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US Justice Department makes opening arguments in e-book price fixing case
Apple's e-book price fixing trial began yesterday in New York and the US Justice Department wasted no time painting a picture purporting to show that Apple, along with five publishing houses, colluded to artificially raise the price of e-books. In a series of 81 slides released on Monday, the Justice Department laid out its case as it attempts to prove that Apple and five publishing companies violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The five publishers at issue include the Penguin Group, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, the Hachette Book Group and MacMillan. Notably, all five publishers have since settled, thereby leaving Apple the only company actually taking the case to trial. Front and center in the DOJ's case are emails sent from Apple executive Eddy Cue to publishers in an attempt to get them to sign up for the agency model as it pertains to e-book pricing. The DOJ also alleges that Cue routinely told some publishers what other publishers had already agreed to, thereby greasing the wheels for collusion. The entire slidedeck can be viewed below. U.S. v. Apple Et Al Opening Slides Apple, for its part, claims that its dealings simply served to increase competition in the marketplace and break Amazon's monopolistic grip on the e-book industry. Last April, Apple had this to say regarding the DOJ's allegations: The DOJ's accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from e-books that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we've allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore. The result of Apple attempting to foster "innovation and competition," however, is that the price of e-books rose significantly in April of 2010. The chart below is rather telling. Covering the trial, Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports that Apple, as one would expect, countered that the DOJ's case lacked merit. Specifically, Apple's lawyers said that the company merely used the same approach it used when first getting music publishers on board the iTunes bandwagon. The end result, Apple noted, was an influx of billions of dollars into the US economy. "Apple should be applauded, not condemned," an Apple attorney stated. Well, this will certainly be an interesting trial. While Apple does settle legal disputes from time to time, this doesn't seem like one of those cases. During his recent All Things D interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook emphasized that Apple has done nothing wrong, and out of principle, will refuse to admit to doing something it did not do. In any event, Eddy Cue is slated to testify during the trial on June 13. I guess he'll be missing Bill Nye The Science Guy.
Amazon launches Kindle Worlds publishing platform for fan fiction, will pay royalties to writers and rights holders
Amazon's taken a number of steps to bring different types of content to the Kindle Store, and it's now venturing into an area that has a long history with the internet: fan fiction. The company's today announced Kindle Worlds, a new publishing platform that promises to pay writers royalties for stories inspired by established works. Naturally, the original rights holder needs to be a willing participant as well, and they'll also be paid a royalty for all fan fiction stories sold (Amazon itself with retain the rights to those stories). So what are your options for now? For the launch, Amazon has partnered with Warner Bros. Television Group's Alloy Entertainment to open up three of its series to fan fiction enthusiasts, giving you the chance to write stories set in the world of Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars or The Vampire Diaries. The company's promising that additional licenses are on the way, but for now you can check out the finer details in the press release after the break and at the source link below.
Rovio launches Stars publishing program, names initial third-party games (video)
While Rovio still leans very heavily on one game franchise for its success, there's no question that it's a big company these days -- big enough, in fact, that it's venturing into publishing for the first time. Its new Rovio Stars division will look for a handful of promising third-party games to support, giving them both the resources and exposure needed to shine. The first titles to make the cut are Nitrome's upcoming puzzler Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage and 5 Ants' Tiny Thief. We don't know if Rovio's guiding hand will be enough to give these games a major boost, but we can get a taste of what's to come through the Icebreaker trailer after the break.
Sony lifting development license fee on PlayStation Vita and Mobile starting ... yesterday
Sony's already got a low barrier to entry for developers on its PlayStation Mobile platform, which encompasses the PlayStation Vita handheld game console and a variety of smartphones -- just $99 for a license enables publishing across all PlayStation Mobile devices. Apparently that fee is too much for some folks, so Sony's waiving it altogether. Starting right now (as of yesterday, actually), Sony's "removing any existing barriers" between developers and the PS Mobile platform by dropping the publishing fee, thusly making it all the easier for devs to push their games to the Vita and various smartphones. There are already some great indie games featured on Sony's PS Mobile store, including Vlambeer's Super Crate Box and Super Icon Ltd.'s Life of Pixel, and this paves the way for even more. Of course, Apple's iOS publishing fee is $99 per year and the App Store is certainly more flush with content than Sony's Mobile store, which tells us it isn't the license fee that's stopping people from pushing their games to PS Mobile.
