Kindle Lending Library

Just got an email from Amazon.com explaining a lending program, so you can lend out books you buy on kindle to friends.

Dear Publisher,

We are excited to announce Kindle book lending (http://www.amazon.com/kindle-lending). The Kindle Book Lending feature allows users to lend digital books they have purchased through the Kindle Store to their friends and family. Each book may be lent once for a duration of 14 days and will not be readable by the lender during the loan period.
...
For more info on how Kindle Book Lending works, see our FAQ here: http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/entry.jspa?externalID=581

Sincerely,
Amazon Digital Text Platform

So someone has 14 days to read, and in those 14 days the lender has no access.  I can see people thinking this will kill sales...  I don't think so...  if people like the book, they will buy it... if they do not, they were never customers anyway...  Good move, Amazon!

Bach To The Future

In an article on German authors selling more books for better royalties then the UK, a Reason magazine article by Tim Cavanaugh sums up:

It’s worth remembering in our own time of blessed disunion, as copyright protection legally extends nearly a century after an author’s death but the interwebs make copyright difficult to protect. A creator—musical god or Blingee artist—needs fans. But fans lose interest if the barriers to entry are too high. In an interview with Heise magazine, Höffner explains that reduced-price back issues sold well in all the markets he looked at—“but only if there was still someone who moved the book. For most books, readers’ interest had waned.” 

Just so...  you get the best results if you market the book...

Reddit Collection of Free Courseware

Reddit has a posting of free courses online, some translated into foreign languages.  The collection is breathtaking.  I doubt this will supplant sage-on-the-stage courses, but it is likely to help students attending live classes be better prepared.  It also helps teachers see what other teachers cover, and thus improve all offerings

Irate Students Attack Chuckles the Prince

Prince Charles and his wife were set upon by a mob angry over tuition hikes, trouble over a trebling. At Seattle Teachers College we have the mission to lower the cost and widen access to education while ever improving student and instructor satisfaction.

This Is Why You Need Tenure

A lecturer in accounting at a University was arrested from stripping in his class, for some unexplained pedagogical reason.  When I took Russian intensive at University of Washington in the early 70's, Prof Willis Konick was notorious for singing and stripteasing as he explicated his views on comparative lit.  Is the difference tenure?  It helps, but at Seattle Teachers College lecturers depend on students not only for their reputation, but their continued pay.

Kindle Gets Competition

Just in time for Christmas, Googlebooks opens up.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS reports

Google... opened its long-awaited electronic book store Monday, competing against Amazon.com Inc. and further accelerating the shift of book distribution from brick-and-mortar stores to the Web.

***Another theatre just shut down up the street from me.  This is not because fewer people are finding moving pictures entertaining, it is just more people are finding alternates to the mass viewing theatre.  There will always be theatres.  There will always be books.  The issue will be standards that meet customer expectations.***

Over the past decade, the number of independent stores operated by the ABA's membership has fallen from 3,000 to 1,700, the ABA said. McQuivey expects hundreds more to close during the next decade.

The upheaval will occur as sales of e-readers, tablets and electronic books steadily rise during the next five years.

...

Even larger book retailers are feeling the pressure to shake things up.

Activist investor William Ackman on Monday offered to finance a $963 million bid by Borders Group to buy rival Barnes & Noble Inc. Combined, the two retailers operate about 1,400 stores, many of which would presumably be closed if they were to combine forces.

Although most analysts doubted a deal would come together, the proposal underscores the challenges facing traditional book retailers as they look for ways to lower their costs.

...

Google's electronic book store, in the works for more than a year, draws upon a portion of the 15 million printed books that the Mountain View-based company has scanned into its computers since 2004.

About 4,000 publishers, including CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster Inc., Random House Inc. and Pearson PLC's Penguin Group, are also allowing Google to carry many of their recently released books in the new store.

Those publishing deals will ensure that most of the current best sellers are available in Google's store, said Amanda Edmonds, who oversaw the company's partnerships.

...

Google's e-books will work on the Nook, Sony Corp.'s Reader devices and practically every other e-reading device except the Kindle. Google achieves this with the help of Adobe Inc.'s copy-protection system for e-books.

...

Google plans to offer sharp discounts on many of its e-books but it will still pay publishers 52 percent of the list price for sales made on its site, unless another arrangement has been negotiated with an outside agency.

The formula means that even if Google elects to sell a book with a $10 list price for $6, the publisher would still get $5.20.

The revenue-sharing formula changes slightly when the electronic sales occur through one of the independent book merchants or other partners Google hopes to recruit. Google didn't disclose the precise split of these arrangements.

***All of this is inevitable, and will lead to the best all-round deal for all concerned.  The best part of this is with digitl books, there is a no return policy.***

"In the long run, I don't think Google has a strong appetite to make it easier for book sellers to stay alive," McQuivey said.

———

***Right, it is the booksellers job to keep themselves viable, by serving customers.***

Lennon on IPR

Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that
people own it.
John Lennon