The Pew Research Center reported that almost a quarter of Americans are reading ebooks. But more of the growth in ebook reading devices is happening on tablets than dedicated e-readers. Read more at GigaOM »
This weekly feature (back after a brief hiatus) looks at the books that are selling better in digital format than in print. This week’s picks: Two books from self-published author Michelle Leighton, who’s just signed a deal with traditional publisher Penguin. Read more »
Oyster, a new startup that wants to be the Spotify of books, announced it has raised $3 million led by Founders Fund. The money will help Oyster build a library that allows members to access an unlimited number of books for a monthly fee. Read more at GigaOM »
A surprise ruling last week will force publishers to tear up their e-book contracts with retailers. The ruling is scheduled to go into effect in the next few days and, if it does, Amazon and others will be allowed to slash the price of e-books. A prominent lawyer has filed a Hail Mary brief to stop the process. Read more »
States want to give consumers $69 million worth of refunds to compensate them for overpriced ebooks. How much will you get? And how will this affect the publishing industry? Here’s a simple guide to what’s really going on. Read more »
State governments, which are suing publishers and Apple for fixing e-book prices, have finally said just how much each consumer will get in a proposed $69 million settlement. We have all the details. Read more »
Many newspapers have tried ebooks as a new revenue stream, but the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s “In the Footsteps of Little Crow” stands out. Curt Brown’s extensively researched narrative of the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War is #13 on the NYT ebook bestseller list this week. Read more »
This weekly feature looks at the books that are selling better in digital format than in print. This week’s pick: Nordic noir title “The Boy in the Suitcase.” Read more »
Sony’s newest e-reader, the Reader PRS-T2, may appeal mainly due to the $129 price tag. But the ability to share passages on Facebook and integration with Evernote make it even better. Evernote is superb for clipping web content for viewing later on nearly any device. Read more at GigaOM »
An incident in which an e-book lending site was shut down by a horde of angry authors with takedown notices — most of whom misunderstood the site’s purpose — is another example of how the publishing industry is fighting the same battles as the music industry. Read more at GigaOM »
This weekly feature examines certain ebooks’ paths to bestseller-dom, and highlights bestselling titles on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists that are selling more copies in digital than in print. Featured this week: R.L. Mathewson’s “Playing for Keeps” and “Perfection.” Read more »
Class action lawyers want Steve Jobs’ biographer to hand over his source material to help them prove that Apple and publishers fixed e-book prices. But a judge has agreed that the author can refuse under a law that protects journalists and their sources. Read more »
This weekly feature examines certain ebooks’ paths to bestseller-dom, and highlights bestselling titles on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists that are selling more copies in digital than in print. Featured this week: Bella Andre’s “Sullivans” series and Courtney Walsh’s “A Sweethaven Summer.” Read more »
This weekly feature examines certain ebooks’ paths to bestseller-dom, and highlights bestselling titles that are selling more copies in digital than in print. This week: Flappers, chaperones and the power of the Kindle Daily Deal. Read more »
Popular blogger and Brazen Careerist founder Penelope Trunk has a new book, “The New American Dream,” and she’s gotten a lot of attention because of a post that she wrote about that book last week. This attention, she said, surprises her. Read more »
This weekly column examines certain ebooks’ paths to bestseller-dom, and highlights bestselling titles that are selling more copies in digital than in print. This week: Self-published young adult romance takes off again. Read more »
Good way for a book to become a NYT bestseller: Have Jeff Bezos write about it on Amazon’s homepage. That’s what happened to Jessica Park, whose self-pubbed “Flat-Out Love” got a Bezos shoutout on June 18. This week, it hits the NYT ebook list at #25. Read more »
Google now activates one million Android devices per day and has 400 million devices in the wild, but its media store efforts have lagged. Google Play now has more digital content types, so here’s a look at how it compares to iTunes and Amazon’s digital store. Read more at GigaOM »
Comedian Louis CK, who made $1 million selling downloads of a show through his website, has sold $4.5-million in tickets to a new tour in 48 hours. He and musician Amanda Palmer show that for content creators, building a community is more important than ever. Read more at GigaOM »
If you read Shakespeare in high school or college, it was likely one of those Folger Shakespeare paperbacks with explanatory notes and definitions on the facing pages. Now Simon & Schuster is releasing those editions as ebooks for the first time. Read more »
The Department of Justice’s trial against Apple, Penguin and Macmillan, who are accused of colluding to fix prices on e-books, will take place in a little under a year, on June 3, 2013, presiding U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled Friday. Read more »
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 »
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 »
Amazon is selling at least two Amazon Publishing titles in other digital bookstores. Until now, it has sold its e-books exclusively through the Kindle Store. Read more »
Google announced a major deal in France that clears the way for the sale of millions of e-books that have been caught in legal limbo until now. The deal could spur digital publishing in Europe and shape control of the continent’s fledgling e-book market. Read more »
Berlin startup Readmill’s iPad-based social reading app has got plenty of attention. Now it’s getting a significant update that will make it simpler and easier to use for everyone — including making it more useful for independent publishers to hook themselves in to. Read more at GigaOM »
New data from PwC’s media report projects that e-books will make up 50 percent of the U.S. trade book market by 2016. What will happen in the rest of the world during that time? PwC gave paidContent an exclusive look at the new report’s e-book data. 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 »
Ray Bradbury’s landmark novel Fahrenheit 451 is usually seen as a protest against government censorship, but the author said it was about how television and other media were making people less interested in ideas. What would Bradbury think of the world we live in now? Read more at GigaOM »
When it comes to selling e-books, the Harry Potter franchise is far from conventional: Pottermore has been selling JK Rowling’s Harry Potter e-books without digital rights protection. Why? Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne answers that and more in a paidContent 2012 interview with Laura Hazard Owen. Read more »
German e-reading service txtr hopes to take on Amazon and Apple by becoming the biggest provider of third party reading apps — and a deal with four major American publishers and a New York office could be the latest steps in that journey. 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 »
India and Brazil are on their way to becoming e-book powerhouses, but their path there looks different from the transition in the US and the UK. Here’s why. 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 »
As the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Apple and five big publishers for allegedly colluding to fix e-book prices moves forward, the public has the chance to respond. Here are some of the most interesting letters sent to the DOJ so far. Read more »
In a new pushback over its role in an ongoing e-book controversy, Apple said that Steve Jobs’ widely reported quotes on Amazon and book publishers “will speak for themselves.” The company also denied again that it conspired to fix e-book prices. Read more »
Reports are coming from Japan that Amazon is forming an MVNO. If true, it would be an interesting experiment for Amazon, expanding its mobile business beyond selling devices, apps and e-books to selling connectivity itself. But I suspect this is nothing more than an experiment. Read more at GigaOM »
Pan Macmillan Australia’s digital-only imprint Momentum will remove DRM from all its titles by August, the company announced today. Last month, Macmillan sci-fi/fantasy imprint Tor/Forge announced it will drop DRM by early July. Read more »