Barnes & Noble relabels PubIt! as Nook Press, adds web-based publishing tool
Barnes & Noble's PubIt! self-publishing conduit has been active for well over two years, but you'd be forgiven for overlooking it with that somewhat forgettable (if very emphatic) name. The company might just know what you're thinking, as it's giving the service a considerably more memorable title, Nook Press, while upgrading features at the same time. Although the royalty structure remains the same, Nook Press now incorporates a web-based authoring tool: would-be Hemingways can write and preview their work through one online hub, sharing their drafts with others in a secure space. Those who commit should also get more exposure through an upcoming Nook Press channel on Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets. There's no guarantee that the rebranding will lure potential bestselling authors away from Amazon, but they may have a better sense of their options.
Payday 2 will feature a 'contract database,' coming this summer
Starbreeze has revealed new features, game upgrades, and a release window for Payday 2, the sequel the Overkill-developed multiplayer shooter Payday: The Heist. According to a new fact sheet released today, Overkill's latest is due out this summer as a downloadable game on Xbox Live Arcade, the PlayStation Network, and the PC via Steam.The first game only offered a few different "heists" to play, but the sequel features CRIMENET, a "contract database" offering dozens of different jobs to take, which can take place across multiple stages and change according to certain equipment purchases (like a faster escape car or an inside man). Additionally, each level has a new amount of dynamic content, including random layouts or rare events, and finishing each job rewards loot like new masks, weapons, or other accessories.Players also get to choose a profession of Mastermind, Enforcer, Ghost or Technician, each with its own skills and equipment to use, and can work their way up from the lowest thug on the totem pole to high-end heisters as they play. That summer release is coming up quick, so we should see more of the game very soon.
Adobe charging 10 percent royalty on iOS games made with Director 12
Adobe recently released version 12 of Director, its interactive app creation system, and in doing so introduced the ability for those who use the app to create iOS games to publish their titles directly to the App Store. As it turns out, that potentially time-saving capability comes at a premium. 9to5Mac reports that Adobe is asking for a 10% cut of all profits for games created in Director 12 -- if they make more than US$20,000 in the App Store. Director users on Adobe's forums are upset by the move, which is outlined in the application's new terms and conditions. Evidently, it's up to app authors to inform Adobe of any sales beyond the initial $20,000 mark and pay the company directly. This differs from other development products such as Unity, which charge app makers up-front or on a per-title basis in order to utilize their software to make commercial products. In this case, there's a $999 initial cost for Director plus a royalty, which seems to be a little more than these devs are willing to pay.
Macmillan settles up with DoJ, Apple now stands alone in e-book price fixing case
It took awhile to read the writing on the wall, but Macmillan has finally settled the antitrust lawsuit brought by the US Justice Department for the publisher's alleged e-book price fixing. In doing so, Macmillan joins Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Penguin in choosing not to go to trial against the DoJ's lawyers. It's an about-face from Macmillan's initial stance in settlement negotiations, when it claimed that the DoJ's terms were far too onerous. Why settle now? Company CEO John Sargent told the Wall Street Journal that the company changed its tune not because it was guilty, but "because the potential penalties became too high to risk even the possibility of an unfavorable outcome." Should the settlement terms be approved by the court, retailers will be able to discount Macmillan titles, regardless of existing contracts, for 23 months starting from December 18, 2012. With Macmillan bowing out, Apple remains as Uncle Sam's lone legal opponent at the trial scheduled in June. Given Apple's staunch denial of wrongdoing and general willingness to litigate, it seems we may be in for some more legal fireworks this summer.
Apple adds Breakout Books to the iBookstore to spotlight the self-published
As glad as we are that digital bookstores let authors skip the usual gatekeepers, that doesn't help much if they can't get noticed. Apple is giving those self-publishing writers more of a chance to shine with the launch of a permanent Breakout Books section in the US iBookstore. The section highlights hot-selling and well-reviewed independent books, many of them from distributors like Smashwords. Don't see the placement as a purely altruistic gesture, though: many of the books sell for significantly less than their peers from major publishers, which might help Apple snag a few more impulse purchases than it would otherwise. We doubt there will be many complaints when the category could pad both sides' wallets.
