e-ink

I missed this when Esquire published it in the fall... E-ink. It's the same technology that goes into the kindle, but somehow, seeing the words change on a "static" piece of paper is mind-boggling. More evidence that words are going digital fast.

Bad for books or just BN?

Back when I was a barista, and before that was a common word, a customer once offered an explanation for the crowds in the coffee shop. "In bad times, people are more willing to pay for small luxuries." 

Barnes & Noble thinks it's going to be a less than merry Christmas season. But maybe books are exactly what people want when everything else is on hold?

The O in Obama

In the last ten years, no one has done more for book sales than Oprah. I believe a direct connection could be made between her book club and the proliferation of book clubs around the country - including my own (very male) book club, which otherwise has no discernible similarities to anything that can be seen on daytime TV, unless you stray into cable. 

But American Presidents have a way of stimulating book demand, too. An obscure techno-thriller writer named Tom Clancy got a rocket boost when President Ronald Reagan described The Hunt for Red October as "unputdown-able."  I remember when the first President Bush mentioned The Guns of August as a book he thought long and hard about before the first Gulf War - though I doubt there was a surge of readers towards Barbara Tuchman's deserving history. President Clinton was a reader but for the life of me I can't remember any particular books he recommended - though I do remember an unsettling anecdote in which he was purported to have quoted a page from Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury by memory. President George W. Bush once mentioned he'd been reading Camus' The Stranger - another scary moment. 

So maybe my theory is buncombe and there's no relationship between presidential reading material and book sales, except for Reagan. But there has certainly been a wave of interest in certain books because of Obama. I've heard so many mentions of Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Lincoln, currently #12 in Amazon sales rankings, that "team of rivals" seems to have become the phrase of the year - or right up there with "credit crisis." Now there's this article wondering which book about FDR Obama meant and what that will do its sales. 

Of course, Obama is a best-selling author of his own - and he faced off against another best-selling author in Senator McCain. But I'll be waiting to see what leadership book, literary novel, or thriller he gets caught with next. It will likely be a sign of the times. Who knows? Maybe he'll be the first president to boost science fiction sales.  

Has the time come for e-books?

What could possibly make books sexy again? I buy a lot more music digitally than I ever bought on CD. The reason is simple. It's incredibly easy to buy on-line. I can browse efficiently and download in seconds, and services like emusic help direct me toward interesting choices, some of which I NEVER would have been exposed to otherwise.

People who talk with nostalgia about independent book stores say the same thing. It's the special shelf of new offerings that they like, or the salespeople who have real knowledge. 

I like browsing for books in stores. But blogs, digital reviews, and Amazon have largely taken over and enhanced my book buying decisions. 

How many more books would people buy if they could download them more easily? I have so much music on my ipod I can't even listen to it all. That doesn't stop me from downloading more. 

Until recently, we've been waiting for a good digital reader. I'm dying to see a Kindle in real life, but have heard great things about its quality and ease of use. Just today I came across Stanza  which is a software platform that works right off your iPhone. According to a press release, 40,000 books are downloaded daily.

That sounds like the beginning of a new era in e-books to me. Now, if I only had an iPhone...

How Saturn Vue's Book Clubs

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, but apparently book clubs are from Saturn.

At Unbound Books, we're pro-book club. We think they're great ways for people with a common interest in books to read something on a schedule and reward themselves for the accomplishment with good discussion, good company, and some social fun. Not everyone likes or even reads every book. But that's okay. You get to share ideas and opinions and learn something new. 

I don't know what to make of this. On the surface, it's a series of webisodes about a group of four professional women who sneak out of their obnoxiously boring and pretentious book club for a series of exciting road trips in a hybrid Saturn Vue. Is it anti-book club? Is it anti-book? Is it just anti-pretension? I can't really figure it out. The women may not like their book club but they do read books. We see them flipping pages as they drive. Their road trips are tangentially related - the first episode features a surfing outing with a half-naked stud instructor because that's how you connect with the spiritualism of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. (Of course, you have to swim in your own clothes or underwear because you're so spontaneous you didn't pack a bathing suit.) 

