We’ll start with Amazon’s new publishing endeavor, AmazonCrossing. Then we’ll look at how Amazon might become an important Publisher of the future, and follow that up with reactions to Kindle for Android. In between we’ll sprinkle in a little bit of magic that apparently isn’t as magical as everyone thought it would be.
AmazonCrossing brings English Language translations of Foreign Books
Quick on the Heels of signing up J. A. Konrath Amazon have announced a new publishing imprint.
AmazonCrossing will -
introduce readers to voices of the world through English-language translations of foreign-language books.
The first title being published by AmazonCrossing is Tierno Monenembo’s award-winning novel, “The King of Kahel,” which will be released for the first time in English for readers around the world on Nov. 2, 2010.
Amazon is really taking the war to Publishers. It’s good for everyone (well, except Publishers).
Amazon talk about -
- The goal being to introduce readers to terrific authors they might have otherwise missed.
- Giving international customers a chance to shine the spotlight on the ‘exciting established and emerging’ talent from their cultures and countries.
- Giving good authors a wider audience.
AmazonCrossing is similar to Encore in that it uses customer feedback and data from Amazon sites in various countries to identify great books. It then acquires the rights to translate the books and introduce them globally.
Amazon are basically doing everything they can to figure out sources of content – Encore and Crossing are both good ways to build up a steady stream of high quality books. Most importantly, these are books whose rights are free from the whims and fancies of Publishers.
Amazon board director says 60% to 80% of books to be published electronically within a decade
Thomas O. Ryder has a lot of experience and credibility -
Former chairman and chief executive of Readers Digest Association.
Amazon.com board director.
Director of a Printing Business that just sold for $1.3 billion.
Which probably means he’s more likely to be right than the average person about what happens with books.
He predicts that by 2020 60% to 80% of all books will be published electronically -
This is a total transformation of the publishing business and it’s going to happen very fast. The big publishers are going to have to adapt or die. They will no longer be in the packaging and logistics business.
He also has a very interesting take -
Ryder explains the battles are not really between Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iPad, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and Sony’s Digital Reader – as most of the press will lead us to believe – but between traditional publishers weighted down by 19th century printing, warehousing and distribution assets and an emerging generation of nimble e-publishes who will supply content to the reading tablets that will be ubiquitous within ten years.
Ryder imagines a future book industry dominated by a few branded electronic clearinghouses - such as Amazon, Google, B&N – around which flourish entrepreneurial niche e-providers providing the clearinghouses with content.
It’s a very good view of what might happen in Publishing. Certainly different from all the ‘books and reading are going to die’ fears the Press keep conjuring up.
Even iPad App Designers struggle to find a use for the iPad
Marco Arment coded the Instapaper app and for someone who’s selling a $5 app for it he’s surprisingly ambivalent -
Rationalizing the purchase of an iPad usually includes a few of these:
- I’ll carry it around most of the time.
- I’ll be able to replace my laptop with it.
- I’ll be able to replace my Kindle with it.
- I’ll bring it on trips instead of my laptop.
- I’ll respond to email with it.
- I’ll get work done with it.
- I’ll take notes with it.
After a month of heavy use, I don’t think it’s good for any of those. A more accurate list might be:
- I’ll play games on it.
- I’ll check email on it, but not respond much, because that requires a lot of typing.
- I’ll check RSS and Twitter on it, but not exclusively.
- I’ll read for short periods on it before my hands get tired of holding it.
The iPad is a great device, but what’s it for, really?
He goes on to say that using the iPad is satisfying and delightful and it does some things better than a computer. Hardly the strongest endorsement.
He also points out that Apple’s marketing makes it obvious that Apple has no idea what the iPad is for -
Accepting that the iPad isn’t an all-purpose computing device is going to be a slow process for everyone, including Apple. They can’t quite explain what it’s for, either, which is why the launch marketing, software, and accessories are a bit scatterbrained.
In the space of a couple of months we’ve gone from ‘magical and revolutionary’ to ‘satisfying and delightful - but what’s it for, really?’.
The Obligatory Kindle attack - Kindle for Android is a nail in Kindle’s Coffin
ZDNet take Kindle for Android as a sign that the Kindle itself is doomed. It’s quite amusing to read the exact same arguments that were used last year when Kindle for iPhone was released -
I see this as taking us one step closer to converged device Nirvana and the end of the e-book reader as we know it.
The iPhone Kindle app was the first nail in Kindle’s coffin. The iPad was the second. An app now for the #2 mobile phone platform in the US? Nail #3.
It’s interesting that he leaves out Kindle for PC, Kindle for Blackberry, and Kindle for Mac entirely. Also, he actually admits that eInk is good -
… even I will admit that e-ink is very easy on the eyes.
So we have Kindle haters taking each addition to the Kindle platform and service as a sign the Kindle is going to die. If it were a Silicon Valley company doing this they’d be praising the genius of the business strategy.
Well, it’s just a wait until next year (or perhaps end of this year) when Kindle starts supporting Kindle for Windows Phone 7 Series and someone again writes how the Kindle is bound to die.
Filed under: kindle Tagged: | amazon kindle platform, future of publishing
