Sunday, 19 January 2014

The Digital Reader

The Digital Reader

The Morning Coffee – 20 January 2014

Posted: 19 Jan 2014 09:30 PM PST

Top stories this Monday morning include a round dozen posts which I think are worth reading, including David Gaughran’s debunking of the whole Mein Kampf best-seller nonsense (link), the unfortunate clash of fair use and creative commons (link), a new top ten list of books for you to lie about reading – I’ve actually read 5 of the titles (link), Chris Meadows’ breakdown of the latest stage of the Apple anti-ttust case (link), and more.

  • How I Built a Raspberry Pi Tablet (MAKE)
  • Opinion filing details Judge Cote's rationale for denying stay of Apple monitor (TeleRead)
  • The Top Ten Books People Lie About Reading (Federalist Papers)
  • This used to be a book (FutureBook)
  • Two editors you don't want working on your nonfiction book (Joe Clark, Toronto)
  • Why Audio Never Goes Viral (Digg)

The post The Morning Coffee – 20 January 2014 appeared first on The Digital Reader.

A Not so Crazy Idea: Amazon Has a POD Machine in the Works

Posted: 19 Jan 2014 05:28 PM PST

There’s aespresso book machine post over at Dear Author that you should read.

Jane Litte used her weekly tech post to put forward the idea that B&N should invest in POD. This idea probably won’t work, but it got me thinking about a related hypothetical situation.

Excerpt:

Barnes & Noble cannot excise the Nook arm completely because its market share in the digital market would be foolish to give up and second a bookstore without a digital component looks backward and incomplete. And the Nook brand is meaningless without Barnes & Noble attached to it. But focusing hundreds of millions of dollars on the development of hardware instead of on selling books is also a non starter at this point.

Instead B&N should pour that money into the development of a low cost, high efficiency print on demand machine. The current print on demand technology requires the installation of a behemoth device that currently costs about $100,000.  Have you paid attention to the posts about 3D printing? 3D printers cost about $10,000 and can print out guns, exoskeletons, and even small planes. How is it that it requires ten times the cost to produce something made of glue and paper?

Jane is proposing that Barnes & Noble should invest in developing a cheaper version of the Espresso Book Machine. If you’ve been following publishing news for any length of time then you probably know that these expensive machines look like a copy machine which has been grafted to an automated printing press. (I’ve written about the topic several times.) One of these babies can crank out a book in a few minutes:

ebm espresso book machine

It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t think it would work. For one thing, it’s a technological panacea that doesn’t address the fundamental issues that led to B&N’s current state.

But more importantly, a cheap POD solution won’t help B&N in the short term because this is a long term project.  It’s going to take at least 3 years to develop, and could take as long as a decade. Barnes & Noble probably doesn’t have that much time, and even if they did I am not sure that they have the gumption to commit to a multi-year capital intensive development program.

No, this is the kind of project that someone needed to see coming 4 years ago so development would be about done in 2014 just when B&N needed it the most. Sadly, B&N doesn’t have that kind of foresight.

But Amazon does.

It occurred to me today that Amazon is almost certainly working on a print-on-demand machine. I don’t have any evidence but if you think about it I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s a good chance I’m right.

  • Amazon has already invested in POD (CreateSpace).
  • They have demonstrated a deep interest in automated retail (delivery lockers, vending machines).
  • And they are also willing to throw money at a problem invest in a market for years before seeing an return (Kindle).

If you line up those 3 points, don’t they point in the direction of a print-on-demand machine?

I think they do.

Please note that I am not insisting that Amazon has a definite launch day planned, or even that they have a viable model which could be deployed. I am merely arguing that they are working on a print-on-demand machine.

This is the kind of project which simply makes too much sense for Amazon to not have jumped in with both feet. Paper books are still the major part of the book market, most of which are sold and distributed in a system that is ripe for disruption.

Yes, that’s what everyone has been saying about POD for at least the past 5 years, but if Amazon invested in the technology then it could become a practical reality. In fact, let’s take this one step further and consider how the scenario might play out.

A customer browses on Amazon.com, finds a book they want, and chooses the POD option. The customer is in a hurry, and Amazon can only promise to have this book delivered in a couple days, so rather than wait the customer elects to have the book printed at their nearest FedEx/Kinkos, Staples, UPS Store, or even a local print shop so they can pick it up the same day.

