an Amazon customer:

2 out of 5 stars: "Three layers of wrapping for a book! This is expensive
and wasteful. Just stick it in an envelope and send it."

Another illuminating example of the wide range of relationships that people have with books. There are those who cherish the book as an object and those that cherish the content and unfortunately, rarely the twain have met.

In Defence of Amazon : Their New POD Strategy as Opportunity.

Much has been written about Amazon's new strategy of offering print on demand titles sold on their website exclusively through their POD company, Book Surge. Cries of monopoly and unfair business practices have permeated the discourse but there are I believe, potential opportunities for publishers and authors within this new paradigm.

Just as the arrival of Amazon changed the bookselling landscape forever their new POD strategy is sure to alter the publishing landscape in similar ways and how the publishers respond will ultimately determine their chance of survival. Will we lose as many publishers as we have book stores?

I see nothing wrong with Amazon's surge into POD. They are, after all, a business and are obligated to develop the most cost effective ways to succeed. By printing needed titles on demand to include or "marry" with other items will save them zillions of dollars in shipping charges and in shipping supplies. Just think of how many fewer boxes they will need or packing tape, or related labor expenses in being able to cut down on the amount of shipments without a decline in the number of items sold.

So where is the opportunity?

Publishers and authors can still produce books that will differ from the Amazon edition and be desired in the marketplace. The Amazon POD editions will be the mass market paperbacks of the new publishing era. There will remain a healthy market for other editions. The publishers can capitalize on this by offering their own editions that might include extra material much like the movie studios do with their DVD releases. An extra short story, an extra poem, interviews with the author, signed copies, manuscript pages etc.; the possibilities are endless. Not everyone wants their book the next day nor do they want a cheaply produced version. Quality still counts and many will still pay for it.

This is not a wake up call as some of said this is more of a last call. The rules of bookselling and publishing have changed drastically and the publishers that can respond in new innovative ways will be the ones that prosper.

Previous Book Patrol posts on the Amazon sales tax issue:

ABA Misguided In Their Support For An Internet Sales Tax

New York Booksellers Ask Spitzer to Reconsider Online Sales Tax

Vendor Satisfaction and Online Bookselling

Last week Which?, a Consumer Reports type organization in the United Kingdom, released the results of a survey focusing on customer satisfaction as it relates to online shopping for entertainment products.

Abebooks UK lead the field with a rating of "89% for overall satisfaction and were praised for how easy it was to find products on their site." The sample size for AbeBooks was pretty slight at 89 respondents where Amazon UK had 2812 and, the other company that shared the top spot with AbeBooks, Play.com had 416 respondents. Categories included Price, Availability, Delivery and Returns.

I would love to see someone undertake a similar survey of the vendors that make up the core of the offerings for the major book aggregators like Alibris, Amazon, AbeBooks, Biblio and even the websites of the professional organizations like the ABAA and the ABA.

For the most part, the publicity and focus of the book aggregators is on the end user with very little attention paid to the vendors who supply the inventory that make these sites run.

How happy are the vendors?
How satisfied are they with the way things are going?
This dream survey would be broken down by type of bookseller so that one can see who is really being better served by the current mix of online third-party bookselling.

Categories could include:
Booksellers that are members of a professional organization.
People that sell books only online.
Megalisters - vendors that have available for sale more books than they own.

It would also be interesting to survey independent bookstores that sell new books to see how satisfied they are with the current state of the publishing industry. All have been side-swiped by the new pricing models that exploded on the scene with the rise of Amazon and Costco, are they satisfied with how the publishing industry responded to their needs?

There is a collective power among independent bookstores and booksellers that has yet to be effectively harnessed and unleashed. For now, many of us are taking what we can get from these various venues waiting for the day when we find our ultimate online home.


Which? article on the results

Amazon is the "secret buyer" of J.K. Rowlings "The Tales of Beedle and the Bard"

Amazon.com paid a record £1,950,000 at Sotheby's yesterday for one of the seven copies in existence of J.K. Rowling's hand-written and illustrated book of fairy-tales "The Tales of Beedle and the Bard."

