Nielsen Co. is shutting down the magazine.  Pity.  They really liked ARMADILLOS, and the review can be found elsewhere on the site.

HarperCollins and MacMillan have announced policies similar to Simon & Schuster and Hachette. Random House has yet to be heard from.

In each case, the policy appears to be targeted to the imprint's biggest books from its most popular authors.  The theory must be in part that their eager fan base won't wait the extra few weeks/months to get their hands on the hot new release.

This morning's edition of The New York Times carries an article ripping the new Barnes & Noble Nook to complete shreds.  It's slow, prone to malfunction and, while it has some interesting special features. each of these "comes with buzz kill footnotes."  The clear message is that the consumer is well-advised to wait on version 2.0, or simply plump for the Kindle or the Sony device.

"The Wall Street Journal" reports in this morning's edition that two large publishing houses (Simon & Schuster and Hatchette) have announced that the delivery of the e-book versions of 35 major 2010 releases will be delayed until after the hardcovers have been on the shelves several months.  This move is apparently being done in hopes of preventing the much cheaper e-book from cannibalizing hardcover demand, and Hollywood is being held up as an example (DVD release typically postdates by a few months theatrical release of movies).

One obvious problem is that the Hollywood example proves the wrong point. Some of us are happy to wait on the DVD since we have more control over our viewing experience (we have a broader selection of beverages from which to choose and can exclude chatty teenagers and crying babies and idiots with ringing cell phones, although that last can be difficult in my particular case) and, besides, for a cost less than that of two tickets plus popcorn and bottled water we own the thing forever.

Aside from the convenience of being able to carry many books in one device that has much less weight and bulk than a hardcover, there is another economic consideration that goes into the decision whether to buy the hardcover now versus wait on the e-book, and that is the cost of the e-reading device, which is typically $200-300.  Most rational people will want to recover some of their sunk costs in the hardware through the discounted costs of e-books.

There is another risk to the delayed release approach, and that is loss of market share.  The fact is that most people only have so much time to spend reading, and many want to read the hot new release now, rather than wait. If, say, Random House makes its e-books available simultaneously with hard cover release, there is a built-in bias in favor of its products for the reader who seeks instant gratification.

It will be interesting to see if any of the other large publishing houses follow the S&S lead.  If they don't, look for S&S and Hatchette to drop this policy, rather than lose impatient readers to the competition.  Their authors may well demand it.