Known commodities

As furniture chain MFI enters administration, it looks as if Woolworths will follow suit. According to the BBC News site tonight, the troubled retailer has buckled under the strain, after weeks of uncertainty, placing 815 stores, and countless jobs in jeporady. The board of Woolies, one of the UK's oldest chains, have been in talks since 1800 hours to make the formal decision and announcement, which will no doubt come by morning.

Thankfully wholesaler Bertrams is unaffected by this decision, and for them at least, it is business as usual.

In the meantime, and just to underlie how volatile the publishing business it, US publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has closed its doors to any new acquisitions, in a move that has rattled agents throughout the industry. At the other end of the spectrum, it has emerged that the Hachette Group, whose stable encompasses names as Little Brown and Grand Central Publishing, are giving a bonus equivalent to one weeks salary to each of their employees.

If things were already bad for first time authors, struggling to find a deal, they were dealt an ever bigger blow when literary agent Esther Newberg said “It is seriously going to be a time for known commodities,” in case anyone might consider self publishing instead, she went on to say "I would hate to be starting out in the business.”

Even Google is not immune. The company is reducing its 10,000 strong army of contractors, in an effort to cut costs. A spokesman for the company admitted that they had been considering this for some time, since such staff, who make up a third of their workforce, are easier to shed.

A tough Christmas - especially for celebrities

With sales down at almost all major retailers, within and without the book trade, and crisis talks at Woolworths, this will be a bleak Christmas for many. The market in which I work is one of the worst hit, mainly since the products that we sell are seen not only as expensive, but also as non-essential.

The book world is finally being forced to wake up to the reality of the discounting culture that it unwittingly created with the abolition of the Net Book Price Agreement. Echoing what I have been saying for months, The Bookseller reports that according to the Booksellers Association Benchmark Study, the results of which were released on Friday (November 21st), UK booksellers are locked in a damaging "vicious circle" of discounting, and are making fewer profits and seeing less growth than their counterparts overseas.

The report goes on to say that book stores have been hit by a "triple whammy" of declining average prices, stagnating growth and rising costs. Of the countries studied (UK, USA, Ireland, Netherlands, Finland and Sweden), only one (the United States) had a lower average selling price than the UK, with perhaps more worryingly, the number of books sold at discount in the UK rising from 44 percent in 2004 to 51 percent in 2007.

The report estimates that UK bookshops lost around 10 percent of volume sales to other sources, such as supermarkets and online retailers during that same three years. Gross margin for UK booksellers per book is put at around 25 percent (meaning that my book which is sold at 40 percent discount, is a relatively high earner for most), far lower than the average of the countries surveyed.

Echoing my own words, BA president Graham Rand said: "We have to ask ourselves whether the industry has gone too far in creating this -'lowest price' environment for consumers; through this serial discounting are we simply devaluing the worth of the book in consumers' eyes?" I have been saying this for a long time, ever since I first began to learn about publishing in fact and understood how the supply chain works. The lower the prices go, the more books are seen as throw away commodities, of little or no value.

Any fool can surely see that such heavy discounting is not good for business - and not just for book stores. Every sector of publishing is affected by this aggressive strategy, from publishers to book stores to authors. On the surface, it is good for the consumers, since they get lower prices, but it also means less choice, as the money is no longer there to nurture and support up and coming talent, hence the explosion in self publishing. Instead of welcoming this, and seeing it as a good thing that leads to increased choice and competition, the majority working in the industry see this as bane and a dumbing down of quality, to be kept out at all costs. One look at the average celebrity (supposedly) written book will soon tell you where the real dumbing down has come from - the industry itself that pays such obscene amounts to publish these books - not for much longer though.

The BA hopes that this report will be used as a springboard to book sellers to re-think their business strategies, and so do I, for the good of all. Discounting has its place, to encourage sales in slower moving titles perhaps, but to sell brand new books as loss leaders is irresponsible in the extreme. Instead of creating business and instilling brand confidence, this ultimately has the opposite effect. The company I work for, in the electrical sector is undergoing a major re-branding exercise to overcome their public image as a discount retailers; if the book stores do not change their stance, they may be forced to do the same. The conditions may be difficult - they are for all - but there is more than one way to skin a cat - if money is tight, instead of discounting, we need to find ways to cut costs by as the report suggests, closer negotiations with publishers, rethinking of labour costs, increased product ranges and ensuring the supply chain is being used effectively.

