Round up #176: free Superman comic, NOOK loses PC & Mac apps

Round up #176: free Superman comic, NOOK loses PC & Mac apps

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

NOOK loses PC & Mac apps

Thanks to “Mooncat” in the Amazon Kindle forum for the heads up on this

TeleRead article

which I have confirmed.

The

Barnes & Noble page for NOOK apps

no longer lists apps for Windows (except Windows 8) or Macs.

Their free apps are now:

• iPad
• Android Tablet
• NOOK Kids for iPad
• Windows 8 Tablet
• iPhone (&iPod touch)
• Android SmartPhones
• Windows 8 PC
• NOOK for Web

Compare that to

Amazon’s free Kindle reading apps:

• iPad
• Android Tablet
• Windows 8 Tablet
• iPhone (& iPod touch)
• Android SmartPhones
• Windows 8 PC
• Kindle Cloud Reader
• Windows Phone
• Blackberry
• Mac
• Windows 7, XP, & Vista

This is one of those things where you just want to say, “You did what now?”

It seems like a weird move, especially with Microsoft having put all the money into the NOOK line that it has. Why no Windows phone? Why drop support for the kinds of Windows PCs that are typically running in schools and businesses (I’m guessing most of those haven’t gone to Windows 8 yet)?

It’s just one of those odd moves. Okay, sure, there may be Customer Service costs connected with them, but it may not be much. You’ve moved away from institutional support, which is one place where the money is. Yes, they could use the NOOK for Web support (similar to the Kindle Cloud Reader), but that’s really not the same.

Maybe this is preparatory for some move by Microsoft that provides some alternative to the NOOK reader?

Get a free digital Superman comic by signing up for an Amazon newsletter

With Man of Steel opening June 14th, and getting some buzz, Amazon is giving away the digital version of the recent Superman comic reboot:

Sign Up for the Amazon Comics Newsletter and Get a Free Digital Comic

Actually, DC rebooted a bunch of things with the “New 52″. You can see the details on this deal above, but it goes through July 21st and is just for first time subscribers to the Amazon Delivers Comics newsletter.

Honestly, I have serious doubts about the movie, but as always, hope it’s good.

For those of you not familiar with modern comics, this one, by George Pérez, is not really written for younger children.

Oh, and while this will look better on a Fire (partially due to the color), it’s not limited to the tablets. It’s available for these devices:

• Kindle (what I call the “Mindle”)
• Kindle Touch
• Kindle Paperwhite
• Kindle Fire
• Kindle Fire HD
• Kindle Cloud Reader
• Kindle for Windows 8
• Kindle Keyboard
• Kindle for iPad
• Kindle for Android

\S/

No more recently delivered list at MYK

We used to be able to go to

http://www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle

and see which items went to which Kindles recently. That appears to have been removed. That will complicate things for some people with many people on their account…and there is no limit to the number of devices which can be registered to an account.

I’m thinking this might be because of

Whispercast

which is Amazon’s relatively new way to manage multiple Kindles. I still intend to sign up for it myself at some point to test it out. They just may be trying to migrate people to that service.

“The Princess has stopped.”

I see (and answer) a lot of the same questions, over and over again, in the Kindle forums. I don’t mind that: I know that even though I’ve seen it a thousand times, the person wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t new to them.

However, it is still fun when I see something that is new to me.

In this

Amazon Kindle forum thread

a poster reported (and even provided a link to) an error message on a Kindle Fire that said

The Princess has stopped.

Somehow, that just seems like a great line…like something destined to become an internet meme.

You could use it when someone complains about something having been taken away from them. It would suggest that providing it was a sort of gift from royalty, and that gift has now ended.

Complaint: “Barnes & Noble took away the NOOK for Mac app!”

Response: “The Princess has stopped.”

Complaint: “I can’t see which device got which Kindle book any more!”

Response: “The Princess has stopped.”

I suggested it might be an app that has failed…the poster doesn’t have the situation resolved at the time of writing.

Kindle hardware now available through Amazon in China

This is a huge (although not unanticipated) move by Amazon!

Kindle hardware (both RSKs…Reflective Screen Kindles, and Fires) are available through

http://www.amazon.cn

I think the key thing here is the presence of the RSKs. There are certainly competitors for tablets in China, and there are EBRs (E-Book Readers), but the Paperwhite may be able to really grab some marketshare.

There are 1,322 reviews for the Paperwhite at the time of writing, with an average of 4.7 out of 5.

It’s interesting to read those reviews, although using Google translate can be challenging. They do seem to be generally positive.

The price is ¥ 849.00…about $138.47 at time of writing.

The Kindle Fire HD is ¥ 1499.00…about $244.48.

It didn’t look to me like they had videos, but they had apps, including local apps…there has already been an appstore there.

We’ll see how this goes, but this could be a nice influx of cash (if not profit) for Amazon, which could help Kindle development around the world. It could also mean more Chinese language books in the USA Kindle store, although that doesn’t seem to me to have followed directly with other international expansions.

