It’s been two years since the Kindle eReader launched - the Kindle is supposedly a huge success, the market has been validated, and we have 50 or so ereaders in the market (or on their way).

At the same time we are at only 5% ebook penetration and stuck with black and white screens that break at the drop of a hat.

Makes one wonder whether eReaders have really progressed or whether it just seems that way.

Had covered some of my Kindle 2nd year anniversary thoughts earlier. However, this is more about eReaders and ePaper and the state of the Publishing industry.

ePaper 

The good –  

1. Lower prices and more supply of the eInk screens in 2009 – at least one eReader company isn’t out of stock.  
2. Pixel Qi technology and Mirasol display technology.

There’s not much else.

The bad -

1. No huge jumps i.e. no color, no flexible displays, no unbreakable displays.
2. Refresh speed only improved to a certain extent.
3. No improvement in the quality of the touchscreen for Sony Readers.
4. Not enough use in devices other than eReaders.
5. Pixel Qi not being out in time.

The surprising -

1. PVI buying eInk and eInk agreeing. The market is exploding and you have the key technology – Why would you sell?
2. No company bringing a legitimate eInk contender to the market.

In summary -

One company completely dominates ePaper technology.

It can’t really evolve ePaper very quickly (perhaps due to reasonable restrictions).

If you think about how much eInk has evolved in the last 2 years you realize it’s hardly anything.

That’s one of the main factors holding back the wide-spread adoption of eReaders and eBooks.

ePaper Grade: F.

eReaders

The good -

1. Competition.
2. The entry of Barnes & Noble, and the fact that the Nook is a legitimate competitor.
3. The fast pace of developments in 2009 – especially in the second half.
4. The rapid drop in prices – from $359 to $259 in 1 year.
5. Larger screen eReaders.
6. Nearly all eReaders so far have managed to stay true to reading.
7. The dual screen concepts – both book-style dual screens and eInk and LCD dual screens.

The bad -

1. Delays and Supply Problems – Kindle 1 in 2007, Kindle 2 in 2008, Plastic Logic’s Que, B&N’s Nook, and Apple Slate all experienced delays of various sorts.
2. No App Stores added for any eReaders.
3. Amazon only adding PDF support, Kindle for PC, etc. when Nook came out.
4. Me-too mentality of eReader makers that are flooding the market with carbon-copy eReaders.
5. Too many choices.
6. Not enough retail presence in physical stores so there are still lots of myths and misinformation.
7. Neither Nook nor Kindle has Folders. For kindle that’s 2 years without folders.
8. Very few social features across hardware, software and the service.

Perhaps the most annoying thing is the Press’ constant tweeting about how eReaders should do more than just reading.  

The surprising -

1. Oprah recommending the Kindle and the colossal impact that had.
2. Amazon pushing Kindle DX university trials when it’s a first generation product.
3. The National Federation of the Blind of all people shooting down the Kindle DX.
4. Sony waiting till end of 2009 to release a wireless enabled reader. More than 2 years after Amazon introduced the feature.
5. Sony selling out their wireless eReaders almost instantly.
6. Analysts finally coming around to the view that millions of Kindles will be sold in 2009.
7. The sheer number of companies that are jumping into the space – Brother, Samsung, AsusTek, etc.

eReaders have grown a lot – However, it’s only in the last 6 months that we have seen rapid improvements.

eReaders Grade: B-.

eBooks

The good -

1. $9.99 surviving as the eBook price point.
2. The range of books increasing signficantly.
3. eBooks being made available in so many countries courtesy Amazon.  
4. The emergence of the iPhone as a good channel.
5. Evolution i.e. the vook and the digital novel.
6. The rise of Kindle format and ePub as two major formats that might unite ebooks (if one wins ).

The bad -

1. Publishers restricting various features that would accelerate eBook adoption i.e. Read To Me and LendMe.
2. The complete lack of awareness about eBooks amongst the majority of the population.
3. Fragmentation in stores, eReaders, and most of all formats.

The surprising –  

1. People who believe that eBooks should be $3 or so.  
2. The attempts by Publishers to sell eBooks for $15 to $20. 
3. The huge importance of the Kindle Store bestseller lists.
4. The lack of a good discovery engine for books.
5. The rise of ePub.

eBooks have been hampered by Publishers and lack of awareness.

eBooks Grade: C

Publishing

The good -

1. The slow rise of independent publishing.
2. Publishers not totally killing $9.99 or LendMe or Read To Me.
3. The rise of lots of independent publishers and companies.
4. Smashwords and Vook.