Things may be good for Katie Price (her latest book is reported to have outsold Gordon Brown's by 4,446 copies to 193, in just two weeks) but the signs are that the industry is finally catching up with public opinion and cottoning on to the fact that these so-called celebrity memoirs are not worth the money being spent on them. As a genre, celebrity memoirs are losing popularity fast, in favour of self help and books on how to beat the credit crunch.

As well as a more cautious public, who see these books as expensive luxuries, publishers can no longer afford fees reaching into seven figures for such authors. In the first six months of 2008, publishers' lists for non-fiction hardbacks were crammed with books by celebrities, including the aforementioned Katie Price, Katherine Jenkins, Myleene Klass and Craig Charles. Books were also scheduled for older more established stars such as Esther Rantzen, Julie Andrews, Mike Oldfield and William Shatner (now that one might be worth reading). Lists for 2009 reveal only 3 such celebrity books, by comedian Jack Dee, TV host Jeremy Kyle, and comedienne Jo Brand.

The majority of these books are issued as hardbacks, with cover prices (before discount) around the £19 mark, which is a high price to pay. Last December, books had to sell at least 10,000 copies to make it into the Top 20 of the Bookseller magazine's sales charts, this year that has halved to just 5000 copies. While some books have done remarkably well, other have failed to meet expectations. Dawn French is said to have received an advance of up to £2 million for her memoirs, Dear Fatty, yet the book has sold just 30,000 copies. Simply put, celebrities are becoming a de-valued currency. Despite these huge advances with thousands spent on publicity, the majority fail to deliver on sales and do not earn their advances back. Books like this cost publishers money, and lots of it, and the more books that make a loss, the less there is to pay the real writers, who in the meantime, struggle to get any advance at all.

Publishers are beginning to see the light, and are becoming more and more cautious when it comes to these deals. As Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday's literary editor, said: "When even the big names aren't selling, the economics don't add up. Add in the shrinking books market overall, as the credit crunch takes effect, and publishers become no longer willing to take a chance."

Publishing, or for that matter any business venture, is a game of chance, which can go either way. The current economics and experience show, that celebrity books are losing favour with the reading populace. Everything goes in circles, as I knew it would sooner or later. At times of uncertainly the public do not want to know about other peoples glamorous lives, as all this does is create more misery, what they want is believable information and ideas on how to escape from their own. Maybe it is time for me to write that book about Lundy?

A victory for common sense

I have been considering of late whether to publish this blog (omitting the personal and work related stuff) but since it is not likely to be that commercially viable, and on the recommendation of various writing friends, will probably do this via Lulu rather than Authors OnLine, who although very good, are not cheap. At this stage in my life I do not have the funds to publish another book, yet reading through some of the older posts on here, from when I first started this blog (at the beginning of 2006), they are rather good, and have the potential I think, to help a lot of others who may be considering this route. I also considered (and will get around to at some point) writing a more detailed book about print on demand in the UK, and publishing through Lulu may be a useful experience to write about. It will be useful to have tried this route, and have more than one angle to write about (doing it yourself as opposed to through a POD provider who oversee all the formatting and so on for you).

To this end, last weekend I bought one of the those new netbook computers. I have been considering one of these for a while, since my old laptop is rather heavy and bulky for travelling with, especially on the winter helicopter service, where there is a strict weight limit and not much room for hand luggage in the cabin. The one I chose, the Acer Aspire One, has a nine inch screen and 8 GB flash drive, with a Linux operating system. It will be more than adequate for my needs, and a useful and versatile travelling companion.

Not much has been happening in the book world these past few weeks, now that I have got to the bottom of what is going with Amazon and the introduction of their own print on demand service in the UK. The court case with Booklocker must be due quite soon, but there has been no more news. I expect it will appear on the Bookseller in due course, and I will no doubt hear about it from the various writing sites that I post on, as well as from Angela Hoy (the plaintiff) and the Long Riders Guild, whom I am in touch with from time to time.

Now that Oprah Winfrey has endorsed the Kindle, I expect that Amazon shall be selling a few more of these devices. It is not expected to be launched in the UK until the spring, so for the moment we will have to content ourselves with other means, such as the Sony E-Reader, which I expect Waterstones will also sell a few of over the coming festive season.

