Simple eBooks are not the future of publishing

Most people are pretty sure that traditional print publishing will be overtaken by electronic publishing. Currently, electronic book sales are a small challenge to print book sales (1% and growing), but as more people become comfortable with reading books on an electronic handheld device, this will change. The convenience factor of having all of your books with you at all times, even if the actual storage is on the internet and you only have a window into them, will overwhelm the value of the printed page. Stuck at an airport? You're not stuck with paying airport prices for a limited selection of books. Buy from more online, and start reading within minutes.

But I think that the current eBooks are kind of funny. They remind me of so many technology transitions of the past.

When I was young, my family moved to the country where we could explore far and wide. For me, one of the most amazing things we found was in the old decrepit barn. Tucked away in the corner, and camouflaged by color and cobwebs, was a small electric lantern. Yes, electric lantern. You see, prior to electricity, folks used oil-filled lanterns with large globes and wire bails (hoops for carrying). So it appeared that when the manufacturer of this lantern decided on an electric wire and lightbulb, they packaged it into a form familiar and presumed convenient for the existing purchasers of lanterns. How quaint!

Likewise, most of us have seen the original automobiles that look like horseless carriages. These are evolutionary changes, and so it is with the majority of current eBooks. Most are just transcribed books from print.

What do I want from eBooks, then? I always want more value. The convenience of buying and receiving instantly is great. The convenience of having my reading with me whereever I am is luxurious. But I'm reading them on a handheld computer that has much more potential. Yes, I'm talking about multimedia in all its rich, interactive forms.

There are a few good examples out there. Take a look at "Buddy the Bus" for the iPhone. This app uses full color, can read to you, and offers five language choices for both the text and the audio. And if you consider the now aging Leap Frog book reader, where you can touch the props on the pages and have them yelp, you can imagine books that go far beyond our old printed pop-up books. It won't be just kids who will appreciate full animation. Can you visualize the advantages of a "How to fix" book with video clips?

Come on; use your imagination, and you can be a leader in this expanding world of publishing!

Android Marketplace is developer unfriendly

An iPhone app developer recently asked us to enhance DashBook's sales report importing to take advantage of an iTunes sales report feature that shows the country where an app was purchased. Naturally, we obliged. It will be nice to expand our market to the publishers of phone apps, as well as all of the indie music publishers who use iTunes. Developers also need to account for the royalties or splits as they contract out work to various talent. And of course, book sales on the App Store are quite common.

Well, that got my interest up to explore the other app stores. Having used an iPhone for a while now, I believe that Apple's tight grip can kill them. Not allowing a user to choose which apps can continue in the background is absurd. The Android system, on the other hand, is much more open and allows developers to write anything they wish, although publishing pornography is still forbidden.

Thus, the Android is my pick as the best competitor for Apple's iPhone system. So I started to research the Android Marketplace to see if I could find examples of their sales reports. Hmm. I have to pay $25 before I can read details about publishing on the Marketplace? Bizarre. Further research turned up inquiries by developers who are at a loss as to how to account for sales tax on their sales. Do they have to review each individual transaction to determine if U.S. sales tax was charged if the composite transactions report doesn't contain that detail? Wait! The developer is accountable for sales tax? Does Android Marketplace or Google affect the developers' nexus?

Oh, this is pitiful.

Apple's App Store and iTunes Store simplified this for publishers by taking on the role of a reseller, just like the prior online bookstores. If Android Marketplace does not do this, few developers will make the mistake of publishing there more than once.

Tracking documents

DashBook is great at tracking royalties owed and paid, invoice pay status, shipping status, inventory whether at your warehouses or on consignment, and now we've added another ability -- track your documents within DashBook.

Have you ever generated a royalty report or thought through a royalty calculation but had need to look at the actual royalty contract for confirmation? Well, now you can attach your royalty contract to your DashBook royalty agreement. You can attach your standard contract or attach the specific signed contract. Actually, you can attach any document. Just click on your attachment to view it.

You're not limited to attaching documents to the royalty agreement, either. Perhaps you want to attach a purchase order to the sales order, a scanned business card to a contact, or event photos to a book.

DashBook v3.1 now allows attaching any document to many places of the program. We include the ability to view many of the file formats while within DashBook, such as pdf files.

As before, you can freely download DashBook to try it for yourself. Even if you've downloaded a prior version, such as our version 1.0 from just a year ago, please visit our website to see all the things that DashBook can do for you now.