Aspyr Media charges on in the wild world of Mac gaming
I've been vocal for many, many years now about Aspyr and their like, and exactly how I feel about them. I'm a big fan of gaming, of course, and a big fan of Apple and the Mac. And Aspyr sits right at the intersection of those two worlds: They're a company, based in Austin with about 50 employees, that ports AAA and big-budget games over to the OS X platform. Given my dissatisfaction with the company and how vocal I'd been about it in the past, it was with not a little bit of temerity that I went to finally meet with them here at Macworld 2013. But Aspyr's VP of Publishing Elizabeth Howard and Sales Manager Michael Blair kindly welcomed me into the company's suite and sat down to talk about the state of Mac gaming from their point of view. The good news is that Aspyr has seen all of the signs that I've seen the past few years, and the two main concerns I've had for so long are their concerns as well. Buggy ports of PC games on the Mac was a big problem, but in the past few years Aspyr has worked hard to make things better, and even I'd agree that the ports we're seeing these days, from Aspyr and other companies, are light years better than what we used to see. The other big complaint I've had is delays -- games on the Mac often come out months or even years behind their PC and console releases. But both Howard and Blair agreed this was an issue as well, and in fact one of their biggest concerns. Late Mac releases was "definitely the most important thing to us in 2012," said Howard. Aspyr is working as hard as it can to juggle licensing partnerships, engineers, code bases and platforms to try and get these games out as close to the PC release as possible, and Howard says that "it's getting much better." With a few exceptions, Aspyr essentially has the porting process down to just a couple of months, with most releasing coming out either day and date or soon after. It's not perfect. Just recently, Aspyr had to release Borderlands 2 without multiplayer content on the Mac App Store, though it was able to get multiplayer ready for the Mac Steam release (and the Mac App Store patch is coming as soon as it's ready). But both Howard and Blair said they share the timing concerns, both because they are fans of Mac games, and simply because games released alongside the PC versions (and alongside all of the marketing and promotion for them) . "Revenue is a huge difference for us" when games are released together, said Blair. It turns out that fans like me aren't the only ones bugging Aspyr -- the companies they license the games from aren't always helpful either. Not only do a lot of AAA developers not have time for Mac ports, but they often don't have time to even help Aspyr figure out what code goes where, which adds time to the process and frustrations to Aspyr's engineers. Finally, Aspyr has one more source of concern, and it's the distributors that it chooses to deal with. The company releases games on its own website through the official GameAgent store, but most of its sales come these days through either Steam or the Mac App Store, and Howard says those are two very different marketplaces. How sales look on one or the other tends to depend on the title you're talking about (Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, for example, does well on the Mac App Store, while Borderlands 2 is a much better hit on Steam, presumably because of that multiplayer problem, among other things). But Howard said that just releasing games on one platform or the other is even more work for the company's engineers: Steam has its own achievements and features, and the Mac App Store of course has Game Center and other features to deal with. I asked Howard, given how much success the company has found on the Mac App Store, what Apple could do better for games like theirs, and she said Steam is really leading the charge in supporting game developers. Steam "engages that audience constantly," she said, putting together lots of regular sales and promotions for customers to find, and leaving promotional banners and ads up as long as their relevant, rather than changing them out from week to week. Apple, on the other hand, isn't quite as active in its promotion, and definitely isn't as open in terms of how it deals with the store, says Howard. That seems to be a legacy of Apple's relationship with gaming in general: The company has never really understood gamers, and even on the Mac App Store tends to promote and sell more of its own apps rather than much more popular games. Aspyr didn't have a lot of information to share about their exact catalog this year (unfortunately, recent changes in the gaming industry have put some of their titles in question for the moment), but Howard said the content lineup for 2013 would be very impressive. She promised more content for Civ 5 (Aspyr has published both the game and the Gods and Kings expansion on the Mac), some more indie-style titles, and lots of other new titles on Mac and Steam. Howard also mentioned, though again without specifics, that the company was thinking about a new plan as well: Bringing "catalog Mac experiences" over to the iOS platform. She mentioned Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as a desktop game that had done well on Apple's mobile devices, and said that Aspyr was considering bringing games that were a few years old to touchscreens. There's no more information on that, unfortunately, but it was definitely an intriguing idea. Aspyr is definitely working hard to try and make all of its Mac ports better, and while I'm still not completely satisfied with the release schedule (and I definitely got the impression that Howard and Blair weren't yet either), it's definitely clear that the company is facing a whole lot of pressure from all sides for doing something that all of us Mac gamers want: Bringing us high profile games that run natively on the computers that we love. The quality and timing of the ports has gotten better over the last few years for sure, and I would no longer call the company "a complete dealbreaker," as I wrote five years ago. Still, there's always room for improvement, and hopefully we'll see even more of it this year, as Aspyr is able to convince more and more of the companies it licenses games from just how wonderful and loyal the Mac community can be.
Apple's iBookstore to hit Japan this year
Before Apple rolled out the iBookstore in Japan in 2010, it failed to negotiate the necessary contracts with Japan's biggest book publishers. As a result, the iBookstore in Japan was stocked predominately with free, public domain e-books. The only paid e-books in the store have been from very small publishers or self-published authors. That's set to change later this year, according to AllThingsD. Citing "sources with knowledge of the situation," AllThingsD follows up on an earlier report by Nekkie, which claims that books from major Japanese publishers will be on sale on the iBookstore later this month. Now, AllThingsD says a January launch date is "far too optimistic a date for launch." However, they claim that Apple's conversations with publishers Kodansha, Shogakukan and Kadokawa are "going well" and that the companies will have deals settled "soon." In October, Apple updated the iBooks app to support Japanese-language e-books.