The bad  -

1. The sceptre of zero priced ebooks.
2. The insane amount of competition.
3. Amazon’s in-book advertising patent and Apple’s in-OS advertising patent.
4. Publishers’ slow, slow embracing of ebooks and eReaders. 
5. The lack of organization in the industry i.e. no collective direction and no consensus on how to approach the future. 

The surprising -

1. That eBooks only grew from 1-2% to 5%.  
2. Amazon’s 48 kindle books sold for every 100 physical books sold (when Kindle Editions are available). 
3. How any miscue by Publishers gets translated (by some people) as a license to pirate ebooks.
4. The varying speed of changes in Publishing – sometimes things are humming and sometimes they come to a standstill.

Publishers have done remarkably well by not shutting things down. It would really help if they could differentiate between friends, enemies and frenemies.

Publisher Grade: C-.

Apple, Google

The good -

1. The iPhone apps allowing a lot of people to read and access books anywhere and at reasonable prices.
2. The innovations in reading the iPhone App Store is enabling i.e. Project 26, Vooks, ScrollMotion kids’ books, and so forth.
3. Google validating eReaders and eBooks by offering free books and getting into selling eBooks.
4. The Google Books Settlement getting people involved in books.

The bad  -

1. The constant references to ‘no one reads any more’ and ‘no one will pay for books’.  
2. The never-ending Book Settlement.
3. eReaders constantly being compared to the iPhone and the iPod.

The surprising -

1. The insane amount of publicity every move by Apple gets – just the Apple Slate rumors have gotten more publicity than all other real and imaginary eReaders combined.
2. The rise of Book Apps and the possibility of them becoming a force.
3. People willing to pay $5 and $10 for book apps and books in the App Store.

Apple and Google are, in some ways, the last companies you’d ever expect to get involved with books. Publishing is an industry that takes pride in doing it for the love of reading and barely surviving – at least that’s what they claim.

Why would two of the most profitable companies in the world want to jump in?

Apple, Google Grade: Incomplete.

Closing Thoughts – The promise of 2010 and 2011

Two years in and we can only look to 2010 and hope -

• If the pace of developments of the second half of 2009 continues, 2010 might very well be the Year of the eReader. 
• If by end of 2010 we have a sub $200 Color eReader or a sub $125 black and white eReader then we might hit the Analyst projections of 10 million plus eReaders sold in 2011.

As ePaper and eReaders evolve, the Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook and other eReaders will offer more and more value and provide better and better functionality. Which is very good for books as they finally get 21st century technology to compete with movies, the Internet, and games.

Have talked in the past about the potential of Kindle for kids, especially in terms of helping them read more and develop a love for reading.

However, Amazon haven’t really done anything to promote the Kindle for children - instead choosing to focus on Kindle DX and college students. 

Well, Amazon might have to move soon or risk losing the market for a children’s kindle to Nintendo.

Nintendo brings ebooks for kids to the Nintendo DS

Nintendo is jumping into the children’s ebooks market with something called Flips that work with the Nintendo DS. 

Telegraph UK has the scoop -

• Flips can be read by ‘flipping’ through pages.  
• There are sound effects and kids can spot feathers and flowers hidden in the pages to unlock games.
• A Flip is a collection of 6 to 8 books.
• Each Flip costs 25 pounds.
• Video Game company Electronics Arts is developing these.
• Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree, Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl, Cathy Cassidy, and Too Ghoul for School are the first Flips.
• Release Date is Friday, Dec 4th.

Here’s a video –

Flips do seem like a fantastic idea. The video continues the trend of eReader and eBook videos where we get to see a lot of the whole wide world and not enough of the device itself.

There’s another video where the concept of sharing between Nintendo DSes is explored – kids can ping a chapter of their flip to a friend.

Which brings up a related question -

Is the future of book sharing chapter sharing?

The concept of beaming over a chapter of a book you’re reading to a friend is a good one.

Let’s be honest here - None of the two extremes work i.e.

1. You can’t have absolutely free sharing and also lower prices. 
2. You can’t have zero sharing as it hurts both sharing and the spread of books.

There are two compromises -

1. Allow sharing of the first few chapters of a book from eReader to eReader.
2. Allow one-time lending like the Nook has.

The latter will obviously be more popular. However, the former also manages to capture the sharing and recommendation aspects of physical book sharing.

eReaders in general will have to do something to counter the Nook’s LendMe feature and it’ll be interesting to see what sharing related features they introduce.

Coming back to the topic of kids and reading – Nintendo aren’t the only company recognizing that eReaders and eBooks for children are going to be big.