It will be a tough one this year for all retailers, not just book sellers, with Amazon predicting a sharp downturn in sales. Shares in the company are reported to have plunged by 14 percent in after-hours trading, as Amazon lowered its revenue target for the final three months of the year to between $6 billion (£3.67 billion) and $7 billion, against the $7.2 billion previously forecast. Jeff Bezos is still a lot richer than I am, so I don't think he has anything to worry about quite yet.

I see that Google have also agreed to provisionally (what this means is anyone's guess) pay $125m (£80m) to settle a long-running legal dispute between it and US publishers over its controversial book scanning programme, Google Books.

According to a statement released today, the settlement, which is subject to court approval, will expand online access to millions of in-copyright books, and other documents, in the United States from the collections of participating libraries.

Google Book Search allows users to browse millions of books online and, in the case of out-of-copyright titles (or titles that the author chooses to upload to the site, as I have done), read an extract or sometimes (depending on the permission granted) the entire text. The settlement resolves two lawsuits filed in the United States just over three years ago, one of which involved the Authors’ Guild and the other of which involved McGraw-Hill, Pearson, John Wiley and Simon and Schuster. The lawsuits objected to Google’s plans to digitise, search and display extracts of in-copyright books and share them online without the explicit permission of the copyright holder - I should think so too.

Under the terms of the provisional settlement, users will be able to search and preview millions of additional titles, including out-of-print books, online. Users will also be able to buy titles online via the Book Search site (thank goodness for small mercies). US academic institutions will be able to subscribe to the online collections of libraries from around the world, and students will be able to access millions of out-of-print titles from designated computers in public and university libraries.

In addition to resolving these claims, a portion of the $125 million potential settlement will go towards helping to establish the Books Rights Registry. This will be an independent, non profit organisation will pay the rights holders earnings from institutional subscriptions, book sales, advertising revenue and other potential revenue streams (similar to Public Lending Rights by the sound of it, but online). The registry will also be the method for authors to request inclusion or exclusion from the Google Book Search programme. I must remember to look at this myself then, once it is all set up, since it affects not only US based authors, but anyone whose work is distributed within that territory.

This is a victory not just for common sense, but also for both readers and authors, who will now get paid for the use of their work. I mustn't write too soon though, as how much we will get paid remains to be seen. If it is similar to the public lending rights system, where only a sample of libraries are used each year from which to calculate earnings, then this will not be much good at all, since the libraries that my own books is stocked in have so far not been included in this sample, meaning that even though I know they are being borrowed, I am still not paid. The real winner is then the reader, who will have access to a wealth of knowledge that these books contain.

Further information for authors affected by this decision can be obtained here and here.

A storm in a tea cup

Following some comments posted on here by one Aaron Shepard a week or so ago, regarding Amazon.co.uk and their plans to implement their own POD service, some interesting things have happened.

Aaron posted on here to say that both Bertrams and Gardners had stopped stocking Lightning Source titles, and that they were only available through what he referred to as 'back order'. This he said, had allowed Amazon.co.uk along with their other sites outside the US, to start listing LSI titles as 'out of stock' or to stop taking orders for them at all.

I was puzzled by these comments, since neither Bertrams or Gardners routinely stock any POD titles, no matter who they are printed by (my own book, which is stocked by Gardners, is very much the exception). Most POD books are available via special order only, which is what Aaron refers to as 'back order'. What this means is that rather than Gardners etc keeping the books in stock, they are printed to order as and when needed. This is the norm for most POD titles, and the reason why they are not normally returnable, hence the fact that the majority of retailers do not keep in stock.

Having said this, no retailer in their right mind would refuse to obtain a book that a customer had specifically requested, for to do so would be commercial suicide. If the customer requests this book, and pays for it upfront, which they would be expected to do so, then the sale is guaranteed, so what has the retailer got to lose? It is money for old rope.

It is true that Amazon.co.uk was showing such titles as out of stock, but when you looked at the details for these books, Amazon also said that they would let customers know when the books were available (expected within 6 to 9 days) and not take their money until then. There is nothing sinister in this at all, so I don't understand what Aaron was so upset about.