Three characters walk into a plot…

It’s the second Saturday of the month, and that’s when my post appears in

The Writer’s Guide to E-Publishing

a blog specifically for authors.

This time, my post is

Three characters walk into a plot

about using public domain characters in Kindle Worlds works (and I describe three particular ones as examples). Even if you aren’t an author, I think you might enjoy that one. There has been a bit of a roiling response in comments over the licensing agreement, and whether or not fanfic authors need be concerned about rightsholders coming after them if they put up free unauthorized works involving copyrighted characters.

Well, I like the mix of stories in today’s round-up! If you have any comments (roiling or not),  feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Microsoft to buy NOOK division?

Microsoft to buy NOOK division?

This

TechCrunch article

by Eric Eldon and Ingrid Lunden has gotten a lot of play, and understandably so.

They claim to have seen documents about a proposed Microsoft buy-out of the NOOK part of Barnes & Noble for $1 billion.

That would include the NOOK tablets, NOOK reflective screen devices, and the college bookstore part.

Those elements were effectively separated from the brick-and-mortar Barnes & Noble trade bookstore (what most people think of when they think of Barnes & Noble) not that long ago.

The article (which I recommend you read) also suggests that B&N would be out of the tablet business by the end of next year (2014).

“Tab-tab-tablet, good-bye! Tab-tab-tablet, don’t cry!”

Or perhaps…

“Don’t cry for me, Barnes & Noble!
The tablet was just bad business
Although the screen was bright
The timing wasn’t right
We’re still a bookstore…
Until that’s no more”

One of the interesting things is that I think many people liked their NOOK tablets, and of course, they’ve just added the Google Play store (which, as I wrote earlier, puts the NOOK tablets into a hardware business instead of a content business).

That’s really the heart of the problem.

Barnes & Noble and Amazon have clearly been seen as competitors as online bookstores.

When Amazon introduced the Kindle, and later the Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble, like one of the blind people encountering the elephant in the old story, processed just through the book lens.

They thought that to compete with Amazon, they’d have to also introduce e-book hardware. Honestly, they did a very good with it (eventually). They even led in a few important points (like frontlighting the screen and peer-to-peer book lending).

However, the Kindle Fire was never, in my opinion, about e-books. I’ve always said that the device is there to get you to buy physical goods through Amazon (diapers and windshield wipers).

It’s a little bit like…let’s see. You are challenged to a sword-fighting duel. You train and train and get a really good sword. However, you find out that your opponent has jet aircraft…so you figure you’d better get them. You put all your time and energy into getting jet aircraft…even though, as it turns out, your opponent isn’t going to use those jet aircraft during the duel at all.

That doesn’t mean Amazon doesn’t want to sell e-books…I think they do. I think the money, though, is in getting you to buy the physical stuff (they also do a lot business providing services, like fulfillment and web storage, but that’s another story).

So, while Barnes & Noble was competing with Amazon on tablets, they were doing it to sell books (and apps…digital stuff). Amazon was using them as a gateway to something else. Maybe that’s a better analogy. Amazon built a nice door. Barnes & Noble built a nice door…but B&N didn’t have a store behind their door.

I do think it could happen. Microsoft could buy the NOOK business…and shut down the NOOK tablet part of it (which underperformed in the last holiday season) a year from now (maybe a bit more than a year…one more holiday season).

The question is, why would they do that? Why buy the NOOK tablet business and then shut it down?

It’s not, I think, because it is a competitor for Microsoft hardware.

I think they aren’t really buying the tablet business…they are buying the NOOK customers.

This deal would include the NOOK reflective screen devices, and it didn’t say what they might eventually do with those (if this story is all accurate).

I think for Microsoft, they want retail customers…and this would give them to them.

They could then sell Windows tablets to those customers.

I haven’t seen this in many stories, but Microsoft had an e-book business before…and eventually abandoned it. Those people who bought into .lit might be a bit wary of this.

Barnes & Noble’s investors aren’t wary, though. Take a look at this

CNN.Money stock chart

for B&N…up more than 25% in two days.

Does that mean people are saying, “Yay! Microsoft is going to buy B&N and then Barnes & Noble will make a lot of money as I stick with it through retirement?”

No, for many of them it means, “Good! I can get a better price for this turkey before I dump it.”

What would happen to the brick-and-mortar Barnes & Noble stores?

I think Leonard Riggio, the B&N founder who has made an offer for them, would get them.

Microsoft would own the NOOK hardware, NOOK Books, really all the digital content, and the college bookstores.

Riggio would own, and try to re-invent, the brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Going farther out, Microsoft would dump the NOOK hardware (including the reflective screen devices, eventually). NOOK would basically just become an app that was part of Windows. You’d have access to your NOOK books, and it would come on Microsoft devices. They might continue to sell digital content online.

Riggio…might figure something out, but I think the stores would look very different than they do today. I do think it’s still possible to make brick-and-mortar bookstores work, but you need them to be destinations. You need the shopping experience to be vastly superior to what it is online…otherwise, as Amazon gets same day delivery going, there’s not going to be much point in going to one.

