Mark Leslie Lefebvre is a blogger, a writer and an innovative bookseller at McMaster University. There’s a rumour going around that he also plays a mean jazz flute.
Consumer Book Trends 2009: Get It While It's Hot
Employee of the Month
Adam Hodgkin of Exact Editions has an insightful blog post that ties in the mythic Apple tablet with App store as bookstore business model. In light of that I thought if that happens then inevitably they will need a robot to help shelve the books—preferably one that can jump stacks and stacks of unpacked inventory and returns! Behold Kyoto-based Robo Garage has unveiled Ropid [JP] today, a mini robot that runs on two legs and can jump as high as 8cm:
New Publishing Business Model #8: Gamers Become Readers
While it’s not exactly a new thing for publishers to publish game manuals (whether of the video variety or other, like Magic: The Gathering which all the SUPER-cool kids were really into when I was growing up and, frankly some of my friends kind of still are), the game (punny!) changes when big entertainment companies like Nintendo start opening up shop within bookstores.
B&N Officially Joins E-Reader Race
After the announcement earlier this summer of the new Barnes and Noble eBookstore, it was only a matter of time before a device partnership was made formal.
Shortcovers Introduces EPUB Conversion Program
Shortcovers has entered the eBook conversion game. Last week, the eBookseller announced that they will help publishers get their books ready for digital consumption no matter what format they are currently in (PDF, Quark, InDesign, .doc, .rtf—whatever).
New Publishing Business Model #6: IndieBound
IndieBound.org was founded almost a year ago by members of the American Bookseller Association looking for a way to work together with other indie booksellers and other locally owned businesses.
Barnes and Noble To Open World's Biggest E-Bookstore
It was only a matter of time after the recent purchase of Fictionwise: Barnes and Noble is opening what they are calling the world’s largest eBook store with more than 700,000 titles available both for free and for purchase.
New Publishing Business Model #2: Scribd
O’Reilly’s doing it. Simon and Schuster’s doing it. The New York Times, Harvard and Ford are doing it.
Whatever it is you might be guessing (the twist? the dew? the nike corporate schill?), if you didn’t guess selling content through Scribd, then you don’t get the blue ribbon.
It Takes a Village to Create an O'Reilly Book
O’Reilly Media is no stranger to reader collaboration. Their first open-source initiative, Rough Cuts allowed books-in-progress to be purchased, read and commented on while still in process of being written, thus enriching the work and creating a community of dedicated readers.
Open Feedback Publishing System (OFPS), the new O’Reilly experiment, takes things a step further…