The Times of London originally reported that the "An anonymous collector, bidding through a dealer who usually specialises in Old Masters" was the high bidder. How that ends up being Amazon is a story of for another day.

Amazon boasts that the purchase was a simple thank you to Rowling who recently concluded the record-breaking Harry Potter series. The series was a publishing hi-spot and Amazon sold millions upon millions of copies.

Ironically enough, Amazon lost money on the 2.5 million copies they sold of the final installment of the Potter series.

So we have a big $4 million thank you for allowing us the opportunity to lose money!

As crazy as this seems on the surface this is a business move. I am not certain if Amazon gets a $4 million write-off since the money is going to charity but I am certain that they will figure out a way to monetize this purchase.

Amazon has a web page up heralding the purchase.

Guardian Unlimited piece on the goings on A different kind of magic

E-Phone

It looks like the next generation e-book reader will be part of your phone.

Rise of the mobile novel sets alarm bells ringing in Japanese literary circles is the title of Richard Lloyd Parry's piece in the London Times.

"For the first time, Japan's fiction bestseller list is dominated by books published, read and, in several cases, written on mobile telephones."

I repeat:
published
read
and sometimes written on CELL PHONES!

How does it work:
You pay about $2.50 a month for a subscription to download novels from the publishers website to your cell phone.
"The stories are divided into gobbets which can be read in about three minutes, the typical distance between two stops on the Japanese subway."

When you pair this with Paul Biba's recent post over at TeleRead where he shares his 27 year old daughters reaction to the Sony Reader and the Kindle you can really see the writing on the wall.

Biba's daughter says "She would never use a Sony Reader or a Kindle, or an independent ebook reader of any kind! Further, she stated, unequivocally, that no person in her age group would use one either."

Why? No one wants to haul around another piece of technology, "They are already carrying a phone and a laptop...and that’s enough."

Oh and by the way, Biba's daughter works for Wired Magazine!

It is about convergence not separation.

If they haven't already, the alarm bells should start ringing louder in our technology and publishing circles any day now.

Is the Kindle the Ultimate Reading Machine?

Evan Schnittman, vice president of business development at Oxford University Press, has an interesting, positive take on Amazon's Kindle that is worth a read.

One thing to keep in mind argues Schnittman is that us book-focused news types are not the target audience for this product. This one is for the pure readers. Not the book collectors, the booksellers, not for the book as an object gang but "for folks like my sister-in-law Laurie, a voracious reader of print books" as Schnittman says.

He goes on:
"Immersive reading has always been the bane of electronic content. As extractive content such as reference has flourished in digital form with the public writ large, immersive reading digitally has only worked with a very, very small subset of the population...The Kindle is the first device that not only allows for a pleasurable immersive reading experience (Sony and IRex do as well) but also, like the iPod, creates a seamless experience in getting DRM’d content into the device in less than 10 seconds."

With all the gloom and doom surrounding reading these days you can't argue against anything that encourages an "immersive reading experience" but as long as the chains of DRM are still attached the Kindle will not be the ultimate reading machine.


Schnittman's piece appears on David Rothman's blog TeleRead

DRM Drama: The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts)

Mark Pilgrim has created a clever little piece, The Future of Reading ( A Play in Six Acts), about the inherent dangers of Digitial Rights Management (DRM).

Using sources like Steven Levy's Newsweek article The Future of Reading, Kindle's Terms of Service, Jeff Bezos 2002 letter to the Author's Guild and George Orwell's 1984, Pilgrim adequately conveys some of the pitfalls of the DRM approach.

The six acts are:
1. The act of buying
2. The act of giving
3. The act of lending
4. The act of reading
5. The act of remembering
6. The act of learning

Here is Act 1:

When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this.

Jeff Bezos, Open letter to Author’s Guild, 2002

You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content.

Amazon, Kindle Terms of Service, 2007

***********************************************

Image is a mashup of the Newsweek cover courtesy Steve Lawson's library weblog See Also, with the text coming from the All your base gaming term.