Sorry folks, book publishers don't know Apple's plans
I've been working on a book for the next version of iPhoto for a while now. I have some friends who have been working on a book for the next version of iWork since last August, too. Matter of fact, my iPhoto book has a publishing date of March 31, 2013. These books are being written for Pearson, the largest publisher in the world. I also have a book in the works about iOS 7 with another publisher. That is scheduled to be published on October 7, 2013. I know, it's going to be an exciting year for Apple software releases, right? Maybe a lot of you hope I'll leak what the big new features of the next version of iPhoto will include or how my friends are enjoying playing around with the beta of the soon-to-be new version of iWork '13 and iOS 7? I could probably sell those secrets for thousands of dollars (or maybe millions if I can get Samsung interested!) The only problem is that I, nor my friends, nor my publishers have any proof that these products are actually real. We've never seen a beta. We've never been told by Apple that these are going to be released. I'm writing this article because time and time again I see it reported that some tech site has found evidence of a book about an unreleased Apple hardware or software product has been prematurely listed on Amazon. The tech site takes this as proof and pretty soon other tech sites are reporting on this "evidence." The book has a release date and ISBN after all. It must be real. No. I can tell you with absolutely certainty that these prematurely leaked books are never signs of any upcoming Apple products. "But then how can you be writing a book on the next version of iPhoto," you might ask? The answer is, while I am writing a book on the next version of iPhoto (right now the the publisher and I are calling it iPhoto X), I'm actually writing a book on the current iPhoto '11. Then, when Apple actually unveils the next version of iPhoto, I'll spend 2-3 weeks learning all the new features, update the manuscript, and hopefully have it on store shelves within 4-5 weeks of the new version being released. This is what publishers of all consumer technology books do. Publishing is a very competitive world. Consumer tech books particularly, besides having a lot of competition, have a relatively short shelf life. A book on the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 is only sellable until the next iPhone and the next iOS. So it's to the publisher's advantage to get a book out on a piece of software or hardware as close to the actual release date of that product as possible. Since Apple never releases betas of their desktop apps, authors like me begin writing the books on the (hopefully) upcoming software so we can have the book as completed as possible when the new version does actually come out. Writing a tech book takes a lot of work from a lot of people -- not just the author. After I finish the first draft of a manuscript, my primary editor needs to look it over and suggest corrections and/or changes if necessary. Then the developmental editor has a go at it. Then the technical editor takes a look and does the same. After that I take another look, make any changes, and then it's back to my primary editor, developmental editor, and the technical editor again. If everyone is happy then the manuscript goes to the copy editor and finally back to me. That doesn't even include the art director who needs to set and proof the images in a book (and with a tech book you have a lot of images). If a publisher would wait to commission a tech book on a product until the day it was actually announced, that book wouldn't hit shelves for probably 5 to 6 months. That's a lot of lost sales. So it's very practical for publishers to do it the way they do: commission and write the book before any announcement, make sure that book is as good as it can be, and then update it when the new product actually comes out. This way benefits readers and stockholders alike as the readers are sure to get a completed, technically accurate, knowledgable book since the publisher and author can spend more time writing the new bits instead of rushing to get the whole book out quickly. The stockholders in the publisher are sure to get a steady stream of sellable books while the subject is still relevant. Of course, both I and my publisher are hedging our bets. A new iWork '12 didn't come out in 2012, so my friends writing that book have a great manuscript on iWork '09. But they can't do anything with it until they can update it with iWork's new features when the new version actually ships. That means the authors won't be making any royalties for a long while on a work that has been virtually completed. Another danger is that you write a book on the next version of a product based on its current iteration, but then the next version of the product turns out to be radically different. Then most of your work would have been for nothing, and you need to start all over. However, since this rarely happens (although it did from iMovie HD to iMovie '08) it's usually in the publisher's interest to bet a product won't be radically different because the extra five months of sales that you would need to sacrifice to wait for certainty would cost you a lot. Now about those Amazon leaks. In order to get a publishing contract finalized between an author and a publisher, among other things, you need a title, a release date, and an ISBN. Publishers usually plan their book release schedules a year in advance so they have a reasonable idea where their sales are going to come from. Once your contract is finalized, your as-yet-to-be-written book is then entered into the publisher's database. Occasionally these databases will be sent to Amazon or other distributors where the books will be listed. I'm sure by March you'll see my upcoming book on iOS 7 show up on some international Amazon site. It'll probably have an October publishing date. Again, this means nothing. My now titled iPhoto X book (last year it was titled iPhoto '12 -- and then that never actually shipped. Bummer.) will probably show up too. It'll even have a cover. I've seen it. Of course this cover is just a placeholder showing the current iPhoto so the art team can get as much of the book finished now as possible. But these dates especially are flexible and aren't there based on any input from Apple or knowledge about its plans. They're there for contractual and scheduling purposes only and can (and will, frequently) change. So don't get too excited from now on when you see books for unannounced Apple products "leaked" on Amazon. Sure, I guess it is possible (anything is, right?) that Apple decided to break with protocol and give some lucky author and publisher an advanced copy of some software so they could write a book on it. But you need to ask yourself, why would they do this? What's in it for Apple? Apple doesn't get a cut of books sales about their products (unless it's on the iBookstore -- but even cuts of fiction books go to Apple then). And as Apple's help info always goes live online when a new product ships, they don't need the help of third-parties educating customers the day a product goes live. So sorry to squelch the hopes of those of you who always get excited about these book leaks, but at the very least I hope this clarification will save some tech journalists unneeded keystrokes typing up a story that wasn't.
