Archive for E-Book News
eBooks Account for 15% of All Books Sold in Canada
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Electronic books are catching on like wildfire in the US and UK, but in Canada, their traction leaves something to be desired. A recent study conducted by Book Net has its research saying that paperback books (including mass markets) comprised 58% of all purchases in 2012, hardcovers accounted for 24%, and ebooks 15%.
Book sales peaked in Q1 at 17.6% of unit sales and declined steadily over the rest of the year to hit 12.9% in the last quarter. The 5% decline is likely due to heightened sales in Q1 after receiving new devices over the holidays followed by declining interest or having enough titles banked after the Q1 spike, as well as a preference for giving physical books as gifts. Further proof is that paperback sales had an inverse trend throughout the year and steadily increased in market share over the course of the year. Hardcovers also had their strongest quarter in Q4. 16% of book purchases were gifts in the holiday quarter.
Digital adoption rate certainly needs some momentum behind it to increase the footprint of ebooks in Canada. It comes down to the devices we use everyday to read and Kobo usurped the lead from Amazon from 2011. Kobo accounts for 25.2% of the entire Canadian market, while the Apple iPad is at a steady 14.0%, and the Amazon Kindle at 18.4%.
e-Reader availability is not very high in Canada and this creates barriers for customers to fall into it. The only major retail outlet to sell them is Chapters/Indigo, and other big box retailers like Future Shop and Best Buy have a paltry selection, mainly on outdated devices from Sony, Aluratek, and Ectaco. You would be hard-pressed to find anything by Amazon in the retail environment and instead you have to buy it online only.
“The research suggests that the ebook market in Canada may have reached a plateau,” says BookNet Canada President and CEO Noah Genner. “Early 2013 data backs this up. So far, we’re seeing the same pattern repeating itself.”
Bowker Reaches Out to Self-Published Authors
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Most industry professionals know Bowker as the source for ISBN numbers. And while the company is the overseer of those cataloging numbers for North Amercia, Bowker has also long been the driving force behind bibliographic information and searchability. Now, Bowker is setting its sights on helping indie authors find the tools they need to publish.
“Bowker has tracked extraordinary growth in the number of self-published works over the past five years,” said Beat Barblan, Bowker director of identifier services, in a statement. “There are thousands of authors who need access to advice, guidance and resources. SelfPublishedAuthor.com is designed to be their partner, helping them bring their books to market in the most effective way.”
According to the statement on Bowker’s website, it makes sense for the company to offer a stronger connection and toolset for self-published authors and indie publishers since purchasing ISBN numbers is often the first step in beginning a book’s publication process. Thanks to a new site, SelfPublishedAuthor.com, Bowker is able to offer advice to authors, connect them with other industry professionals, and more.
“We’re committed to being a comprehensive, practical and valuable resource that helps publishers build connections with the right partners and the right audiences,” said Mr. Barblan.
SelfPublishedAuthor provides newcomers with a checklist of items to be done on their book projects, a resource of blog posts written by professionals on key decisions that need to be made, and vetted companies, like publishing professional clearinghouse BiblioCrunch, that they will endorse to help authors who aren’t quite ready to go it alone. The information is aimed at no single subset of of indie publishing, but instead seeks to speak to a broader audience of users whose publishing plans involve more oversight and creative control.
Reading Rainbow Android App Tipped by Amazon
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The Reading Rainbow television show was broadcast for almost two decades and it taught young children the value of reading. When the show was cancelled a few years ago, Levar Burton and producer Mark Wolfe sat down and decided what to do next. 18 months later they debuted the Reading Rainbow iOS app and secured partnerships with Natgeo and a number of other media properties. Today, the Amazon App Store Twitter account posted a picture of Levar visiting Amazon headquarters. This leads me to believe that for the first time the Reading Rainbow will launch an Android App designed for the Kindle Fire.