Thanks to fade theory for the lead

Feds Drop Subpoena. Amazon Does Not Have to Reveal Names of Used Book Buyers

Finally there is some good news coming from the government about our First Amendment rights.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker has ruled that Amazon does not have to reveal the identities of thousands of people who purchased used books through Amazon Marketplace.

At Amazon's request the court documents from Crocker's June ruling have just been unsealed.

"The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their knowledge or permission," Crocker wrote. "It is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else."

Crocker also notes that if the feds got their way "The chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America...Well-founded or not, rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon's customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases."

This guy deserves a promotion.


AP article at the Seattle PI

Another Amazon Innovation: Free Content For a Fee

As the media shower for Kindle enters its second day the blogosphere remains saturated with Kindle related posts.

Forget the design, forget the compatibility issues, forget the price tag, the glaring day after issue is the potential copyright problems around the Kindle offering paid subscriptions to blogs that are otherwise available to all for free on the internet.

I emailed Ron Hogan of GalleyCat fame after I realized that he was unaware that GalleyCat was available as a Kindle blog subscription for $1.99 a month. In a post yesterday he was relating author Seth Godin's experience with Amazon and Godin's decision not to allow Amazon access to his books and blog content unless it was offered for free.
Hogan remarked "Kindle apparently allows readers to subscribe to certain blogs for a small monthly fee."

Apparently no one told him that GalleyCat was part of the Kindle blog offering.
Granted mediabistro, which GalleyCat is a property of, was recently sold to JupiterMedia so with a new sheriff in town you would expect some changes but not making your content providers aware that their content will be sold on a third party site strikes me as a little scandalous.

I understand Hogan is a "free"lancer and I am sure somewhere in the fine print of his contract or in the sale documents between mediabistro and JupiterMedia it says that they have "free" reign with his content but, at minimum, you don't sell the map without informing the people that put you on the map.

Kindlemania Begins, Some Expect a Short Run

Amazon has officially thrown it's hat in the e-book reader market with the release of Kindle, a $399 wi-fi enabled, keyboard equipped, design-needy, proprietary e-book reader.

Will this be the device that catapults e-books into the mainstream?

Some are not so sure.

In his piece at Information Week Amazon Planning E-book Debacle Thomas Claburn flat out pans the Kindle calling the design "a thing of unsurpassed ugliness." and its "failure to learn any lessons from the iPhone will be its doom."

David Rothman at TeleRead says the real problem is, and I agree, in the proprietary format or the "F word" as Rothman calls it but he adds "even if the Kindle fails there is still hope for e-books."

Duncan Riley at TechGadget says "the Kindle will have a lot of resources and content behind it so if anyone can make this work you’d think Amazon could. If it fails Ebook readers can go straight to the deadpool." The deadpool being TechCrunch's almost permanent graveyard for technology companies.

"With all this great e-book reader 2.0 functionality Amazon shoots itself in the foot by not supporting the open e-book standard that is used by most publishers. Using a proprietary format is inherently restrictive and limiting... It has been over 15 years since the first e-book readers hit the market with little to show. Yes, there has been lots of press and hype but the impact on reading habits has been minimal at best. Now we have the big boys entering the fray. With Sony's Reader and Amazon's Kindle the stakes have been raised" -- was my take in a previous Book Patrol post back in early September when word of the Kindle first leaked.

Neither Sony or Amazon do anything lightly. There will be no white flags. These early versions are not the finished product. Someone is going get this right though I don't see it causing any mass exodus from the physical book anytime soon.

Shelfari Stumbles

It looks like things in the book social networking world are heating up.

It seems that in their race to gain market share Shelfari has engaged in some pretty dubious behavior including astroturfing (posting on blogs pretending to be users, not employees) and partaking in widespread spamming campaigns.

Tim Spalding founder of LibraryThing has documented the travesty over at the Thingology blog. The post is titled Shelfari Spam: "basically social network rapists" with the quote coming from a Gawker post on the issue.

Before you get into the well he is the competition of course he is going to knock them read the post. He is not running a negative campaign he is simply telling it like it is providing 51 examples of people who have been duped by Shelfari. It is shameful.

So what's the problem?

