Buzz

June 30th, 2008 |

A bit in this mornings Times asks about that illustrious creature the honeybee and why they are disappearing – if their reporter was up on his TV he would know (from Saturdays Doctorumentary) that they are just returning to their home planet of Mellissa Majoria. No extermination there.

Coming Soon To A Store Near You

June 23rd, 2008 |

When I read in Publishers Weekly, back in April, that Print On Demand outfit Lightning Source had signed a deal with On Demand Books I had a feeling that something was in the air.

This weekend I read in The Guardian that Blackwells book shops are to install what has been called the ATM of books. Several of their outlets are to trial the Espresso Book Machine which won the Time Magazine ‘Best Invention of the Year 2007’ in their Living catagory.

Now I don’t like to say “I told you so!” but I did predict this over a year ago in the previous incarnation of this blog.

At about $50,000 a pop I can’t see many indie shops going for one of these machines… yet. Supply and demand will, of course, bring down the price - remember how much DVD recorders used to cost - let’s hope this roll out will rejuvenate book reading and in ten years time - you never know - there may be one on every corner.

Publishing; But Not As We Know It

June 9th, 2008 |

There has been, for the past few weeks, several spats going on over the news that Amazon US now wants POD publishers to use their Booksurge service for printing or lose the ‘Buy Now’ button on their web site.

Yesterday I noticed this in the Sunday Herald; basically a UK publisher standing up to Amazon by way of telling them to get stuffed over their demand for greater discounts.

The way I understand publishing to work is that there is a printing price, a royalty for the author and a fulfillment price; this is what the retailer takes for selling the work. If a book costs £3.99 to print and the author royalty is set at £1.00 this makes the fulfillment £3.00 on a book costing £7.99. Where do you discount? Print more copies thereby bringing down the first price or make the authors royalty smaller. And then there are ‘returns’

Two problems here: If you print more it ‘costs’ more; paper, transport, environmental damage (returns are often just incinerated). If you reduce the royalty the author suffers.

Is the way forward to be e-books via the Kindle or the Sony reader? Probably not as figures show that most people prefer a paper book and POD is now cheaper than standard printing for runs of fewer than 1,200 copies.

Back before 1995 we had something called the Net Book Agreement. I suggest we return to it.

Pssst!... (part II)

June 2nd, 2008 |

I read that a 12-week national debate starts today, instigated by the UK Department of Health, entitled ‘The Future of Tobacco Control’. PDF

In these proposals are the usual steps towards cutting down on smoking but also:

The banning of cigarette machines so that kids won’t use them - suggestion: make them credit card only - you have to be over 18 to get one. Simple solution and you don’t send to the wall companies who provide this service. Out of the UK population there are c.16m people who smoke; c.350000 of these are kids (under 16); 17% of these buy from vending machines - my maths (non too hot :) ) says that this is 20500. Where’s the problem when twice this many nick them from parents/adults/friends and 78% just buy them from a shop? (just as a side note there are more kids injured/killed on the nations roads than buy cigs from vending machines - lets ban cars… )

Banning the advertising of cigarette papers and other smoking paraphernalia - Paraphernalia? What… Matches… Butane gas?

And finally, at least here, the denuding of all cigarette packaging of colour and logos. Which HMG bright-spark came up with that one? Plain white packets with a giant health warning on it and in ten point Helvetica the brand name? Perhaps it was the HM Customs dept: “How do we cut down on black market ciggies, guys?” a hand is raised: “Lets not have colour and logos on UK packs?” Fax is sent.

Coming next: All processed foods, margarines, butter, cream, most cheeses, fatty meat, sugar and sugary foods - like cakes and biscuits, food containing additives and colourings, salty foods and fast food and takeaways to display massive health warnings and be sold in plain brown wrapping with just the contents displayed?

… did I mention alcohol..?

(edited)