GameFly enters the world of mobile game publishing with Writer Rumble
GameFly is a company that works like Netflix for video games -- you give them a subscription fee every month, and in return, they send you out a video game at a time, which you can send back when you're done to get another. It's a very popular service among gamers, and so the company has had extra cash to explore a few other pastimes lately (including in the game editorial arena with the popular site Shacknews). GameFly's also released an iOS app called GameCenter (no relation to Apple's Game Center service), and that app also has a very strong following, bringing GameFly's news and game information to a very large audience on Apple's iOS platform. A little while ago, GameFly announced that it would use this expertise with a mobile audience to get into publishing iOS games of its own, and on November 28, the company's first game arrived on the App Store. Writer Rumble is a game that was previously known as Wordfighter, and in that incarnation was actually awarded recognition as a PAX 10 title. But Garnett Lee (a former 1up and Shacknews editor who is now serving as GameFly's new director of publishing -- "the publishing side of the house is me and me alone," he told TUAW recently) believed the title had more potential than the two developers, Gian Cruz and Kris Zambala, were able to give it on their own. Due to their real-world jobs and other pressures, the two delayed development on the original title, and so when GameFly agreed to support development, the two got a chance to hammer out their game into something better equipped to rise through the App Store's charts. The end result does look good -- the title is a word game where characters (all based on famous authors like Edgar Allen Poe and Jane Austen) spell words to use fighting game-style attacks, either against other characters or against monsters in an endless mode. The spelling action is fast and furious, and while there are powerups to mix up the battle a little bit (with boosted attacks, special healing or double points), the real innovation here is in the fighting game. Half the time, you'll need to watch what your enemy is sending at you to know how to deal with it. Even for a first-time publisher, GameFly's polish is evident, and the US$0.99 game has more content coming, in the form of other characters, and eventually an online, asynchronous multiplayer mode. Lee says that GameFly's goal with publishing (at least at first) is more about spotlighting great games and developers rather than trying to grow franchises. "The indie spirit is really alive in mobile development," he says, and GameFly's goal is to find developers who have great games and great talent, and give them the helping hand needed to find an audience on iOS. Lee says "discoverability really is bad on the App Store," and the idea is to use GameFly's reach into the gaming world to get these apps some players. Lee wants GameFly to start as a sort of "boutique movie studio," releasing only one or two games every few months, and working directly with developers to make those all solid releases. Lee's got lots of experience covering video games, but not so much experience publishing them, and he says that he's learned publishers often have to "make some tough decisions" about game funding and features. But he's up to the task and says GameFly is ready to make a go of releasing these games -- the company has set aside "a very comfortable amount of funding" for the publishing program. There are a few more titles in the pipeline already, said Lee, so it'll be interesting to see what else "GameFly Games" has decided to put together, and what the reaction to these titles by GameFly's users turns out to be. In the meantime, though, Writer Rumble is the debut title, and it's out on the App Store right now for 99 cents.
The Think Tank: Is Kickstarter a fad or the new standard?
The funny thing about opinions is that everyone has one. While we celebrate that fact on an individual basis with our wildly popular column The Soapbox, often times the rest of the Massively team wants to weigh in on a particularly hot topic as well. Think Tank is a new column that will act as a roundtable of opinions from the Massively staff on today's hottest MMO topics. We're all MMO gamers, and we all love to talk about the genre, so this is our place to do it. And as always, you're welcome to share your own opinion and let us know what you think about the topic each week in the comments. For this inaugural installment, we're going to tackle the question of crowdfunding. Is Kickstarter just a fad, or will it redefine game publishing as we've known it?