I emailed Richard to see what he knew and received the following reply:

"It would appear that Amazon managed to inadvertently route all Lighting Source books to the US printing works thus putting every POD book in Britain 'Temporarily Out of Stock' - and Gardners have not changed their policy, procedure or systems - if you start looking on Amazon now, you will see that they are all beginning to come back to normal. So a bit of a speculative storm in a tea cup - my info is from the President of Lightning Source who is a long standing business friend of mine, so I usually eventually get to the bottom of things."

He is as usual right. The majority of books are now showing as available within 24 hours - so back to business as usual.

I noticed that Paul has also posted some comments on The Bookseller stating that he spoke to I Damien Peachey from the Amazon press office. Damian assured him that although Amazon would prefer to print in house via Booksurge, publishers not signing up will be able to carry on exactly as they have been, with no problems at all. Titles will be available exactly the same as they always have.

I spoke to Paul in person the other night, and he relayed this tale in somewhat more detail. He also stated that he had spoken to the Business Development Manager of a large print on demand company based in both the UK and US, and he has received a letter from Amazon, confirming that printing with Booksurge is not compulsory, and things will continue as normal for all who do not sign up. So now we have it, in black and white, no one is forcing anyone to change printers.

All is well then that ends well. As Richard said all along, it is all a storm in a tea cup.

Borders hit by Icelandic banking crisis

As print on demand company Lulu make 24 people redundant at the UK site, due to the credit crunch, Amazon seem (unfortunately) to be going from strength to strength with their profits going up with each successive quarter. This has by all accounts, been a highly successful year for them - with the acquisition of social networking site Shelfari, and the launch in the United States, of the Kindle e-reading device. I see now that they have now been awarded a US patent for "creating an incentive to author useful item reviews."

The patent describes a method of "rewarding the authors of reviews found to be useful by their readers, such as by prominently displaying their names and ranks as authors of useful reviews prominently on the web merchant's web site." In practise this means giving customers badges for writing product reviews based on whether or not others found their submission useful. This is I suppose, Amazon's way of saying thank you (pity they didn't think to thank all us authors for writing the books that they sell at such ridiculous discounts and screwing us out of the opportunity to sell them at cheaper than they do - see the Booksurge contract in yesterday's post).

The funny thing is that back in 2000, Jeff Bezos called for "fewer patents, of higher average quality." Exactly what his definition of average is, is obviously different to the rest of us ... Why anyone is surprised by this backtrack is beyond me, for like politicians, it is all he seems to do. He stated not that long ago that Amazon had no plans to implement their POD "service" in the UK, but we all took that with a pinch of salt, and quite rightly so, given my two posts of yesterday. Some time ago, in an interview with the New York Times, he declared that books were like horses, as both were perfect things that were difficult to improve upon. It seems to me that he spends most of his time talking out of that same thing that horses s*** through.

Things may be good for Amazon, but they are far from good for troubled book chain, Borders, which has found itself emboiled in the Icelandic banking crisis. The retailer - which secured a £23 million asset-based loan from Landsbanki Island earlier this year, also has an overdraft facility with the bank, which has been taken over by Iceland's Financial Services Authority. Its links with Landsbanki could have long term implications for Borders UK's access to working capital, although the impact is as yet unclear.

The chain could find their working capital severely restricted during the most critical trading period of the year, while the Icelandic Government decides what to do with the banks international operations. Speculation is rife, with one suggesiton that Borders may be asked to pay back some of the £23 million loan. The problem is that this is secured by the stock that is held in both the company's stores, and its distribution centre (recently closed) in Truro.

At the time that this loan was announced, in February, Mark Raban, who was Borders' Finance Director, said: "Landsbanki were able to offer flexibility and complete the deal quickly. We are confident the deal puts us on a strong footing for future success." I bet he is eating those words now.

While I would hate to see the demise of the chain, and the resultant loss of jobs, it would in many ways be not unexpected. Borders seem to have lost something in recent years - they used to be a good company to deal with and to shop with, but the stores now seem tatty and out of date, with the shelves stocked full of books that no one wants to buy. Whether the closure of the Truro centre will make a difference is difficult to tell, in theory it should, for the smaller presses and self publishers at least, since the staff will no longer be able to fob you off by stating that they only buy stock centrally through Head Office. Some titles no doubt are, but they will no longer be able to use this as an excuse to get rid of the savvy self publishers like me, who will challenge them on this, by pointing out that this is not the case, the stock can and is, also obtained from wholesalers, with deliveries direct to stores.

