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Archive for the ‘Joe Wikert’ Category

By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

The Silicon Alley Insider is speculating that Amazon is currently selling about 48,000 Kindles per month. For the record, even though I’m in the publishing industry, I have no insider knowledge about the device’s sales rate. That said, 48K/month sounds extremely high to me.

Why? I’m pretty sure I’m tracking all the Kindle-related blogs and message boards, and I’m just not seeing any significant up-tick in postings, traffic or buzz. Although the Kindle has been back in stock and shipping for at least a couple of weeks now, I’m seeing roughly the same number of weekly posts/comments on the Kindle Forum and Kindle Korner as there were when it was out of stock.

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

Although the Kindle has been getting all the buzz, an argument can be made that cloud computing is a much bigger initiative for Amazon. What is “cloud computing” and why should you care? This excellent Wired article by Spencer Reiss tells you everything you need to know.

The bottom line: More and more applications and data will live in “the cloud” and Amazon is well-positioned to be a major player.

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

Literary Video’s tagline is “Creating Multimedia Content that Sells Books.”  I discovered this service last month and exchanged a couple of e-mails with David Woodard, founder and creative director.

With the ever increasing importance of video in the publishing world, I jumped on the opportunity to do a blog interview with David.  Here’s what he had to say about Literary Video and what it’s up to:

JW: You had been working for a publisher in Nashville for awhile and decided to launch this new business venture, Literary Video.  What’s your vision for the business and what drove you to create this start-up?

DW: Working in book marketing for eight years taught me many things, but one of the most impressive things I learned was that the best salesman for a book is almost always the author. There are exceptions to this, but by in large it is true.

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

The author Web site debate will probably never end.  Do you need one?  What’s the purpose?  What elements should it include?  The questions go on and on.

I recently came across this excellent blog post entitled The 14 Things I Have Learned about Author Websites.  Be sure to check out the whole list.  Here are a few things that went through my mind as I read through it:

#2. Author Web sites are different than book Web sites. Blogs, Twitter, MySpace and Facebook are different tools, use them in different ways.

Excellent point!  How many times have you come across an author’s Web site that has no personality and lacks the critical attributes of a social network-like page?

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By David Rothman

With Earth Day coming up tomorrow, April 22, Fujitsu is ballyhooing the WoodShell Laptop. From PC World:

“The prototype of the WoodShell uses natural materials, such as forest-thinned cedar and bio-based plastics for its housing and parts, according to Fujitsu.

“Fujitsu also plans to display its FMV-BIBLO NX95Y/D, a notebook that uses bio-based plastic materials for part of its housing, at the Milan show. The notebook is only available in Japan, the company said.”

Also in the Hardware Department: Asus to launch Eee PC with Intel’s Atom in June, in PC World. So, guys, when will a tablet appear—wooden or not? Also see Asustek to launch Eee PC with 10-inch Screen.

Speaking of the environment: See How Amazon’s eBabel pollutes the earth, not just the e-book market, my recent post.

And for pro-Kindle viewpoints: Check out The Kindle vs. ‘information snacking’: An Amazon shareholder letter from Jeff Bezos, a post by Wiley executive Joe Wikert. Also upbeat on the Kindle is Good News, Mr. Vanity Fair: Your dream e-reader is almost here, from our newest contributor Steve Tippie, a Tribune Media Services VP and editor-publisher of Opinionated: Voices and Viewpoints on America and the World, a Kindle-format magazine with columnists ranging from Arianna Huffington to Cal Thomas.

Technorati Tags: Fujitsu,Asus

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

This year’s Amazon shareholder letter from CEO Jeff Bezos focuses on the Kindle. I love the phrase he uses several times in the letter, “information snacking”:

“They’ve (electronic devices) shifted us more toward information snacking, and I would argue toward shorter attention spans.

“If our tools make information snacking easier, we’ll shift more toward information snacking and away from long-form reading.

“We hope Kindle and its successors may gradually and incrementally move us over years into a world with longer spans of attention, providing a counterbalance to the recent proliferation of info-snacking tools.”

Toward a great machine for both long and short reads

Actually, if it’s well designed, I’d like to think future versions of the Kindle will be the solution for both long-form reading and information snacking.