The Reading Rainbow app features a ton of original content and appeals mainly to kids. There are some customizable features such as your “Backpack” that contains all of the books you are currently reading. Books are attained when you visit different “Islands” that are themed. Each island has original video content that is hosted by Levar and is made specifically for the iPad app. “We ran the show for over two decades and had lots of content in the library. We made a decision to film 100% original content exclusively for the app and will continue to develop more in the coming months,” Levar told Good e-Reader in an exclusive interview.
The Kindle line of tablets is drawing a ton of public attention with Kindle Freetime and their various parental controls. Parents can establish how long each day they can read, play games, watch video and tweak their limits on the fly. Last week, Amazon unveiled Amazon Coins, which acts as their virtual currency to buy in-app content and also buy new apps. Likely, the Reading Rainbow will have Coins integrated into the app, to buy access to new islands.
Look who stopped by the #Amazon office today, it’s @levarburton! Good things to come… twitter.com/amazonappstore…
— Amazon Appstore (@amazonappstore) May 21, 2013
Finalists Selected for eBook Discovery Hackathon
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The first ever digital publishing hackathon took place over the weekend at The Alley in New York. Organized by Perseus Books Group and Librify, the event transpired over 32 consecutive hours and was attended by 200 people. Over 30 different teams sought to develop new ideas for digital book discovery.
“It was exciting to watch 200 people come together at one time in one space and grapple with the challenge of digital book discovery,” said Rick Joyce, CMO of Perseus and one of the judges. “Not only were fascinating solutions developed, but there was a lot for a publishing person to learn about the ways content is connected and discovered digitally from these talented designers and coders.”
The finalists have now been selected and the final award will be announced at Book Expo America. All of the selected entrants will also receive coaching from publishing and technology mentors and have 10 days to work on their project. We now have a copy of the finalists that have participated in the hackathon.
•Library Integration Challenge from NYPL – $1,000 was awarded to Visibrary (Sara Michener, Carrie Segal, Alessandra Nova, Iv Segal) for the best library discovery project or the best integration of library data.
•Children’s / Literacy Challenge from NYPL – $500 was awarded to the Evoke team (listed above) for the best project for children and adults that either (a) enables book discovery, (b) encourages a love of reading, or (c) facilitates literacy.
•Avalon Travel Discovery Challenge – $500 was awarded to BookCity (listed above) for the project that best promotes discovery books related to travel.
•Manuscript to Metadata Challenge from PublicAffairs – $500 was awarded to Publy.io (Megha Gulati, Rajeev Gulati) for the best approach to improving metadata from the manuscript.
•Pearson API Challenge – $250 was awarded to Evoke for the best use of either (or both) of Pearson’s APIs.
CourseSmart Enhances its eTextbook Offerings
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With some reports showing that the Android platform currently holds about 68% of the market for applications, digital content creators are taking steps to increase their current offerings to meet these customers where their devices are. CourseSmart, a leading provider of digital educational materials and textbooks, has been available on the Android platform for some time, but today announced that it is enhancing its current Android capabilities.
“We have been a leader in the Android space for a long time, and our new application takes that commitment to the next level, offering consumers several highly-anticipated new features,” said Sean Devine, CEO of CourseSmart, in a statement today. “As mobile devices continue to proliferate, we will maintain our track record of offering innovation and convenience to both Android and IOS users.”
While the free CourseSmart app for Android has offered a number of support features like thumbnails, in-book search capability, zoom for graphics and charts, and more, today CourseSmart announced the ability for students to access content while offline.
“CourseSmart eTextbooks is reflective of the company’s long-standing commitment to the platform as well as a response to the growing market demand for Android applications,” stated the explanation in a press release. “CourseSmart’s enhanced Android app provides real time mobile access to students, even while an eTextbook download is occurring. CourseSmart users will also have the ability to checkout titles for offline use and sync notes and highlights across the reading system, ensuring access to their own notations regardless of which device they use.”
In addition to new features and access capabilities, CourseSmart materials have grown in popularity due to the full catalog of titles from 90% of the educational publishers that the company offers at as much as a 60% discount over the original print price. Students and faculty alike are able to access their course materials through any Android-enabled device, tablet, or smartphone.
