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Tag Archive E-book

Barnes and Noble for Sale?

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When hardcover sales began to dwindle a few years ago, there was talk that Barnes and Noble would either sell or swallow up a major competitor.

The possibility of the sale of B&N comes as a surprise since they recently ramped up their digital book sales by opening an ebook store with more than a million titles and launching the ebook reader, The Nook, the most formidable competitor to the Kindle.

Have any idea who would buy B&N? I would not be surprised if it were Amazon. What do you think?

From Book Business magazine – Aug. 4, 2010



A “for sale” sign may soon be hanging in the window of bookstore giant Barnes & Noble Inc., the company announced today.

According to a press release issued this morning, Barnes & Noble’s Board of Directors “intends to evaluate strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of the company, in order to increase stockholder value. The Board came to this decision based on the price of Barnes & Noble shares in the marketplace, which the Board believes are now significantly undervalued.” >more

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Will Literary Agents become the Next Ebook Publishers?

In an unprecedented move, the Wiley Literary Agency struck a deal with Amazon to publish 20 classic titles as ebooks on the Kindle. According to reports, this is the first time a literary agency moved into the publishing business.

Will this be a trenliterary agencies, ebook rights, ebooks, authors, publishingd as agencies struggle to survive in the dwindling print market? It might be. An agency would sign on an author, retain electronic publishing rights and then sell print rights to traditional publishers.

Agency revenues would increase considerably for ebooks, especially with the current structure where agencies only receive 15% of the author’s royalties.

However, the big question is will traditional publishers go along with this scenario or refuse to publish an author unless they retain electronic rights?

Will this be beneficial to authors?

Read Stephen Windwalker’s column for more information on this emerging development.

Read the report from The New York Times.

Borders launches e-bookstore

Now that Borders has entered the ebook revolution, we will also see lower ebook prices and market pressure to lower the cost of ebook readers.

From The Wall Street Journal – July 8, 2010
By JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

Intent on catching up in the fast-evolving e-book arena, retailer Borders Group Inc. is launching an e-bookstore with titles provided by Kobo Inc., the Canadian e-book retailer in which it has an investment stake.

The nation’s second-largest bookstore chain in sales, Borders, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., acquired the stake in December and said Kobo would provide e-books for sale on Borders.com.

For consumers, the entrance of Borders into the e-book marketplace may mean lower prices on some titles. More>

Bookstores are no longer a guarantee of an author’s success

CHICAGO - SEPTEMBER 18:  Author Dan Brown's ne...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Some interesting questions from a potential author –

Author: Do I have a better chance going the traditional route (agency, etc), than with Outer Banks Publishing, in order to get the book to the big screen?

Outer Banks: No. The content is what will get you there whether you self-publish, publish with a small publisher or large one. However, there are agents out there who specialize in film placement and they have connections in Hollywood and in the film industry if you can get one to represent you.

Author: Would my book make its way into the main stream bookstores if I went with Outer Banks?

Outer Banks: It would depend on sales and demand. Keep in mind a book is a product like any other product and if people love it, they will demand it and it will sell. People will ask for it in bookstores and the bookstores will have to keep it on their shelves.

Let’s say you landed a major publisher, one of the big 6 in New York. They would place two copies in all the major book stores given the state of book sales today. Two things could happen: it sells and the bookstore orders more copies or it sits there until the 90-day consignment period is over and the bookstore either discounts it or sends it back to the publisher.

With roughly 100,000 books in a given big box bookstore (Borders, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million) how is your book going to stand out? Having your book in a bookstore does not guarantee sales or exposure anymore. Before the Internet and Amazon, bookstores were the only place to get books. Now most books in print as well as  ebooks are sold online.

The current book selling trend is this: ebooks are outselling printed books. Dan Brown‘s The Lost Symbol, presold more copies as an ebook than print titles.  Bookstores are ultimately forced to stock less.

But don’t fear, bookstores will always be around just like the printed book, but they may be a lot smaller. If they want to stay large, they will have to reinvent themselves, perhaps into a literary center where authors, writers, and readers can meet and have open discussions, debates or writing sessions.

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What We Look for in a Book

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Whether you have written nonfiction or fiction, all books in essence are about a story.

In light of more than 400,000 titles published last year and the number increasing daily with the explosion of ebooks and self-publishing, your book has to be exceptional to get noticed and to ultimately be purchased.

Here are some basic elements that should be in every book:

  1. Known as the lead or hook in newspapers, the first sentence or paragraph should effectively communicate something that will entice, interest or emotionally attach the reader to your book so he or she will want to read the rest of the book.
  2. Every word, sentence, paragraph and section or chapter should relate in some way to the theme or story in a significant way. Background information on a character, a situation or concept should not be there just to fill pages. It should all relate in some way like the Ying and Yang – each complement each other, each are relevant to each other as parts that create the whole.
  3. This may sound obvious, but your book should have a beginning, a middle and an end.  In essence, all questions, concerns or conflicts should be resolved by the end of the book. The reader should not be left with any questions whether your book is nonfiction or fiction unless intentional.

Content is king. No matter what you write about, if the content and the writing engages, inspires, entertains or educates with an emotional attraction, the world will open up to you.

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