According to the Shelfari gang it is a usability or user interface design (UI) issue. An issue that plagues many technology websites, both start-up and veteran. With most of the talent and energy leaning technical there is little or no time spent on the front end of these sites.

Unfortunately, this is no excuse and if there hadn't been such an uproar I doubt Shelfari would have moved an inch to provide a cleaner user interface.

In responding to the recent uproar on the Shelfari blog CEO Josh Hug admits that the user experience was of little concern saying "We haven't taken the time to address the complaints about our invitations in our blog or by updating the site." He goes on "It's been about five months since we last touched our invitation design. In June we looked at a number of different designs with the goal of creating something easy to use as well as clear." Now 5 months later they are doing something about it and only because the life of their business is at stake.

Remember this is a company that recently received money and a board member from Amazon. The same Amazon who's CEO Jeff Bezos proclaimed in an interview in October's Harvard Business Review :

"We can't be thinking about how [B&N] has so much more in the way of resources than we do... Yes, you should wake up every morning terrified with your sheets drenched in sweat, but not because you're afraid of our competitors. Be afraid of our customers, because those are the folks who have the money. Our competitors are never going to send us money."

Shelfari better get afraid of their users quick because if Jeff finds out...

Quote from the Bezos interview with Harvard Business Review via GalleyCat
Previous Book Patrol post The Shelfari Climb

Kindle Good, Kindle Bad: Amazon's New E-Book Reader

Next month Amazon will throw its hat in the e-book reader ring with the release of Kindle.

Here is the good part:

Kindle is clearly a cut above the existing e-book readers.

-Its wireless capabilities allow the user to download content without having to connect to a computer.

-It has a keyboard which allows the user to take notes and navigate the web.

-It will come loaded with a few freebies like reference books.

Now the bad part:

With all this great e-book reader 2.0 functionality Amazon shoots itself in the foot by not supporting the open e-book standard that is used by most publishers. Using a proprietary format is inherently restrictive and limiting.

What surprises me most about this strategy for Amazon is that it is the antithesis of their digitization approach. While Google has been restrictive in what one can view and in what their library partners can do Amazon has been open, allowing their partners open access to the digitized content (granted the libraries have to purchase the scanners and that Amazon can sell POD copies). Their model seems the most fair and balanced so how they got to this e-book reader strategy is a bit perplexing.

Also a $400 to $500 price tag will keep it in the novelty category.

It has been over 15 years since the first e-book readers hit the market with little to show. Yes, there has been lots of press and hype but the impact on reading habits has been minimal at best. Now we have the big boys entering the fray. With Sony's Reader and Amazon's Kindle the stakes have been raised.

The readers are watching.

Brad Stone's piece in the New York Times, Envisioning the Next Chapter for Electronic Books

Previous Book Patrol post The E-Book Takes Another Hit. Time For a Name Change?

Another Amazon Outgrowth: The Penny Pinchers

It is no secret that Amazon and has single-handedly corrupted the entire bookselling industry.

We have lost 50% of our open bookshops since the birth of online bookselling
and it almost impossible for the 50% who are left to be price competitive.

Interestingly enough, while the number of open bookshops have been cut in half the amount of people calling themselves booksellers has skyrocketed.

Within this tornado little cottage industries have popped up trying to capitalize on the Amazon effect.

There is the whole Scoutpal culture where a PDA device and the Amazon database combine to remove much of human element from handling and pricing books, "Bookscouting with Scoutpal is like hunting with radar" is how they sum it up on their homepage.

This same technology has revolutionized the thrift store industry as well. The book departments are an ever increasing source of revenue for these charities. I recently visited the new book operation at the Goodwill here in Seattle and witnessed a literal book factory where over 100 orders a day are being processed from online sales channels.

Then there is the used book industry and how almost all the major inventory software programs for booksellers are tied to Amazon's database for bibliographic information. The problem is that many times the information is not correct and ends up polluting the marketplace.

The other significant Amazon induced consequence has been the downward price pressure on the price of books. In many instances they have plummeted.