We’ll see how this all plays out. If this was a leak, I don’t think the players are upset about it. They are getting valuable feedback about how the public sees the idea…and I’d say it’s been generally positive.

Could we lose Barnes & Noble as a chain trade bookstore? I think so…at least in the current configuration of it.

We’ll see what happens.

I’m interested to know what you think…you can let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

P.S. Thanks for all the well wishes about my surgery! I’m doing pretty well…my Significant Other has been very supportive, and I think my surgeon did a great job. Thanks also to those who gave me a heads-up on this story…even if I’ve already seen something, I appreciate those!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Google Play comes to NOOK tablets

Google Play comes to NOOK tablets

“And the walls come tumblin’ down…”

Barnes & Noble sent me a

press release

and then I saw this other places as well (including a heads-up from Joseph Holmberg, one of my readers.

Google Play is now going to appear on NOOK tablets.

This is an important tipping point moment.

Right away, I think people may see it on the surface as a tactical  move against Amazon’s Fire tablets. Amazon doesn’t have access to Play on their tablets: Barnes & Noble does.

Yes, people will certainly see that as a competitive advantage for Barnes & Noble. For people who haven’t decided which way to go, it gives B&N a big leg up.

However…

This goes much deeper than that. That is only the tip of the “hypeberg”, so to speak.

Both Barnes & Noble and Amazon have been primarily content providers in the past. They have sold books, which I think most people would still see as Barnes & Noble’s main focus (I’m not sure everybody thinks of Amazon that way any more).

When B&N introduced the NOOK, it was a “reader’s tablet”. You used it to get content from B&N.

Now, suddenly, that’s not the focus of the device at all.

Let’s think of Barnes & Noble as…a restaurant.

You went in, and you bought what was on their menu.

Now, when you walk in and sit down, they give you their menu…but they also give you a super menu that has the menus for ten other major restaurant chains, and you can order from them. You want a Round Table pizza delivered to your Barnes & Noble table? Fine, no problem.

The restaurant’s own menu has almost nothing on it that isn’t on those other menus, and there is a ton more choices on the other menus.

Why would you order from the restaurant’s own menu at all? It means you have to look in two different places…and one of them almost always has what you want, and the other one doesn’t.

That’s a real question: why would Barnes & Noble continue to offer their own appstore, videos, or music? That’s a lot of work, which Google will do if they don’t.

Yes, Barnes & Noble would probably make more profit on their own “menu”, but not if it isn’t making many sales for them.

I didn’t mention books on purpose, but Google Play also has books. If they ramp up that part of the store, good luck to B&N in competing…even on their own tablets.

The NOOK line has just become a hardware business, not a content business.

That then brings in another question: will people continue to buy NOOK tablets if they see them as just another tablet choice? When they don’t see them as “Barnes & Noble’s reader’s tablets” but as a direct competitor to, say, the Nexus or a Samsung?

I really think this move could lead to Barnes & Noble getting out of the tablet business eventually, or it becoming just a minor sideline.

Now, there is another important point here.

Know what else is in the Google Play store?

The Kindle app.

My  understanding  is that this means that NOOK owners can just download the Kindle app from Google Play, and with no rooting, nothing fancy at all, enjoy their Kindle e-books on their NOOK tablets.

That’s an awful big celebrity to invite to your birthday party. It makes it a little hard to keep the focus on you.

My guess is that there are some really significant changes in store (so to speak) for B&N in the next year, and this is part of it.

Should Amazon respond?

The first question is whether or not it is up to them.

While I see people blithely saying that Amazon just hasn’t paid some licensing fee to Google, I haven’t really found something that shows that is the case.

There are more references to Amazon and “walled gardens” on the internet than there are anacondas in the actual Amazon river.

Amazon is actually pretty open. They allow installation of apps from “unknown sources”. I’ve done that several times…directly from sites, like Zinio, and from other resources, like 1Mobile.

I’m careful only to do it with apps I trust, since, naturally, I take the responsibility when I install an app Amazon hasn’t tested for the Fire.

That, by the way, is going to be another major headache for Barnes & Noble with this move. They are going to get so many Customer Service contacts (which are quite expensive) about things people have downloaded from Google Play that don’t work right on their NOOK tablets (or even just about how to play them). If B&N just keeps directing them somewhere else, that’s going to be a turn off.

Back to Amazon and competitors…Amazon has apps for competitors in their Amazon Appstore. For example, they have the Netflix app: a direct competitor for Amazon Instant Video.

Does every single flavor and variety of SmartPhone that wants to be listed as compatible on Google Play pay licensing fees? They might, certainly, but I don’t know that.

I think it’s quite possible that it has been Google that has not listed the Fire, rather than the Fire which has not been made compatible in some way with Google Play.

Being compatible would be different from having the Play store natively on your device (which is what I think the NOOK tablets will have)…the latter likely would require a fee.

