Humble Bundle is running a new campaign for banned and challenged books. There are 22 titles that are available and if you buy the whole thing for $15, the combined savings is over $250. There are some famous and important works here, including Alice Walker's The Color Purple, William Styron's Sophie's Choice and … [Read more...]
iOS 12 with revised iBooks app will be released on September 17th
Apple announced that iOS 12 will be released on September 17th 2018 and one of the most exciting aspects is the revised iBooks app. It has undergone a total redesign and will make shopping for audiobooks and ebooks a walk in the park. There is also a new recommendation engine that showcases content based on what you … [Read more...]
Amazon Charts helps Canadians discover new books
Amazon Charts launched last year in the United States and it is a new bestseller list that gives users a top 20 list of of the most read and most sold books on Amazon. You can get a sense on what is a true bestseller for not only books, but audiobooks and ebooks too. Basically it accurately reflects how readers are … [Read more...]
Scribd fixes a bug that lets you read and listen to everything
Scribd made their algorithm more aggressive last month and started to throttle users more stringently. There was a bug in the system that allowed you to bypass the throatting system when a book or audiobook was added to your saved titles list. You could access dozens of titles in your list and have full access to them … [Read more...]
Will anyone read ebooks on Instagram?
Instagram is primarily a photo sharing app and it is owned by Facebook. It is a place where people augment the the pics they take on their smartphone with a myriad of customization options. The New York Public Library is taking a calculated gamble that people might want to read ebooks on Instagram too. The first … [Read more...]
Walmart has a great price match policy for audiobooks and ebooks
Walmart has recently introduced Kobo e-readers in 1,000 of their retail locations in the United States and they are selling audiobook and ebook gift cards inside 3,500 different stores. One thing that is being underreported is that Walmart has a great price match policy when it comes to digital content. If you see … [Read more...]
Kobo at Walmart will be the deathblow for the B&N Nook
When Kobo first incorporated and started to sell e-readers and ebooks they famously said the US market was too hypercompetitive and they would rather focus on international expansion. Barnes and Noble in their glory days was generating over a billion dollars a year on their Nook unit and Amazon was selling Kindle 4-5 … [Read more...]
Here is a breakdown of how much libraries pay for ebooks from publishers
Major publishers all have different strategies for selling ebooks to the public library system. Baker & Taylor, Overdrive and a myriad of others have to have enough of a selection to keep their patrons satisfied, but it can be challenging to know all of the different prices, terms and models that publishers employ, … [Read more...]
Here are the 2018 Hugo Award Winners
The Hugo Awards are a set of literary awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The awards are named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. The 2018 Hugo Award ceremony has just wrapped up at Worldcon … [Read more...]
India lowers the tax on ebooks
India has just lowered the tax on ebooks from 18% to 5%, but it has a few caveats. In order to qualify for the discount the ebook also has to have a print edition, which means the vast majority of self-published titles will not see a reduced tax rate. It is currently unknown if selling one single print edition and … [Read more...]
German ebook sales increase by 16% in the first 6 months of 2018
Boersenverein and GFK have just given us an indication on the overall health of the German ebook market. They have found that in the first six months of 2018, ebook sales have risen by 16.4% and 16.7 million units have been sold. The number of customers who purchased at least one ebook increased by 6.1% to 2.7 million … [Read more...]
Apple should release iBooks on Android
Apple iBooks is the second largest retailer in the United States. In 2016 Apple sold 44 million ebooks in the US, 7 million in the UK, 3.7 million in Canada, 6 million in Australia and a paltry 831 thousand in New Zealand. Apple sells more ebooks in the US than Barnes and Noble and Kobo combined. Apple would generate … [Read more...]