BTW News Briefs

Study Confirms Loss of Bookstores Negatively Impacts E-Book Growth

The loss of bricks-and-mortar bookstores did not translate into growth of e-books in 2011, according to a report released this week by media forecast and research firm Simba Information.

“It may go against common sense, but the loss of hundreds of physical bookstores and several million square feet of book retailing space in 2011 actually negatively affected the expansion of e-book usage,” said Michael Norris, senior analyst of Simba Information’s Trade Books Group. “The publishing industry can either continue to watch its business get smaller through this unsustainable pattern or find ways to allow in-person discovery of content work in favor of the physical stores that are paying for that discovery to be available.”

 Data from Simba’s fourth edition of Trends in Trade Book Retailing shows that most consumers continue to buy print books, and the discovery of e-books is still very much interconnected with that of physical content. The report also indicates that the more retail channels consumers have access to, the more likely they are to be book buyers and leisure book readers. With physical bookstores still ‘subsidizing’ the online channel by acting as a showroom for content, Simba said, the industry must think of creative ways to build a sustainable system.

Bowker Finds Recreational Travelers Prefer Print Guidebooks

A Bowker study of recreational travelers in the U.S. and U.K. has found that buyers of travel guidebooks are much more likely to travel outside their home country than general book buyers, and they prefer printed guidebooks to help them get the most out of their exotic destinations.

“Travel publishing is at a crossroads. As consumers’ use of the Internet and digital books grows, travel publishers have been investing in developing e-books, apps and websites,” said Jo Henry, director of Bowker Market Research.

Among the study’s other revelations:

• Guidebook buyers’ choice of foreign destinations and their pursuit of cultural activities as a major part of their vacation plans were key reasons behind the purchase of printed guidebooks.
• Travel websites and advice from friends and family were important sources of information for all travelers, even guidebook buyers. Americans also rely on free printed leaflets, while British travelers opt for online travel forums.
• Travel apps are used to help plan holidays — more often in the U.K. than the U.S. — and tend to be from non-guidebook publishers.
• American travelers are more likely than their British counterparts to say the websites and guidebooks they use are ‘vital’ or ‘very useful’ in travel planning. In both countries, websites from non-guidebook publishers received a higher usefulness rating than the resources provided by traditional travel publishers.
• Use of social network sites has not crossed into travel planning in either the U.K. or the U.S.; so far, they are mainly tools for sharing pictures and experiences as well as staying in touch with friends.

Bowker’s 2012 U.K. and U.S. Travel Reports also explore the behavior and attitudes of travelers who are non-guidebook buyers and non-book buyers.

Tor/Forge E-Books Now All DRM-Free

E-books from Tom Doherty Associates, the publisher of Tor and Forge, are now available DRM-free from most major e-book retailers. In an announcement last Friday, the publisher said that the new DRM-free editions would be available from retailers that have sold Tor e-books in the past but now would also be sold through retailers that sell only DRM-free books.

“It’s clear to us that this is what our customers want,” said Doherty senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden. “We see it in the success of SF publishers like Baen and Angry Robot that have preceded us in going DRM-free. To the best of our knowledge we’re the first division of a Big Six publishing conglomerate to go down this road, but we doubt very much that we’ll be the last.”

The publisher’s plans to go DRM-free were announced in April.

Man Booker Longlist Announced

The longlist of 12 finalists for the 2012 Man Booker Prize were announced this week. The prize recognizes the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, or the Republic of Ireland.

The 12 books on the longlist are:

• The Yips, by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate)
• The Teleportation Accident, by Ned Beauman (Sceptre)
• Philida, by André Brink (Harvill Secker)
• The Garden of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon Books)
• Skios, by Michael Frayn (Faber & Faber)
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce (Doubleday)
• Swimming Home, by Deborah Levy (And Other Stories)
• Bring up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate)
• The Lighthouse, by Alison Moore (Salt)
• Umbrella, by Will Self (Bloomsbury)
• Narcopolis, by Jeet Thayil (Faber & Faber)
• Communion Town, by Sam Thompson (Fourth Estate)

The shortlist of six authors will be announced September 11, 2012, and the winner will be announced at a dinner at London’s Guildhall on October 16, in a ceremony covered by the BBC.