Quote: Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Business Rusch: The Death of Publishing

You’re a rotating group of widgets that might make the publisher some money.

That’s the truth.

And she also explains why the print bastards haven’t yet died — and nearly convinces me.

Yes, Size Does Matter

2006: Digital Life: What I Saw (Sony Reader):

The Oh. My. God. Moment came in picking it up. This is a masterpiece of design and engineering. It is what a totable computer should be. This is what the Nokia 770 and all UMPCs should be like. Just this exact size and thickness. This is science-fiction come to life. It is worth your time to get to any store that has it just to hold it.

2013: iPad Mini Sales Overtaking iPad Sales Faster Than Apple Expected

Sales of the iPad mini are cannibalizing sales of the iPad, according to a report from NPD DisplaySearch. January shipments of tablet panels between 7 and 9 inches eclipsed shipments of larger panels, indicating an unexpected shift in consumer preference for a smaller form factor tablet.

Photo of paper models:

Left-right: Sony Reader 500, iPad Mini, Sony Reader 505

Obviously the Reader is now too small. But there was nothing else like it at that size back then. I was in the ballpark, though.

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Brave Talk From Nook Media’s William Lynch

I missed the start of the Barnes & Noble webcast. So I’ve counted on Laura Hazard Owen to get the bits I missed.

William Lynch:

As the market goes to more multi-function tablets, we have to look at how we offer functionality differently and that’s what we’re focused on now

We’re not going to continue doing what we’re doing

Go open or go out of business.

Previously here:

The Changes Nook Media Must Make
The Fallacy Of The B&N Fallacy
Barnes & Noble Nook Bloodbath
Countdown To The Death Of The Nook Begins
Barnes & Noble Needs To Go Nuclear

The Changes Nook Media Must Make

The first move Barnes & Noble (aka Nook Media) needs to make is to alert app developers that they will be closing their Nook App Store.

It was foolish of them to even create that. They got off the eBook path there and had ambitions beyond their ability to pull them off. They didn’t know when to say No.

The iBookstore Closes In On Barnes & Noble

Update: You can ignore this post. Nate over at The Digital Reader caught the flaw that went right by me. His post is correct.

Measuring the iBook market

If I choose a more conservative $9 average selling price and assuming a 70% share for the publisher then Apple’s iBooks generated about $1.3 billion in payments and grossed about $1.8 billion.

Barnes & Noble Reports Fiscal 2013 Third Quarter Financial Results

Third quarter consolidated revenues were $2.2 billion, a decrease of 8.8% as compared to the prior year.

And:

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.

I’m neither a math whiz nor a Wall Street wonk.

But if I’m comparing the correct numbers, the iBookstore has already surpassed Barnes & Noble’s print business and will soon catch up to its overall business on a per-quarter basis.

And Apple doesn’t have to worry about storefronts or money-losing hardware.

There’s a half a billion iOS devices out there. And the iBookstore is doing this with friction — the iBooks app must be separately downloaded, just like apps from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, and others. (Although to be fair, I’ve been told there’s an Apple nag dialog that pimps the iBooks software, so this really isn’t a fair fight, is it?)

Take this post with a dose of salt. And check the Comments in case someone tells me I’ve got the wrong numbers being compared.

The Fallacy Of The B&N Fallacy

The B&N fallacy

The short version:

• Create a first rate storefront+reader on Android and the web.
• Shift more resources into the iOS app and make it better than anybody else’s.
• Perform a series of commerce-oriented experiments, e.g. subscriptions, bundling, in-book payments, etc.

This ignores quite a bit of history. And that history matters.

Barnes & Noble Nook Bloodbath

Barnes & Noble Reports Fiscal 2013 Third Quarter Financial Results

TL;DR: Retail down, college down, Nook way down.

Archos 80 Titanium: Just Rebadged From China

Today I learned of the documents Archos filed with the FCC for certification of their Archos 80 Titanium tablet.

Those of you who had doubts that Archos was no longer designing their hardware and just selling re-badged Chinese technology, here, after the break, is the proof to make you shut up.

Charles F. Haanel Advertisements

It’s no secret that Napoleon Hill thought the world of what Charles F. Haanel was selling with his Master Key System. Let me repeat his worshipful letter to Haanel from a prior post:

I was asked if Haanel spread himself around in publications as Hill did.

R.I.P. webOS

WebOS lives! LG to resurrect it for smart TVs

webOS is dead. Time to move on.

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