Book Expo America 2011: Surprisingly Touching!

Another Book Expo America has come and gone.

This was my twelfth time attending so when comparing this year's show to previous ones, I'd have to say the crowds of publishers, booksellers, librarians, and authors seemed less anxious about all things digital and instead appeared ready to openly embrace the undeniable fact that digital book products are here to stay.

Everyone I ran into wanted to discuss eBooks, Apps, eReaders, tablets, and whatever else might be coming down the pike. They also seemed genuinely interested to learn more and excited in making the various new content formats and sales channels work in their favor.

In addition to these conversations, more evidence was found during Publishers Launch, an all day seminar that dealt with a variety of hot topics and pressing issues surrounding the book industry today. Several who attended these sessions were from international companies facing similar challenges of their own. The conference within a conference was presented by Mike Shatzkin (Video Interview) and Michael Cader and gave the 120 or so in attendance an opportunity to hear industry heavies like Evan Schnittman of Bloomsbury, Tom Turvey of Google Books, Steve Potash of Overdrive, Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks, Simon Lipskar of Writer's House, Charlie Redmayne of HarperCollins, Cameron Drew of Kobo, and many, many more. Overall it was a very informative series of panel sessions that provided much food for thought and spurred a lot of debate.

Speaking of Kobo: It was this Canadian based company that added to the list of BEA surprises by announcing a new eReader with a Pearl eInk touchscreen, the Kobo Touch. In doing so they attempted to steal some much anticipated thunder from Barnes & Noble who the following day introduced a new Nook eReader featuring (you guessed it) a Pearl eInk touchscreen display. In a previous post I had suggested this type of device would be coming from B&N, but must admit I didn't expect to see one from Kobo as well. So now there are three basic touchscreen eReaders available at affordable prices. The Kobo Touch, Sony's Touch Edition, and the new Nook, a spiffy, sleek device billed as the "simple touch reader."

I must say this Nook appears to be a vast improvement over the first model and so far all the reviews have been quite positive. So between this new low-priced option and the critically-acclaimed Nook Color, B&N's share of the eReader market should continue to grow, especially with women readers. At this point, it will be quite disappointing if Amazon's next Kindle doesn't follow suit and include a touchscreen, but most analysts expect such a device will be announced shortly before the holiday season, if not sooner.

But as surprising as the Kobo press conference and the quality of the new Nook was, hands down the biggest eyebrow raising moment occurred just before BEA even began with the astounding announcement that legendary publisher turned literary agent Larry Kirshbaum would head the publishing division of Amazon. I don't believe anyone saw that coming and the implications of what this development means will most likely not be fully evident for months to come. But soon an experienced team of publishing pros selected and overseen by Mr. Kirshbaum will begin releasing works by prominent authors, most exclusively available only through the Kindle store, which will certainly be an interesting development for consumers, authors, and competing publishers alike.

Barnes & Noble has published books for years, but how long will it be before they introduce a full-fledged publishing arm of their own led by another cracker-jack publishing legend?

Perhaps we'll find out at Book Expo America 2012!

A Tablet a Day: iPad Rival Remedies or Real Pills?

In a recent Blog post I talked about some of the new multi-purpose devices that will soon be available at affordable prices, each featuring a way to buy and read e-Books. However most, if not all, were created by companies that, shall we say, are not necessarily considered top in their field. So with this in mind, I'd say those should be considered risky purchases.

And though some new digital device seems to hit the market just about everyday, two intriguing tablets have recently been announced that definitely deserve some attention and will most likely be viable alternatives to Apple's iPad.

Now it's no secret I love using my iPad for just about everything, especially reading, but I can't deny the following 7" devices look like they might deliver excellent user experiences for those who've been in "wait-and-see" mode. And that's because these tablets are made by Samsung and
RIM, two great companies with reputations of introducing innovative products that continually push the envelope.

Let's take a look:

The Galaxy Tab by Samsung looks like a smaller iPad and features just about the same level of functionality, and in some cases, even more. But what I'm interested in is what it's like to read on this 7" color screen and from what I can tell from Samsung's promotional video, it looks pretty good. The e-Book technology is called Readers Hub, which was developed by
Kobo specifically for Samsung. Here's one video that shows how it looks (The e-Book demo is about halfway through and looks very similar to iBooks so I think what we're seeing is by ePubBooks, but others I've seen looked more like Kobo's current App). The O/S driving this device is Android and it will initially feature four e-Bookstores, including Kindle. And for the guesstimated price of somewhere between $200 to $299, this slick tablet is sure to be a popular gift during the holidays. (I wonder if the release of the Galaxy Tab means the death nail for this other e-Reading device from Samsung?)

The Blackberry Playbook by RIM seemed to come out of nowhere. It's another 7" device, but the angle here is that this is the "professional" tablet. We heard that once before from the creators of the now defunct Que, the large E-Ink Reader that was supposed to be meant for serious business people. The vast difference of course is how RIM is already supported by thousands of companies who currently use Blackberry smartphones for all their employees (though I must say, I find it hard to imagine typing comfortably using a virtual keyboard on a 7" screen, even in landscape mode, but we'll have to see). Many will be very comfortable with the idea of using this tablet for both it's familiarity and anticipated quality. I say "anticipated" because there haven't been any reviews of the Playbook yet, but from the look of this video, it just might be a winner. As far as reading e-Books goes...the Playbook will launch pre-loaded with the Kobo e-Bookstore, but word is that Amazon will also be making their App available for this platform shortly after it's released. Priced somewhere between $300 and $350, I think it's safe to say this stealthy looking device has the potential to be a huge success.

One thing's for sure, as more and more tablets like these enter the market, they'll only help increase the discovery of books through the various number of e-Bookstores available as Apps or on the web. And this is just the beginning...

What do you think? Have Samsung and RIM developed real challengers to the iPad?