It is once again a case of wait and see. I hope that they can manage to dig their way out, but I fear that this time, their number may be up, leaving just two major book chains in the UK - WH Smiths and Waterstones.

Amazon UK launches POD service

Around the end of March this year, stories began to circulate around the Internet that Amazon.com were contacting US based print on demand publishers by telephone and telling them that from now on, if they wished their books to be listed directly (i.e have buy now buttons) on Amazon.com, then they would have be printed by Booksurge, Amazon's own printer. This understandably caused a flurry of protests, for various reasons, which I blogged extensively about at the time, and which I will talk more about later on. It culminated in Angela Hoy, proprietor of Booklocker.com together with her husband Richard, filing an anti-trust suit against Amazon, which is due in court at any time.

Everyone in the UK breathed a sigh of relief when Amazon confirmed that we were safe - for the moment, but sadly it seems that this moment has passed, for earlier this week The Bookseller ran an article written by Graeme Neill entitled Amazon UK launches POD service.

The article states that Amazon has launched a print on demand programme in the UK, which means that they can rapidly print and ship individual books following a customer order. The service will allow them to bring previously unavailable titles, such as out of print books or foreign language editions, into print in the UK. Publishers who have joined the programme are listed as Faber, John Wiley and Sons, HarperCollins UK, Cambridge University Press and Allen and Unwin Australia. Amazon state that they will be able to print books in both colour and black and white, and that the books will be 'virtually' indistinguishable from traditionally printed (lithographic) titles.

The article goes on to state that for a limited time, Amazon.co.uk will be offering free set up for publishers with POD ready print on demand files. The service will it seems be offered from Amazon's fulfilment centre in Milton Keynes, the exact same town where POD printer Lightning Source are also based.

The more I read this article the more confused I got, as what the article describes is the exact service that Amazon already have through their partnership, if that is the right word to use, with Lightning Source. The similarities are so similar, that I began to wonder if they had come to an agreement with Lightning Source to print books with their name on in their own fulfilment centre - especially since Cambridge University Press are so I am told, Lightning Source' biggest customer by far.

Somewhat suspiciously, Christopher North, Vice President of media at Amazon.co.uk says that "Amazon will be consulting with its US POD company Booksurge for their 'expertise and experience'". He went on to say that Amazon.co.uk would not require publishers to use its POD service exclusively, adding that "We are offering titles that are being produced by other print on demand providers".

The funny thing is that they said the exact same thing in the States, but this turned out to mean that publishers who refused to print with Booksurge would have to join the inappropriately named Amazon Advantage programme instead, which requires publishers to give Amazon 55 percent off the list price (the same terms that wholesalers demand, when they are not a wholesaler), and pay Amazon $29.95 a year, plus all shipping costs to send the books to Amazon. These terms are even worse than the Booksurge contract, and that is saying something.

If this is what Amazon are proposing to bring into the UK then we should all be concerned, as it will cause ripples that will impact across the book industry for years to come.

This will be a lesson for all of us in unity consciousness - what publishers, large and small will need to do is band together and pool their resources, standing up and saying NO, we will not allow you to do this.

Although I reacted with fury to begin with, now that I have had a chance to think, the threat is a bit overplayed. The laws are different in this country, and the Monoplies and Mergers Commission would never let them get away with this. The court case in America with BookLocker is yet to be decided also, and to push ahead with this prior to the verdict would be stupid in the extreme. The fact is that no one, not even Amazon can force anyone to do anything that they don't want to - people like to think otherwise as thay way they can kid themselves that they don't have a choice, and then don't have to take responsibility.

Amazon do not buy books published by the smaller companies and the self publishing outfits direct from them, but through wholesalers. I know this for a fact, as I been told it many times by many different people. It makes sense for them to obtain my book in this way, since it is stocked by Gardners, who give them a far better deal (and higher discount) than Richard would. All books that have both an ISBN and distribution through either Bertrams or Gardners, the UK's two largest wholesalers (all major POD companies have accounts with both) are automatically fed to Amazon's site by the ISBN agency, and there is nothing that Amazon can do to prevent this. It is how the system works. They can in theory remove any book that they like from their site (and I am sure that they would find a way - they did with Hachette Livre) if they really wanted to, but this would entail an awful lot of work, too much even for the mighty Amazon. I mean think about it for a moment, would they really go to the time and trouble of wading through all those books from all those publishers and removing them from their site - of course not, and more to the point, would they really alienate themselves from companies that provide their most lucrative source of income - no - they know which side their bread is buttered.