Scroll Motion adds interactive kids’ ebooks for iPhone

BNet and Publishers Weekly report on Scroll Motion’s Iceberg Reader Kids format -

“This is a fully interactive way of engaging a book filled with activities like image exploration, DIY audio book recording, and a whole new set of interactive controls for moving through a book that are built with fun in mind,”

Lots of interesting details -

1. Iceberg Reader Kids format has enhancements like animations, audio content, and interactive tools.
2. There’s an audio recording feature that lets Parents record themselves reading out a book.
3. Competitors are supposedly working on similar ‘recordable audio’ features. 
4. Some books will feature songs and music.
5. 30 titles will be released.
6. Bookmark feature.
7. Panning and zooming into illustrations.
8. One of the titles is Curious George.
9. Price between $4 and $15.
10. Plans to move beyond iPhone in the future.

As BNet point out – this is yet another example of the evolution of books and how books are finally incorporating technology and catching up. 

When will Amazon create a Kindle for Children?

Amazon has been ignoring the Kindle for Kids market – However, these initiatives by Nintendo and Scroll Motion show others are moving in on the opportunity. 

There are a few key reasons Amazon need to make a move soon -

1. If children adopt an eReader in droves it will be hard to beat.  
2. Life time customers – potentially. 
3. Parents will be more than willing to buy eReaders for their children.  
4. If it’s something that can be used for books and textbooks it increases the chances of success much more.  

Amazon have perhaps 6-12 months to release a Kindle for children. After that, it’ll probably be too late.

The BookSeller surveyed 1,000+ book trade Professionals (in London) and found some rather interesting results -

The results showed that though 44% of respondents had read a book digitally, only 19% had bought one.

The majority of respondents said that e-books should be priced at the same cost as a paperback book (30.1%), or cheaper (53.6%).

It’s interesting that even Book Trade Professionals (50%+ publishers, plus booksellers, librarians, agents and authors) think Publishers are getting ebook pricing wrong.

1. There’s a strong belief that high price of ebooks is a hindrance to the growth of digital book sales.
2. At the same time there’s concern that low-priced ebooks will devalue ‘the book’ as a product.

Also interesting – 88% of respondents think brick and mortar bookstores will be hit the most.  

How prevalent is the demand for low prices? Even Vook are bending to it.

Vook seem to have given up on the $10 price point

It had seemed that Vooks might be a way to get people to pay more – To position the video and text experience as higher end and perhaps convince people it’s worth paying $10 for.

However, the recent moves by Vook indicate that they are finding more success with lower prices -

1. Prices of Vooks have all been cut to $6.99 or lower.
2. Prices of the Vook Apps in the App Store have been reduced too. 
3. Their new Sherlock Holmes Vook is just $2.99. There is also free access to their Sherlock Holmes Vook for every educator and a free copy for every library in the US and UK.

If even video books can’t charge high amounts where does that leave ebooks?

Vook on Nook?

Speaking of Vooks, it would seem that Vook on Nook would be a hit.

1. You have the text on the eInk screen and the video on the LCD.
2. You can use the LCD to provide an actual advantage, and not just browsing color covers.

It would benefit both Vook and B&N to promote Vook on Nook (although the English Language might never recover).

ePub suddenly becomes HUGE

PC World has HUGE news i.e. China and Taiwan agreed in principle to push ePub for the Chinese-language market.

The push to promote a standard e-book format could have far-reaching implications …

… publishers will have to use the EPUB (.epub) format for materials they hope to sell in the market of 1.3 billion people.

China and Taiwan are meeting again next year to cement plans and move ahead.

At that point Amazon might not be left with a choice – look for Kindle ePub support by the time China and Taiwan meet next year.

Taiwan a force in eReaders and improving

Tomorrow Taiwan will announce a $66 million plan to promote electronic publishing in Taiwan.

Here’s a short list of Taiwanese companies neck-deep in eReaders -

1. Prime View International which makes eInk screens – they bought US-based eInk earlier this year. 
2. Foxconn which makes the Kindle (and Sony Reader and PS3 and Xbox).
3. Asustek which are promising two dual screen netbooks/ereaders in March 2010.
4. AU Optronics which also makes eInk screens.

It’s interesting to think that after Amazon and Barnes and Noble the biggest beneficiaries of eReaders might be Taiwanese companies.

They might be a medium for books and stories – However, every eReader has its own story and it’s worth investigating and figuring out which eReader has the most compelling story.

eReaders’ Stories

1. The first name that springs to mind is Readius from Polymer Vision - the folding screen eReader. Polymer Vision went into bankruptcy and then Wistron bought the rights and resuscitated Readius. We might have a winner.  
2. The Kindle Story is supposed to be every book in every language ever published - However, does the Kindle have a bigger story behind it? Is it the eReader that helped create the eReader market? Is the bigger story Amazon’s turning the Kindle into a service that reaches into every nook and cranny of Publishing?
3. The Nook is writing an interesting story with the lawsuit alleging stolen ideas and the strange delays. There’s the even bigger back story of B&N’s survival – the last great hope for a giant bookseller.
4. Sony might not have a story and that might be its problem.

