From Futurebook:

The W H Smith offensive content affair is the car that keeps crashing.

The W H Smith website has been offline since Sunday at what ought to be one of its busiest periods—just to be clear, this is the entire website, not just the e-book section.

Smiths’ new holding page not only draws attention to the “number of unacceptable titles” that were appearing on its site, some of which the Mail on Sunday had drawn attention to, but also indicates how rushed its response has been, as is evident from the typo in the last sentence. Meanwhile, its e-book supplier Kobo has been busy removing ALL self-published titles, and also titles submitted through Kobo’s Writing Life platform by other small publishers.

Kobo has said that it is reviewing its policies and procedures to implement safeguards that will ensure the situation “does not happen in the future”. It says that it expects the titles that comply with its rules to be put back up “within a week”.

. . . .

Both WHS and Kobo have stressed that this is not a problem isolated either to its site, or to self-published writers. In some ways they might count themselves unlucky to be the prime target of the Mail’s hostile glare: prior to the Mail report almost all the tweets about this subject from the journalist Jeremy Duns have been directed at Amazon. News website the Kernel’s first piece focussed solely on Amazon, while its second piece referenced “Barnes & Noble, W H Smith, Waterstones and Foyles”. In terms of market impact, Amazon is the driver of self-published material, not WHS.

But WHS holds a special place in the mind of middle-Britain: it’s a family retailer with a high street presence. When it gets it wrong, it pays a bigger price. That explains what some might see as a massive over-reaction.

. . . .

If anything good is to come out of this, then everyone involved should take a long hard look at their systems and the IT infrastructure that is supposed to underpin these sites. And invest. That WHS cannot untangle the rest of its website from its e-books, or even books, platform, is understandable but an issue that ought to be resolvable. That Kobo seems unable to delineate between offensive self-published material and other works, and that they are also including in the cull titles published by smaller publishers, is similarly something we might all sympathise with but is still puzzling.

. . . .

I kind of thought we were on top of this: that we are not is alarming, but also greatly undermining of a community the traditional book business ought to be nurturing—namely authors. One of the things big businesses can do is create safe environments for small players to operate within. As Alliance of Independent Authors founder Orna Ross told The Bookseller: “Many of our members’ livelihoods are being affected while we wait for W H Smith to solve a problem of their own making. This disproportionately affects UK members as many of the questionable titles seem to be still for sale in other territories.”

Link to the rest at Futurebook

From David Gaughran:

A media firestorm erupted in the UK on Sunday after a tabloid story about WH Smith selling “filth” alongside books aimed at children, which has resulted in Kobo culling huge numbers of self-published titles – most of which have no erotic content whatsoever.

It’s hard to know exactly how many titles Kobo has pulled. What we do know is thatKobo has removed all 7,883 self-published titles distributed to their store via Draft2Digital, as confirmed in an email from D2D’s CEO to affected authors.

However, I think that’s only a tiny fraction of affected titles. Many self-published authors who distribute via the (much larger) Smashwords service have reported their books are no longer on sale on Kobo’s UK store, as have many authors who uploaded to Kobo direct, via their self-publishing platform Kobo Writing Life. And, indeed, it’s not just self-publishers that are affected. Lots of small publishers either use a distributor like Smashwords, or upload direct via KWL.

Those not in the UK will be unaware of the full extent of the problem, as only those with UK IP addresses can view the Kobo UK store. But when I ran a simple check of 10 self-published authors – none of whom write erotica or romance – half were missing from the UK store. Indeed, all seven of my titles have been pulled – which I uploaded direct via KWL – and I don’t write erotica (and don’t have any other pen-names).

. . . .

Amazon and Barnes & Noble are reported to have quietly removed the titles in question, but Kobo seems to be at the mercy of its partner sites. WH Smith closing their entire site (and they sell lots of products other than books) has put intense pressure on Kobo, who reacted with the braindead decision to cull huge chunks of their self-published catalogue. I don’t know how they decided which books to pull, but it’s quite clear that most books removed don’t have any erotic content and are written by authors who haven’t published any erotic content.

And the moral panic is spreading. Whitcoulls – Kobo’s partner in New Zealand – has closed their ebookstore completely until they can “guarantee that any inappropriate material, that has been available through self published eBooks, has been removed from the Kobo eBook catalogue.”

. . . .

Personally, I’m of the view (and I accept there’s a range of opinion on this) that a retailer can decide to stock whatever they like, and I don’t consider it censorship when any given retailer decides they don’t want to stock certain stuff. But when all retailers move in lockstep in response to a panic manufactured by a tabloid famous for clickbaiting, then that acts as a form of quasi-censorship.