Will we some day have access to Google Play on our Kindle Fires? I think that’s possible. I do think a key purpose of the Fire is to get people signed up for Prime, where they will then buy profitable physical products (“diapers and windshield wipers”). Having people buy from Google Play wouldn’t necessarily impact that. I also think it’s important to note that Amazon is a producer and supplier of video in a way that Barnes & Noble isn’t…however, I suppose they could make those things available in Google Play if they had the Play store on Fires.

I don’t think that’s going to happen right away in response to this move from Barnes & Noble.

If you are losing a hot air balloon race, you might start throwing everything over board to lighten the load…in this case, B&N is throwing over their own content provision for the tablets.

If you are in the lead, like Amazon, you can afford to keep those items on board…for now.

One other quick note: this does not impact the NOOK reflective screen devices (non-tablets). You don’t install apps on those, just as you don’t install apps on RSKs (Reflective Screen Kindles).

===

Bonus tip: I’m trying not to write just about the Fire in a post, when I can avoid it.

For those of you who have missed having the free Kindle store book listings at eReaderIQ.com, try

http://www.freereadfeed.com/

I’m hoping to give you a bit more information about it soon.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

To Kill a Mockingbird e-book at B&N, but is it legal?

To Kill a Mockingbird e-book at B&N, but is it legal?

You can go to

eReaderIQ

and list books to have them notify you when they are released in Kindle format. This is one of the great free services offered by that site, which is perhaps the most valuable Kindle resource on the web.

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the most watched book right now, and typically has been.

Why isn’t it already legally in e-book form?

Well, my understanding is that Harper Lee doesn’t like to talk about TKaM, and even perhaps wishes it was never published in the first place (for personal reasons).

Rather than being specifically opposed to e-books, my sense is that no one wants to approach the author about the issue, and while that unfortunately makes the book unavailable, I can respect that.

So, it was quite a surprise when I was alerted to this listing at Barnes & Noble:

To Kill a Mockingbird e-book

Thanks to Meya, one of the Kindle Forum Pros, for that heads-up!

If this was a legitimate edition, done with permission of Harper Lee, I would have seen it announced six ways to Sunday (even though this is Sunday). It would be as big a coup as when the Harry Potter books went to e-book (although somehow, I don’t think “Harpermore” would be as fun) and if a publisher got it, they’d trumpet it.

I checked first to see that it was the book, and not a guide book or something. They have a “look inside” feature, and it appears to be the full work.

Then, I looked at the publisher listed. It says it is from “Micro Publishing”. A quick search doesn’t show me a publisher with that name.

Harper Lee has been with HarperCollins (I believe HarperCollins and Harper Lee are just  coincidentally similar) as a publisher for some time, so I checked their site: no evidence of an e-book.

Actually, that’s a good path for me: I’ll probably send HarperCollins something to give them a heads-up.

This could be a legitimate version, but I think that’s unlikely. You usually can’t complain about infringement on behalf of someone if you don’t have a personal stake in the book: it would make it too likely for nuisance removals, which is apparently what happens at YouTube.

Anyway, if this an authorized edition and Amazon also gets it, great. I think the most likely thing, though, is that this is someone using Barnes & Noble’s independent publishing platform to infringe).

What happens if you buy it as a NOOK book and it turns out it is infringing? You won’t be legally liable for anything…it’s the distribution that’s the problem. The Supreme Court has ruled that having infringing copies isn’t the same as having stolen goods (infringement and theft are two different crimes, for one thing). Amazon famously removed infringing copies of 1984 from Kindles, and said they wouldn’t do that again in the same circumstances (that was overstepping the bounds…as I mentioned, having the book wasn’t illegal). I would hope, though, that people would voluntarily delete it.

If I hear more, I’ll let you know.

Update: it appears to be gone from Barnes & Noble this morning. It’s possible that the post here and/or my contacting HarperCollins had something to do with it.

I suspect some people probably wish it was still there, but if it was infringing, I’m happy to see it gone.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Amazon price-matching B&N weekend sale leads to bargains

Amazon price-matching B&N weekend sale leads to bargains

Thanks to Holly K in the Amazon Kindle forum for this link!

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?PRO=1634&store=ebook&cm_mmc=Facebook-_-NOOK-_-product_page-_-weekend50sale

Barnes & Noble is having a big sale…half off their top 1,000 NOOK Books, this weekend only.

Amazon generally price matches,and what I’m hearing is that this is leading to some real bargains.

I’m going to test it some (and look for bargains myself, of course).

What I would suggest for you now is to use the above link, find a book there, then go back to Amazon, and check the book to see if the price is matched. If not, there is a link on the Amazon product page to tell Amazon about a lower price…do that, then come back and check it later.

My understanding is that this sale will only last this weekend…and it might not apply in your country, so as always, check prices before clicking or tapping the 1-click Buy button.

It’s also a little weird that they can do this on the top 1,000 books, since some of them should still be under the Agency Model. I’ll check that as well, but it may take a while for you to go through 1,000 books, so I wanted to let you know right away so you could get started.

