Harvard Coop: ISBNs are our intellectual property

In what must be one of the most incredible arguments in the world of book data, the Harvard Coop has been punting students out of its store for jotting down ISBNs and pricing information (in an attempt to do an online search to see if they can find the books cheaper elsewhere) - on the premise that the ISBNs are the bookstore's intellectual property and the students are thus violating copyright law by taking them down.

Here's the real deal, in case anyone is wondering: 

If an ISBN is anyone's property, it's the publisher's property. The publisher bought and paid for the ISBN. The Coop is way out of line on this one. What those students are doing is completely legal. The only way the Coop could justifiably kick students out of the store is if they have a policy stating that comparison shopping is not permitted in the store.

This situation, however, adds fuel to the textbook-pricing-is-out-of-control fire - and furthers our own argument that digital textbooks are pretty much the only way costs are going to come down on textbooks, and that libraries will be playing an increasing role in textbook distribution just as they do with scholarly journal distribution. For more on this, see the latest issue of The Big Picture, or download our white paper, "What Publishers Should Know About Libraries."

HarperCollins launches AuthorAssistant

The Bookseller reported on Tuesday that HarperCollins has launched a new service for readers and authors called AuthorAssistant:

AuthorAssistant allows authors to create and post personalized information and gives readers a chance to learn more about their favorite authors....On the author pages, readers can see comprehensive biographical information, links to press and articles, author blogs and favorite websites, photo albums, news, essays and more.

 

Simply Audiobooks Launches DRM-free Titles

Simply Audiobooks announced on Tuesday that they are now selling DRM-free titles:

Simply Audiobooks, the second largest player in the audio book download market, after Audible/iTunes, today announced that they now support DRM-free (digital rights management-free) audio book content and plan to eventually become altogether DRM-free.

They take a jab at competitor Audible.com at the end of their press release:

[Vitaly] Petritchkovitch [Director of Simply Audiobooks Digital] added that Simply Audiobooks' competitors, most notably Audible.com, are coming down on the wrong side of technological history by continuing to tie their service inflexibly to DRM audio files. "Being controlled like that is simply not what our customers want, and we are among the first to respond to consumers' demand for DRM-free content.

Shelf Awareness launches new service

Shelf Awareness, in partnership with Unshelved, has announced a new service for publishers with drop-in titles (or crash titles):

Drop-in titles (also known as crash or add-in titles) continue to grow--and getting the word to booksellers and librarians about these sudden new books or titles with major last-minute changes is ever more problematic. Publishers send the information via reps, faxes and e-mail, a process many of them admit is cumbersome. Sometimes the message makes it through, but booksellers and librarians often feel deluged by the material and can't keep track of it all. Opportunities are lost.... For a small fee, announcements about drop-in titles will appear in the Shelf Awareness and Unshelved newsletters--and then reside in our drop-in title database web site. The web site is fully searchable and will archive all drop-in listings.

 

US Publishers to Canada: Oh, Dang

From USA Today:

Bookworms north of the border are likely to ratchet up their complaints about the U.S. imports, now that the shrinking U.S. dollar and rising Canadian dollar met at value parity last week.

Prices there have been a lightning rod for scrutiny, partly because both U.S. and Canadian prices for the same book typically are on the dust jacket. While the U.S. dollar historically has had a higher value than Canada's, Canadian prices for books typically have been higher than exchange rates alone could explain...."Before, when there was a 5% or 10% difference (in the currencies), people would … accept that the Canadian price was higher without making a calculation," says Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. "Now that we're spot-on parity, it's tougher to explain away that difference."

 

Borders Changes

Luke Johnson, the new Borders UK owner, is full of new plans - in addition to taking the online business back from Amazon, he's planning on closing a few stores in the UK - as quoted in a number of sources (Publishers Lunch, Book Standard, etc.): "We will probably shut a few of the shops that are not contributing, but we're talking about a handful."

Johnson's Risk Capital Partners purchased Borders UK for about 10 million pounds cash plus another 10 million if performance improves. Which is, all things considered, pretty cheap. At least the Oxford Circus store is staying open, which is what we care about most.

 

Ingram to Forbes: WTF?

The Forbes 400 apparently had listed Ingram Books as having a pretty awful year - down 48% in book sales. However, John Ingram begged to differ, as PW reported:

He said that sales in the book division rose modestly in 2006 and are up significantly in 2007....“Not only is our core book wholesaling business steady, but our Lightning Source business continues to grow rapidly, and our Ingram Digital opportunities are extremely exciting,” John Ingram said.