The Next Stephen King Book Will Forgo a Digital Edition
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Digital readers may find themselves unable to read the next Stephen King novel. The author has announced today that his upcoming June 4th release, Joyland, will only be available via traditional bookstores.
Stephen King is no stranger to digital and released a novel in 2000 called Riding The Bullet, that was only available as an ebook. Last year, he released a Kindle Single exclusive that was basically an essay.
Today, King told the Wall Street Journal: “I have no plans for a digital version. Maybe at some point, but in the meantime, let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore rather than a digital one.”
Many publishing industry experts are surmising that this book may draw people into their local bookstores, but people who prefer to read digital may end up pirating the book. If you look at the Harry Potter case study, when the books were unavailable in electronic form, it created a wellspring of book piracy, with some torrents having hundreds of thousands of seeders. Many people we spoke with at the time felt no remorse about downloading the books, because they were being ignored as digital readers. In the absence of a true digital copy that people can buy, it is only a matter of time before this book is scanned and posted online, stinging the very bookstores Stephen King is trying to help.
Amazon is also selling the physical book at a very steep discount and in most cases will sell it for less than you can buy in a physical bookstore.
Simon & Schuster has created a new position within the company to focus on the growing popularity of ebooks. Doug Stambaugh has been named to the newly created position of Vice President, Global eBook Market Development and Strategy, reporting to Dennis Eulau.
S&S released an internal email confirming the news saying, “Doug’s responsibility will be to help us further develop our ebook business in a manner that best positions us for success in all our markets around the world. He will work with sales colleagues from each of our companies to identify and evaluate opportunities for retail expansion, and new partnerships, digital channels, and publishing initiatives. He will develop company-wide strategies, policies, and best practices for all our domestic and international publishing units in areas ranging from terms and pricing to digital rights management, technology platforms and new business models. He will assist our teams from legal, sales, technology, and operations in opening up new accounts and in negotiations with existing retailers, and will help all our divisions around the world to work in a unified fashion with our common retailers. We will also look to Doug to assist us in tapping the potential for ebooks in nonretail channels, such as special sales and the school, library, and academic markets.”
The statement went on to say “Doug is ideally suited for this position. He has been with Simon & Schuster Digital since 2007, most recently as Vice President, Business Development, and has been a central figure in establishing our presence in the digital marketplace. He has worked with colleagues across the company to finalize ebook agreements with all our major retailers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Open Market. Most recently, he was instrumental in launching our pilot e-lending program with three New York area libraries that were our entry into this important channel.”
Doug will serve as the point of entry into the company to assess these new prospects, and will advise senior management in our publishing and operations groups on the many opportunities and issues that will inevitably arise in this exciting and ongoing transition.
eBook Review: The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay
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Verdict: 4 Stars
The Sea of Tranquility (Atria) has everything I don’t look for in a book. Chapter-by-chapter point of view switches, mysterious story lines that don’t become clear until the last page, and characters so full of raw and deep-seated hurts that you feel like an intruder just for reading about them. So it was surprising to even me that this book was a one-sitting read, something that I couldn’t put down until I’d made my way to the end to see if these people turn out okay.
Told in alternating viewpoints from the two main characters, Josh and Nastya, the reader is given only partial glimpses at a time of the endurance race the two teenaged protagonists have had to run. Josh, whose entire family has died before the book’s opening, and Nastya, whose musical prodigy status was ripped apart by a violent attacker who destroyed her hands and her soul, are left holding the pieces of their former lives and slowly learn to let their other carry a piece of the burden.
In keeping with the fact that Nastya stopped speaking about a year after her attack, the book doles out the details painfully slowly. While that is part of its allure, I was left occasionally feeling like I didn’t know enough to keep reading. Fortunately, the writing style was so spot-on that I was easily caught back up by the end of the chapter, only to be left disoriented again and repeat the cycle until the very end of the book.
Millay’s book could easily blur the lines between young adult and new adult, and effortlessly crosses back and forth between the two genres. The characters’ ages and the high school backdrop speak to younger adults, but the conflicts and plot are not for the fainthearted.