There are now a whole new breed of penny pinchers, legions of "sellers" offering thousands of books for a penny apiece. A penny! How can they survive? The answer - $3.99.
That's the shipping fee that Amazon charges the buyer and reimburses the seller. For the average paperback that is an easy $1-$2 profit for the seller.

And out of the depths of this apparition comes Pretty Penny Books, a website that gathers all the penny books being offered on Amazon. They are currently listing over 300,000 books. You can also subscribe to specific subjects via an RSS feed "so you can get immediate notification when books that might interest you become available."
They also offer you these words of encouragement:
"Please remember to support these one penny books sellers! They don't make a whole lot of profit on these books, so be nice and leave great feedback."

I never thought I would live to see the day where the term profit was associated with something priced a penny.

We can only go up from here.

The Shelfari Climb

The big news in the book social networking world this week was Shelfari's announcement that it has created a branded application for Facebook.

Facebook is the don of social networking sites and for Shelfari to implant their application in their playing field is a huge step in gaining market share.

The recent Publisher's Weekly's article on book social networking sites placed
Shelfari a distant third in the marketplace behind Goodreads.com and way behind Librarything who were first in.

This deal will close the gap considerably. Since the press release Shelfari has already seen record traffic and a record amount of new registrations.

And while Shelfari was getting kudos from Mashup as one of the 10 most beautiful websites I noticed one of the books that Librarything is featuring in that book pile image on the left side of their homepage is Lusty Lady. The book is a sort of photo-bio of the girls that work at the legendary Seattle peep-show. You know the place you go where it costs a quarter to get the screen to rise in your little booth for 15 seconds. I didn't check to see if there was a Lusty Lady group as well.

I am wondering if LibraryThing founder Tim Spalding might be scratching his head since one of the main components of LibraryThing's deal with AbeBooks was that they get "access to AbeBooks’s resources, expertise and marketing to enrich its site."

We have a long way to go before the dust settles in this new arena. The publishers for the most part are still watching from the sidelines, the revenue streams for the websites have yet to be fully maximized; will it be advertising? book sales? etc. and what role will the authors play in all this?

There is also a large portion of the book loving world that has yet to jump on the social book network bandwagon. As Michael Allen at the Grumpy Old Bookman puts it "People of my generation just don't find it so instinctive, and I for one tend to find it more trouble than it's worth." How will they be coaxed and to what service will they pledge allegiance to?
There are also tremendous possibilities in the non-new book world that have yet to be explored.

Hmm.. last month a cash infusion and a board member from Amazon and this month a deal with Facebook. My money is on them!

Good Night Zzzzzzzz Shops

It is official - Amazon has finally pulled the plug on zshops. After years of treating it like a bastard child who they wouldn't let out of the house or better yet let anyone visit the house they finally pulled the plug

Z shops is where all the great books, ephemera and related material that was produced in the pre- ISBN era lived. Mind you, the ISBN system of identification was created in 1967 by David Whitaker and Emery Koltay so pretty much all original material published before 1967 was relegated to one's Z shop or better yet Book Siberia.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math - let's see Gutenburg started this whole thing back in 1447 when he invented the technology of printing with movable type - the ISBN system was created in 1967- 520 years later!

Over 50% of our inventory was in our Z shop and I am sure that number rings true for most traditional used, rare and out of print booksellers who sell on Amazon.

Basically, Amazon will be assigning each pre-ISBN item with a unique ASIN number which will allow the item to fit into the Marketplace structure. The two data fields they will use to assign this number are the date and binding fields of the items inventory record

The jury is still out on how effective the integration of the material into Marketplace will be.

One only has to look at the 19 options provided for the "binding" field by Amazon to once again be reminded that Amazon is not catering to the traditional used, rare and out of print bookseller.

Here are the 19 binding options:
Paperback
Hardcover
Audio CD
Board Book
Calendar
Cards
Audio Cassette
CD-Rom
Comic
Hardbound Comic
Diskette
Leatherbound
Map
Mass Market Paperback
Pamphlet
Rag Book
Ring Bound
Sheet Music
Spiral-Bound

Good luck accurately describing your books bound in 1/2 leather over marbled boards or your territorial imprint in original sewn wraps

To be continued.....