I just started reading The Last Lecture, via Mobipocket on my Blackberry. I always have my Blackberry with me, so I’ll read it in time slices throughout the day. In this situation I’m forcing the info-snacking Blackberry to serve as more of a long-form reading device. Not ideal, but certainly an adequate solution for a 224-page book.

Longer attention spans unlikely

Although Bezos hopes we’ll all develop longer attention spans, I think that’s highly unlikely. In fact, my bet is that future versions of the Kindle will have more and more info-snacking capabilities built-in. I just can’t see any device having a major impact on reading patterns and info-gathering tendencies, unless that device is simply encouraging even more info-snacking.

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

Amazon Director John Doerr apparently thinks so. That, and a few other tidbits are included in this BusinessWeek article. For example, this excerpt shows that CEO Jeff Bezos is willing to bet the farm on the Kindle initiative:

“I remember one meeting where one of our executives said to me, ‘So how much are you prepared to spend on Kindle, anyway?’ I looked at him and said, ‘How much do we have?’”

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

The iLiad supports this feature but the Kindle doesn’t. I’m talking about the ability to annotate documents by writing on the screen.

According to this InfoWorld article there’s a new E Ink read/write display technology being shown at the Display 2008 conference in Tokyo this week. It’s a step up from the iLiad’s display and should be available in August.

Wouldn’t it be cool if Amazon would use this as an opportunity to rev the Kindle, reducing the price on the current model and the offering a more expensive unit that features this new display technology?

Related: New Kindle site—A Kindle Home Page.

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

The New York Times recently ran this article about the latest book-to-blog success story, Stuff White People Like.  The blog was launched in January, quickly ran up the Technorati Top 100 list and is currently in the 40’s-50’s, depending on when you look it up.

Converting a blog to a book isn’t exactly new, but paying the author a $300K advance is pretty bold, especially when you’re talking about a $14 book.  The article notes that Random House would have to sell about 75K copies to earn back that advance.  That’s a pretty healthy sales number but I question whether even 75K copies will earn back the $300K author advance.

Let’s start with the $14 cover price.  The typical discount to retailers is 50 percent, but I could see this one going into more mass outlets than usual and probably being part of some other deeper discount promotions.  Let’s assume the average discount is about 55%, which is still probably conservative.  That leaves the publisher with 45 percent of the cover price, or $6.30 per copy.

Not-so-promising numbers

The author’s royalty rate is unknown and there are other factors that could come into play on this part of the calculation.  So, rather than speculate on this variable, let’s just look at the author advance divided by the publisher’s net revenue against the 75K units cited in the article.  Using the $6.30/unit from above, sales of 75K copies would produce $472,500 in publisher revenue.  Divide the $300K author advance by the $473K publisher receipts and you get 63 percent.  In other words, Random House would have to pay the author a royalty rate of 63 percent (against net) in order for the author to earn out that $300K advance after selling 75K copies.

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By David Rothman

Steve Tippie, editor-publisher of “Opinionated,” the new e-magazine that Tribune Media Services is distributing via Amazon, reminds us that Opinionated’s individual articles are not Kindle-exclusive. But the magazine itself is at this point—a description that Wiley’s Joe Wilkert properly used, having read the word “exclusive” in a TMS news release.

Yes, I’m happy that Opinionated received “no special deals from Amazon,” according to Steve, “just standard ones with some nonfinancial tweaks.”  Even so, a true test will be whether the same content in aggregated form is available on other platforms—one reason why I hope his company will join the IDPF and endorse the .epub standard. What’s more, he’ll ideally press for it to be developed to be point where it will be as useful for newspapers and periodicals as for books.

Looking beyond Amazon

Steve, it’s great to see you experimenting with collections of articles from “Arianna Huffington, Henry Kissinger, Garrison Keillor and others,” and that Opinionated has made the Kindle bestseller list. I’d encourage you to continue your efforts at Amazon. For all I know, the TeleBlog someday may be distributed that way. But the world need effortless distribution through a number of channels—along with, I might add, common platforms for reading books and periodicals alike. That is what .epub could help accomplish. Periodicals could not only include core content but also blogs and forums that writers and readers regularly updated, and the same content could also appear on the open Web, either for free or with support from subscription fees, advertising or both.