The Sea of Tranquility will be available June 4 from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and more.
Zinio Takes Z-Pass out of Beta
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Zinio has officially launched its new Z-Pass digital magazine subscription service after being in Beta for the last four months. Creating a Z-Pass is simple and flexible. Customers choose three magazines from over 300 of the most popular titles among Zinio’s 5,500+ digital library, including Car and Driver, Surfer, Maxim, Cosmopolitan, and Food Network Magazine for $5 per month. Additional magazines can be added to a Z-Pass for just $1.50 per title. Premium titles, including Star and The Economist can be added for an additional fee. Z-Pass customers can change its magazine line-up on demand, swapping the Z-Pass titles up to 3 times per month.
Right now Z-Pass is only available in the US and should see an international launch in July. The service right now is only web-based, so you will have to take out a subscription on the main Zinio site. The company plans on rolling out updates to the Blackberry, Android, and iOS apps in the next few weeks.
“It’s never been a better time to be a magazine lover,” says Michelle Bottomley , President of Zinio. “Access to the world’s best magazines for one low monthly price allows anyone with a mobile device to always have their favorite reads with them at the touch of a finger. Zinio is passionate about connecting the world’s best content with avid readers and Z-Pass removes the price per magazine barrier.”
“Z-Pass is an innovative way for readers to keep up with their favorite magazines and discover new ones,” says Chris Wilkes , Vice President, Hearst Magazines App Lab. “Zinio has long been a great partner to Hearst, and we believe that Z-Pass will help bring our brands and content to an even wider audience.”
Book Expo America Hackathon Focuses on Digital Discovery
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eBook and digital discovery is one of the most hot button issues facing the digital publishing industry. Many existing publishers and small start-up companies, such as BookLikes, NetGallery, Slice and many others, are throwing themselves into the fray. To stimulate growth and awareness in a burgeoning sector, a group of major media industry participants led by The Perseus Books Group, Librify, BookExpo, The AlleyNYC, and William Morris Endeavor will organize the industry’s first ever hackathon, an ambitious collaborative digital programming event.
The Publishing Hackathon at Book Expo America is inviting digital designers, engineers, programmers, and entrepreneurs to spend 36 hours together in teams to develop new approaches to digital book discovery. The Publishing Hackathon will take place on May 18th and 19th at The Alley NYC, the leading digital co-working space in New York. The participants will be briefed by a cross-section of book publishing leaders, and then will form teams to create apps, websites, programming, or businesses that can address the issue of book discovery in this rapidly evolving landscape. At the end of the weekend, a team of judges from publishing, technology, media, and venture capital will identify the 3 to 5 most promising finalists from dozens of teams participating.
These finalists will have the opportunity to present at BookExpo on Friday May 31st at 3PM. BookExpo is the largest and most prestigious book publishing event in the U.S. with over 1,000 exhibitors from around the world and over 20,000 attendees from all facets of the industry. The finalists will take the stage and pitch their solutions to a distinguished panel of judges that includes Jennifer Rudolph Walsh (head of the Literary Department at William Morris Endeavor), David Steinberger (CEO of The Perseus Books Group and Chairman of the National Book Foundation), Stephen Evans (Director SilverLake Capital), and others.The winning project will receive a $10,000 prize and the opportunity to pitch their idea at a breakfast meeting with Ari Emanuel, Co-CEO of William Morris Endeavor.
Seems like a solid event if you want to check out what the bright young minds can conjure. Of course, Good e-Reader will be live at this event and bring you some exclusives with the new Hackathon.
New York Times Bestseller eBook List Shifts to Online Only
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The New York Times started to include ebooks in print and online editions back in 2011. The company announced today that it is suspending the inclusion of ebook titles in the newspaper and only posting them on the website. The prices of the ebooks will also not be included going forward, due to the shifting economic landscape of online sellers.
Pamela Paul is the current editor of the Book Review section of the New York Times, a post she only attained in April. She said in a statement, “The ebook list has migrated online, the digital world being its natural habitat. Given the fluid variety of pricing in today’s marketplace, we have also stopped including cover prices on the lists.”
