Two Nook Notes [updated]
I’d like to remind everyone that my day job, my paycheck, is Barnes & Noble.
[if you think that makes a difference, I’d invite you to read some of my columns]
Anyway, two points I’d like to bring to everyone’s attention:
First: Listed over at Nikkei.com, Headline: Tezuka Manga Available Soon On Nook E-Reader — and the only bit I can read (since I’m not shelling out $90 for access to Nikkei for the full article) “Manga by the late Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, will be available on Barnes & Noble Inc.‘s Nook electronic book reader.”
I think it’s an odd announcement: not that the manga is going e- (a development we all expected, and something that will have to stand on its own merits depending on the print-to-e conversion) but that they call-out Nook as the platform.
update 9:00PM 21 June:
Someone was kind enough to email me the following, which was a nice confirmation of information available to me as a B&N employee:
“Manga by the late Osamu Tezuka—best known as the creator of Astro Boy—will be available on Barnes & Noble, Inc.‘s NOOK electronic book reader as early as this autumn. Teaming up with New York-based publisher AmericanDream Publishing Inc., Tezuka Production Co. is expected to release English translations of Tezuka’s major works, including Phoenix and Black Jack. Three or four stories [sic], totaling about 100 pages, will likely sell for around one dollar each”
So, I think by ‘stories’ we can clearly see that they mean individual chapters (given the page count) and we’ll chalk that up to a translation error.
As we all know [see Kodansha] an article on Nikkei is great — as close to the source as we can get, in many cases — but plans and results are two different things. I have full confidence in TezukaCo. but have to wonder about this AmericanDreams Publishing — who are they? Nothing came up on a Google or wiki search (yes, I’m a lazy blogger) so I’m guessing they’re a start-up?
And as previously noted, it’s odd this comes out as nook news, as the nook uses the ePub format and this could have been just as easily pitched as an iPad announcement and as such would have set the manga-blogosphere on fire. Color me skeptical, and unimpressed, but secretly hopeful: [Phoenix on an e-reader?! Aw heck yeah!]
[original post continues]
Second Nook Note:
Via cnet – B&N adds $149 WiFi-only Nook, cuts Nook 3G to $199
As the cnet article notes: ball is now in Amazon’s court.
And now, I need to stop blogging from the break room, go clock in, and actually get to work. boo. :(
