 So we're here checking out the Tolino here at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and hi, so who are you? I'm Daniel, I work for Tolino Media, and I'm author, relations manager at our self-publishing platform. And who are you? I'm Simon, I work for Tolia, and I'm here today to work for Tolino, the alliance behind the E-Reader. So you have a bunch of E-Readers in the market, what is this one? This is the E-Cos, it's a fairly new one, it's the largest model we have thus far. So a 7.8 inch, is it a 300 DPI, a very high resolution, right? It has the same resolution as our other E-Cos. So a high resolution, very good reading experience on this one? Exactly. So what's the price on this product? This one is around 230 euros, and you are in this shop, which does not work with Wi-Fi. Yes, it's 230 euros. It usually changes because Tolino is an alliance of many different booksellers or E-Reading stations. And you have lots and lots and lots of books on the store, how many books? About two million. Two million? Yeah, just regarding the German titles, I don't know how much English speaking titles we actually have, but the majority of these two millions are German titles. And which one is this? The Tolino Shine 3, which we launched this Tuesday for the Frankfurt book fair. So it's the new model of the Tolino Shine. So is this a good price? It's around 120 euros, which I think is really good for a fresh launch product. It's the cost decision we have. So a six inch? Exactly. Also 300 ppi, very fast and fresh, and a good reading experience. But does it have a front light? Yes, it does. So you can do like this. You can have what's called... You can also... So how is the reading experience on the ink compared to the book? It's not that different actually, which I really, really like. If I read with a tablet or on the computer or anything like that, it's usually really straining on the eyes, and I get headaches after about half an hour or something. And on the ink, I don't get that. And it's just much more enjoyable. And how does it compare to paper? Real book. It's not much at all, but it's really the whole point of reading. Do you read real books anymore or do you just read on Tolinos? Yes I do, because I'm a trained bookseller, so of course I grew up with print books as well. But the interesting thing is that the e-book is actually more or less substituting the paperback, because when the paperback was invented in the 1960s, it was meant to be portable and more cost-efficient than a hardcover. And so most publishing houses actually see a decrease in their paperback sales, which is compensated by an increase in their e-book sales. So today it's mostly hardcover versus paperback or e-book. So the German book market is stable? Yes it is. Really? Yes. Because is it more stable than other countries? I'd say so. I mean, there has been a decline actually. So this year, or last year actually, we had about 9.13 billion in total revenue for the entire book sector, which is less than years before. But still for many, many years we always revolve around about 9 billion. So we never fell below 9 billion actually. So yes, there's a certain decrease in annual revenue, but the average amount of money that a customer spends on a book is actually increasing. Nice. And you have other questions too? So this one is a Vision 4 HD. What is this, 6 inch? Exactly, it's the same size as the Shine 3. It has the same resolution again. Yes, it's the same. It's still an HD display pretty much. This one is waterproof actually. You can see over there we have... Yep. This is a real one in the water. Yes. And you can actually use it. Nice. So it works. Did you say you're working in the self-publishing industry? Yes, that's right. So what's going on with self-publishing? How long have you been doing this? I've been working with the linear media for the last three years, and we're a direct competitor to Amazon Kindle Publishing, that probably some people of your channel might know. So in contrast to Amazon we believe in an open book market. So let's sit down. How is your share compared to Amazon? It's somewhere between part of 5 to 50% of the entire book market. And Amazon has about 50, so we're close. So you're quite close to Amazon in Germany? Yes. And in other countries it's not like that? No, not at all. You know, the Tolena Alliance is a brand or an alliance between the biggest German booksellers, kind of the waterstones and barns and nobles of Germany. So everyone collaborates in order to publish, to develop and nurture that brand. And only with the combined power of all the big bookseller chains to compete against Amazon and Kindle. But all these publishers, a part of the Tolena Media, they're collaborating there. Are they also on the Amazon system or are they exclusive to Tolena? No, I don't know if I just said publishers that are meant booksellers. So of course booksellers all have their own retail stores in Germany, their own online shops, so these are direct competitors to Amazon. So the booksellers collaborate here and how do they get a share in this? Well, that's a little difficult to explain actually. So every bookseller is of course a direct competitor. You know, the biggest three German bookseller chains are Weltbild, Talia and Rubengubel, among others that are still part of the alliance. So it's always a balance between your own business as the Talia bookseller chain, as the Rubengubel bookseller chain and common concepts that you develop in order to establish that Toleno brand. So it's not real about getting a share out of that brand because the brand is not just marketing, but it takes the combined effort of managers of all different kind of chains to actually develop the brand. But the readers themselves are sold independently in the bookstores of Talia, of Rubengubel, etc. So they sell those readers in their stores? Exactly. And they sell many? So how many are sold? Is there any number? That's actually not in my disclosure. It's not public. I can't tell, I think. But it's big? Big number? It's a fair