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Posts tagged ‘ebooks’

Feb 11

Authors Driving Change | Barbara Cartland is latest author to be wooed by digital | TheBookseller

Aside from the unfortunate puns, this is a fascinating story. It marks a real danger for publishers as ebook publishing for estates and the backlists of successful authors becomes much, much easier.

As it does and as the royalties offered to authors who go direct to AMazon, B&N and Apple remain more attractive than working with a publisher, estates and authors will sacrifice their relationships with publishers to gain revenue. It’s a sensible decision but one that further increases the pressure on publishers and peels away at the basis of their business model:

The estate of the romance writer Barbara Cartland has fallen to the embrace of digital, in a move that sees her print publisher suffering a painful rejection. About a quarter of Cartlands extensive ouevre is to be published digitally in e-book format by her estate for the first time on Valentines Day.

The deal has echoes of the decision by Ian Fleming Publications to release the writers James Bond books as digital editions, but not through his current publisher Penguin. The works, part of the Pink Collection, comprise 160 titles and are being made available through a partnership between Barbaracartland.com and M-Y Ebooks

via Barbara Cartland is latest author to be wooed by digital | TheBookseller.

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Feb 8

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Bricks & Mortar Blues | WHS acquires 22 British Bookshops stores | TheBookseller

It is hard to recall, but Eason paid around £30 million for the full British Bookshop chain in 2005. Getting half the chain for such a small price shows two things. The first is that retail fortunes have come crashing down driven mostly by the recession and the fall in consumer spending rather then by the more medium term digital challenge. The second is that WH Smith has made a VERY savvy acquisition that is bound to be earnings positive (unless there is a debt element to the deal that we don’t know about).

In a trading statement, the retailer said: “W H Smith High Street confirms it has acquired 22 stores and intellectual property from British Bookshops and Stationers Limited in administration for a total cash consideration of £1.05 million.”

via WHS acquires 22 British Bookshops stores | TheBookseller.

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Feb 7

Publishers Take Note | MediaPost – news and directories for media, marketing and online advertising professionals

Interesting stats these:

Falling prices and new business models will help U.S. e-book unit sales to grow from an estimated $313 million in 2009 to $2.7 billion in 2013, according to a new Yankee Group forecast. The research firm predicts that e-book downloads will outpace those of paid mobile apps during the period, growing at an annual rate of 83% compared to 72%.

via MediaPost – news and directories for media, marketing and online advertising professionals.

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Feb 7

Publishers Take Note | Apple to Tighten Control of How Magazines, Content Are Sold for iPad – WSJ.com

The recent decision by Apple to reject Sony’s eReader app seems to have opened up a much larger and far more wide-ranging debate about in-App and non-iTunes purchases.

Amazon’s Kindle App sends readers to their buying system in Safari to avoid paying Apple’s toll (30%) but recent suggestions are that Apple are intent on stopping that and enforcing either full in-app purchases or at the very least offering in-app purchase as an option.

It brings to mind for me the need for publishers to have their own web strategy and not to become reliant on the platforms of others whose goals and plans are in no way aligned with theirs:

Apple has indicated the sales outside of iTunes can continue, as long as sales through its store are provided as an option. “Rest assured that we want our customers to be able to get their publications easily both from our App Store and obviously from websites or other ways they get them,” Mr. Cue said.V

Apple is tightening enforcement of a rule governing how some apps for the iPad must handle sales, a shift that affects online books as well as other electronic publications. Above, a customer looks at the Angry Birds game on an Apple Inc. iPad tablet computer at the Simply Mac store Salt Lake City, Utah.Apple hasnt disclosed details of terms it is offering publishers, but generally takes a 30% cut on such iTunes transactions. News Corp, which also publishes The Wall Street Journal, appears to be getting a similar deal for The Daily, which Apple helped develop. Rupert Murdoch, its chairman, said in an interview Wednesday on the Fox Business Network that his company is getting 70 cents of every dollar for the first year, with Apple getting 30 cents. He said the terms after that were subject to negotiation.

via Apple to Tighten Control of How Magazines, Content Are Sold for iPad – WSJ.com.

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Feb 5

Publishers Take Note | BroadbandBreakfast.com: Japanese Book Publishers Up Against Wall As IPad Spurs Cottage Industry of Book Scanning

Fascinating way to make money, hard to argue with it as a service too, why shouldn’t the owner of a book scan it for their own convenience?

Consumers such as Yusuke Ohki, who has 2,000 books in his Tokyo apartment, are scanning them and accessing them through their iPads.

Ohki has since started up his own 120-person firm that does the same thing for customers. There are as many as 60 companies offering such a service, according to Bloomberg.

via BroadbandBreakfast.com: Japanese Book Publishers Up Against Wall As IPad Spurs Cottage Industry of Book Scanning.

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