Deal Radar 2010: CampusBookRentals.com, Utah

CampusBookRentals.com (CBR), which describes itself as being like Netflix for textbooks, rents textbooks to college students for prices that can be more than 50% off the purchase price. The company is an early entrant in the burgeoning market of textbook rental, where students pay to keep books for a certain period of time. 

Is Reading On Steve’s Mind?

On Monday, Apple (NASAQ:AAPL) reported a strong fourth quarter driven by strong Mac and iPhone sales that topped estimates. In my most recent post on Apple, I wondered out loud about what is on Steve Jobs’s mind and if he would come with an innovative product that would encourage people to read more. There are

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Best Entrepreneurship Books

[This post, with a shorter list, was published earlier. An updated version is being published today.] As a self-taught entrepreneur, I have done my own digging into entrepreneurship literature. When I started writing my book series, Entrepreneur Journeys, I did a lot of thinking on what is it that I am looking for in an

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Deal Radar 2008: Blurb

Blurb gives individuals and groups the ability to create, publish and market professional quality photo books. Unlike offset printing, they can publish just one copy or thousands, bringing book publishing to the masses. The self-publishing and print-on-demand industry is starting to become a meaningful alternative to the older, slower, more traditional publishing model.

Book Business

The Economist echoes what I wrote in Forbes recently: The book business is going to change in favor of authors. “Publishing has only two indispensable participants: authors and readers. As with music, any technology that brings these two groups closer makes the whole industry more efficient—but hurts those who benefit from the distance between them.”

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Forbes Column 08: How Amazon Could Change Publishing

Amazon is the 800-pound gorilla in book retail. What if they also became the publisher, and cut out all the middle-men? Read my new Forbes column, How Amazon Could Change Publishing.

Still Bullish on Shutterfly

Shutterfly (SFLY), the online photo company, recently declared first quarter results. Their revenue for the quarter of $34.3 million missed the market’s views of $34.8 million, even though it was 29% higher over previous year Q1 revenues. Their GAAP net loss at $0.15 per share met market expectations and was higher than GAAP net loss

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Amazon Toying with Vertical Integration

Amazon.com (AMZN) has been pursuing growth at all costs. Their recently announced Q1 2008 results are witness to that drive. They reported the quarter’s revenue at $4.13 billion, meeting analyst expectations and reporting a 37% increase over the previous year. Their earnings for the quarter at $0.34 were marginally higher than the market’s expectation of

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