This scenario might sound a little farfetched, but it’s really not. According to one author, Amazon is already using a similar system right now:

What I learned from the (very nice) CreateSpace customer service rep was that my member orders placed directly with CreateSpace get printed in CreateSpace's own South Carolina facility by CreateSpace's own team. When I order from Amazon.com, in order to provide that superior shipping turnaround, Amazon sources the print-on-demand printing to other print-on-demand service providers.

Don’t you think Amazon would be looking for a way to replace that contractor with a POD machine which belongs to Amazon and (ideally) costs less to operate?

Rather than partner with a brick-and-mortar operation, Amazon’s POD machine might instead be installed in a local mall and left to run on its own (with regular visits from maintenance and supply, of course). In this scenario we would be looking at a machine which would be able to print a book and then insert it into a shipping envelope, attach a sticker, and then dump it in a (locked) bin for the UPS guy to pick up on his next round.

Edit: Actually, in this scenario it would make more sense to have the Post Office pick up and distribute the ebooks (or a courier).

If Amazon can get that second scenario worked out then they would be able to eliminate most of the personnel, logistics, and time issues involved in printing and selling books. Heck, they might even eliminate some of their CreateSpace facilities.

Granted, this would also introduce certain QA issues, but that’s an issue which would have to be solved anyway before any type of POD machine was deployed. And it is an issue which Amazon is already facing with the POD books they are already selling. That author who reported that Amazon shops out POD work also complained about the quality of the product:

So, anyway, I get the book from Amazon in an amazingly fast 48-hour turnaround from the time I place the order. I'm very happy with that. What I wasn't so pleased to discover, though, was a printing defect that had not existed in the proof copy I ordered directly from CreateSpace. The defect is a ridge of excess glue beneath the cover, between the first page and the inside of the cover, within millimeters of the spine. It seems like such a minor issue, but when you set this Amazon.com copy next to the CreateSpace copy, it becomes obvious that the binding on the CreateSpace copy is superior. If you run your fingers along the spine of the Amazon.com-printed copy, you can feel a protrusion of about 1-mm of glue, and looking at the book face-on, there's sort of a bubbled-out effect of the cover near the spine. It's not a huge cosmetic defect, but it's particularly noticeable to the touch, and I imagine that after being pulled in and out of a bookshelf, this could cause the cover ink to wear away around the spine. The CreateSpace copy, by comparison, has a nice, neat, perfectly squared-off spine, with a nice regular ridge pre-folded into the cover to guide the cover crease when the book is opened for the first time.

Amazon is dedicated to offering the best service, and that means they would want to sell the best POD books possible. I think they are deeply interested in replacing the less-than-reliable printing partners.

A POD machine in your local mall or FedEx Kinko’s would fit the bill, don’t you think?

The post A Not so Crazy Idea: Amazon Has a POD Machine in the Works appeared first on The Digital Reader.

New Review: Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0

Posted: 19 Jan 2014 01:41 PM PST

samsung_galaxy_tab_3_3g-580x470[1]The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0  came out in mid-2013, and by the time the calendar ticked over to 2014 it had been reviewed by pretty much everyone. At this point you would think that there’s nothing left to say about this tablet, but you would be wrong.

This tablet initially launched with a $179 price tag, but when I laid my hands on it early January 2013 Best Buy was selling it for $139. That is a significant price drop, which means that the tablet is competing in a different market segment and thus should be held to a different standard.

Like the Nook HD+ I reviewed a few weeks ago, the older reviews of the Galaxy Tab 3 don’t reflect the current market realities. Where some reviewers criticized the Galaxy Tab 3 as being a marginal or disappointing mid-priced tablet, the standards for a budget tablet are much lower.

But not that much lower.

Now that I have had this tablet for a week I find that I have to agree with most of the early reviews. This is a distinctly underwhelming tablet that does not compare well to other similarly priced tablets – like the Kindle Fire HD (2013) or the Hisense Sero 7 Pro. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 has a few points in its favor (size, weight, battery life) but its performance could best be summed up as flaky and underpowered.

Read on for the full review.

P.S. My next review will look at the Kobo Arc 7, and after that I expect to get my hands on a kid’s tablet (XO or Polaroid, hopefully).

The post New Review: Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 appeared first on The Digital Reader.

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