Chillingo explains why devs need them
Chillingo COO Ed Rumley had a chat with GamesIndustry, and said that the iOS publisher (which is owned by EA) is more needed than ever by developers. Yes, he admits it's easier than ever for anyone to make and publish a game on the App Store, but the hard part comes after that. "We always remind people there is a huge difference between self-publishing a game and self-distribution," said Rumley. "The role of a publisher like Chillingo is to do far more than just upload a game onto an App Store. Today's market is extremely competitive, there are dozens or hundreds of games launching every day whether it's on iOS or Android or Windows. Our role is to help navigate this minefield." Rumley also said that more indie devs are coming to Chillingo than ever to get that help polishing and marketing their games, and I can attest, as a player, that it's been working for them. There is definitely a consistent level of quality in the games Chillingo's putting out, partly because of who they're choosing to work with, and partly because their experience on the App Store is so substantial at this point (don't forget, this is the company that published both Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, so they kind of know what they're doing by now). While obviously every game is different, Rumley did say that Chillingo is still getting heavily involved in app development, probably more so than a lot of traditional publishers out there. "Half of our role is getting a game ready for market. By that I mean making sure the balance is there, making sure the game is fun and making sure the monetization is correctly implemented. If you don't get that right, you're not going to have success acquiring consumers in the first place." Rumley added that the future of Chillingo isn't necessarily in publishing more games, it's in publishing on more platforms. The company has been making a push on Android recently, and Rumley says that the quality of iOS games as compared to the last few years has been getting better and better. But he also added that means the bar is raising higher and higher, even as he recommends that indie developers put an extra month of polish into their titles, then another month (and maybe more) on top of that. "It's a ruthless platform," said Rumley, "and there's just no room for anything except perfection."
Penguin and Random House merge, promise a brave new e-book future
The pressure of digital transitions can lead traditional media companies to circle the wagons -- for better or for worse -- and book publishers certainly aren't immune as e-books take hold. Bertelsmann and Pearson are worried enough to be merging their respective Random House and Penguin publishing wings into a joint venture, not-so-creatively titled Penguin Random House, that they hope will better survive "long-term trends" like the shift away from paper-centric business models. While the two are engaged in the usual corporatespeak of creating "synergies" (read: resource cuts), we're more interested in talk of the union being a springboard for digital efforts: Penguin Random House wants to be "more adventurous" with e-book models like self-publishing. Whether the merger leads to a renaissance for established publishers or just reduced competition when the deal closes in the back half of 2013, we're bracing ourselves for the possibility of a Fifty Shades of Jamie Oliver crossover.
Kobo to buy Aquafadas, get magazines, academic texts, comics and children's books in the process
Canadian-born, Japanese-owned e-reader maker Kobo announced its intentions to acquire digital publishing company Aquafadas today, an agreement that'll bring rich content like magazines, academic texts, comics and children's books, amongst others, to Kobo users. The deal also builds out Kobo's self-publishing offering, bringing more tools to the table, along with additional languages like German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch. Kobo's also taking the opportunity to announce exapanded offerings in New Zealand, thanks to partnerships with Booksellers NZ and The Paper Plus Group. Back in September, the company announced a trio of new devices set for release this month and next in the States.
Editorial: Bring on the digital overthrow of publishing
Last week's release of the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite offered an opportunity to look back on the rapid growth of e-reading, and look forward to what the digitization of publishing will mean to four major market forces: publishers, bookstores, authors and readers. As during any technological disruption, winners and losers trade fates until the upheaval settles and a new cycle of status quo begins. Amazon is not the only bookstore represented in the scramble for new-era survival, but its major role has multiple dimensions: seller, publisher, enabler, inventor and primary instigator of disruption. Amazon is banking on being a winner, and was recently handed an advantage by the U.S. government in its uneasy relationship with publishers. While industrial forces work their way through the dislocation of new paradigms, individuals -- both book consumers and book authors -- stand to be the biggest winners, and that is a good thing.