And I have a real problem with outsourcing moral decisions to a tabloid like the Daily Mail.

Of course, there’s also quite a bit of double standards here. Even the Daily Mail admitted that not all the titles they outed were self-published, but Kobo’s actions have only targeted self-publishers. Indeed, the biggest selling book of 2012 was Fifty Shades of Grey which still remains on sale at Kobo, along with Flowers in the Attic (incest), Lolita (underage sex), and Justine by the Marquis de Sade (the works).

I’m not suggesting that those books should also be removed – far from it. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of corporations acting as moral policemen. I don’t think it should be a free-for-all, but we need to be very careful before we take the step of banning certain kinds of books because we personally find the contents objectionable.

Link to the rest at Let’s Get Digital and thanks to Catherine for the tip.

From Digital Book World:

It all seemed so sweet; anybody can get their book published on Kobo or Amazon without having to endure a zillion rejections from picky publishers, and what’s more they can pocket the lion’s share of the sale. What could be more liberating? But like everything on the net, there is always a dark side. As Amazon and Barnes & Noble scramble to remove titles listed by the technology news site The Kernel, the books and magazine retailer W H Smiths in the UK has shut down their entire website to block access and their notice states they will not be displaying any self-published books when it returns until they can be entirely satisfied with the content. So what are the implications of this sudden turn of events and why has it suddenly arisen?

This is a tough moment for online retailers of content because by removing books from sale they clearly admit that this content is unsuitable or breaks laws. Unlike the agency model pioneered by Apple and shot down by the US Justice department, the sales contract lies between the consumer and the seller and therefore there is a real prospect that retailers have liability, but this is for a lawyer to argue.

. . . .

However, it is simply not practicable for every self-published text to be read before publication without massively slowing down growth and adding to cost. Events suggest that the balance has gone awry and moreover it may not be so simple to fix.

Age verification is very difficult to police and particularly on large aggregator sites such as Amazon or Kobo with millions of books available in all genres. These identified poisonous writings can turn up in search results made by children and are not secured behind a gated area as they have not been identified by the systems as harmful. This is site architecture and safeguards and not a simple patch, and so it seems that W H Smith saw the only responsible option was to shut down.

. . . .

I wrestled with these issues in 2008 when I launched a free-to-publish, user-generated content site, YUDU Free which today publishes about 800 publications a day that include books, magazines and many other types of publications. All the problems that have emerged today were hot topics of debate during the site design and rule setting. Our goal was to create a family and school friendly site but at the same time allow freedom to publish. Our solution was to set three clear rules that were very prominent at all stages of publishing: No incitement to violence, no adult content and no copyright abuse. We set out the rules and gave folksy guidance on each. For example the adult content states “The content must be suitable for viewing with your friends and family. The content must be suitable for viewing at work with the knowledge of your boss & colleagues. The material used must be suitable for open sale in high street retailers or shopping malls.”

Link to the rest at Digital Book World

PG will comment that the agency model does not solve legal problems as the author suggests, at least under US law. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution makes US and UK law substantially different on freedom to publish and government censorship issues. The First Amendment was, in part, a response to British suppression of pro-independence publications prior to the Revolutionary War.

When agency pricing was in place, there was always a contract between the etailer and the purchaser.

From The Digital Reader:

When WH Smith responded to the news that they were selling adult content by turning off their website and promising to turn it on again ”once all self published eBooks have been removed”, I thought that they were exaggerating.

Now I am not so sure.

I have numerous independent reports that Kobo is pulling self-published titles from their UK ebookstore. And they’re not just removing erotica; I have confirmation that self-published ebooks from a wide variety of genres have been removed.

For those who are just tuning in, Kobo and their UK partner ebookstore WH Smith are responding to the “news” last week that they were selling adult content.

. . . .

I have reports in the comment section of this blog from three different authors that say their ebooks are gone from Kobo’s UK ebookstore. One report comes from David Gaughran, who as you might know is an SF author. He doesn’t write erotica, but he does publish his own novels via Kobo Writing Life:

All my titles have been removed from Kobo UK, and I don’t write erotica (and I uploaded direct).

On a quick check of about 10 random authors (who don’t write erotica), about half seem to be missing from the UK store – including some big sellers. All Draft2Digital titles, and some Smashwords and Kobo Writing Life titles.

Oddly enough, his ebooks are still available in the US, even though D2D says that the titles they distribute are completely gone. It is only in his home market of the UK that Kobo will not sell his ebooks.

