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Ingram Content Group has acquired Aer.io, a service that allows publishers, retailers and authors to sell and produce both print and e-books directly to readers from their websites, blogs and social networks.

Aer.io’s platform allows publishers, authors and booksellers – essentially anyone with an online presence – to market, produce and sell their books worldwide on their own sites. A reader can purchase the e-book file or order a POD book from the author’s site and Are.io will fulfill the order.

Now users will be able to push this content out to Ingram’s global distribution network, as well.

A trio of happy booksellers—Gayle Shanks from Changing Hands in Tempe, Arizona, Elisabeth Grant-Gibson from Windows a bookshop in Monroe, Louisiana, and Betsy Burton from The King’s English in Salt Lake City, Utah

Elisabeth Grant-Gibson and Betty Jo Harris of Windows a bookshop in Monroe, Louisiana with Augusten Burroughs

Authors Andre Dubus III and Mary Roach sign galleys of their upcoming books

Back at the end of January, I attended Winter Institute 3, hosted by the American Booksellers Association.  This event has become one of the premiere bookseller education and networking opportunities of the year.

This year we were in Louisville, Kentucky, home of Churchill Downs, which seemed like a perfectly appropriate place for 500 booksellers to gather.  After all, no one knows risk, chance, and the dream of a big pay-off like an independent bookseller.

One of the most interesting sessions I attended was the one on Print on Demand.  I have to admit that I chose that session with great reluctance and a foreboding sense that whether I had any interest in the topic or not, this was something I needed to know more about.  In fact, I learned a great deal and it was among the most valuable panels I heard.

Let me pass along a few statistics that I found—well, stunning, to be honest.  In December 2007, Ingram’s Lightning Source  printed 1.2 million units.  Yes, that’s million.  The average print run was 1.8 copies.  The average turnaround time was 12 hours.  Now, I know that lots of us have gripes about Ingram, particularly when an order doesn’t happen quite the way we think it should.  But come on.  They printed 1.2 million books with an average turnaround of 12 hours.  That’s. . .impossible.  But they did it.

So what does POD have to do with you, as an independent bookseller?  Other than getting cranked over the fact that such books are hard to order, cost too much, and often have a short discount, what meaning is there for you in this whole area of publishing?  That was my question.  That’s why I went to the session.

The applicability to those of us who are booksellers was twofold.  Partly, there were suggestions for bookstores becoming the route for those local people who have a book they want to publish.  In addition, there were possibilities for bookstores to publish or republish books of local interest.  We all know of those books that we could sell over and over again if we could just get them or if somebody would just reprint them.  Well, for those books which are old enough to be in the public domain, there’s an opportunity knocking on our bookshop doors.

The presentation included a case study featuring Kelly Estep, manager of the Bardstown Road branch of Carmichael’s Bookstore right there in Louisville.  The example she discussed was a reprint that her store undertook of a book on the architecture of Louisville, published in the early 20th century.  The project began with one battered copy of the book, which Ingram scanned in, set up, and reproduced.  The photograph reproductions were decent, and a long unavailable treasure is now available again.  Kelly Estep also mentioned that there was an upcoming architecture organization meeting in Louisville this year, and that it would be easy to create a custom cover for a minimal additional fee (about $50 if my notes are right) that would be specific to that conference, in the event she could broker a deal for the organization to purchase copies for all attendees.

The costs for such projects vary depending on whether the “publisher” can provide the book on disc or whether scanning is necessary.  But for a few hundred dollars, bookstores can become publishers and greatly increase their markup on certain books that can be local bestsellers.  Ingram also offers a distribution agreement, which then makes it possible for that local book to be available through Ingram’s entire distribution system, and in these days of the world at your fingertips, that can help sell books as well.  And I kind of like the idea of Ingram having to write a check to us for once.

Print on Demand won’t be for everyone, and there are certainly other sources to go to for this service.  But the argument made at this session was compelling, and I would recommend that anyone this strikes a chord with visit Lightning Source to learn more.

Elisabeth Grant-Gibson
www.Windowsabookshop.com
www.thebookreport.net 

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A trio of happy booksellers—Gayle Shanks from Changing Hands in Tempe, Arizona, Elisabeth Grant-Gibson from Windows a bookshop in Monroe, Louisiana, and Betsy Burton from The King’s English in Salt Lake City, Utah

Elisabeth Grant-Gibson and Betty Jo Harris of Windows a bookshop in Monroe, Louisiana with Augusten Burroughs

Authors Andre Dubus III and Mary Roach sign galleys of their upcoming books

Back at the end of January, I attended Winter Institute 3, hosted by the American Booksellers Association. This event has become one of the premiere bookseller education and networking opportunities of the year.

This year we were in Louisville, Kentucky, home of Churchill Downs, which seemed like a perfectly appropriate place for 500 booksellers to gather. After all, no one knows risk, chance, and the dream of a big pay-off like an independent bookseller.

One of the most interesting sessions I attended was the one on Print on Demand. I have to admit that I chose that session with great reluctance and a foreboding sense that whether I had any interest in the topic or not, this was something I needed to know more about. In fact, I learned a great deal and it was among the most valuable panels I heard.

Let me pass along a few statistics that I found—well, stunning, to be honest. In December 2007, Ingram’s Lightning Source printed 1.2 million units. Yes, that’s million. The average print run was 1.8 copies. The average turnaround time was 12 hours. Now, I know that lots of us have gripes about Ingram, particularly when an order doesn’t happen quite the way we think it should. But come on. They printed 1.2 million books with an average turnaround of 12 hours. That’s. . .impossible. But they did it.