To add to the confusion, the website promotes book clubs "in your area" and has opinions and reading lists for the characters. And it all somehow ties in to the experience of driving a Saturn. 

The most bewildering and even offensive aspect of the whole production, however, is the banality. It's professionally acted and shot but the script seems stilted and contrived. The tone is not quite sincere but not quite sarcastic, kind of Desperate Housewives lite. It inspires you to wonder what the market research department discovered. Someone must have said: networks are the way to reach people; book clubs are a kind of network that our customers use often; books promise exotic destinations and lifestyles but discussing them at someone's living room is kind of boring compared to driving a Saturn... Let's hit the road!

I'm completely hooked. I promise to keep watching and let you know where this great rolling book club adventure ends up. 

Road Reading

What kind of books do you like to read while traveling? I have friends who carry a number of books representing different genres - something light, something business or economic, something classic. Others like the (guilty) pleasure of a fast-paced mystery or thriller. Then there are those who read largely for personal inspiration or to get a handle on the challenges at work. 

An author from one of those categories, Michael Crichton, passed away today. Many of his books dealt with business themes, including Disclosure (sexual discrimination in the office reversed), Rising Sun (the menace of world-wide Japanese economic dominance - remember that!?), State of Fear (questioning the threat of global warming). But basically, his formula was a little bit of science or knowledge, and an ample sprinkling of suspense when things go wrong. RIP. 

Meanwhile, the king of guilty pleasures, Stephen King, has released his latest collection of short fiction, some of those stories (inspired by his mixed feelings for exercise machines) actually written in hotel rooms while traveling. Think of that the next time you zone out on CNN. 

Election emotions

Many books will be written about the significance of the election. But this clip of Jesse Jackson  speak volumes. 

No, that's not Steven Colbert

It's Peter Tertzakian on The Daily Show. Peter was interviewed by Jon Stewart about the energy crisis. The reason: Peter stated that America had an addiction to cheap oil in his book, A Thousand Barrels a Second, then President Bush used the phrase in his State of the Union Address. 

Stewart's interview was interesting and thoughtful, as they generally are. The attention brought to Peter's book was impressive. It climbed the Amazon sales ranks noticeably in the next few weeks, reaching the top ten a few times. Luckily for Peter, the Daily Show episode got replayed a number of times because Stewart went on hiatus to prepare for the Oscars. 

Books are a printed medium, but as Oprah and Stewart demonstrate, there's nothing like a little PR from the TV. It's interesting that publishers have yet to find a really successful means of publicizing books in the digital age. Until they do, Oprah and Stewart are the publishing equivalent of winning the lottery. 

Road Warriors Getting Squeezed

I like to travel. But I hate traveling by plane. You know the complaints - the security, the second bag charge, the lack of space on the plane, the bogus delays and cancellations. My favorite video on overseas flights is the one that gives in-seat exercise tips for happy fliers. The smiling passenger bends over and touches her toes, then lifts her arms and does little swirly motions. As I watch, I'm so tightly squeezed into my seat I not only can't touch my toes, I'm forced to take shallow breaths. I'm not sure if the video is a cruel joke or a sociopsychology experiment. 

I don't know how you road warriors do it. Some of the authors we work with are on the road half the year. Our 50TopCoaches co-host, Marshall Goldsmith makes it sound easy. Go light on the clothes, only use carry-on bags, eat before you fly. But for most business travelers I think things are a bit more grim. 

Apparently, it's only going to get worse with the economic downturn and rise in energy prices. According to the NY Times, "scrutiny on travel has increased dramatically." Meaning fewer business class flights, fewer luxury hotels, more meetings squeezed into each trip, ad nauseam. 