The online version of the Book Review is undergoing a bit of revision and is starting to use a blogging template. Obviously, with any new look, many users are voicing their disdain. There is also a new column called Open Book, which focuses on panels of experts at various book publishing events and quotes from notable books.
Many readers are not quite sure what to make about the Times suspending the ebook bestseller list from the print edition. Some industry experts surmise that this may be a gambit to garner more money via online subscriptions for the company’s Paywall.
Top Publishers Donate eBooks to Get London Reading Campaign
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Hachette UK, HarperCollins, Penguin, and Random House have donated a selection of top children’s titles to support the Get London Reading literacy campaign. This is a big event with Barnes and Noble and the London Evening Standard aiming to make reading more accessible and affordable across the UK and includes a donation of 1,000 NOOK Simple Touch e-Readers to Beanstalk, a national literacy charity that recruits and supports reading volunteers in schools.
NOOK has worked with Hachette UK, HarperCollins, Penguin, and Random House to contribute the books, which will be loaded onto the 1,000 Nook e-Readers that B&N is donating to reading volunteers from Beanstalk. The titles donated are some of the UK’s most popular children’s books. The Beanstalk literacy volunteers will use the NOOKs at key schools with high levels of illiteracy across the UK.
Victoria Barnsley, CEO and Publisher, HarperCollins UK and International said: “At HarperCollins, we are passionate about extending the joy of reading and have long supported Beanstalk’s amazing work promoting literacy in schools. We are delighted to be in partnership with NOOK on this fantastic project to Get Reading.”
Gail Rebuck, Chair and CEO, The Random House Group said: “Random House has supported Beanstalk for nine years and the Get Reading campaign since its launch in 2011. Today marks a key milestone for the campaign and we have donated 10 fantastic ebooks from authors who are supporting the NOOK partnership including Jacqueline Wilson, James Patterson and Bear Grylls that will capture the imaginations of young people and support Beanstalk volunteers who are working to improve literacy levels in schools across the UK.”
George Walkley, Head of Digital, Hachette UK said: “We are absolutely delighted to be involved in the Get Reading campaign. We believe that reading is the foundation for a happy and healthy life. Books in every format enhance the lives of children and, as more and more children now read on e-readers, this initiative with NOOK is a very valuable addition to this great campaign.”
Report: Kids Tend to Read Digital More Than Print
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The process of reading is undergoing a paradigm shift where kids are starting to read on smartphones and tablets more than physical print. The quintessential bedtime story book is being replaced by dedicated kids apps and Amazon.
A recent report by the National Literacy Trust in the United Kingdom surveyed 35,000 kids, whose ages ranged from 8-16. It stated that 39% of children and young people read on electronic devices every day, whereas only 28% read printed materials daily. The number of children reading ebooks has doubled in the last two years from 6% to 12%.
There is a very strong desire to read on a tablet to satiate young folks’ literary thirst. 52% of respondents said they would ideally like to read on a tablet and 32% said they would much rather have a physical book. Young ladies statistically are enamored with the physical book with 68% preferring the printed page, whereas boys account for a 54% preference.
The research also found that those who read daily on screen are almost half as likely to be above-average readers than those who read regularly in print (or in print and on screen): 15.5% compared to 26%. Those who read only on screen are also a third as likely to enjoy reading (12% compared to 51%) and to have a favorite book (just 59% of children surveyed who read on screen had one, compared to 77% of kids who prefer to read print books).
Obviously tablets present publishers with very unique opportunities to directly appeal to their target demographic. Reading on larger mobile screens tends to be the favorite, with 36% of children using it as their dedicated reading device. Computers still are fairly popular with 23% and smartphones account for 23%.
Major publishers are sparing no expense on investing lots of money into dedicated apps. HMH has pumped out a ton of content, centered around the Curious George franchise. Barnes and Noble has the best developed Kids ecosystem in the world, with books that parents can narrate for their children. Scholastic Storia tends to be very popular with kids, as does the relaunched Reading Rainbow on the iPad.