Happy bargain hunting!

If you find anything you think is particularly good, feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

Update: here are some of my finds…as usual, I won’t deliberately link to books that block text-to-speech access:

Ender’s Game $3.49 at time of writing
The Lord of the Rings: One Volume Amazon has it for $9 at the time of writing…actually $1 below B&N
Wolf Hall $4.99 at time of writing
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
The Mouse and the Motorcycle $2.99 at time of writing
John Dies at the End $4.99 at time of writing
Blindness $7.50 at time of writing
“A” is for Alibi (The Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries) $3.99 at time of writing

I’m seeing the Stephanie Plum books, Alex Cross, Kim Harrison’s The Hollows series, Pretty Little Liars…

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Buy a NOOK HD+, get a free NOOK Simple Touch

Buy a NOOK HD+, get a free NOOK Simple Touch

Well, well, well!

This is a very interesting offer.

Starting this Sunday, March 24th, and running through March 31st, you can get a free NOOK Simple Touch (a $79 value) when you buy a NOOK HD+ tablet (as low as $269).

Barnes & Noble press release

That’s fascinating!

My first instinct here is that they really want to try to pump up the NOOK customer base before the company is split off (there is an offer on the table to buy the retail, non-NOOK part of the business).

I would expect that losing money (which we can assume they are doing with this) to increase the user base would be a tactic done because you expected to sell that part of the company…it makes it a more valuable property, and you might want to do that even in a non-sustainable way. I wonder if they are considering that as well? Maybe Microsoft wants to buy the whole thing (that isn’t already owned by Pearson)?

This offer is going to be available in B&N stores, the college stores, and online. Of course, people might buy the tablet and then give away the NST, or even sell it on the secondary market (look for this to depress used NST prices temporarily, since the supply will be increased without the demand being increased).

I’m sure some of you are wondering if Amazon will respond with a similar offer.

My guess is that they won’t. B&N might be mostly killing the NST stock before discontinuing it, and I’m not sure how convincing this will be at this time of year (it would have much bigger impact at either Mothers’ Day or Fathers’ Day/graduation time).

This is not the NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight, which I’m guessing might be selling better. At Amazon, the Kindle Paperwhite, is the #2 bestseller in electronics (behind the Kindle Fire HD 7″), and the “Mindle“, which is the closest price equivalent to the NST, is #4).

We’ll see what happens with the NST in the next few months…

Bonus deal! Free apps (normally paid) in the Amazon Appstore)

Thanks to Abhi of iReaderReview for the heads up on this!

18 Free Apps (normally paid)

I don’t know how long this will last, or if the titles will change. They are calling this the Free App of the Day Greatest Hits.

You’ve seen me write many times about

Dabble

I’m sure I’ve played literally thousands of games of it. It’s a nice word game…you are given tiles and arrange them into words.

I’ve set myself three goals. I want to have five highest scores over 1,000, five fastest times under twenty, and five longest streaks over 100. I’ve met the first one (scores), have two games under twenty seconds, and the highest streak I’ve gotten is 91. My Significant Other is much better than me at this, and wasn’t even tracking the stats until I started doing it. We have a fun when we challenge each other, although as I said to my SO once, “I can be less competitive than you can!”

I’m going to highly recommend you get this one for free! If you aren’t a word game player, somebody on your account might be, now or in the future.

Other apps include Bejeweled 2, Paranormal Agency, Fruit Ninja (the Puss in Boots edition), and a Wubbzy game.

Thanks, Abhi!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

“This is a nook owner’s worst nightmare”: what happens if B&N drops the NOOK?

“This is a nook owner’s worst nightmare”: what happens if B&N drops the NOOK?

I recently wrote about a significant decline in Barnes & Nobles’ NOOK business.

That prompted one of my readers, Bruce K, to ask about what would be the upshot for NOOK owners if B&N dropped that part of the business. The comment included the quotation that headlines this story.

Well, let’s look at the issue.

The first thing to note is that this isn’t like Beta versus VHS or LPs versus CDs. Getting to your e-books isn’t a hardware issue like those, it’s a software issue.

If you have Beta tapes (I do) and nothing on which to play them, they aren’t worth much to you.

When you are looking at a digital file, all you need is the right software to read it…not a specific physical piece of equipment.

If B&N dropped the NOOK hardware part, but kept doing NOOK books (and providing the wide range of NOOK reader apps they have, in a way similar to Amazon), you’ll have your content. Oh, you might not want to read it on a tablet with the NOOK app, but that might be what happens (or you could read it on a computer, a SmartPhone, and so on).

If the NOOK hardware was no longer available new, of course that might mean that publishers would be less likely to release books in that format. Eventually, somebody who owned NOOKs and didn’t want to switch to something else (like a Kindle) might find that the books they want to read aren’t available to them.

Barnes & Noble could also stop servicing NOOKs…probably once the warrantys ran out.

So, what happens if Barnes & Noble drops the NOOK book business (as opposed to the hardware)?

