Togather lets authors crowdsource book tours

Here's an interesting idea for author promotion--although it's just entering beta testing. Togather is a new website that brings crowdsourcing to book tours. Authors post their profiles and calendars of days available for promotional events. Fans can then propose events, or authors can create their own events. Togather lets authors negotiate terms and conditions for appearances within the service, including pricing (which is going to be moot for most authors, especially new ones.) Once the events are created, people are encouraged to promote them to their friends on social networks. Authors can set criteria for confirming their appearance--number of tickets sold or RSVP, or number of books sold--and when the goal is reached, ticket and book sales are processed by Togather and the event is on.

I can see Togather as being very valuable to established authors as bookstores close and the number of legacy venues for book tours declines--although authors with big social media presences can do much the same thing from their own Facebook pages and websites. I'm not sure how valuable Togather is going to be for new authors, unless it's one component in a much bigger marketing campaign.

College bookstores claim that the price of course materials is dropping

The National Association of College Stores, which represents college bookstore operators, has just released a study saying that by students' estimates, the average annual cost of required course materials is $655, down from $667 two years ago and $702 four years ago. The Student Watch study published by the NACS seems, at least in part, to be a response to the press release sent out last week by CourseSmart that said that almost 35% of students don't think that it's worth their effort to sell their textbooks back to college bookstores.

The NACS study says that 74% of college students prefer to rent hard copy textbooks; the organization claims that rental can save students between 45% and 66% off the price of a new print textbook. (CourseSmart claims similar savings from rental of its eTextbooks.) The NACS claims that purchasing used textbooks can save 25% off the price of new textbooks for students, and that renting or purchasing eTextbooks is also an option for saving money.

NACS' members are facing many challenges: Competition from Internet-based textbook suppliers such as Chegg, Amazon, BookRenter and others; publisher groups like CourseSmart that compete against bookstores; colleges and universities that cut direct deals with publishers such as McGraw-Hill and provide textbooks and course materials through activity fees; and schools that adopt open textbooks at low or no cost. Students, colleges and universities are exploring more options than ever before, and college bookstores are no longer most students' de facto source for textbooks, eTextbooks and other materials.

Independent U.K. booksellers look for eBook options

The Bookseller reports on a meeting held by the U.K.'s Booksellers Association last week, where members heard from three eBook vendors: Kobo, Hive and Anobii. Kobo is proposing that independent booksellers link to Kobo's site, and Kobo will give them a cut of every eBook sold from then on, whether they purchase inside the bookseller's physical store or directly from Kobo. However, Kobo already has a distribution agreement with WHSmith, and Kobo VP Michael Tamblyn said that it would be "quite difficult" for independents to get a cut of transactions from Kobo readers sold by WHSmith. In other words, existing Kobo owners would have to purchase a second Kobo eReader or install a second software eReader on their PC or tablet (which would likely wipe out their existing library of WHSmith eBooks.)

Anobii CEO Matteo Berlucchi proposed a "classic affiliate" model where booksellers would get a commission on each sale made through their links to the Anobii website. Neither Anobii nor Kobo publicly stated what their commission rate for sales through independent booksellers would be.

Gardners' development manager Julie Howkins said that the company plans to launch a new Hive eReader app in the next two weeks for PCs, iOS and Android devices. The company is also endorsing the GoTab range of eReaders and tablets from Yarvik. Booksellers will only get a 5% commission from Hive on eBook sales, but Howkins told The Bookseller that the company's commission model is "under review."

AAP March report: Children's/YA and eBooks sales are growing; everything else is stable or falling

Publishers Weekly has the key numbers from the Association of American Publishers' March report. Here's a summary:

• Sales in all print segments except children's fell in March.
• The Children's/Young Adult segment rose 46.6%; eBook sales in the segment rose 173.9%. 
• Sales of adult eBooks rose 33.2%. 
• Sales of adult trade print books fell 11.6%.

For all of Q1 2012:

• Adult eBook sales rose 28.1%; adult hardcover sales were up 2%, while adult trade paperback sales declined 10.5%. 
• Mass market paperback sales declined 20.8%.. 
• Children's/YA sales rose 63.6% 
• University press sales rose 3.6%. 
• Religious sales dropped 1.8% 
• Professional sales were down 2.6%. 
• K-12 instructional materials declined 13.4%. 
• Higher education course materials dropped 0.3%.