Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

Confessions of a Book Reviewer

Confessions of a Book Reviewer is a guest blog, written by John Valeri, popular with thousands (and thousands) of writers and readers as a reviewer with the Hartford Books Examiner. Don’t miss John’s thoughts on spoilers and certain Amazon reviews – and his use of the word salacious! Thanks John!
John Valeri's reviews can be found online at Examiner.com.

John Valeri’s reviews can be found online at Examiner.com.

What Mark (probably) didn’t know when he ever so generously invited me to contribute a guest post on the topic of writing book reviews is that this month marks my sixth year of doing so as the Hartford Books Examiner for Examiner.com. Time flies when you’re having fun!

I have a confession to make: I am as daunted by the task of doing so now as I was when I first began. Maybe even more so. You see, I’ve built up a loyal readership through the years, and knowing that these folks might read a book (or not read it) based upon my opinion is … well, heady. While reading is typically a solitary endeavor—and a subjective one, too—I feel a certain responsibility to guide readers accordingly. [Read more…]

What Is the Agency Model in Ebook Pricing?

what is the agency pricing model?Q:  What Is the agency model in eBook pricing?

A:  The agency model is when a reseller allows the publisher to set the price charged to its (the reseller’s) customers. The common agency model terms for eBooks have been that the publisher keeps 70% of the proceeds and the reseller earns a 30% commission. This is different from the traditional pricing model in the book publishing industry, where prices have been controlled by the reseller. In the traditional model, publishers sell their books to resellers at a discount of approximately 50% (legal and illegal discount variance is a topic for another day!). Resellers offer the books to consumers at whatever price they choose.

The “agency model” for eBook pricing is back in the news with a deal reached between Simon & Schuster (S&S) and Amazon (confirmed October 21, 2014), which S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy acknowledges is a “version” of the agency pricing model. [Read more…]

Will Samsung Save the Nook?

The new Galaxy Tab 4 Nook comes with $250 in free downloads.

The new Galaxy Tab 4 Nook comes with $250 in free downloads.

Will Samsung save the Nook?

The good news from Barnes & Noble for the first quarter of Fiscal 2015 that ended August 2, 2014, was that book retailer cut losses from $87m to $28m compared to the same period a year ago. The bad news was that overall revenues had dropped 7% from $1.33b to $1.22b. Worse yet, Nook sales were off a staggering 54%.

Does that signal the end of Nook?

Barnes & Noble launched its first Nook reader in November 2009 to compete with the Kindle. A year later B&N released a color tablet called the Nook HD+. In both releases, sales and performance exceeded all expectations. Consensus was the Nook device would allow B&N to finally challenge Amazon in the digital book distribution world. A few tech journalists were impressed enough to predict the Nook HD+ could compete with the iPad. But that was way back in the day when the tablet was still in its infancy. [Read more…]