My first guess is that somebody else would buy it. There’s probably enough of a customer base to make that happen. The new owners could change the rules…for example, they could charge you an annual fee to back-up your books for you. If the company was just doing NOOK books, they couldn’t use them to inspire other sales, the way Barnes & Noble could with NOOKs and the bookstores. They also might not be able to sell you physical accessories in a profitable way.

My Significant Other suggested Amazon might buy the business in that case, but I think that might be a tough one to get by regulators. Hmm…I suppose Amazon could offer NOOK owners some serious incentives (like giving them some of their NOOK books for free as Kindle store books), but I don’t think they’d have any real motivation to do that. NOOK owners would be very likely to go to Amazon with no incentive.

Let’s go further and say that Barnes & Noble drops the NOOK books business, and no one else picks it up.

The big issue would be where you had your books. If they were only on Barnes & Nobles’ servers, you might just be out of luck. I suspect they would give you some time to download them before shutting the service down.

For ones you had downloaded, they would be good while the device for which they were licensed was still operating. To my knowledge, downloaded e-books do not have to confirm their licenses periodically through the internet.

Once that device died, though, and presuming you had copied the files onto another device (like a computer), what could you do with them?

The files would generally have DRM (Digital Rights Management) on them which keyed them to the dead device*. That software would prevent them from being opened and read on another device.

Generally, it is illegal for citizens to strip the DRM from a file, thanks to something called the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act):

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c105:6:./temp/~c105VCaCt8:e11351:

“Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

`(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title…”

Even though it is possible to remove DRM technically, it might be illegal to do so under these circumstances.

Might be.

That’s where it gets a bit tricky, and where I could see us having a decision made that it is legal.

There are exemptions to the rule about not circumventing access, and those rules are revisited regularly (every three years).

It all gets pretty complicated, but you can read the most recent discussion of exemptions here:

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2012/Section_%201201_%20Rulemaking%20_2012_%20Recommendation.pdf

It is possible that, if NOOK books were not supported in the market, the Copyright Office would determine it was okay to break the DRM to convert the books to other formats.

My own guess is that it won’t come to that…I do think somebody would pick up the service, if it was necessary.

Certainly, I don’t want to see the NOOK business end, for a couple of reasons. One is for the people who own them…even if they still have access to the books they’ve already purchased, access to books in the future seems inevitably limited to me.

Another is that it helps Kindle owners to have more competitors. Barnes & Noble has led some innovations for EBRs (E-Book Readers) and e-books, with Amazon following and responding.

Microsoft poured a ton of money into the NOOK business, and they could end up as the owners of the format, if B&N dropped it.

Of course, Microsoft stopped selling its own format, .lit, late in 2012, as I wrote about in this earlier post.

I’ve said several times that I think it is more likely that my descendants will have access to my Kindle store books than that they will have access to my paperbooks, and I still think that’s the case.

If I had NOOK books? I wouldn’t be as sure…

What do you think?

Feel free to tell me and my readers by commenting on this post.

* Update: one of my very technically adept readers, Tom Semple, has pointed out that the book files aren’t really keyed to a specific device. I was equating Barnes & Noble’s system with Amazon’s, and that appears to be incorrect. Read Tom’s comments to see some information about which apps and devices could read your NOOK books. I’m at least a bit relieved to see that David Pogue of the New York Times also had to clarify that idea:

New York Times: “How Compatible Are Rival E-Readers?”

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

NOOK Media LLC earnings (BITDA) decline 129%

NOOK Media LLC earnings (BITDA) decline 129%

Ruh-roh.

Barnes & Noble released their 3rd quarter (ending January 26, 2013) financial results today, and it’s not looking good for the NOOK:

press release

The NOOK Media LLC part of the company isn’t just the NOOK hardware, it’s also digital content (NOOK Books, apps) and accessories.

Digital content sales increased 6.8% year over year…which makes the NOOK hardware drop even more severe.

There just isn’t a way to make this look good, and to their credit, Barnes & Noble doesn’t even really try to spin it that way in the press release:

“In terms of the NOOK Media business, we’ve taken significant actions to begin to right size our cost structure in the NOOK segment, while also taking a large markdown on NOOK devices in order to enhance our ability to achieve our estimated sales plans in subsequent quarters…”

Okay, CEO (Chief Executive Officer) William Lynch did use the businessy term of “right size”, but everybody understands that’s an admission of currently being the wrong size.

So, their losses (based on EBITDA…Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) for the NOOK and accessories were probably something like $200 million…in one quarter. I say “probably something like” because the loss for the whole segment was $190.4 million, and the digital content likely had positive earnings.

That included the holiday season.

If that trend continued, we could reasonably say that the losses for a year would be the better part of a billion dollars.

It appears that the NOOK hardware may have even dragged down brick-and-mortar results.

“The Retail segment, which consists of the Barnes & Noble bookstores and BN.com businesses, had revenues of $1.5 billion for the quarter, decreasing 10.3% over the prior year.  This decrease was attributable to a 7.3% decline in comparable store sales, store closures and lower online sales.  Core comparable store sales, which exclude sales of NOOK products, decreased 2.2% as compared to the prior year.  Sales of NOOK products in the Retail segment declined during the quarter due to lower unit volume.”

