Barnes and Noble has had a tumultuous time in retaining a CEO for more than a few years. The nation's largest bookseller has just announced that they have fired Demos Parneros for violating company policies. They did not disclose exactly which policies were violated. His termination was not due to any disagreement in … [Read more...]
Quartz has been sold to Japanese company Uzabase
Atlantic Media has sold the popular website Quartz to Japanese financial publisher Uzabase in a deal valuing Quartz at between $75 million to $110 million. Launched in Japan in 2013 the Uzabase service NewsPicks has 3.3 million registered users and 64,000 paying subscribers. Quartz says its average audience is about 20 … [Read more...]
Amazon is starting to use Bookerly on their main website
Amazon Bookerly was unveiled in 2015 and it was designed to replace Caecilia as the default font on the Kindle. It was designed to solve the Kindle’s typesetting problems with an all-new layout engine that introduces better text justification, kerning, drop caps, image positioning, and more. According to Amazon’s … [Read more...]
NOOK turned its first ever full-year profit
Barnes and Noble released their 4th quarter and full year results on the same day and they proclaimed that NOOK turned its first ever full-year profit, generating $3.5 million dollars. In the 4th quarter Nook had an operating loss of $1.5 million, compared to an operating loss of $7.9 million during the previous-year … [Read more...]
Alibaba launches new ebook app called Tmall Reader
Alibaba is leveraging their Literature unit and has just released a new e-reader app called Tmall Reader. It is now available for download from both iOS and Android app stores, offers access to titles, ranging from business and children’s stories to Chinese translations of popular foreign authors. There are thousands … [Read more...]
Rogers slashes 75 jobs in their print and digital publishing division
Rogers has just slashed 75 full-time employees, reducing the size of publishing team to about 150 people in Toronto. The job cuts are primarily due to the dwindling subscriber base of Maclean's, Today's Parent, Hello! Canada, Flare, MoneySense, Canadian Business and Chatelaine.Rogers says it has reorganized its … [Read more...]
Major publishers investment in audiobooks is paying off
Major publishers are continuing to see strong gains from audiobooks in the first quarter of 2018. This is a period in which audiobook retailers such as Audible are experiencing higher than average revenue due to people getting new gadgets for Christmas.HarperCollins stated that downloadable audio accounted for … [Read more...]
Scribd ebooks and magazines now available in Hotels
Scribd has just ironed out an agreement with KEYPR to have their unlimited ebook subscription app preloaded on tablets inside most major hotels. Upon signing up for the service, guests will have instant access to bestselling and award-winning books and audiobooks like A Higher Loyalty by James Comey or The Handmaid’s … [Read more...]
E-Ink is doubling down on Spectra epaper
E Ink is the company that has powered the entire e-reader revolution and its epaper technology is on every single device currently on the market. For the past few years e-Readers represent 80% of their annual revenue and most of the partnerships they establish are to further develop new products in this space. E Ink … [Read more...]
Amazon Prime price has increased to $119
Amazon Prime has just increased the cost of a one year subscription and customers will now pay $119. This is the first time in four years that the price has changed and it is 20% increase over the old price, which was $99.Amazon Prime cost $79 for the first nine years when it first launched. It wasn’t until 2014 … [Read more...]
Spotify has the right audience to make audiobooks work
Spotify is getting involved in the audiobook space and is in negotiations with Scribd to power most of their catalog. Obviously Spotify is not putting all of their eggs in one basket and has just signed a small deal with Bloomsbury for a bunch of smaller audiobooks that document making albums including Bruce … [Read more...]
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos talks about selling books in new interview
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently conducted a 40 minute interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. He talked about why he decided to start selling books and the extenstional threat that Barnes and Noble provided when they first started selling books online.Why did Jeff Bezos pick books as the first thing that … [Read more...]