Things to Read: May 03, 2012

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THIS WEEK: We get to see the Christian Book Award winners, at last! Microsoft made waves with a $300 million investment in B&N. Which is just a little less than the total revenues for the total adult trade in books this past January (see the AAP report). So, there’s plenty of speculation as to what this deal might mean—especially for Apple and Amazon.

Jackie Collins made her own splash by diving into the deep-end of the indie-published ebook pool. (She’s not leaving her publishers, but she practically announced the death of physical book publishing.) Meanwhile, USA Today stands up a new book site, Bowker says the rise of the tablet is eclipsing the ereader, Amazon is “reshaping” publishing, and Huffington Post calls for more innovation.

To close out this week’s roundup we note that we’re wired for story and narrative, provide a fun infographic for story structure, and see that Tyndale House has been telling its story for 50 years.

Enjoy!

1. Christian Book Award winners for 2012

   

   « The 2012 Christian Book of the Year is Nearing Home by Billy Graham (Thomas Nelson). Other winners include: ESV Student Study Bible (Crossway); Dictionary of Christian Spirituality by Glen G. Scorgie (Zondervan); The Story for Children, A Storybook Bible by Max Lucado, Randy Frazee, & Karen Davis Hill (Zonderkidz); The Queen by Steven James (Revell/Baker); Love Amid the Ashes by Mesu Andrews (Revell/Baker); Close Enough to Hear God Breathe by Greg Paul (Thomas Nelson); The Law of Happiness by Henry Cloud (Howard).… »

   

    Christian Book Expo

   

2. Microsoft invests $300 million in new Barnes & Noble ‘strategic partnership’

   

   « The strategic partnership—Microsoft loves ’em—would come in the form of a new Barnes and Noble subsidiary that deals with all things Nook, in addition to its education business. The bookseller would hold onto the lion’s share at 82.4%, with the remaining 17.6% in Microsoft’s control. The first benefit posited would be a Nook app for the incoming Windows 8. Barnes and Noble’s Nook Study software would also benefit from a friendly boost on all that Windows hardware. Maybe all those other legal matches will resolve in similar warm-and-fuzzy business hook-ups—but we doubt it.… »

   

    Engadget

   See Also:
   • Investors circle Barnes & Noble as it plans to spin off the Nook business via The Register
   • Microsoft buys into Nook: 5 reasons why via International Business Times
   • Possibilities abound in Microsoft, Barnes & Noble deal via Digital Book World
   • B&N and Microsoft: Why it’s not about ebooks via Joe Wikert

   

3. Soon you’ll be able to use your Nook to buy books in Barnes & Noble stores

   

   « B&N CEO William Lynch says that the company plans to embed NFC (near field communication) chips into Nooks. Users could take their Nook into a Barnes & Noble store and wave it near a print book to get info on it or buy it. That could help someone gain quick information on their Nook about a book, making it easy to go from browsing to buying.… »

   

    GigaOM

   

4. Jackie Collins decides to self-publish

   

   « Let me say up front that I will personally always love physical books. I love how a new book feels in your hands. I love turning the pages one-by-one as you curl up in a chair and engross yourself in the story. But I also know that to stay successful, you’ve always got to be thinking two steps ahead of the game. And by all counts, the book industry is going the way of the CD industry. Almost nobody buys CDs anymore; we get our music fix on iTunes.… »

   

    Jackie Collins

   

5. USA Today launches books.usatoday.com to expand coverage of books

   

   « Unique to the books.usatoday.com site is the opportunity for consumers to now preview a book from the USA Today Best-Selling Books list and purchase it from a vendor of their choice, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore or IndieBound, an association of independent booksellers.… »

   

    Book Publishing News

   See Also:
   • USA Today Books via USA Today

   

6. The dark side of free

   

   « The other negative I’ve seen is that the fringe buyer for indie books, the reader at the margins who might have been willing to give a new author a test drive in exchange for a few bucks, now doesn’t. Instead, they download free books. Their kindles are clogged with books they will never have the time to read, but they can’t help themselves.… »

   

    Russell Blake

   

7. Another publisher rejects DRM

   

   « Duncan Baird Publishers (& Watkins Publishing) has taken the decision to put our readers at the heart of our digital publishing by removing Digital Rights Management (DRM) from our trade epublishing list.… DBP, and our authors, believe that our readers should be able to read their book in whatever format and on whatever hardware they choose, so we are taking steps to make sure that our ebooks are, as much as humanly possible, not platform-specific.… »

   

    Digital Book World

   See Also:
   • Don’t tell me the truth about DRM via FutureBook

   

8. Consumers choosing tablets over e-readers, e-book sales to suffer

   