If Sony doesn’t come up with a compelling story it might get handed one by default – the poster child for missed eReader opportunity.

Sony entered the market before everyone else and made the mistake of forgetting that an eReader is about reading and not about the device itself. It’s still lost in the device and forgetting that it’s about books and stories.

What other stories can we find?

• Google has two stories to figure out - a story for Google Books and the copyright lawsuit, and a story for Google Editions. They’re still beginning and it’ll be interesting to see what they come up with. They’ll try to find a sub-story out of organizing the world’s information - However, few booklovers will buy that.
• Apple’s eReader story might be Waiting for Godot. Or it might be a repeat of the iPod story where a device is so well done it rewrites the script. Quite frankly, I doubt Apple cares enough about reading to create a device and a story just for books – we readers are but a subplot where the main plot focuses on movies and games.
• Plastic Logic is a tough one – It’s the European company coming into US markets and taking on the Giants. What story could it possibly spin that would get readers to take a chance?

It’s strange to see eReader makers jump in with little thought given to what eReaders mean – to owners, to readers, to books, and to the future.

An eReader doesn’t have to have the absolutely best, most compelling story to win – However, it does need to have a compelling story.

There are 4 more december kindle free books. As predicted, we have the ones that were free at Sony and showing up for free book searches at Amazon -

1. Already Dead: A Novel by Charlie Huston. 4.5 stars on 70 customer reviews.
2. Witch Fire by James Clemens. 4 stars on 96 customer reviews.

In addition we have a religious novel and a romance novel -

1. Philippians: The Fellowship of the Gospel by Kent R. Hughes. It’s published by Crossway Books which always seem to have free book offers.
2. The WallFlower – A Hunting Love Story by Dana Marie Bell. It’s the first book in the Halle Puma series. 5 stars on 5 customer reviews.

Proof that Kindle prices are lower than B&N and Sony.

Inkmesh found these interesting eBook statistics when they compared prices for the 11,604 top-selling titles at Kindle Store, B&N Store and Sony Store -

1. Amazon had best ebook prices on 8,592 (or 74%) of the titles. Prices were lower by 15% on average.  
2. Of those 8,592 – Amazon matched lowest price on 5,329 titles and had lower prices than everyone else for 3,263 titles.

Check out the article for a neat graph and more information.  

Nook namer takes credit

Mr. Rex Wilder put out a press release taking credit for naming the Barnes & Noble eReader ‘nook’.

Credit is definitely due because it’s not a name anyone is going to forget. People are jumping at the opportunity to write salacious post titles and throw in ridiculous amounts of innuendo.

Numerous naming companies (didn’t even know they existed) lavish praise on Nook’s name -

BrandFreak.com reports that Danny Altman at the naming firm A Hundred Monkeys calls nook “the top of all e-reader names out there.”

 John Hoeppner, President of Name Quest, calls it a “short, easy-to-spell, one-syllable word that will be memorable to consumers.”

Tom Sepanski, director of naming at Landor Associates, also says nook is a winner: “With nook, it appears B&N is trying to improve on the Kindle blueprint. Both names quickly associate with a love of reading and feel friendly, warm and true to their respective brands.

Friendly, warm, and true – Nook in a nutshell.

This part was quite good -

And it (Nook) does a little piece of magic, too: it transforms a thing into a place. Before you’ve even turned it on, you’ve been transported to your own, personal secret garden of words, stories, and characters.

There are a few very interesting Kindle and eReader prediction lists out today from Forrester (at Paid Content) and from BookSquare.

Forrester’s Predictions (the interesting ones)

1. eInk will lose near 100% share of eReader displays - To cheaper electrophoretic displays, dual display screens, and new technology such as OLED. That is hardly a prediction – Pixel Qi, Mirasol, SiPix, Dual screen eReaders and others are arriving and they obviously won’t add up to 0%. 
2. Dual screen mobile phones and netbooks will eat into eReader demand – Again, hardly a prediction. Here’s a real prediction – People who do not read can predict the death of pure reading focused devices all they want. It’s not going to happen. 5 to 10 million pure eReader sales in 2010.
3. eReaders will get apps too - Apparently iRex is releasing an SDK. This is another ’safe’ prediction – Plastic Logic and Txtr have said they’ll allow for apps too.
4. Amazon will launch a suite of touchscreen eReaders – Forrester is saying touch, color and flexibility will be included. Finally a prediction requiring a spine.
5. B&N will steal market share from Amazon and Sony - Hasn’t this already happened? Nook is already getting more buzz and attention than any Sony Reader.
6. China, India, Brazil and the EU will propel global growth, but the US will still be the biggest market - This is nonsense. China, India and Brazil can’t afford $100 eReaders, let alone $259 eReaders.