I like the explanation in the last sentence…that seems like answering the question of, “Why did your team lose the game?” with “They scored more points than we did.”

I’ve said before that I think the NOOK is a good piece of hardware, and they have done some things to innovate. However, this certainly doesn’t look good.

B&N did say, “…NOOK Media still remains committed to its Tablet and e-Reader business.”

What do you think? Should B&N just give up on the NOOK? Is this just a temporary lull, and it will recover fully in the future? Does this mean Barnes & Noble is more or less likely to accept the offer on the table to buy the retail segment? Feel free to let me and my readers know what you think by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

The Barnes & Noble bookstores buy back bid

The Barnes & Noble bookstores buy back bid

Right now, Barnes & Noble is sort of split into two pieces.

One of them is the digital sector, including NOOK hardware and NOOK Books. Also in this part is the college bookstore business.

The other part is largely the brick-and-mortar side, the physical bookstores.

If you were an investor, looking to buy one or the other, what would look more attractive to you?

Well, if you are Leonard Riggio, the answer is apparently the latter.

That may seem odd…aren’t e-books all the rage and the future?

Yes, that’s certainly possible…although they aren’t the majority of income being generated right now in the book business. It’s like…e-books are a candelabra sitting on a table. They are getting all the attention, but you still need the table to be able to serve dinner.

That certainly may change over time.

Why would Riggio make an offer like that?

Leonard Riggio already owns a large part of Barnes & Noble…and is really the founder of the company.

Part of this may certainly be sentimental…wanting to get back into the core business.

On the other hand, the NOOK is considered by some to have had a disappointing 2012. Getting into tablets put them into a different market, and a very competitive one.

I think it is possible that Barnes & Noble will take the deal, whatever it is exactly.

There is speculation that, if that happens, the NOOK is in trouble.

There’s been a lot of money invested into the NOOK line (including by Microsoft), and perhaps the NOOK investors really didn’t want to be in the brick-and-mortar business.

You might feel like it is all about selling books, so it should be the same market drivers, but that’s not the case. Selling paperbooks (p-books) and selling e-books may have some strong overlap, but running a brick-and-mortar store (and I speak as a former manager) and selling a piece of hardware are two very different things.

I have to say, I’m seeing a lot of talk about how heavily B&N bet on the NOOK.

That’s where I see something that feels fundamentally different to me about Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Barnes & Noble bet on a device…Amazon bets on ideas.

Three ideas, specifically: service, selection, and price.

I always picture somebody pitching an idea in an Amazon meeting (after they sat around and read the summary together…they do that).

The idea is presented, and somebody says, “Yes, but how does that deliver better service, greater selection, or lower prices?”

I think Jeff Bezos has correctly identified those as core tenets that never need to change.

The Kindle brought people amazing new service…a bookstore at the end of your sleeve.

Kindle books initially brought you better prices (compared to hardback equivalents on New York Times bestsellers, for example).

The goal was for it to eventually improve selection (“Every book ever published”) although that wasn’t going to happen at first.

It’s not that every idea needs to serve all three tenets at once…service and price can be at loggerheads, for one thing.

Barnes & Noble led in some important ways with reading hardware and service (they had peer to peer booklending first, and a frontlit EBR…E-Book Reader).

It just didn’t feel to me, though, like it was an idea that was driving the NOOK…it was “MEtooism”, trying to compete with others.

If something came along that gave better service, better selection, and lower prices than the Kindle, do I think Amazon would embrace it?

Absolutely.

We’ll see what happens (Barnes & Noble will announce third quarter results on Thursday, February 28th). I remember that some people were concerned about going with a NOOK (which I do think is a good piece of hardware) because of worries about Barnes & Noble having the long-term stability that they saw for Amazon…they may be feeling vindicated, although it’s a bit soon to tell.

I do think that, if, Riggio ends up owning the stores, it improves their chances to stick around. Leonard Riggio is able to innovate, and is clearly passionately committed to the business.

Here are some stories I found interesting on this:

• Barnes & Noble press release
• Reuters article
• TechHive: “Scaling back the Nook e-reader would be bad news for book publishers”
• SFGate on the stock: “Barnes & Noble Gains on Founder’s Plan to Buy Retail Assets”

What do you think? Is the NOOK a mature enough device to stand without the trade bookstores? Is Riggio doing this just because it makes good business sense, or is there an emotional component to it? Am I painting too nice a picture of Amazon, and not a nice enough one of Barnes & Noble’s motivations and vision? Could the bookstores survive without the NOOK for, say, ten years? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Round up #139: how tablets and bookstores did at the holidays, Color Purple for $1.99

Round up #139: how tablets and bookstores did at the holidays, Color Purple for $1.99

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

NOOK sales down 12.9% 

While I don’t see the press release yet at

http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/newsroom/press_releases_list.html

I expect it will be there later today.

