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 at paidContent »
Book publishing industry newsletter and website Publishers Lunch is previewing hot fall titles — by authors like Junot Diaz, Dennis Lehane and Barbara Kingsolver — in a free e-book, “BEA Buzz Books,” ahead of major publishing fair BookExpo America in June in New York. Read more at paidContent »
Glenn Beck is launching an online marketplace that sells goods from small businesses and describes its business model as “real-world trickle-down economics.” “I strongly believe in the power of small businesses,” Beck says. “Their stories, their products and their passion is what makes America great.” 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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
With Pottermore.com now using watermarking instead of heavyweight DRM on all the Harry Potter e-books, anti-DRM arguments are growing louder. Now the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) hopes to create an industry standard for “lightweight content protection,” occupying “a middle ground between strong DRM and DRM-free.” Read more at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
Some of the stories people are talking about this morning… Read more at paidContent »
Now that Pinterest has a big new investor and a $1.5 billion valuation, it needs to keep users engaged. One good way to do that is through e-mail. Read more at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
Image-sharing site Pinterest is reportedly close to announcing a new funding round that values it at over $1 billion and includes a new social commerce investor. Read more at paidContent »
Hope you’ve got a screen protector…Sesame Street has a new iOS app, “Potty Time with Elmo,” that is aimed at kids and parents going through the potty-training process. Read more at paidContent »
Today Intel is launching a Flipboard-like digital magazine, “iQ by Intel,” that aims to attract “a younger audience” through a blend of employee-curated content and original stories. So far, it’s mostly a lot of pieces from TechCrunch and Mashable. Read more at paidContent »
Some of the stories people are talking about this morning… Read more at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
“Virtually every publication in the world right now would desperately like to be 100 percent digital,” said Flipboard editorial director and Time Inc. vet Josh Quittner said at Internet Week this week, as publishers debated how to monetize digital magazines. Read more at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
Some of the stories people are talking about this morning… Read more at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 »
Stationery startup Minted, which crowdsources designs for wedding invitations, holiday cards and other correspondence, is now selling crowdsourced art prints. It is also adding Pinterest-like curation boards. Read more at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
Some of the stories people are talking about this morning… Read more at paidContent »
Amazon’s Kindle home page and a Harry Potter owl promise “wizardry on the way.” Read more at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
Paywall solutions are having a bad month. Google shuttered One Pass at the end of April. Now paywall and news aggregation site Ongo, which launched in January 2011 with $12 million in funding from the New York Times, Washington Post and Gannett, is closing. Read more at paidContent »
Apparently Pinterest users drop cash, then run. Jewelry and accessories website Boticca.com compared 50,000 shoppers referred from Pinterest to 50,000 shoppers referred from Facebook and says the Pinterest users spend way more money — $180 vs. $85 — but less time browsing the site. Read more »
If drawing is the universal language, Doodle.ly wants to be the app for that. But first it has to solve a problem: A lot of people are pretty bad at drawing. Read more »
Some of the stories people are talking about this morning… Read more at paidContent »
Evernote has acquired iPad handwriting app Penultimate for an undisclosed sum — and hired the app’s founder, Ben Zotto, to “put handwriting and digital ink functionality into other Evernote products and platforms.” Read more »
Online research database ProQuest’s usual customers are libraries and other large institutions that can afford to pay a lot for access. ProQuest’s new cloud-based tool, Udini, aims to make Internet research easy and affordable for everyday people — and builds in some Evernote and Instapaper-inspired features. Read more at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