iBook Lessons: Traditional publishers react to new trends
iBook Lessons is a continuing series about ebook writing and publishing. A year ago, traditional publishers seemed hopelessly left behind as a new world of instant-pub media emerged. Self-publishing, specifically via services and tools like those provided by Apple's iBookstore/iBooks Author and Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, provided a way for independent authors to challenge the marketplace. Independent authors could write, publish and distribute short works that followed closely on trends as they happened. As new technology was announced, writers could immediately address that market. Apple might introduce a new OS bump or deliver a new tablet. Indie authors could develop and deliver materials on a new kind of timeline, often just weeks after an announcement. Last year, Apple launched the iPhone 4S in early October, a device offering the new Siri virtual assistant. By the end of October, Steve Sande and I had written and self-published "Talking to Siri", a guide to the new technology. If we had worked with traditional publishing at that point, it would likely have taken at least four to six months to get that same book out. In the end, we were able to leverage the success of our self-published efforts to create a deal with Que, one of Pearson's (Addison Wesley) technical imprints to bring "Talking to Siri" to the printed page. The book was printed in the Winter of 2012, months after Siri launched and has sold consistently well in traditional bookstores like Barnes & Noble, as well as on the virtual shelves of Amazon and the iBookstore. We both feel our early launch was a key player in this success. Fast forward a year, and the world has begun to turn upside down. Traditional publishers are now tentatively exploring the frontier of rapid publishing. It's not an easy change. A lot of work goes into delivering a professionally produced book. Production, digital conversion, marketing, business and web site support teams all have to come together to make this happen. Pearson just launched an Early Edition program to offer readers advanced access to new, timely topics. Early Editions provide early peeks at books during the production process. It allows readers to buy-in much sooner, to get access to relevant materials -- even in a somewhat unfinished state. It trades off this rapid delivery to its audience against the time-intensive process that ensures high quality published editions. The fact is this: The tech world moves quickly. Apple typically updates its hardware and software on a yearly basis. A book that takes six months to produce may offer an unreasonably shortened shelf life. Consider developer-specific topics, for example. Taking Apple's no-pub Nondisclosure Agreement periods (NDAs) into account, where material cannot be publicly discussed, each year may offer at best nine months of sales availability. Cutting off a third to a half of this time due to publishing delays puts huge pressures on authors and publishers. The quicker publishers can move materials into the public, the longer each book's shelf life can be, and the more possible sales it can offer. I was fortunate to be part of Pearson's first Early Edition push. My Core iOS 6 Developer's Cookbook went live the day after the iOS 6 NDA dropped. In exchange for basically working non-stop since WWDC, Pearson was able to accelerate editing and technical review. Readers can now purchase a volume that although not perfectly polished, offers time-sensitive content that's useful for immediate iOS 6 development needs. For me, from an author's point of view, it's a huge step forward. Moving to a world of quick pub turn-around didn't come easily. Development editors Chris Zahn and Dayna Isley spearheaded the Pearson initiative, with strong encouragement from management. An in-house group titled "Digital Only / Digital First" helped imagine their digital strategy. The digital task force included a cross section of editorial, production, conversion and marketing folks. The team brainstormed how to publish e-formats before print versions came out. They decided on a group of books to focus on (the iOS 6 series) and chose to move content into ePub, Mobi, and PDF formats right after copy edit. This is right before manuscripts would traditionally go into the composition process and then eventually to the printer. The harder issues weren't authoring and editing content; it was paperwork. "As a group, we had to figure out how to get out of our own way," Zahn explained. "We had to decide how to enter products into our business systems, how to present them for sale on our site and how to market them. We got marketing, the InformIT folks and production on board. Somehow it all came together, and we ended up with a successful rollout of the Early Edition program this October." Today, I had a chance to sit down with Paul Boger, Vice-President and Publisher at Pearson Technology Group. He's the man who gave the green light to the Early Editions program. He took some time to talk about the evolution of the book, about the program itself, and where traditional publishers need to move when looking to the future. TUAW: Tell me about the Early Edition program. PB: We, here at Pearson, have a number of people here who are intensely interested in figuring out how to break the mold of the physical book. We're exploring how to move beyond the constraints of the physical production process to provide critical information to people as fast as we possibly can. The Early Edition program is part of that vision. We have a number of people in our group -- Dana Isley, Chris Zahn, Trina MacDonald, Stephanie Nakib -- who believed that we could, with tweaks to our process, publish weeks ahead of the physical book if were able to bend the process a little bit. So that group of people got together to do this with our line of iOS 6 books (including the Core iOS 6 Developer's Cookbook, Learning Objective-C 2.0, and Programming in Objective-C) for the new Early Editions. In the process, we're learning a lot. It's helping make our readers and authors really happy by getting ideas and expertise out even faster. TUAW: What were some of the challenges you've encountered? PB: A lot of the challenges are cultural rather than physical. We're book publishers by professional training. We're used to thinking that content needs to look a certain way, be presented a certain way, be finished to a certain level. We're trying really hard to put those assumptions away. We're learning to disregard those knee-jerk opinions about