The L word

But can we trust Amazon to let this vision unfold? I would heartily recommend that Steve read Amazon’s publisher lock-ins: Four ways listed by O’Reilly publishing tech expert.  The four mentioned by Andrew Savikas are:

1. “Data-driven lock-in.” He mentions reader reviews of books, but the same concept would apply to comment on the news.

2. “Format lock-in.” Amazon so far refuses to let the Kindle read books and other content in the IDPF standard.

3. “Pricing power lock-in.” Should Amazon have the clout to standardize magazine prices against the wishes of publishers? However much Jeff Bezos might deny such intentions, I wouldn’t trust him, based on the Toys R Us lawsuit and other past history. Avoidance of lock-ins would reduce fears of Amazon power grabs.

4. “Channel lock-in.” Perhaps Steve should check out the POD controversy with Ingram/Lightning Source.

If nothing else, I would caution Steve and other media people against applying a double standard and exempting Amazon from concerns of the kind voiced about the power of Google News’ aggregation (my standard disclaimer: I own a tiny slice of Google for retirement investment purposes).

Once again, Steve, thanks for dropping by, and I hope you’ll continue the dialogue.

Technorati Tags: Tribune Media Services,Steve Tippie,Amazon.com,Amazon

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

As a publisher focusing on the professional IT sector, I ask myself this question a lot: What does the technology add?  Is this new tool or release measurably different from the others?  Will it enable users to create products faster, less expensively, with more useful features—or all of the above?

I found myself asking the same question when I recently read about this project, The 21 Steps, by Charles Cumming, which is part of Penguin’s We Tell Stories initiative.  In The 21 Steps, Cumming uses Google’s satellite imagery to help tell the story.  Different?  Yes.  Functional use of the technology to enhance the reading experience?  I’m not so sure.

Lasted just three chapters…

To be fair, I only got through the first three chapters before I lost interest.  Perhaps it’s because I’m not into fiction, but I found the text and imagery integration lacking as well.  I didn’t see the benefit to having the animated movements on the satellite images.  I also got pretty tired of clicking again and again, just to read the next sentence or two.  In short, if technology is added to the formula for something like this, I feel it should improve the overall experience; in this case, it seemed to weigh it down.

I’m also not the sort of person who thinks in terms of satellite views.  I’m more of a street level guy, and I suspect I’m not alone.  After all, we see and experience things from a street-view view, not an overhead one, so it forces you to constantly adjust your perspective as you’re reading through the screens.

…but love Penguin’s experimentation

Before anyone jumps down my throat on this, please realize that I absolutely love the fact that Penguin is experimenting with technology on this project. If I published into the fiction area, I’d be jealous that I didn’t think of this approach.  The lessons that can be learned from the pioneers like Penguin will help benefit everyone in the long run.

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

Thanks partially to the Kindle’s Whispernet connection feature, new and innovative ways of distributing all sorts of content are likely to emerge.  For example, Tribune Media Services announced this week that it would create a Kindle-exclusive magazine called Opinionated: Voices and Viewpoints on America and the World.

Currently the print magazine business is going through some challenging times.  If it’s not higher paper costs—or more advertisers going online or a decline in subscribers—you also have to face the fact that Walmart is cutting almost 1,000 titles from its shelves.  Why fight those odds when you can launch in the happy world of no inventory management or manufacturing costs?

Just one real question: Why Amazon move enough Kindles?

The only real question is whether enough Kindles can be sold to make this a profitable venture for Tribune Media Services.  Since it’s exclusive to the Kindle, I have to assume Amazon was willing to make this a sweeter deal for the Trib service than for other magazine publishers, especially in the short term while Amazon works to address the Kindle supply issue.

Moderator: Many thank to Joe for this discovery. So what are the issues raised here? Is the new service yet one more indication that the easy-to-use Kindle will appeal more to print-oriented readers than will alternatives? And what about an issue raised on Peter Branley’s list—the question of a walled-in garden approach vs. a traditional Web one? - D.R.

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