There are some predictions on ebook sales – not my area of expertise. Forrester’s predictions are boring, safe, and not at all visionary.

BookSquare’s Predictions

1. International Rights will be hot, hot, hot – Agreed. A very good prediction.
2. $9.99 will become the standard (sort of) – It already has, hasn’t it. Still a reasonable prediction to make.
3. Independents will Rule (booksellers, authors, agents, publishers, distributors) – Indie Authors yes. Everyone else No. Amazon and Google are going to destroy all the small fish. I hope SmashWords does well – However, don’t see many indie or small companies surviving.
4. eBooks will be Huge – Really?

It’s interesting that BookSquare focuses almost entirely on books.

Collins Stewart Analyst predicts 550K Kindle sales for 2009

eWeek covers a report from Sandeep Aggarwal of Collins Stewart -

 Aggarwal nonetheless predicted that the company would sell around 450,000 Kindle 2 devices and 100,000 Kindle DX devices in 2009.

The analyst declined to explain in detail how he arrived at that number.

Amazon probably sold more than half that figure both in February (with the Kindle 2 launch) and in November (highest sales month ever).

Here’s something from the report that seems confusing -

Of the 40 e-readers currently on the market that Collins Stewart deemed “most popular” in its research note, devices by Samsung, Sony, Pocketbook, NeoLux, HanLin eBook, Cool-ER, Astak and Bookeen.

If those are the most popular eReaders how come no one is buying any of them except for Sony?

Kindle Updates and News

1. Puzux has a Beta that promises crosswords in your Kindle’s browser. It’s one free crossword a day while in Beta. They even have a Mock Kindle to try it out online.
2. Amazon now has a Kindle Gift Card with a Happy Reading – Amazon Kindle theme.

Newspaper News and Google’s First Click Free

1. The FTC has an event around helping journalism survive.
2. Google just added an option called First Click Free – it lets newspapers set things up so that the first 5 pages each day (when you go from Google to a newspaper) are free and after that newspapers can restrict access.
3. It definitely shows that Google don’t want to lose newspapers. They also talk about crawling and showing ‘preview pages’.
4. Mr. Murdoch reiterates claims that news aggregators like Google News are stealing news, and warns against Government Intervention.

eReader News 

1. Sony reduced the prices of its Sony Readers in Canada – the Pocket Edition costs $240 now ($20 less) and the Touch Edition costs $350 ($50 less). They both are still more expensive than in the US.
2. FoxConn, which makes the Kindle, the Playstation and the Xbox, will be opening retails stores in China. Wonder what it’ll sell?

Update: Request to stop Nook Sales denied, Spring Design case goes on.

Here’s the decision from the Judge -

Accordingly, the Court DENIES Plaintiff’s Motion for a Preliminary Injunction.

Nothing in this Order is intended to indicate that injunctive relief is not an appropriate remedy if Plaintiff prevails on the merits.

In addition, the Court will expedite the pre-trial process to accommodate Plaintiff’s request for an early hearing on their case.

Read the whole document on your PDF capable Kindle - spring-design-order

It’s fascinating to read the nook rumors and news swirling through the B&N official Nook Forum. Here are the best of the best -

Please note tthat except for the Nook Injunction news, these are things people have written i.e. rumors.

Nook injunction denied

1. Update: Engadget covers this news – the Nook Injunction request has indeed been denied. The court case continues. Read the pdf court order on your Kindle - spring-design-order.
2. Claim that someone has seen the Nook Vs Alex lawsuit docket and that Spring Design has been denied their request to have Nook sales stopped. Here are part of the details -
   

   ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFFS MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION by Judge James Ware denying 17 Motion for Preliminary Injunction (jwlc2, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 12/1/2009) (Entered: 12/01/2009).

   The case is Spring Design, Inc. v. Barnesandnoble.com, LLC, case no. 5:09-cv-05185-JW

Multiple Nooks  on One Account, Lending Only Once.

1. People are figuring out that you can lend out ebooks only once and still refusing to get it – this thread is unintentionally hilarious.  
2. On that same thread an administrator says that Nook owners will be able to register multiple Nooks on one account and share books. That would mean the Nook matches the Kindle in terms of family sharing.

Nook delays continue.

1. A few people were told their order has shipped. One of them called back and was told it was a mistake.
2. Another reader was told in the morning that so far No Nooks have shipped.
3. A B&N store that was to be one of the 100 to sell Nooks will now not have demo units till January. Other Stores saying they will only get one Nook demo unit and haven’t yet -
   

   I told her I pre-ordered mine on November 7th and hoped it would be here before Christmas. She asked if I could bring mine in when I got it so the B&N associates can actually see one.

