Penguin, which removed ebooks from libraries and ended its relationship with distributor OverDrive in February, is tiptoeing back into the digital lending waters again. In a 1-year pilot program with OverDrive competitor 3M, Penguin will make ebooks available to the New York and Brooklyn Public Libraries. Read more »
On Friday the State Department announced that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would hold a press conference to announce the Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative this Wednesday, June 20. Now the event has been postponed until an unspecified “later date.” In the […] Read more »
Amazon and the U.S. State Department have a deal: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will announce the global launch of the Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative on Wednesday, June 20 at a press conference in Washington, D.C. Read more »
In his letter to the Department of Justice on the proposed e-book settlement, American Booksellers Association president Oren Teicher calls Amazon a “classic free-rider” and argues that settling publishers shouldn’t have to drop agency pricing as a requirement of the settlement. Read more »
This weekly feature tells the backstory of how one e-book became a bestseller, and highlights bestselling titles that are selling more copies in digital than in print. This week: A “new adult” romance for the college crowd. Read more »
On Monday, I reported that the U.S. State Department was considering a $16.5 million deal with Amazon Kindle. Yesterday I was able to interview State spokesman Philippe Reines about the program. But I still have a few questions. Read more »
A list released today reveals that there are nearly 2,000 applications for new internet names like “.baby” and “.love.” Book giant Amazon has applied to control dozens of the new names and is in competition for several of them including “.app” and “.cloud” Read more »
Once a Google Android exclusive, Amazon released an iOS version of its Cloud Player app for iPhone and iPod touch devices. The free software provides streaming and download access to audio files on Amazon servers either purchased from Amazon’s music store or later uploaded by customers. Read more »
Random House has promoted Madeline McIntosh, president of sales, digital and operations, to the position of chief operating officer, effective immediately. Read more »
The U.S State Department has signed a no-bid, $16.5 million contract with Amazon to provide Kindles — 2,500 of them to start — for its overseas programs. Why has the government decided the Kindle is the best e-reader — and what’s Amazon providing for that money? Read more »
This week, the book industry gathered at the ugly, cavernous Javits Center in Manhattan for the largest book trade event in the United States. (“I feel like I’m in Costco,” actress-author Molly Ringwald told the AP.) Here are five digital lessons from the week. Read more »
Traditional cable is no longer about choice; it’s about access. As an access provider for content, cable has the widest depth of content right now, but it also costs the most. So how long can it keep content and customers? Read more at GigaOM »
Wattpad, which describes itself as the world’s largest online community of readers and writers, has raised $17 million from a group of venture funds led by Khosla Ventures. Khosla partner Andrew Chung says he thinks Wattpad can do for writing what YouTube has done for video. Read more at GigaOM »
Digital reading company Kobo is launching a competitor to Amazon’s KDP and Barnes & Noble’s PubIt: Kobo Writing Life, a free self-publishing platform for independent authors and publishers. Read more »
Amazon has acquired Avalon Books, a small publisher that focuses on hardcover mystery, romance and Westerns, and will make its titles available digitally for the first time. Avalon Books has been geared primarily toward the library market; now Amazon will try to go wider. Read more »
BookExpo America, the U.S. book industry’s largest trade event, hits NYC next week. Look out for discoverability questions, startups and “Hunger Games” wannabes — and don’t miss the two elephants in the room. Read more »
Penguin and Macmillan, the two publishers fighting the Department of Justice’s e-book price fixing lawsuit in court, have both filed responses to the DOJ suit. Macmillan’s response is shorter and more fiery; Penguin’s is longer, with more colorful details and explainers. Read more »
Three months after Amazon yanked book distributor IPG’s 5,000 titles from the Kindle store in a fight over terms, the two companies have come to an agreement and Amazon has restored the titles. IPG’s letter to clients is below. Read more »
Amazon is finally banning some of the junkier content in the Kindle Store, including “content that is freely available on the web, unless you are the copyright owner of that content.” Read more »