when something is "finished" and "usable" and when it's not. One of the concepts we haven't cracked yet is how and when can we create "books" (I use air quotes there) that are never really finished. How do you create new books that are alive all the time? We're not there yet but we're working on that problem really hard. TUAW: What does it mean to be a "book" -- I'll use the air quotes, too -- in the world of electronic publishing? PB: I think the word "book" is changing to mean something printed on paper, contained between two covers, and sold as a unit. Ebooks mean something different. Ebooks are developing their own set of commercial expectations -- whether it's the author or reader who has set those expectations. Plus, we think there's something else we haven't named yet in the mix. We use the catchphrase "content" but it's something quite different. For example, what does it mean to "buy" a book when it's something that can be updated? Tech publishers have played around with the subscription model, with Wiki-based books, and so forth. We at Pearson publish content with Safari Books Online. It's a purely digital delivery platform with no physical component. When someone buys a printed book, I think increasingly they're buying the physical manifestation of content at a certain point in time. When they buy an ebook, I think that expectations at least for tech consumers is that that content will continue changing. More and more our customers expect when they buy that ebook they'll receive updates. When technology changes or there are new techniques, consumers expect the content to change in real time. Publishers have to catch up with that expectation and they really haven't yet. TUAW: What are consumers looking for in electronic books? And how can these books remain current and fresh? At some level, what you're buying is the author's expertise and the question remains: How does the publication vehicle help an author deliver that expertise in a way that is efficient for everyone? Obviously, authors can't spend 24/7 updating just one product -- there are a whole family of products to attend to, plus blog plus other things [that an author might be involved in]. Publishers have to make it easy for authors to interact with customers and update content. And we have other challenges. In my group, for instance in Sams Publishing, we publish a lot of open source texts that change all the time. When have we compiled enough changes to justify releasing a new edition of an 800 or 1000 page "book"? That's the physical challenge, namely when have there been enough changes to have customer buy a new book versus how do we deliver new info for people who've bought existing books? Ebook updates may be one way to do that -- but we all feel there's a better way, we just haven't discovered it yet. TUAW: How does publishing have to change? PB: Traditional publishers are being forced to examine the value and services that they create for authors and for end-users. Maybe I should use the word readers here, instead, but we have for a long time considered them end-users. We're lucky to work at a place like Pearson where there's pressure on us to innovate and think outside the box. It's an exciting and terrifying time to be a publisher because you're not just competing with other publishers but also with app developers, websites that help answer specific questions, and even with people who send alerts to someone's phone. We're now working with schools who deliver their courses online and adapting to the whole phenomenon of "MOOCs," massively open online courses. I've never experienced this much change in my entire career, when it comes to teaching people how to do things. We're trying to explore every opportunity and still pay the light bill. TUAW: What would an ideal book look like? PB: My ideal would involve a digital content presentation that allows interactivity where appropriate, where it adds value rather than just representing a distraction with bells and whistles. The ideal book could be regularly updated based on customer feedback collected either within the book itself or provided by readers/customers via a direct relationship with the author and the publisher. The ideal book could be printed and provided to physical bookstores, when it was efficient or necessary to do that. But I think we'd start with a digital presentation of the information and then add value to that experience. TUAW: What kinds of test programs are you working with now? PB: One of our groups is experimenting with iBooks and ePub. They're trying to figure out how to create better ebook experiences. Then there's the early edition program and some work we're developing on interactive learning. In another part of our business, we're developing simulation software for certification students. We're moving our certification content to a digital learning platform called "My Labs." Pearson developed this for the education market to provide assessment and remediation. It includes video and simulation content, and is intended for use in labs setting. We sell that to the education market primarily. And, we have a longstanding video training program that we're currently expanding. We sell these on our website and through Safari Books Online. Plus we've got all kinds of other stuff going on as well. All of these depend on our authors. Open minded authors are still the primary component of our success. Nothing good happens if we're not willing to try sailing on new seas every once in a while. Our Early Editions program wouldn't be available if authors like you weren't willing to experiment with us. It's a really exciting time. You can follow Paul on Twitter at @pboger.
Minecraft dev inks deal with Egmont Publishing for books, magazines
Minecraft developer Mojang has a deal with UK's Egmont Publishing to create children's books and magazines in territories excluding the US, TechCrunch reports. A spokesperson can't confirm which products exactly will be borne of the deal, but they will include "a range" of items and will launch next year.Egmont inked a deal with Rovio last month to publish a line of Angry Birds books in the UK. Angry Birds may just be the most merchandised modern game, and Minecraft might be looking to grab some of that market: By March 2012, it earned $1 million (of $80 million total) in revenue from merchandising since October 2010.We have some suggestions for Egmont's Minecraft-inspired children's literature: Stevie Trotter and the Minecart of Secrets; Goodnight Moon, Hello Endermen; Everybody Mines. And for the adult book spin-off, 50 Shades of Coal.
