Step 1: Process the customer order as usual.

 

Step 2: Slide books into the appropriate-sized waterproof container:

Step 3: Load container into the remote-controlled iBoat submarine and set on course.

It couldn’t be easier! And controlling the iBoat is a breeze with the dedicated iBoat Remote app (available in the iTunes store and Google Play), which allows booksellers complete control over destination, speed, variable depth, and sonic predator deflection settings.
Dina Garnish, owner of Unfinished Chapters on Tortola, BVI, has been beta-testing the iBoat Remote for two months. “The last thing a bookseller needs,” she says, “is for a customer waiting on Pioneer Girl to have her long-awaited copy eaten by a shark.”
She thinks the predator deflection settings work wonders. “I swear, I’ve seen a lionfish heading for the sub and then suddenly veer away like it heard ‘Party in the U.S.A.’ on the radio at breakfast.”
Garnish also says her store has confirmed a 94% on-time completion rate with the iBoat Remote system. “That’s better than FedEx, UPS, and the U.S. Postal System combined. And I’ve only lost one sub so far. The iBoat folks think a disoriented beluga was traveling out of its usual path and, in confusion, mistook the deflection sound for a mating call.”
“It’s not a perfect system yet,” admits iBoat Remote developer Brandt Vonderzeep III, “but it’s getting close. And unlike traditional delivery methods and drones alike, the iBoat won’t have to combat bad weather on land or sky. It zooms along safely underneath the storms and ice.”
It sounds good, but doesn’t this leave landlocked booksellers out of the loop? Not at all, says Vonderzeep. “They can simply piggyback the system onto a drone until it reaches a viable lake, river, or sea.”
Elizabeth’s rating of the iBoat Remote: “So far, I give it 4 out of 5 Flying Pigs! Extremely promising. More field-testing will be necessary, but this is a very solid and exciting development for booksellers!”
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Caninartist (dog authoring and illustrating)

One new app to keep our eyes on is the new indie publishing app, Caninartist, which allows dogs to dictate and draw their own picture books through its sophisticated bark-to-text and bark-to-image mapping software. The books are then published via etailing giant Atavism’s expressplace self-publishing platform and available for purchase online and at book and kennel Atavism affiliates everywhere.

Dog owners are reporting being thrilled with the new app. “This is just another example of the great boon indie publishing offers to the world of readers and their creative pets,” Atavism’s Caninartist spokesperson Stan Juiker said. Juiker isn’t the only one who is very pleased with this new publishing initiative.

“I always knew Mango (his golden retriever-dachsund mix) had some great stories to tell,” said Mango’s owner  Mark Santeros, “and now with the publication of his picture book, Feed Me, he can share his creative vision with the world.”
The Caninartist App may not be a boon for independent booksellers though. For example, recently retired bookseller Karen Chittenden commented, “This is why I retired, this goes beyond triage, it’s more like being trapped in a garbage disposal. ‘Capture, Kill, Eat, Good,’ repeated 10 times in a row, that is not a professional narrative, nor do the garish images of sea turtles and rabbits frolicking, which appear to have been just randomly downloaded from a clip art library by the software onto the page, have any artistic value at all.” Juiker offered a different perspective. “Animals help make us more human, and now they can enrich us in even more ways,” he said.

Kenny’s rating of Caninartist: ” I rate this app a 5 out of 5 because it would be arrogant to do otherwise. After all are we really qualified to judge the literary output of our canine companions?”

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Bookistry (literary palm reading app)
A highly touted bookselling app that launched recently, the American Booksellers Association’s palm reading app, Bookistry, has met with a mixed, but mostly positive reception. The Bookistry app, which offers customers palm readings to discover what their ideal book selections are, got off to a flying start as indie customers were quick to open both their palms and their wallets for this in-person, electronic palm reader.
The app, which is integrated into bookstore POS systems, is very easy to use. Booksellers simply scan the customer’s palm and their ideal book titles appear in the POS cash register. DDG was a beta test store for the app. I can tell you that results were both surprising and gratifying. Twenty-two-year-old bookseller Sam Oppenheim noted that, “I had always been a Neil Gaiman reader, and I must say that I was surprised by the app results, but let me tell you, it knew me. Anne River Siddons is the bomb!”
Doris Maybury, mother of seven-year-old Grace, echoed those sentiments. “At first I thought Grace was a little young for Haruki Murakami but I was so wrong, she can’t put IQ84 down!

Other stores have reported darker experiences, though. “At first I thought this was an ideal extension of handselling,” said Gabby Watkins of Red Ribbon Books. “When the Bookistry scan kept adding bereavement titles for one of my favorite customers to purchase, we laughed it off. I figured it was just a glitch. I know better now. I’m not laughing anymore. Did Bookistry read the future or cause it, that’s what keeps me up at night.”
Whether it is the cause or merely the messenger of future events, app developer Jane Hypand declared that Bookistry is here to stay.  ”Look, nothing in life is perfect. Being matched up with your ideal books in a less than ideal world is bound to have some attendant complications, but the benefits far outweigh any negatives.” Totally agree!
Kenny’s rating of Bookistry: “I rate this app a 4 out of 5 because I agree with Hypand that its benefits far outweigh its occasionally uncomfortable revelations. Uncovering the books which our customers are destined to read is too large a leap forward to be set aside out of a reactionary fear which, if humored, would leave us in the position of cowardly shielding our eyes from the future.
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Booksellers, will you be trying any of these new apps? And have you encountered any apps that you think signal the future of bookselling?
Happy April!