False FCC Rumor

1. Claims that a site had news that the FCC asked B&N for additional information so they could approve the wireless and WiFi connections.  
2. Couldn’t find any news on this - probably a false rumor.

Other Threads and Rumors 

1. There are a few people cancelling their orders and buying a Kindle instead.  
2. Quite a few people who are talking about looking forward to owning both a Kindle and a Nook. That’s a message for people who claim to be shocked at the $259 price for eReaders.
3. B&N use an ebook key that is the last 6 to 8 digits of owners’ credit card numbers. Lots of opportunity for mess-ups.
4. Lots of people upset about the lack of a browser.

Thoughts on the Nook and the delay

1. Lots of people love the fact that the Nook means competition for the Kindle and improvements in the Kindle.  
2. B&N are still selling Nooks on the belief that you can lend your ebooks freely. Lots of customers are going to be VERY disappointed when they find out the real restriction.
3. Apparently Nook does not support Folders.

All Barnes & Noble had to do was be forthright about messing up the release date and apologize - people would forgive them. Now they’ve managed to upset the same customers who trusted them enough to buy a $260 device that no one has touched.

Late last night it finally struck me – the real reason the press want to push the nook, and favor it over the Kindle.

The Kindle doesn’t fit in with the image the press have of ’successful product’.

The Kindle literally messes with their cognitive understanding of what determines success.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that both the Nook and the Kindle have significant strengths and that one of them has over 8,000 actual customer reviews at Amazon and the other has zero customer reviews (so far).

Take a look at my Kindle Vs Nook review. Kindle and Nook are actually very close with the Kindle edging ahead because it just added PDF support.

Why then are the Press favoring the Nook so much?

The Press and main stream bloggers have never used or even touched an actual Nook. B&N didn’t let anyone even touch the Nook at the release event.

The Press still feel so strongly that the Nook is better than the Kindle because –  

The Kindle doesn’t fit in with the image the Press have in their mind of a sexy, hit product that is open and benevolent and does 20 different things. 

In their hearts and minds a lot of the Press and technical bloggers can’t understand how such an ‘anti-sexy, anti-open product, only does one thing and does it right’ device could ever succeed. That’s why every half-baked eReader has been labeled a kindle killer.

This irrational need to see the Kindle fail is the key reason the press love the Nook and it just snowballs into a ton of anti-Kindle articles.

1. The Press don’t get that an eReader is for reading.
2. A lot of the Press haven’t really used the Kindle. Plus they are assuming it’ll not evolve.
3. They’ve never used the Nook so they can romanticize it. Plus, they’re projecting future benefits onto the Nook.
4. Amazon scares them a lot and since they can’t understand Amazon and the Kindle they secretly fear it.

Let’s look at each of these in depth.

The Press doesn’t really get that an eReader is for reading

At some level they don’t even like the concept of a device for reading and only reading.

Here are a sampling of reasons for favoring the Nook -

1. It has a color screen and that allows for color book covers and potentially even video.
2. It has Android and that means games and apps and video could be added.
3. It has WiFi and that means it would be easy to support files bigger than ebooks.

There’s an underlying theme here – The Kindle is a stupid little device that does nothing except reading. The Nook will let you do a lot more than just read.

The Press love the Nook because it lets them fight the cognitive migraine they’re having – that people could actually want a device for reading and reading alone.

A lot of Bloggers and Journalists who pick the Nook over the Kindle haven’t really used the Kindle

They really haven’t.  

Consider Business Insider’s #1 reason the Nook is better than the Kindle – It’s cost-effective.

at $260 it’s the same price as the Kindle 2, but you’re getting so much more for your money: Wi-Fi, native PDF support, an SD slot and that crazy second screen makes it seem out of the Kindle’s league

Lets consider each of these -

• WiFi? The Nook doesn’t even have a browser – all you can do is browse and buy books. The Kindle has Free Internet and Free Wikipedia.
• Native PDF Support – This was a valid point. However, the Kindle added this.
• SD slot – This is somewhat valid. However, 1.4 GB of free space for ebooks is a ton of space. The SD card seems important if you’re expecting to watch movies on your eReader, which reviewers are.

Things that affect ‘cost-effectiveness’ and which BI misses -

1. Cost of eBooks. While bestsellers are $9.99 in both stores, when you look across all books, Kindle books are cheaper than Nook Books. Anyone who actually reads books would factor that in.
2. Free Internet – You can check email, browse news, use twitter and do a lot of other things for free.

