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 »
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: The next “50 Shades of Grey”? Read more »
It’s all about the platform — except when it isn’t: Speakers at paidContent 2012 spoke about the opportunities, challenges and constraints of creating digital content. Read more »
“If you buy a digital book you should be able to read it on anything you want to read it on”, said Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne at paidContent 2012. 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 at GigaOM »
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 »
Big-six publisher Hachette Book Group is making free chapters of upcoming books from bestselling authors like James Patterson and Michael Connelly available through a new Facebook app. Read more »
The biggest challenge for a media company like Meredith is shifting focus to consumer engagement across platforms, Meredith’s Liz Schimel said at paidContent 2012. Part of that means making the brands available on the right platforms, but not all platforms. Read more »
Big data is an intimidating concept for publishers who don’t collect much info about their customers already. A first step is to think about “data-driven decision making,” and little data, says bitly’s Hilary Mason. 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 »
Hachette, which has not made e-books available to libraries since 2010, is reconsidering the idea. In a pilot program starting this spring, the publisher is working with two e-book distributors to bring a “selection of HBG’s recent bestselling e-books to 7 million library patrons.” Read more »
As part of paidContent 2012: At The Crossroads on May 23 in New York, I’ll be talking with venture capitalist Fred Wilson about the future of media and with Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Vivian Schiller of NBC News about real-time politics. Read more at GigaOM »
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: Crashing a book about the financial crash. 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 »
iPad textbook publisher Inkling is partnering with college bookstore provider Follett. Starting this fall, Follett will sell hundreds of Inkling titles in its over 900 college bookstores — including Stanford and UC Berkeley — and on its website. Read more »
As traditional book publishers are increasingly signing self-published authors, Hollywood studios are also looking to self-published books for their next blockbuster. Last month, Universal acquired the film rights to “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Now Fox and Ridley Scott have acquired the rights to sci-fi series “Wool.” Read more »
Nokia is launching its Reading app and e-bookstore for the Lumia Windows Phone in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the UK. In doing so, the company hopes to bring more local-language e-books to countries where e-readers haven’t yet taken off. Read more »
This new 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 book that plays itself on TV. Read more »
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 »
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 »
New stats from the Association of American Publishers show that kids’ and young adult e-book sales grew by triple digits in February, while adult e-book sales appeared to flatten. But that’s partly because so many adults are reading YA e-books like the “Hunger Games” trilogy. Read more »
Harry Potter website Pottermore sold nearly $5 million worth of e-books in its first month — that works out to around 525,000 books — and has nearly 7 million unique users, CEO Charlie Redmayne says. Sales of the Harry Potter print books have increased, too. 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 »
Publishers Hachette and Harper Collins slipped further away from the class action lawyer who wants them to pay over an alleged e-book price-fixing conspiracy. Read more »
Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch says that the company plans to embed NFC (near field communication) chips into its Nooks. Users could take their Nook into a Barnes & Noble store and scan a print book to get info on it or buy it. Read more at GigaOM »
Inkling, which started out as an iPad textbook publisher and recently launched an interactive e-book publishing platform called Habitat, is moving further into the consumer realm with a new series of Frommer’s interactive digital travel guides. Read more »
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 at GigaOM »
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 »
Microsoft and Barnes & Noble are forming a strategic partnership that combines the Nook and college businesses into a new company. Microsoft is making a $300 million investment in the new company and Nook e-books are coming to Windows platforms. Read more »
Worldreader gives Kindles to students in sub-Saharan Africa. The nonprofit’s new report, funded by USAID, shows that access to e-readers improved primary school students’ reading skills significantly. But a lot of e-readers broke and results for older kids were mixed. Read more at GigaOM »
This new 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: Two castaways find romance on a desert island…and other bestsellers. Read more »
The Digital Public Library of America, a Harvard-led initiative to create a national digital library, is an awesome idea whose implementation is difficult to understand. This chart helps. Read more »
Kobo will launch in Brazil this fall, VP Todd Humphrey said yesterday. Amazon’s Kindle may get there first. Read more »
Macmillan science fiction/fantasy imprint Tor/Forge will sell its e-books DRM-free as of “early July 2012,” the company announced today. Read more »
Calls for big-six publishers to drop DRM have increased in recent weeks, coinciding with the DOJ price-fixing lawsuit. In the meantime, one publishing industry executive tried breaking the DRM on purchased e-books — and isn’t going back. Read more »
Pottermore is now selling the Harry Potter e-books in French, Italian, German and Spanish, in addition to U.S. and UK English. Read more »