I don't think we have reason to panic then quite yet.

The future's bright, the future's digital

Changes have been taking place within the publishing industry this past year or so at an alarming rate, or what seems alarming for a relatively slow moving trade. The industry is notoriously resistant to change, and so to many, these changes have not been easy and the transition far from smooth. The main threats facing the industry, which have been much debated in recent months are of course both e-books and print on demand. Both have been around for some time, with print on demand making great inroads and coming on in leaps and bounds. This is due in part to hard working and professional self publishers such as myself who have worked tirelessly to change perceptions, but also due to economics. While lithographic printing has become more expensive, due to the various costs involved, as the technology has grown and evolved, print on demand has become cheaper. Publishers are then embracing this technology as never before, and beginning to see it as more of a positive than a negative. This can only be a good thing.

The second threat if that is the right word, is e-books. Like print on demand, these too have been available for some time, but unlike print on demand, have been confined mainly to academic texts. This though is changing with the advent of new user friendly e-reader devices, such as the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, recently trialled very successfully I might add, by Waterstones.

What exactly though is an e-book? An e-book is a book that has been digitised so that it can be read on an electronic device instead of a paper copy. This reading device has traditionally been a computer, but can also be one of the new reading devices as mentioned above. Instead of reading the words on a page, you read them on the screen - to advance to the next page, you simply press the next button. The e-readers themselves are shaped very much like books, and weigh about the same.

They offer several advantages over traditional paper books - the most obvious of which is the ability to store up to 100 books on the same device. Think how heavy and awkward it would be if you had to carry around 100 books! This is a real boon for travellers and academics alike, not to mention writers like myself, who need access to lots of different texts at the touch of a button for research purposes. The ability to search quickly and easily within the text is another advantage.

The readers have received a mixed reaction amongst book devotees, with some welcoming them and others seemingly dead against. I fell into this camp myself until I actually saw one in my local Waterstones and had the opportunity to have a play around. They are surprisingly lightweight and very user friendly, with a well lit and lifelike screen that copes well even with bright sunlight. Whether you could use it in the bath is matter for debate - it would not be advisable, since water and electricity do not mix (like i-pods the readers have rechargeable batteries so don't need to be plugged in all the time). Curling up with one of these in bed would not have quite the same feel either, but the readers are here to stay, whether we like it or not, so we had better used to them.

The reaction from authors has also been mixed, with concerns over piracy and copyright. These issues do need to be addressed, but they mask, in my opinion, the underlying cause of this fear. The fear comes not from the technology itself but from it represents - freedom for both author and reader. If e-books catch on then publishers and agents could become obsolete, for instead of relying on them to sell their wares, authors will be able to go direct to the public. There will be nothing to stop them from setting up their own websites (the smart author has already done this anyway), paying a small fee to have their books digitised (Authors OnLine did a splendid job with mine for a very small fee indeed), and a bit more for publicity (easier said than done, depending on who you are). Once these costs are taken off the author gets 100 percent of the royalties. A traditional publisher if you are lucky, pays between 10 and 15 percent, so you work it out.

Publishing companies have good cause to be concerned, for this is a direct threat to their livelihood. They are bound to see their revenues decline, as are agents, as more and more authors begin to cut out the middle men, who have traditionally acted as gatekeepers. The old ways are crumbling to give birth to the new.

The real beneficiaries as always will be the unseen and unheard majority, those who cannot for various reasons get either an agent or a publisher to help sell their wares. There will be (and in reality, already is) nothing to prevent them from setting up their own store fronts in competition with the big boys and girls, who will no longer be able to look down on us from ivory towers, but instead look upon as the equals that we are. This will open up the market as never before, and do wonders to help the self published cause. The future belongs fairly and squarely to us, who embrace this technology with open arms, knowing what it means and the advantages that it offers. Perhaps as author and Sony ambassaor Toby Young says so eloquently in the current edition of Waterstones magazine, that is the real reason why so many are so nervous.

A review of the new Sony e-Reader can be seen here.