In the latest court filing in the ongoing Justice Department e-books price-fixing suit, Apple says it did not conspire to fix the prices of digital books to hurt competitors and its business strategy around pricing was “perfectly proper,” according to a Reuters report. Read more »
Amazon is a “predator,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo said at paidContent 2012 this afternoon, and he believes that young undiscovered writers are at particular risk. Read more »
UK bookstore chain Waterstones is partnering with Amazon to sell the Kindle in its 294 stores starting this fall. The deal is bad news for Barnes & Noble. But it may not be so great for Waterstones, either. Here’s why. Read more »
UK bookstore chain Waterstones has signed an agreement with Amazon to sell the Kindle in its 300 stores and “launch new e-reading services.” The news is a blow for Barnes & Noble, which was rumored to be working with Waterstones on the Nook’s international launch. Read more »
Amazon is reportedly trying to sell ads that would appear on the Kindle Fire’s welcome screen, at prices of at least $600,000 for a two-month campaign. Does that mean a cheaper, ad-supported Kindle Fire is coming soon? Read more »
Many self-published authors are still turning to literary agents to sell foreign rights to their books. In a move that could cut some agents out, Amazon now allows those authors to distribute their print books through European Amazon sites for free. Read more »
Pottermore has partnered with Kobo to make the Harry Potter e-books available on Kobo devices. Pottermore has similar arrangements with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony and Google (but not Apple yet). Read more »
New York, the District of Columbia and fifteen other states have joined the e-book pricing class action suit against Apple, Macmillan and Penguin, for a total of 31. The amended complaint reveals details that were previously redacted, including an e-mail from Steve Jobs. Read more »
Is Amazon seriously launching a tech blog to compete with gadget blogs like the Verge and Gizmodo? According to a new report, yes. The funny thing is that Amazon already has a gadget blog, plus seven other blogs on topics like food and music. Read more at GigaOM »
Amazon will make all seven Harry Potter e-books available in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. “It’s a commercial deal that makes sense even with a level of cannibalization of sales,” Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne tells paidContent, “but I believe it will actually drive greater sales.” Read more »
Amazon’s Kindle home page and a Harry Potter owl promise “wizardry on the way.” Read more »
Just about a year after it hired publishing industry vet Larry Kirshbaum to launch a New York-based imprint, Amazon is announcing a new high-profile hire: Sara Nelson, the former books editor for Oprah’s “O” magazine and, before that, editor-in-chief of trade mag “Publishers Weekly.” Read more »
Google has started selling e-books in Italy through Google Play. It’s the company’s first foray into foreign-language e-books, and Google will be competing against Amazon’s Italian Kindle Store. Read more »
A new deal between independent e-bookstore Diesel eBooks and rewards points company Koinz Media lets people redeem their bank and hotel rewards points and airline miles for e-books. But Kindle e-reader owners won’t benefit. Read more »
This weekly feature tells the backstory of how one e-book became a bestseller, and highlights bestselling titles that are selling better in digital than in print. This week: Marriage to a billionaire. Read more »
Book publishers are trying hard to argue that e-books cost almost as much to produce as printed ones, and therefore prices for e-books should be higher — but the bottom line is that consumers don’t care what a publisher’s costs are, nor should they. Read more at GigaOM »
More than a year after Judge Denny Chin blew up an epic settlement agreement, Google and the Authors Guild are back in court today. Read more »
Amazon doesn’t like middlemen. With Amazon Publishing, the company signs authors up directly to write books. Now the company is searching for more content creators. Amazon Studios is inviting creators to submit proposals for original shows. Read more »
According to a memo obtained by The Verge, Target will stop carrying Kindles in its stores or on its website after Mother’s Day. Read more at GigaOM »
Although Microsoft invested $300 million in a Barnes & Noble spin-off on Monday, this isn’t the first time Microsoft played the e-book game. Typical for the company, it often has great ideas, but it errs on the timing: Microsoft debuted e-book software back in 2000! Read more »
Buzz Bissinger should have been excited when Starbucks selected his Byliner e-single, “After Friday Night Lights,” as its free “pick of the week.” But then Amazon responded. Turns out being a Starbucks Pick of the Week is a mixed blessing for authors and publishers. Read more »