amount. Yes, it's a lot and it's increasing as well. So I think it's a steadily growing number. And what we also found out is people actually read more overall. So people who use an e-reader and books and paper, they tend to read more than just books or just e-readers. So all these stores are getting a commission or say, I mean it's like selling a product when they sell that reader. But how do they, they're not publishers? No, these are booksellers. So they don't make a share on the e-books that are sold? No, these are sold by publishers, of course. So the publishers sell the e-books directly? And how many, you have two million? The publishers don't sell the e-books directly. Of course there are online shops and many publisher websites where you can purchase e-books directly from the publisher. But you can also purchase about two million e-books on the different Tolino stores, in the e-commerce stores of Thalia, Hougendoubale, etc. So how many self-published books do you have? Is that a secret? Actually I don't know the number from the top of my head to be honest because we're not the only way to self-publish your book into the stores. We're the best way because we're part of the Tolino Alliance so you get better revenues if you publish things directly with us. But there are also other distributors that you can use to get your books into the Tolino stores. So you would have to find out a combined number of all the self-published titles from all the competitors out there on the market. And unfortunately there are no official figures that combine all the self-published titles. So let's say I have a book in German right now and I want to publish it, so how much does it cost or how does it work? Okay, so publication with us is free. You need to create an account at our website Tolino-media.de and then you can upload your book either as a readily made e-pop file if you already have one or you need to upload a Word document that needs to follow some specific guidelines so that it can be converted automatically into an e-pop. And the publication is free and if you decide for a price of at least €2.99 for your book, then you get 70% of the revenues from the net book price and below €2.99 you will receive 40% of revenues. And you have total control over the publication of your book so you could upload your book today, cancel it tomorrow in order to remove it from the shops and then publish it again the day after. So it's totally up to you and there are no certain contract requirements. Then the price can change? You can change the price but because we have fixed prices on books in Germany if your book is also available on other platforms that for example distribute your books to competitors such as Amazon or Google Play or whatever you need to change the price on all platforms so that your book costs the same in every online shop. So maybe you can do a special price of €0.50 in the beginning and then if you get more and more you can say €2.99. It's totally possible. Actually we are not so fond of very low prices for self-publishing because we believe that first the book has a certain value there's so much work and time that goes into a book and if you keep releasing your book at a lower price then you're sort of educating your possible customers to wait for the next special pricing and they will continue to purchase the book only when the price is low. And the second thing is that compared to Amazon we have a different kind of customer base so the Tolino shops are usually the people that still go into stationary bookstores in your local city and talk to your favorite bookseller, employee so these people are less price sensitive they believe that price is also sort of a quality statement so if you set the price too low in other shops it might even be counterproductive. So what's next? Is there any subscription plans available or is only by the books? For Tolino there's sort of a subscription plan there's a program called Tolino Select and this is a model where the bookstores from the different bookseller chains actually select 40 titles per month so these are personal recommendations by an editorship and it's not a flat rate because we already have two flat rates in Germany one being a Scooby the other one being Kindle Unlimited and we want to differentiate our subscription model from those flat rates so the idea is to take that recommendation approach that you're used to from your local bookseller and take it into the e-commerce store and encourage people to try out special recommendations maybe even in a genre that they are usually not interested in that much Maybe get hooked on to the author and buy the other books from the author Exactly, so it's a good marketing place especially for self-published authors because every Tolino e-commerce store participates with Tolino Select so if you get your book placed into the program then you have a huge marketing spot for an entire month in all of the shops at the same time so you're listed very visibly on a special Tolino Select page and it's a good way to also get your backlist going So if we can stand up over here So you're doing the demonstrations around here Would you say that the Tolino e-readers are at least as good value for the money as Kindle? Yes, definitely Definitely Probably even better because we have the... Which means you can also rent books from a local library or stuff like that You get way more out of your money for the same reader basically So you get better hardware better functionality, more resolution It's pretty much the same At least as good? At least as good and with your market you have a chance to get way more different books way more passionate You can't confirm or deny if you sell more or less of these machines than the Kindle? Well, I can't know actually because Amazon doesn't tell us But this is because I thought the Kindle market was a little bit on the low as if there was some kind of downward trend a little bit Is it not happening with you? I haven't heard of a special trend or up and down regarding our readers or