So what does POD have to do with you, as an independent bookseller? Other than getting cranked over the fact that such books are hard to order, cost too much, and often have a short discount, what meaning is there for you in this whole area of publishing? That was my question. That’s why I went to the session.

The applicability to those of us who are booksellers was twofold. Partly, there were suggestions for bookstores becoming the route for those local people who have a book they want to publish. In addition, there were possibilities for bookstores to publish or republish books of local interest. We all know of those books that we could sell over and over again if we could just get them or if somebody would just reprint them. Well, for those books which are old enough to be in the public domain, there’s an opportunity knocking on our bookshop doors.

The presentation included a case study featuring Kelly Estep, manager of the Bardstown Road branch of Carmichael’s Bookstore right there in Louisville. The example she discussed was a reprint that her store undertook of a book on the architecture of Louisville, published in the early 20th century. The project began with one battered copy of the book, which Ingram scanned in, set up, and reproduced. The photograph reproductions were decent, and a long unavailable treasure is now available again. Kelly Estep also mentioned that there was an upcoming architecture organization meeting in Louisville this year, and that it would be easy to create a custom cover for a minimal additional fee (about $50 if my notes are right) that would be specific to that conference, in the event she could broker a deal for the organization to purchase copies for all attendees.

The costs for such projects vary depending on whether the “publisher” can provide the book on disc or whether scanning is necessary. But for a few hundred dollars, bookstores can become publishers and greatly increase their markup on certain books that can be local bestsellers. Ingram also offers a distribution agreement, which then makes it possible for that local book to be available through Ingram’s entire distribution system, and in these days of the world at your fingertips, that can help sell books as well. And I kind of like the idea of Ingram having to write a check to us for once.

Print on Demand won’t be for everyone, and there are certainly other sources to go to for this service. But the argument made at this session was compelling, and I would recommend that anyone this strikes a chord with visit Lightning Source to learn more.

Elisabeth Grant-Gibson
www.Windowsabookshop.com
www.thebookreport.net

ShareThis

Well. Crap. I tried to set this up to post yesterday, and it so didn't. I can't find it on anyone's friends lists, etc. Grr. So here's a replay, if you've seen it, or a little something new if you haven't.

For this week's post, a sonnet by Wordsworth. In the past, I've posted part of his Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood and It is a Beauteous Evening.

Scorn Not the Sonnet
by William Wordsworth

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakspeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faeryland
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!

In these 14 lines, which he claimed were "composed, almost extempore, in a short walk on the western side of Rydal Lake," Wordsworth has provided a brief bibliography of the masters of the sonnet, beginning with Shakesepare, moving throughout Europe, and ending with John Milton.

Francesco Petrarch was a Renaissance man -- literally. He's known as the father of humanism, in addition to being a scholar and poet. He fell in love with a woman named Laura from afar (while in church, no less), and wrote 366 poems about her, eventually collected by others and called Il Canzoniere. He used a form of the sonnet inherited from Giacamo da Lentini, which became known as the Petrarchan or Italianate sonnet. (Poor Lentini.) I covered the different types of sonnets in an earlier post.

Torquato Tasso was a 16th-century Italian poet most famous for his epic work, Gerusalemme Liberata, an epic poem about the battle between Christians and Muslims for Jerusalem in the First Crusades. He was welcomed by many royal patrons, but suffered from mental illness that prevented his enjoying it. Based on modern psychology, it would seem he was schizophrenic.

Luís de Camões, usually rendered in English as Camöens, was Portugal's greatest poet. Born in the 16th century, he wrote an epic poem called Os Lusídas about the glory of Portugal, along with a significant amount of lyrical poetry, including a great number of sonnets, ranging from a paraphrased version of the book of Job to poems about ideas (akin to what Wordsworth excelled at).

Dante Alighieri's life spanned the transition between the 13th and 14th centuries. His masterwork, La Commedia ("The Divine Comedy"), continues to be a source of inspiration for artists, authors and poets, even seven centuries later. The Commedia was broken into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, and features in part his beloved Beatrice, who was immortalised in another work, La Vita Nuova, from which I quoted in a post after my grandmother's death. (My guess is that the name Beatrice was chosen by Daniel Handler to be Lemony Snicket's unrequited love based on Dante's writings.)

Edmund Spenser was Poet Laureate of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. His most famous work is The Faerie Queene, which was essentially a huge sycophantic poem for the Queen and her Tudor ancestry. He was venerated by Wordsworth, Byron and others alive at the turn of the 19th century. For those fans of the 1995 movie version of Sense & Sensibility, the lines which Colonel Brandon reads to Marianne near the end are from The Faerie Queen.

John Milton was a 17th-century poet known for his epic poems written in blank verse*, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. Milton was opposed to the monarchy, and supported the republican ideas of Thomas Cromwell, which went swimmingly for him until the Restoration, when he was forced to go into hiding. He emerged after a general pardon was issued, only to be arrested. He was eventually released, and died a free man. During the course of his life, Milton went blind, probaby from glaucoma; as a result, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes were all dictated to others. Although they are frequently construed as religious works, Milton was writing about the revolution and restoration; his religious beliefs were outside the bounds of Christianity. In addition to his work in blank verse, Milton wrote a number of excellent sonnets, which were revered by Wordsworth and others.

*blank verse is the term for unrhymed iambic pentameter, used by Milton in his masterworks, by Shakespeare in his plays, and by many others as well. It remained quite popular as a means of composing verse until at least the late 19th century.