New "travel management technology" is supposed to help alleviate some of the pressure. But somehow, I doubt it. Road warriors seem pretty efficient already. Instead, I think new communication technology will be the answer. Instead of traveling to conferences or meetings, we'll participate virtually. We're not going to see the end of all business travel, but I believe a serious curbing is on the horizon. CISCO Systems, for example, has a goal of reducing all business travel by 20 percent, and they're developing the communication technology to make that plausible. Not only will it alleviate the squeeze on road warriors but it will help reduce energy consumption, too. 

Peter Tertzakian talks about how energy prices are changing our work lives in his webinar on October 29. He's got compelling things to say about how we're going to get ourselves out of the squeeze we're in right now. It's been rough lately in corporate America. Analysts like Peter help explain what's going on and where we're headed. 

Unbound Roundup

In reviews this week.... it's mostly Buffet, and we're not talking Jimmy. (Despite all that talent, turns out they're not related.) 

At NYT, the new biography about Warren Buffet, The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder, gets a positive review. Reading about Buffet visiting Wall Street and talking stock picks to celebrate his tenth birthday reminds me of this book. In hardcover non-fiction best-sellers, the only business book in the top ten, albeit numero uno, is Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How it Can Renew America. Topping the second tier is T. Boone Pickens' The First Billion is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future. Interesting that both these business books are focused on our energy problems. Well, so is Peter Tertzakian, coming up at the end of the month. 

WSJ's Buffet review gives some insights into how the book was written. First-time author, Alice Schroeder, who met Buffet in the early 90s as an analyst, got $7.2 million for the North American rights alone, an enormous amount of money for a book not penned by Clinton, Oprah, or the Pope. But Schroeder's biography was with Buffet's cooperation, and she carried around a personal note from him to open doors everywhere. Buffet, however, wanted the publishers to be clear on the fact that he was not a c0-author or stealth-author and would not engage in any promotion of the book. (The WSJ piece compares that to the tireless publicity work Jack Welch did on his Straight from the Gut.) Though Buffet claims it treats him "better than he deserves" and he wants to see it do well if he ever came out and disputed the facts that could really hurt sales. An odd arrangement and a big risk for the publisher Bantam. You can see Schroeder talking about the book here. 

In other WSJ reviews, Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn From the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years is a timely book on business mistakes, detailing bad moves by such companies as AOL Time Warner, Kodak, and Motorola. And in another timely book, and an apparent rebuttal to Mr. Friedman, it turns out The World is Curved and that's why we're experiencing upheaval in our financial markets.  

At The Economist, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business looks like an interesting IT update of Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds and tells us how open source and wikis are changing business. Finally, Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success tells the history of the firm and shows it has faced adversity before. 

Giving us all pause... to read

Sobering news from Wall Street, the Dow dropping 777 points. I'm reminded of this scene which I caught the other night with my sons. Everything is magnified or distorted in a crisis but Black Monday 2008 feels like one of those historical junctures we'll be reading about years from now. 

Joe Nocera and Roger Lowenstein are among those signing big book deals in the past week to capture history in the making. Lowenstein, who has become our modern scribe of panics and crashes, certainly has the chops. For me, Joe Nocera's often overlooked classic, A Piece of the Action, explained a key era in our changing attitude about money. When I was writing a book about RE/MAX, Nocera's book helped me understand what stagflation did to the real estate market and how that influenced buying and saving behaviors for a generation. Fascinating stuff.

But back to Wall Street. It seemed appropriate that Tom Wolfe weighed in.  Although, if you're looking for schadenfreude, Wolfe claims that the "masters of the universe" aren't in bonds anymore, they're all working for hedge funds in Connecticut. Since we're throwing around languages like a European, The Bonfire of the Vanities had a fin de siecle feel about the glory days of bygone companies such as Lehman Brothers and Salomon Brothers. That other classic, Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker, was also a cautionary tale. But it brought an eager froth to the mouths of my friends in business school, many of whom jumped into finance as a result. 

Not surprisingly, they liked this guy, too. It was the 80's after all. But the speech is interesting. "...that other malfunctioning company called the USA...." A complicated business and the more things change...