Check it out at http://www.DashBook.com

DashBook v3.1

It's a wrap! DashBook version 3.1 is out the door. Well, it is on the internet for anyone to freely download, and existing DashBook customers will automatically receive the update the next time they run DashBook.

As I wrote in the prior post, the big news for v3.1 is the ability to import orders from text files. We have included common vendors such as Lightning Source (LSI), Fictionwise, and Amazon, but also made the import flexible so that you can map your report columns to DashBook's expected data. Send us the maps you create so that we can add to our "out of the box" experience!

With the import, DashBook automates the process from beginning to end. You can start using DashBook by pasting in your complete list of ISBNs (if you're a book publisher), and DashBook will fetch your titles and authors. Now you can import your sales report to get orders created automatically, and you can still use DashBook's facility to electronically pay your authors and email them their respective royalty reports all at once. Job done. Move on to more fun.

I'll post later about another new feature in DashBook v3.1 that lets you attach your signed royalty contract to DashBook's royalty agreement.

Cheers!

Automating sales orders

Did I fail to mention that we released DashBook 3.0? I tend to get much more excited about "the next thing," so after the beta, I'm ready to move on. More information about the changes for DashBook v3 are available here.

So that DashBook can calculate royalties or licensing fees, it needs to have events or transactions that cause the calculation. We made the brilliant decision to group these events together in what we call an "order." Amazing, right?

Well, many publishers are not very focused on the individual orders; they just want their royalties calculated. They may not be interested in knowing about orders to know who receives a shipment. They may have no desire for DashBook to handle inventory changes, especially if they are using electronic books (ebooks) or a print on demand (POD) printer.

Well, our upcoming update to DashBook not only handles this issue for publishers not focused on orders, but also helps to automate a time consuming and potentially error prone process. DashBook version 3.1 will add the ability to import the order information directly from the electronic reports that publishers receive from their distributors!

With a simple click - boom! a new order is created, containing all of the products sold and returned, according to the distributor's sales report. Our initial work includes the most popular book distributors used by publishers not handling inventory. Print on demand is led by Lightning Source, and ebooks are spread across Fictionwise, Amazon, and MobiPocket. We also received a sample from All Romance Ebooks (I understand Romance is a pretty big category for ebooks), so we've included them as well.

Please go to our website, www.DashBook.com to read more and request a beta to try this new feature yourself. Our new import is customizable, so you can add your own distributor's report for importing. If you do, please send the map file to us so that we can provide it to others. Or, contact us to create a map or import from your source.

Thanks for helping us make DashBook even more powerful!

Bigger and cheaper Kindle?

There is not much doubt that a larger Kindle will be announced this Wednesday (http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/04/amazon-press-event-wednesday-may-6th-see-you-and-then-new-kind). By this news alone, one might assume that this device will cost more than the current Kindle 2, which already receives quite a bit of backlash from having a high price.

However, Amazon knows that their price is considered a purchasing barrier. Although I think they've already done a superb job of pricing given that each Kindle includes (currently) unlimited internet access forever, a lower price will surely help sell more.

How can Amazon lower the Kindle's price?
1) Advertising - a larger screen gives more space for ads in addition to content.
2) Subscriptions - Why hasn't a book-of-the-month club offered a subsidized Kindle?

With the New York Times as a partner of this newer Kindle, they have the opportunity to do both, just like they've always done with their print edition.

Personally, I am very comfortable with the size of the current Kindle 2, but wish all my books were e-books on it so that I have access to them at all times (note that I carry an iPhone at all times).

Another rumor is that Kindle will receive support from textbook publishers. If all textbooks needed by students were on this one device, that would make cross campus treks a lot easier!

Version 3 Beta

We have been testing version 3 both in house and with select customers, and have now opened it up for public review. It shouldn't be many days before this one is ready for release, but we thought we'd give more people a chance to beat it up.

Due to outstanding suggestions, we have made many enhancements to DashBook. Some of the largest changes include:

• Vista 32 bit and 64 bit support
• Automatic mechanical royalty calculations for the music industry
• Expiration dates for handling subscription sales and followups
• Expenses tied to individual products, with royalties optionally adjusted
• Ability to review and create royalties directly from the products screen
• Ability to review order history directly on the customer screen
• Option to use PayPal on the subset of authors having PayPal accounts

Please check out our beta (beta link expired; contact us if you wish to be on the cutting edge!). If DashBook does not handle something you need in your business of royalties or licensing, please tell us what you want!