Link to the rest at The Digital Reader

From The Digital Reader:

If you pre-ordered Kobo’s newest ereader because it was a premium device, you might want to rethink that decision. E-ink announced new screen tech today and the Aura doesn’t have it.

I have just received confirmation that the early hands on reports were correct. E-ink’s 4th-gen Carta screen tech wasn’t used in the Aura; it can only be found in the not-yet-released Kindle Paperwhite.

. . . .

Sadly, for Kobo, the $149 Aura is now going to be overshadowed by the new Kindle Paperwhite, which retails for $119.

. . . .

The Paperwhite has the same screen resolution as the Aura, and both have frontlights and touchscreens, but the Paperwhite will offer a greater contrast and a more reflective screen while still making use of the latest improvements that E-ink has made in providing smoother page turns.

Link to the rest at The Digital Reader

From GigaOm:

Kobo is no longer using the Goodreads API to provide book ratings and reviews on its websites and apps. Maybe that’s not surprising, since Goodreads was acquired by Amazon in March.

. . . .

That means no more Goodreads ratings and reviews on Kobo book pages. It sounds as if the decision was driven by Kobo, not Amazon: The company’s chief content officer Michael Tamblyn tells Good E-reader that Kobo might re-add the Goodreads API in the future. And back in March when Amazon acquired Goodreads, the companies told me they would leave the Goodreads API open and would not shut off the Kobo feed.

Link to the rest at GigaOm and thanks to JR for the tip.

Since PG was not that familiar with the Kobo site, he went there and looked at several books. In the absence of any reviews, the only information about the book’s content was the publisher’s summary. Not a compelling sales environment without some sort of third-party comment on the book’s quality.

PG doesn’t think he would have cut off Goodreads reviews (as little as he likes some of them) without having a substitute ready to plug into the site. Sending a potential purchaser elsewhere to learn more about a book’s quality risks that purchaser never returning to actually buy a book.

From The Telegraph:

Kobo has launched a new range of e-readers and tablets in the UK, in a bid to challenge Amazon’s popular Kindle devices.

. . . .

The range includes the Kobo Aura, a traditional 6-inch e-reader with a black-and-white e-ink screen, as well as the Google-certified Kobo Arc 10HD tablet and two Kobo Arc 7 tablets, all of which have capacitive touchscreens and run Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

. . . .

Kobo also plans to launch a new dedicated kids store in North America this Autumn, with safe-search features and accounts for kids, and has also expanded its children’s selection to almost 100,000, with titles like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Day Crayons Quit, Wonder and Catching Fire.

Finally, for readers who prefer a dedicated reading experience, Kobo has launched the Kobo Aura 6-inch e-reader, which features an “edge-to-edge”, high-resolution (212 dpi) touchscreen display and a front light for reading at night.

Link to the rest at The Telegraph

From My Writing Life:

When Kobo Writing Life came out, I was excited to try the new platform and get my best selling Christian Fiction novels in front of new readers. I am a firm believer in distributing to multiple channels and I prefer the most direct route possible, so KWL sounded good to me.

While the publishing platform is fairly simple to use, there are several reasons why I’m thinking about abandoning Kobo as a sales channel, or at least KWL as the distributor.

1. Royalty payment issues. To date, I’ve had issues with two out of the three royalty payments that I have received. The first one came as an email from someone at KWL saying my routing number was incorrect. I went into my account and confirmed my routing number. That still didn’t fix the issue. I ended up having to email my bank account info (I was SUPER leary of this) to the KWL rep. Finally they ended up just depositing to my PayPal account. The third royalty payment, I was again notified that my routing number was incorrect (funny how the routing number hadn’t changed from payment to payment and the second payment went through with no issues). After some back and forth, I was finally able to get the royalty payment about 7 business days after I provided the correct info.

. . . .

3. Too much hassle, too few sales. A few months ago, I responded to a survey put out by KWL and added numerous comments about how difficult it is to market to owners of Kobo readers. Since then, their monthly newsletters have included tips on marketing. However, none of those articles specifically addressed marketing to Kobo readers. This continues to be a point of frustration for me. Either no one owns a Kobo or they aren’t following the same book blogs, reader websites, and social media as Kindle and Nook readers are. Less than 0.5% of my sales are through Kobo, compared to 7 – 10% on Nook, and 85% Kindle. (The rest is spread out over Sony, iTunes, and Smashwords).

Link to the rest at My Writing Life and thanks to Julia for the tip.

From veteran publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin:

Of all the major retailers, only Barnes & Noble has a stake in all four of the meaningful transaction streams for trade books: print in stores, devices in stores, print online, and ebooks. (All devices are available online.) Amazon has no store presence. Kobo has a minimal store presence through independent retailers but has no print business. Apple has no store presence for content at all and doesn’t sell print online. And Google seems to only tangentially deal with any of the non-digital content businesses.