Business Insider took one of the Kindle biggest advantages i.e. more value for money, and turned it into a Nook advantage.

How can you turn a blind eye to Free Internet and cheaper ebook prices? It’s easy if you’ve never really bought kindle books and never checked the news from your kindle.

Romanticizing the Nook and Projecting Future Benefits on to it

While sites like NPR paint a very balanced picture,  Wired and Business Insider and lots of other sites add flourishes to the Nook, including potential benefits in the distant future -

1. Lending - Lots of talk of lending book to friends.
2. Sharing – Sharing across devices – PC, iPhone, Mac, Blackberry. 
3. Android - How there could be games and apps and streaming music.
4. WiFi – streaming content, VoIP. BI actually write -
   

   Wi-Fi is a killer feature not for what it does right now, but for what it could allow the Nook to do in the future.  

Again, let’s consider what these really are -

• Lending – This is the ‘killer feature’ of the Nook. To be able to lend an ebook once, for 14 days, and not having access to it while it’s lent. If people really consider this a killer feature that’s fine. However, please do mention the ‘lend once’ and 14 day limits.
• Support on iPhone, PC – Amazon added Kindle for PC  and will add Kindle for Mac in a few months. It was an advantage – it isn’t any more.
• Android – Nook doesn’t even have a browser. However, sometime in the future, Android will enable some feature completely unrelated to reading and will destroy the Kindle. Beautiful.
• WiFi – Again, this is all about future this and some day that. They mention VoIP. At what point did we start discussing phones instead of eReaders?

BI expects people who read books to pick Nook over the Kindle because there’s a slight chance that, at some unknown future date, the Nook might support VoIP.

This is just excessively unrealistic wishful thinking.

Nook doesn’t have a browser, doesn’t have Free Internet Access like the Kindle, and yet suddenly it’ll start supporting streaming content and VoIP.

Being scared of Amazon and the Kindle

The Kindle is an illustration of a simple concept – Meet the needs of your customers.

All the best features of the Kindle revolve around reading.

1. Focus on reading.  
2. Add-on features for improving the reading experience.
3. Ease of Use.
4. Convenience of buying books.

It’s a device that helps make reading better – in lots of big and small ways.

This really annoys the press, especially the technical bloggers, because

• They can’t imagine focusing on reading at the expense of cool things like games and color touchscreens.
• To make things worse Amazon does continuous, incremental improvements (the underlying kaizen philosophy) rather than hit home runs.

The Kindle might be the anti-iPhone. Even worse, the Kindle might be the anti-Googlephone. 

It really scares journalists and technical bloggers because it sacrifices supposedly critical features -

1. Sexiness.  
2. Coolness. 
3. Catering to the people who despise DRM.
4. Catering to the people who don’t understand competition and want the #1 company in a space to help its competitors.

All for some meaningless thing called reading which no one ever does anymore.

No one reads – Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin couldn’t be wrong.

The journalists are right and the Kindle is bound to fail – the only times we read any more are when we read emails, read blogs, read news sites, read for work, and read for school.

4 am Update: The free books are trickling in. Kindle Store just added -

1. The Spirit of Revival: Discovering the Wisdom of Jonathan Edwards by Sproul and Parrish for free.  It’s about 18th century American religion.

For some reason two non-free books are showing up in a search for free books. They’ve never been free before so the only logical conclusion is they are going to be free soon – Already Dead: A Novel by Charlie Huston, and Witch Fire by James Clemens.  Update: Free in Sony Store – should be coming to Kindle Store soon and will add a new post for them.

Del Rey books have been free from Suvudu before and Witch Fire is a Del Rey book – so there’s a chance it’s one of the Suvudu free books for December.

Let’s continue with 3 Free Books and a 1 cent magazine for your Kindle -

1. Mark T. Sullivan has a free book The Purification Ceremony. It was voted Book of the Year by LA Times and was nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe award.
2. University of Chicago Press has a new free book – Headless Males Make Great Lovers. It’s all about weird animal behaviors and gets a great review from New Scientist. It might need Adobe Digital Editions. 
3. GUD magazine does Science Fiction and Horror and has a ‘Pay Whatever You Want’ offer on 5 of their issues. 1 cent minimum.
4. Cory Doctorow takes a break from crusading against DRM to make a free ebook available – Makers.  

More free books – A lot of these require a little bit of checking and work so please do leave a comment if you find any gems. 

1. All Romance eBooks which had 14 free romance novels for us last week now have 146 more.
2. Robert Burton Robinson has 4 free books and a free short story collection.
3. 3 free PDF romance novels from Ruth Ann Nordin.
4. Harper Collins has the first Lemony Snicket book available for free online reading.
5. Books on the Knob has a post covering a free eBook in ePub and HTML formats from Hamish MacDonald.