LibraryThing Launches Google Book Search Search

Life just gets more meta. In the words of LibraryThing, they've just launched a search program that runs through Google Book Search - they call it a "bookmarklet":

Last week Google introduced an interesting "My Library" feature, allowing people with Google accounts to list some of their books. A few tech bloggers saw an attack on LibraryThing.

LibraryThing members were quick to dismiss it. It wasn't so much the lack of any social features, or of cataloging features as basic as sorting your books. It wasn't even the privacy issues, although these gave many pause. It was the coverage.

Google just doesn't have the sort of books that regular people have. Most of their books come from a handful of academic libraries, and academic libraries don't have the same editions regular people have. Then there are the books publishers have explicitly removed from Google Book Search. Success rates of below 50% were common. Of these a high percentage are only "limited preview" or "no preview."

The Google-kills-LibraryThing meme has another dimension. We WANT people to use Google Book Search. It's a great tool. Being able to search your own books is useful, and LibraryThing members should be able to do it. Call us naive, but we aren't going to be able to "pretend Google isn't there." And we aren't convinced that Google is going to create the sort of robust cataloging and social networking features that LibraryThing has.

Our bookmarklet works by transcending ISBNs, using what LibraryThing knows about titles, authors and dates to fetch other editions of a work. In limited tests I've found it picks up around 90% of LibraryThing titles.

MyiLibrary Adds Publishers

MyiLibrary has added 12 new publishers to its program, bringing the total number of publishers working with MyiLibrary to 350. The new publishers are:

• Bit 10
• Council of Europe
• Eleven International Publishing
• G7 Books
• How to Books
• Insomniac Press
• M&M Scrivener
• Opera Journeys Publishing
• Policy Press
  
• Scion Publishing
• Tottel Publishing
• University of Calgary Press
  

More On Book Videos

Well, TurnHere.com is all over the news lately (its CEO, Brad Inman, was quoted in New York Magazine's article on real estate this week), and today GalleyCat got all book video on us. Check here for a trailer of Naomi Klein's new book by Alfonso Cuaron (of Harry Potter III and A Little Princess). And other tasty amusements.

What's emusic Got...?

Web retailer eMusic.com has added audiobooks to its offerings. Right behind iTunes in terms of online sales of downloadable music, eMusic.com will offer about 1000 audiobook titles from a variety of publishers (Random House, Hachette, etc.). The big selling point? No DRM. So customers can download audiobooks to iPods, Zunes, or whatever other MP3 player they have.

Audiobooks are only offered via subscription. PW reports:

Not all those in the audiobook industry are comfortable with the notion of selling DRM-free files. Michelle Cobb, president of the APA (as well as director of sales and marketing for BBC Audiobooks America), said eMusic's sales model is a "concern," but anything that grows the audiobooks market is exciting. Nonetheless, the announcement will force the APA to deal more directly with the issue that's capsized the music industry and has been looming large in the audiobook one: piracy. "We're now [going to have to face] some things we haven’t had to deal with on a daily basis, and look at them more carefully."

Digital divide bridged in Kansas City

Kansas City, Kansas voted to allow high school students in its district to check out laptops and take them home, reports KCTV5.com:

Half of the students in the district don't have access to a computer at home.

"With the ability to check out laptops, students will engage in higher levels of critical thinking, work to close their own learning gaps, become productive and creative students ready to exit high school college- and career-ready," said Dr. Cynthia Lane, Assistant to the Superintendent for Business and Instructional Support Services.

This? Rocks. 

IDPF approves Open Publication Structure 2.0

The members of the IDPF have approved the Open Publication Standard v. 2.0, according to Publishers Weekly:

The IDPF adoption of OPS 2.0 along with the ".epub" file format that goes with it (the OPS 2.0 standard uses the .epub file extension for reflowable text) means that publishers can now create one digital book file instead of the 6 to10 formats previously required....The new standard also means interoperability for ebooks with consumers now being able to read non-DRM digital books on any software or device that uses the .epub standard.

Woo-hoo! So now you can download MobiPocket ebooks to read on your Sony Reader, right? 

Audible to publish first novel

Shelf Awareness reports that Jeffrey Deaver is publishing an audiobook via Audible.com as a project to benefit the International Thriller Writers. Written with 15 other contributors (including Lisa Scottoline and Lee Child), the book will be released as an Audible original; the first three chapters are available for download on September 25th.

Book Video Company Needs Salespeople

TurnHere, whose videos we covered a little earlier today, is now advertising on Craigslist for a "Publishing Vertical Sales Manager". Given that they just signed deals with 12 new accounts, that's a good sign of expansion.

Book video time really HAS come.