. . . .

What this means is that Amazon, Kobo, and Apple are firmly planted in parts of the business that are growing. Kobo and Apple only sell ebooks and Amazon sells print too, but, in general, the migration to online buying and ebook consumption is going to continue so the sales taking place in the environments in which they operate will continue to grow. Whatever their share, they will be taking it from a bigger and bigger pie.

B&N, on the other hand, gets most of its sales from print in stores. That is the component of the sales which is declining and bound to continue to decline. That means that B&N, uniquely, has the challenge of keeping its customers as they switch their mode of buying and consuming books.

. . . .

[Barnes & Noble] points out that book sales in general took a hit because the two most recent book sales phenomena, “Hunger Games” and “Fifty Shades of Gray” are running out of steam and haven’t been replaced by The Next Big Thing(s) yet. But in the absence of sales information about print and ebooks from Amazon (which data is normally well-masked in their overall reporting), we have no basis for comparison. And comparison is what we need to know how B&N is doing and what their future holds.

In other words, are Amazon’s online and ebook sales declining because of the lack of a replacement for “Hunger Games” and “Fifty Shades”? Or is B&N not only losing sales, but also losing share as the market migrates from stores (their strength) to online (Amazon’s strength)?

. . . .

Barnes & Noble is in a unique position. Every other player is looking to capture customers migrating from old patterns to new ones, whether switching from buying print in stores to buying it online (Amazon) or switching from reading print to reading ebooks. Only B&N is trying to keep customers who came to them for print in stores.

. . . .

Certainly, the numbers from B&N reporting that digital content sales have declined in real terms strongly suggests a reduction in their US market share. Overall digital content sales have almost certainly not declined.

. . . .

In the abstract, it would seem that a company that has a foot in all the markets would have a better chance to capture people switching buying or reading modes than a company with a more limited offering. It would seem that way, but it isn’tworking out that way. B&N has to figure out how to make their ubiquity work in their favor which, except for a year or two around the debut of the Nook, they haven’t managed to do yet.

The facts tell us that Barnes & Noble failed years ago to make its store customers into online customers. They’ve been sharing customers with Amazon since Amazon began. Indeed, the skill sets a corporation needs to run a successful online business aren’t the same as they are to run a chain of physical stores.

Link to the rest at The Shatzkin Files

The problem Barnes & Noble faces is that it’s trying to protect physical bookstores selling physical books – a business being disrupted – while also selling the disrupting technology – ebooks. Management won’t allow BN.com to act in ways that will destroy the physical bookstore business. The bookstores are making money and ebooks aren’t making money. Barnes & Noble won’t kill a money-maker.

Amazon does not share the same concerns.

Barnes & Noble is exactly the type of company that has been destroyed by disruptive technologies over and over again. Its business strategy just doesn’t work. If you want to compete successfully with Amazon, you can’t be worried about protecting the legacy business.

From Smashwords CEO Mark Coker via The Huffington Post:

Self-published ebook authors now have a powerful new merchandising tool to make their books more discoverable and desirable to readers: Preorders at Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Kobo.

Cases in point: Last week on August 13, two new ebook releases from indie authors JD Nixon and Kristen Ashley hit one or more of the top-10 bestseller lists at Apple iBooks in the U.S., Australia, UK and Canada.

The authors’ secrets, other than writing super-fabulous books their enthusiastic fans can’t wait to read? Preorders and advance marketing.

. . . .

[After mentioning several books available for preorder] All these titles are distributed as preorders by my ebook distribution company Smashwords, so I see how many preorders they’ve accumulated.

Each of these titles already has enough preorders to hit the top 10 at one or more iBooks territories if they were released today. Each continues to add orders daily as it approaches its release date. It’s not out of the question a couple of these hit #1 in some stores.

. . . .

Most retailer bestseller lists are weighted to measure unit sales over the most recent 24-72 hours, with sales made today generally weighted above sales made yesterday. At Apple and Kobo, accumulated preorders credit all at once on day one of the release, as if all the sales were made in a single day. This can cause the book to spike in the genre and store-wide bestseller charts. Since bestseller lists are used by readers to discover books, higher placement in the bestseller lists sparks a virtuous, self-reinforcing cycle of greater visibility, desirability and sales, which leads to more visibility and more sales.

Link to the rest at The Huffington Post

PG is happy for any techniques that will help authors sell more books but wonders if ebookstore  sales ranking algorithms will be tweaked if everyone starts using preorders to increase rankings.