As the Apple ebook pricing trial enters its final week, much of SVP Eddy Cue’s testimony Monday focused on Steve Jobs’ involvement with the launch of the iBookstore. Read more »
At the Apple ebook trial on Monday, HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray and Macmillan CEO John Sargent offered testimony as witnesses for the government. Emails showed that News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch expressed the desire to “screw Amazon.” Read more »
Berlin-based e-reading startup Readmill has added a free books section to its iOS app, and also announced partnerships with The Atavist, The Guardian and Livrada. Read more »
As the antitrust trial against it gets underway, Apple continues to fight accusations that it engaged in collusion and price-fixing with the major e-book publishers — despite the overwhelming evidence that it did exactly that. Read more »
A new initiative from HarperCollins allows authors to give away digital advance copies of their ebooks. The ebooks are protected by DRM and can only be read on devices that support Adobe Digital Editions (which does not include Kindle). Read more »
Apple and the federal government met on Thursday for a final hearing before their trial, which is set to begin on June 3, and features several high profile witnesses. Read more »
When Open Road Media launched in 2009, the idea of an all-digital publisher was still fairly new. Nearly four years later, it’s encountering more competition as publishers of all sizes hone their digital strategies. Here’s what it’s doing to try to stay ahead. Read more »
Book publishers discussed digital-first and digital-only initiatives at the Making Information Pay conference this week. Read more »
Apple’s exposure in a closely-watched price-fixing case over ebooks looks more serious as the CEOs of major publishers — which have already settled with the government — will testify about Apple’s role in the case. Read more »
Hachette announced Wednesday that it will make all of its ebooks, including new titles, available to libraries nationwide. New ebooks will be priced at three times the cost of the print version, but a library only has to buy a copy once. Read more »
iOS reading platform Readmill announced three partnerships Friday. The Berlin-based startup is working with digital marketplace Gumroad, and has also partnered with U.K. companies Faber Factory and Firsty Group, which offer services to independent publishers and authors. Read more »
How are book publishers learning more about our evolving reading habits? Not surprisingly, ebook publishers are turning the industry toward thinking more about making data-driven decisions. Read more »
Simon & Schuster will finally make its ebooks available to libraries, through a one-year trial with New York City’s public libraries. The publisher is making all of its titles available in the trial, but would not comment on how much it is charging libraries for them. Read more »
Ganxy, a startup that helps publishers sell and market ebooks online, is adding tools that will let them give away ebooks for free through targeted promotional campaigns. Read more »
Ebooks accounted for nearly a quarter of the U.S. trade book business in 2012, according to statistics released Thursday by the Association of American Publishers. The ebook industry appears to be maturing, however, and triple-digit growth is likely a thing of the past. Read more »
In a new book, former Kindle exec Jason Merkoski examines where e-reading platforms are now and how they could change in the future. If you’re looking for secrets about Jeff Bezos, though, you’re in the wrong place. Read more »
A new court decision reflects the ongoing difficulties in deciding how old book contracts should address the issue of ebook royalties. In the ruling, a federal judge dismissed a class action brought by writers against Harlequin Romance. Read more »
In this podcast, we talk with Wool author Hugh Howey about his self-publishing success and how he arrived at a seven-figure, print-only deal with traditional publisher Simon & Schuster. Read more »
In an interview Thursday, Goodreads CEO Otis Chandler and Amazon’s VP of Kindle content Russ Grandinetti stressed that Goodreads will not change for the worse following its acquisition by Amazon. Read more »
What can a book look like in the digital age and how will people pay for it? This is one of the themes we’ll be exploring at paidContent Live on April 17 in New York Read more »
For the first time Apple’s iBookstore will offer paid ebooks in the Japanese market, from major Japanese publishers including Kodansha and KADOKAWA. The iBooks 3.1 update also brings reading improvements for other Asian languages. Read more at GigaOM »
Amazon won a court ruling last week that restrict Apple’s access to its executives and documents. Filings from the case also show that senior Amazon executives are poised to testify for the government in its price-fixing case against Apple. Read more »
As it had warned, Barnes & Noble released a disappointing earnings report Thursday morning. Nook sales were down 26 percent over the previous year, despite the launch of new tablets. Read more »
Amazon is cracking down on a policy that allows blogs and websites to earn money when users download free ebooks through their affiliate links. That means big changes in the ways that some self-published ebooks are promoted online. Read more »
When it comes to discoverability and walled gardens, there’s a flip side. Read more »
Macmillan, the last remaining publisher holdout in the Department of Justice’s ebook pricing antitrust lawsuit against five publishers and Apple, has decided to settle about ten months after the lawsuit was originally filed. Now Apple is the only remaining party fighting the DOJ lawsuit. Read more »
Berlin-based e-reading startup Readmill launched an iPhone version of its e-reading platform Wednesday. Users’ ebooks will now sync between their iPhones and iPads. Read more »
The long-delayed Bookish, a website backed by Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster and designed to promote book discovery and sell books, launched Monday night and is designed to be a one-stop shop for readers looking for their next book. Read more »
As the ebook transition moves forward, Amazon should worry that Kindle is not going to be the device leading the revolution. Read more »
You don’t have to pay for ebooks on your mobile device or your Mac: your local library will lend you ebooks, digital magazine and audiobooks. Here’s a quick guide to getting set up. Read more at GigaOM »
Here’s the main problem with book discovery online: Right now, it doesn’t really work. New research shows that frequent book buyers visit sites like Pinterest and Goodreads regularly, but those visits fail to drive actual book purchases. Read more »
In an effort to aid book discovery and battle Amazon’s dominance, iOS publishing platform Inkling will allow its roughly 400 ebooks to be fully indexed through Google search. The company plans to add a thousand more books this year. Read more »
A new report from Scholastic reveals that most U.S. children have still never read an ebook. Many of them — especially girls — want to, and kids also claim they’d read more for fun if they had more access to ebooks. Read more »
Amazon is offering consumers a free digital copy when they buy a CD. It makes perfect sense to do the same for books — alas, it’s not going to happen. Here’s why. Read more »
The bestselling 50 Shades of Grey trilogy is set to rake in even more cash: The books will be released in hardcover in time for Valentine’s Day. With their availability in that format, the trilogy will have completed a traditional publishing cycle almost entirely in reverse. Read more »
At the Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday, McGraw-Hill Education unveiled its SmartBook, an adaptive e-book that tailors the reading experience to each students’ pace and mastery level. It guides students through the material, frequently assessing their retention, and highlights content on which they should focus. Read more at GigaOM »
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 »
A piece in the New York Times says ebook prices aren’t falling rapidly because the growth rate of ebooks isn’t as rapid as it once was and e-readers are falling in price. But that explanation doesn’t tell the whole story. Read more »
In a holiday promotion, customers who go to a Barnes & Noble store and buy an ebook from a list of 20 qualifying ebooks can “instant-gift” another ebook on that list for free. The list includes new and bestselling titles from big-six publishers who settled in the DOJ’s ebooks case. Read more »
Amazon released its list of the bestselling books of 2012 on Friday morning. The list is a great summary of one of the key themes in book publishing in 2012: Self-published authors and traditional publishers need each other. Read more »