Thanks to Books on the Knob and MobileRead for surfacing some of these.

Let’s continue with Kindle Deals -

1. Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is just $4 now. Update: It’s been bumped up to $7.99.
2. More than a Memory by Roz Denny Fox is 60 cents. It’s from Harlequin and contemporary romance.
3. Sue Grafton has A for Alibi for $1.98 (Update: It almost hit the Top 100 and its price got increased to $7.99) to promote U for Undertow.
4. The Blind Side by Michael Lewis is in theaters and available for a reasonable $6.97.

It’s strange that the Suvudu free books for December and the Orbit $1 ebook aren’t out yet. Will add a separate post for that.

After a November overflowing with free books, it’ll be interesting to see how many free book offers the Kindle Store sees in December.

Update: Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that I wrote October 30th by mistake – it was unintentional. It was November 30th at one place in the article so you know it was a mistake and the article does end with a ‘one week delay’ mention. Thanks.

The Nook delays keep piling up – making life for Amazon and the Kindle better. Today we find out there might be a Nook preorder delay –  

Some Nook preorders (including 1st hour, 1st day, and 2nd day preorders), which were supposed to ship November 30th, won’t reach customers until December 9th.

At this point we don’t know if only some people are affected or if it’s all preorders.

The B&N Unbound eReading Blog says they are shipping Nooks this week so perhaps only some of the early preorders are affected. Matthew Miller at ZDNet had his Nook delayed and thinks Nooks could be delayed.

From the Nook Forum -

According to a member of the management team in the customer service department, I will receive my “First wave” Nook on Dec 9th.

There are multiple reports of this, including Shirley Kat at the official kindle forum, (courtesy Andrys at Kindle World) -

ShirleyKat:

The earliest pre-orders were upgraded to overnight shipping. Expect to receive it December 9!

And they are getting a $10 credit but have to wait until the middle of December to use it on an ebook.

So it sounds like nothing will be shipped prior to Dec 7. Don’t you wonder what’s going on?

Yes Shirley. We do wonder what’s going on.

People at the B&N Nook forum are also reporting delays to December 9th. They aren’t exactly happy about it -

1) The overnight upgrade is fine, but the fact that they are missing the long promised Nov. 30 date is a bit of a let down, especially with no notification.

 2) Mine says by December 14th…  I’m getting REALLY annoyed here.  I could care less about the $10 gift certificate..

3) this is NOT a shipping confirmation. It is a poorly worded way of saying “Sorry we blew it and never had the damn things ready on the 30th despite all our promises to the contrary

Here is the main portion of the email B&N sent out (much thanks to Len at Kindle Chronicles for it) – they don’t exactly mention delay anywhere -

You have the privilege of being the first to get to use the Nook - really?

Let’s get this straight -

1. People who preordered the Nook were smart. 
2. You’ll be one of the first ones to get it. 
3. $10 Gift Certificate.
4. Free Upgrade to overnight shipping.
5. Zero mention of the delay from the original November 30th Nook shipping estimate. 

Makes me wonder why they didn’t have the courtesy to apologize for not meeting the November 30th ship date they had promised.

That email also made me realize the perfect name for a nook site or forum – Pillow Talk.

It’s interesting to think that we don’t really know what a Nook is like.

There isn’t a single actual Nook Review – there might not be one till December 9th

No one has used and reviewed a Nook -

1. No main stream site has played around and read on a Nook. 
2. No blogger has. 
3. None of the early adopters who preordered a Nook have gotten it.

At the B&N site the Expected Ship Date for Nook is now January 11th.

They have also added a page to ‘Setup Your Nook’ and a page with reviews from people (press and sites) who haven’t actually used a Nook.

Are the Nook delays due to the Spring Design lawsuit?

Again from the Nook Forum -

Anyone else hear that this is due to the Spring Design lawsuit?  Read this on another board: 

Rumor is:  The legal firm representing B&N in the Spring Design case advised them not to ship the nook until the presiding judge issues an order denying Spring Design’s motion for a preliminary injunction.  The order is expected later this week.

That would make a ton of sense – It would also explain the last-minute decision to delay things. December 7th seems to be the date when the presiding Judge decides on Spring Design’s injunction request.

So – Are all Nook preorders delayed or just a few?

• One user has had their credit card charged which certainly indicates their Nook ought to be shipping soon.
• At the same time there are multiple 1st day and 2nd day preorder people who have had their orders delayed.
• Another user had customer service assure him the Nook was shipping today.

It’s hard to say exactly what’s happening. A lot of people who preordered the Nook are upset.

If Nook really is delayed by a week, then sales of the Kindle might explode.