Update: the press release is now posted here.

Barnes & Noble has announced holiday sales, and I’m glad they didn’t try to obfuscate the results.

Putting it simply, they weren’t good.

Here is one of the key things:

“The NOOK segment, which consists of the company’s digital business (including Readers, digital content and accessories), had revenues of $311 million for the nine-week holiday period, decreasing 12.6% as compared to a year ago.  Digital content sales increased 13.1%, while NOOK device unit sales declined during the holiday period as compared to the prior year.  Digital content sales are defined to include digital books, digital newsstand, and the apps business. “

Yes, digital content sales increased, and that’s good, but the offset for hardware  resulted in a significant decline. They sold fewer of them this year, despite having new (and generally well-reviewed) models.

I commend CEO William Lynch for honesty, saying they “…will adjust our strategies accordingly going forward”. That might mean fewer models this year.

Did Amazon do better with multiple models?

Thanks to a reader who alerted me in a private e-mail to this

Seeking Alpha post

The author, Adam Levine-Weinberg, makes a reasonable point that the Kindle Fire 8.9″ doesn’t sit atop the bestseller list at Amazon, and may not have done as well as might be expected. While I use mine daily, I would have to say it is the Kindle with which I have been least thrilled. It’s a lot more money for what doesn’t seem to me to be a lot more value over the 7″, at least for me. I got the 4G model, mostly so I could write about it, but I almost haven’t used 4G at all, except for testing it. The larger screen doesn’t seem worth the increased bulkiness, but that might be just me.

I recommend the article, so you can see the methodology.

$50 off KF8.9 for Amazon Students

Amazon is giving

$50 off KF8.9 for Amazon Students

this month, lowering the price to $249 for the least expensive.

For the wi-fi only model, that gets it down to a more reasonable price. You still have to decide if 2.9″ of screen size is worth $50 extra for you, and you do get X-Ray for Textbooks (which I have not tested yet).

Read the details at the above link before buying. You need to be a qualified member of Amazon Student (a type of Amazon Prime, basically), and that includes being a free member. You need to enter a code (KNDL4STU) at check-out.

KDD: The Color Purple for $1.99

Among today’s Kindle Daily Deals is The Color Purple by Alice Walker for $1.99. This is the Pulitzer Prize winner which was adapted into a movie direct by Steven Spielberg, and is currently a musical. If you haven’t read it, be prepared for it to be emotionally challenging.

As always, check the price before you click or tap that Buy button. This deal may not apply in your country, and it is for a limited time.

The Millions: “My New Year’s Resolution: Read Fewer Books”

Thanks to Publishers Weekly for the heads-up, through my morning Flipboard read, on this

The Millions essay

by Michael Bourne.

I think people very often read because they set goals for themselves, and that’s not a bad thing. One person might want to read a book a week, and another might want to go through a “books you must read” list.

I’ve done it myself. When I managed a brick and mortar bookstore, I read a book in each section (and encouraged my employees to do the same).

That wasn’t because I thought I’d enjoy and learn from each one, necessarily, but I thought it could make me a better person (and bookseller).

I also always finish every book I start…even though that can sometimes be tough slogging.

In both of those cases, it wasn’t reading for reading’s sake…it was, in a sense, to prove something. It was to have a sense of accomplishment.

Bourne relates it to running a marathon. It isn’t because you are trying to get somewhere, it is because you are trying to do something.

Certainly, there can be benefits to running marathons and to “reading marathons” (although on the former, I always want to point out to people that the marathon distance isn’t famous because it was healthy, but because it killed the first person).

It can also, though, be selfish. It can take time away from other things (and people) in your life, and if it isn’t really benefiting you (and them), is it worth it?

I thought the essay was a fascinating perspective, and I do recommend it.

Publishers Weekly: “Indie Bookstores Have Big Holiday Sales”

Speaking of PW, this is a heartening read

PW article

It is a report on their annual holiday sales survey of independent bookstore owners, and things look good. That included both long-established businesses and newbies.

That doesn’t mean that there weren’t and won’t continue to be significant closures. However, it does suggest that there isn’t a direct causative relationship between more e-content selling and local bookstores doing worse.

Asus gives up on netbooks

On the other hand, I do think tablets, like the iPad and the Kindle Fire, are directly impacting sales of netbooks.

This

gigaom article

makes it clear…after five years, the netbook is pretty much going away.

Simply, tablets are a better fit for the same functions.

It’s similar to the way that e-books are mashing the mass market paperback segment. Mass markets had the niche of being cheaper and more convenient than hardbacks or larger paperbacks. That role now goes to e-books (which also don’t decay in the same way), so MMPs are in real trouble.

What do you think? Will we see fewer new tablets and EBRs (E-Book Readers) introduced this year? Will B&N’s stock tank for the next couple of days (and then, perhaps, recover)? Are you still using a netbook? Should indie bookstores be supported just because they are indies? Why do you think people choose to shop there, rather than buying online? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.