   « As tablet popularity rises and e-readers falls, the e-book business could suffer, according to Kelly Gallagher, vice president of publishing services at Bowker Market Research…. &Quot;Tablets will adversely affect the e-book business in that the tablet is a multifunction device and will therefore draw the reader into non-book activities and therefore cause them to consume books slower and therefore buy fewer books versus a single function e-reading device," said Gallagher.… »

   

    Digital Book World

   See Also:
   • More tablets run Amazon’s version of Android than Google’s via AllThings Digital
   • The ‘smartphone class’: always on, always consuming content via eMarketer
   • Readers will pay more for ebooks with music and multimedia in it via Book Publishing News

   

9. Amazon aren’t destroying publishing, they’re reshaping it

   

   « Google, Apple and Amazon are vying to become literature’s new gatekeepers. But good publishing is about more than market share… If Amazon was truly consumer-centric, it would do away with DRM and adopt the ePub format, allowing users to consume their media on any device and through any software they choose, securing them from obsolescence and errors in DRM servers, accidental deletions and the rest. And that it most emphatically does not do. … »

   

    The Guardian

   See Also:
   • Ebook price-fixing: finding the best model for publishers — and readers via Time Magazine

   

10. Publishing industry has strong January revenue growth in print books & ebooks for all audiences

    

    « The US publishing industry saw dynamic net sales revenue growth in Adult, Children’s, Young Adult and Religious categories in January 2012 as compared to January 2011, according to the monthly industry snapshot report produced by the Association of American Publishers. These figures are part of a significant expansion of the AAP monthly new sales revenue report also launching this month. The report now has a name — AAP Monthly StatShot — and now includes a considerably larger base of participating publishers (from an average 75-90 in the past to 1149 this month) and additional categories including eBook data for Children/Young Adults and Hardcover, Paperback and eBook data for Religious Presses.… »

    

     Association of American Publishers

    

11. The big six book publishers need to innovate like the good Americans that they are

    

    « When creating hardcover books, start with customized end pages that reflect the scenes the author is writing about. Hire some graphics guru to throw together a tasteful color insert that makes readers tear up with their emotional connection to the story. Craft eye-popping flap jackets and cover art that captures the original enthusiasm; make us feel the magic that inspired the author to start writing the book in the first place. Simply, create a product where the book production is integrated with the narrative, and where the product as a whole reflects the spirit of the thing. Amazon’s e-books can never compete with that.… »

    

     The Huffington Post

    See Also:
    • Global publishing market expected to increase to a value of $273,048 million by the end of 2016 via Business Wire
    • McGraw-Hill posts rise in Q1 profit via Proactive Investors
    • Selected findings of US Religion Census via Scripps News

    

12. Why storytelling is the ultimate weapon

    

    « [H]umans simply aren’t moved to action by "data dumps," dense PowerPoint slides, or spreadsheets packed with figures. People are moved by emotion. The best way to emotionally connect other people to our agenda begins with "Once upon a time…"… Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story’s persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.… »

    

     Co.Create

    

13. Infographic: Mapping popular story plot lines

    

    « Finally! The secret ingredient to writing a good book has been revealed. Plot Lines, the infographic from Delayed Gratification, the slow journalism magazine, shows the dominant themes in last year’s books nominated for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.… If you want to write a hit novel, it pays to stick with the tried-and-true plot lines. DEATH of your characters is clearly the overall winning theme, with every one of the novels listed from 2011 including death as a theme. Other classics like WAR, LOVE, BETRAYAL and CORRUPTION followed closely. Obscure plot points like AN ESCAPED TIGER and HOMICIDAL COWBOY BROTHERS are certainly much more of a risk.… »

    

     Cool Infographics

    See Also:
    • Infographic: Meet the 19% via Media Bistro

    

14. Tyndale House Publishers celebrates 50 years

    

    « Tyndale is compiling a commemorative gift book, The Tyndale House 50th Anniversary Reader, as a limited edition for private distribution to employees, key retailers and industry leaders. A special online page—Tyndale.com/50th—affords friends of the company an opportunity to learn about the company’s history and share greetings or upload a picture or video through a virtual birthday card.… The company—a corporation owned by the Tyndale House Foundation—operates under its longtime mission statement: "To minister to the spiritual needs of people, primarily through literature consistent with biblical principles."… »

    

     Christian Retailing

    See Also:
    • We use narrative as a way to make sense of the world via 40K Books
    • Books that sell must be… appealing! via Huff Post
    • Four things that make a memoir publishable via Huff Post

    

Note: This resource has been curated for your enjoyment and education. It is intended to reflect what publishers and leaders in the Christian publishing industry are thinking and talking about — it does not reflect the positions or opinions of Zondervan, its authors, agents, employees, or leadership.