the Kindle either So I think the e-book market itself is rather stable by now Everything else is something you'd have to ask Amazon about and I doubt they tell you to be honest And it's really really important and it's great for Germany to have an alternative to the Amazon What's so bad about Amazon? Well, it's not that Amazon itself is bad but it's always dangerous to have like a monopole on anything and Amazon is very good at developing technical solutions and innovative products This means if you use a Kindle then you're within a closed ecosystem and everything is seamless the purchase, etc and the downside is that you are not able to get out of that closed ecosystem So you're always tied to a specific shop, in this case Amazon and everything is protected by DRM and our approach is to say that you are not forced to buy your e-books at one store you're not even forced to buy your e-books at the Tolino stores only You can buy them internationally as well as long as you have an e-book in the e-book format then you can read it on the reader and we believe in an open book market and many German publishers also got rid of DRM recently No DRM There still is DRM but it's an increasing trend that DRM is going to be removed and let's be honest it can always be overridden by certain tools You can just scan Exactly If you really want to then you will always find a way to pirate the book There's always somebody scanning somewhere It's just a punishment of the honest readers In the family are you able to share the e-books with other people in the family or everybody has to buy one That's possible with the Tolino family account You can share on up to five different devices which means for example my mom and I use the same account for books which gives us way more access to different books Nice Is there a lot of Tolino in education and schools? Do they have these readers or the kids? I think there are some school libraries using them and granting them but it's not many It's mostly for the adults Well, yet It's a very young industry, I could say It's growing It's definitely growing For Baytac's book, I had a lot of children in our store and whenever I talked about the self-publishing and the e-reader segment they were really interested so I feel it's catching on with the younger audiences which is really great So it's been available the e-ink devices for five, six years now Pretty much And the self-publishing for two, three years Since May 2015 And only in Germany? Or every German speaking country can have it? Or do you have other languages too? Our Tolino Media self-publishing platform is only available in German but of course you can also publish with us if you're from a foreign country Our interface is only in German So if you don't speak German you'd have to use Google Translate to find your way around the different upload forms But if this is working great That's worldwide Maybe people want to buy these in France, England The best e-readers in those countries is just a different book industry We're only referring to the self-publishing platform that's only available in German But they can buy the Tolino readers over there? They can buy the Tolino everywhere It supports a lot of different languages English, French, Italian it's already pre-installed and if you need other languages it's always possible to work as usual Is that fair for you? Yeah, a very busy book fair Connecting with lots of self-publishing authors What do you tell them? It all depends on how much experience they already have with self-publishing We have our experienced authors who want to talk about marketing with us and who tell us about their next project so we already start making plans on how to support them and how to promote their books There are also a lot of newcomers that are interested in hearing about self-publishing for the first time interested in hearing about the difference between Amazon and us or our other competitors So it's really a mixed audience and it's great to be here because we like to get in touch with authors personally So how are you going to get to 10 billion next year? I wouldn't I wouldn't promise anything How many billions are you doing? That's out of my out of my information circle You have to ask our managers for that Also a few billions you can make selling more machines I feel like with the whole hybrid reading trend catching on and also the deceleration of social life of your life overall way more stress in your jobs reading will become way bigger part of the everyday life of the Germans So I feel it's probably interesting I'm also interested in this Do your parents love these devices? Do you have family that like Do you publish anything? No, I'm not an author I'm not able to write a book I live that to the experts But I guess it's really cool When I see my family they love these kinds of devices In the beginning people are like there's no way that everybody loves it That's what I tell everyone who comes to the store and there's a lot of people that are like well I prefer books and I would never touch a new reader and I'm always like well first of all you don't have to abandon books you can still read, I do both my mom does both and everyone I know well some people don't like to read on the train but they can read any reader stuff like that and I always say just sit down for half an hour try fiddle with it, read a bit read a few pages and a lot of the time people are actually excited after this and they are really soulful Does your mom use this more or real books more? By now it's pretty much it's The Shine 50-50 No no, it's the e-reading because she always carries a purse with her and she can't fit many books into that so she always has The Shine in her purse and whenever she has to wait like at the supermarket we have to wait for three minutes and my mom has The Shine in her hand and it's really continuing to read a book which I mean I really like it because for me as bookseller I always talk to her about what she's reading and gives me a lot of way to recommend books to different audiences