TOP 100 BOOK SITES
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| Small is beautiful: Interead's Neil Jones on going up against corporate ebook enterprises 'We are shipping six times as many units as we thought we would'Neil Jones has founded, grown and sold off a business before. Now he is back at the helm of a new startup and it is no easier second time around.Last time he built up credit data company N2Check and sold it to Dun & Bradstreet. Now he runs Interead, the company behind electronic book readers that is taking on the corporate enterprises, Sony and Amazon."I'd already set up and founded one business. It's still as scary doing the second one. You are entering into the unknown," he admits."I had no background in consumer electronics whatsoever apart from using them, and no background in publishing."The former banker entered this particular realm of the unknown when he embarked on a novel last year. Once his thriller was almost complete, he went looking for literary agents. Finally one called him to say it received 300 submissions a week but took on just two or three authors a year. This started Jones thinking about the possibilities of low-cost, digital publishing.With authors who want to control their own publishing in mind, he founded Interead and developed the Coolerbooks.com ebook site. He wanted to sell the Sony Reader to accompany the downloads but Sony could not guarantee supply, so he created the Cool-er ereader instead. After a few months in the market, worldwide sales of the Cool-er (which costs £189 in the UK) have soared.Interead had envisaged shipping some 5,000 units a month by next year. It is shifting more than 30,000 units this November alone."Six months ahead of where we thought we would be, we are shipping six times as many units as we thought we would," he says.Jones, who received no government funding but did get a loan from HSBC, recites a recent conversation with his bank manager: "He said 'If you had come to me and said you would shift this many units by November I wouldn't have lent you any money because I would have said you were living in cloud cuckoo land'. And so would I, quite honestly."He is confident that his brightly coloured devices, which have been called the iPods of the ebook world, will be number two in America by next autumn in terms of sales, and number one in the UK.As he takes on the likes of Sony and Amazon – whose Kindle reader launched internationally in October – Jones has been looking into research on David and Goliath battles throughout history. He thinks the odds for the small guy are pretty good. Outside the battlefield, he cites the business example of Virgin Atlantic, currently celebrating its 25th year. "Twenty-five years ago, who would have given Virgin Atlantic any chance against the likes of British Airways?"In the sporting world, he flags up the formula one constructor's victory for the Brawn GP team in its first season. "They took on Ferrari and McLaren from a standing start," says Jones.Key principlesJones believes the key principles to creating a successful startup are having the right team, the right business plan, the right flexibility and "swiftness of foot" to get ahead of the competition.He is a champion of the benefits of being small and not tied by the "corporate leash"."Our decisions as entrepreneurs are live and die decisions. If we make the wrong decision we don't eat. Whereas in a big corporation, if you screw up you do eat. So people are reluctant to make decisions so that they don't screw up," he says."We have got the nimbleness, we have got the speed, we have got the decision-making speed and we are not afraid to change the rules of the game," he says of Interead, which has around 20 employees split between Miami and Reading.Jones believes his company looks at the world through a very different lens to the electronics giants of the world. That means making the electronic reader in a range of colours, supporting various languages and "not being afraid to offer a huge amount of free content from Google".Interead's ebook site recently became the first ebookstore outside the US to offer 500,000 of the public domain books (books that have fallen out of copyright) available from Google Books.Jones says Interead's latest example of thinking differently is the US retail launch of its reader on the QVC shopping channel. "We know the majority of our market is women – women read more," he says.Interead did not get any state funding and Jones highlights a mismatch between how quickly startups need funds for specific projects and how slowly government departments operate.As a former banker Jones has, perhaps, unexpected views on the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) scheme. The system of loans where the government provides the security is "excellent" in theory but in practice the banks who allocate the loans are too conservative, he says."So much of the lending control is still in the hands of the banks," he says. "I'd like to see the control of lending criteria for EFG lending taken away from the banks and given to a government department to actually encourage it."He also wants the government to play a role akin to business angels. "I'd like to see some government backed equity funding in play so there is a short-term equity bucket available to help startups," he says, adding the state would not take a role in running the business but stand to gain on behalf of the taxpayer if it succeeds.And his advice to those with a business idea? "Believe in yourself and back yourself.""The reality is, what's the worst thing that happens? You lose some money on it and go back to doing what you did before," he says.Not trying could turn out so much worse. "The absolute worst thing to happen, is to see your idea taken up by someone else in three years who becomes a multimillionaire."EntrepreneursSmall businessEbooksKatie Allenguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Hardcover Nonfiction Top 5 at a Glance1. GOING ROGUE, by Sarah Palin2. OPEN, by Andre Agassi3. HAVE A LITTLE FAITH, by Mitch Albom4. ARGUING WITH IDIOTS, written and edited by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others5. A SIMPLE CHRISTMAS, by Mike Huckabee feeds.nytimes.com |
Top Author Shifts E-Book Rights to Amazon.com Amazon will have the exclusive e-book rights to two books from Stephen R. Covey, a move that promises to raise the anxiety level among print publishers. feeds.nytimes.com |
Dune set for revamp under director of Taken Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic, last seen in cinemas in David Lynch's 1984 lurid adaptation, looks set for another screen outing under Pierre MorelIt proved something of a grand folly for David Lynch, whose 1984 adaptation was a commercial and critical flop, while Salvador Dalà and Orson Welles were set to star in a 10-hour version almost a decade earlier. Now Dune, the bestselling science-fiction novel of all time, looks set to be revamped for the 21st century with French director Pierre Morel at the reins.According to Variety, Morel, best known for directing the Liam Neeson-starring revenge thriller Taken, will also work to hone a screenplay by Peter Berg and Josh Zetumer into a finished product. Berg, of Hancock fame, was previously set to direct, but has decided to work on the forthcoming adaptation of board game Battleship instead.Morel is said to be a long-time fan of Frank Herbert's 1969 novel, which launched a series that eventually spanned six books. It centres on a sprawling feudal interstellar empire where planetary fiefdoms are controlled by noble houses. The first book tells the story of the ongoing battle to control the valuable "spice melange" which is found only on the desert planet of Arrakis.Dune may represent something of a poisoned chalice for Morel. Lynch's lurid 1984 version, starring Kyle MacLachlan, Sting, Sean Young and Patrick Stewart among others, was bedevilled by the film-maker's battles with producers and financiers. He eventually distanced himself from the movie, declaring that he had not been given final cut.Before that, Alejandro Jodorowsky was set to direct a 10-hour feature in 1975, featuring the likes of Salvador DalÃ, Orson Welles, David Carradine and Mick Jagger. HR Giger, the Swiss artist who would later create the terrifying extraterrestrials for Ridley Scott's Alien, was brought in to work on the central building, the Harkonnen Castle. Dan O'Bannon, who wrote Alien's screenplay, was in line to work on the special effects. Unfortunately, the financing fell through before the shoot began.Science fiction and fantasyFilm adaptationsDavid LynchBen Childguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Library access in braille jeopardized The CNIB says it can no longer afford to run Canada's largest library of braille and accessible audio materials. cbc.ca |