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E-Book News
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We are the largest news agency devoted to digital publishing, self-publishing, and the ebook industry. Learn about Kindle Books, Kobo books, E-Book DRM, and e-book apps.
eBook usage in Germany increases by 50%
24.4 million eBooks were sold in the first nine months of 2018, this is massive 19% increase from the same period last year. One of the driving trends of the year is that the average price of ebooks fell from €6.29 to €6.07 per eBook. Tolino released a few new e-readers this year and more competitors are entering the market. Amazon continues to be the dominant force and recently introduced the latest generation Paperwhite 4.
2018 Rakuten Kobo Book Report for Canada
Canadians read on the road, with the busiest reading time being during the morning and evening commute, as well into the evening hours.
Sunday is the day where most of the reading (magic) happens. Our theory: it’s the best way to beat the Sunday blues, by relaxing and enjoying your favourite book.
Globally, Canadians are our most active readers, having read on average 73 hours this year, with some of our top customers reading eight hours a day–it’s a full time job!
Ebook sales increased for the second time in two years
Digital book sales increased for the second time in two years in October 2018. Publishers saw modest revenue growth in eBooks (4.4%), with increases for the format across all trade book categories. Aside from downloaded audio, eBooks had the largest percent of revenue growth for the month, compared to October 2017.
eBook revenue increased in October for Adult Books (3.0%), Childrens/YA Books (17.3%), and Religious Presses (12.0%). However, for the year-to-date (Jan. – Oct.), eBook revenues were down 3.1% from the same period in 2017. Downloaded audio remains the format with the highest percent revenue growth year-to-date (37.7%).
Best Books of 2018 Roundup – Constantly Updated
Everyone involved in journalism are doing their annual best books of the year lists. Good e-Reader has decided that instead of doing a megapost, where every single news source will be featured and hopefully aid in book discovery. This post will be constantly updated as new lists come out, if we are missing your favorite website or online publication, please drop a comment and let us know.
Amazon UK experimenting with ebook gifting system
The Amazon UK website has quietly been testing an ebook gifting system. This will allow users to purchase an ebook and gift to another person, as long as you have their email address. There are further options to establish a date in which the email will be sent and a little room for a custom message. The ebook gifting system has only been available in the US, since it launched in 2010. I have heard the new system will go live on Friday.
Litnet: Read books before they get published
How to read best sellers before they’re complete and published? Just imagine, let’s say George Martin, the author of “Game of Thrones,” releases his new novel not in full, but publishes it chapter by chapter. Readers engage in discussions of plot twists and character developments expressing their ideas on how the story should proceed. Martin takes some of those suggestions on board and surprises his readers with the very plot twist they’ve been longing for. “Impossible!”, you’re thinking. And you’re wrong. This has become possible with the launch of the English version of Litnet an innovative literary platform that has been successfully operating on the global market since 2015.
Major Publications are doubling down on book coverage
Since the beginning of 2017, The New York Times has continued to expand its already robust book coverage. More recently, New York announced that it would triple its book coverage. In October, The Atlantic launched a Books section and a newsletter, “The Books Briefing,” with plans for “additional products.” Even BuzzFeed is getting in on the action: in November, they launched an online book club, complete with an attendant Facebook group and newsletter. 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 really reading and buying books and even pulls data from popular books on Kindle Unlimited.
The New York Media organization has also expanded on their books coverage. It’s named Boris Kachka as its books editor, and he’ll be in charge of tripling book coverage across New York Media properties — the print magazine, Vulture, The Cut, Daily Intelligencer, The Strategist, and Grub Street. Vulture will also have more coverage of audiobooks, genre (like YA and horror), and new releases; it already runs a real-life monthly book club at The Strand. The Cut will run more book excerpts and author profiles, as well as a series called “Yesterday’s Women,” in which essayists will write about overlooked women writers. Daily Intelligencer runs weekly Q&As with authors of important nonfiction books. The Strategist has developed best-of lists and also links to existing ones, and Grub Street will publish new cookbook roundups and excerpts from chef and restaurant memoirs.
These are the top audiobooks and ebooks of the year from Google Play
Google Play is a recent entrant in the audiobook space, they only got involved in it earlier this year. They have been selling ebooks a lot longer than that and are one of the more entrenched players in the industry, primarily due to the bookstore being pre-loaded on millions of Android devices. If do business with Google, the company has just released some sales data that looks at the highest grossing audiobooks and ebooks on their platform for all of 2018.
Best of Prime 2018: Prime Reading
They say the book is always better than the movie, but what about the comic book? Members tested that theory out with “Black Panther,” Prime Reading’s most beloved comic-to-movie adaptation.
Members love mysteries – half of Prime Reading’s top ten most read books this year were Mystery novels, including “Say You’re Sorry,” the most read book of the year.
The top five most borrowed titles by Prime members in the U.S. include “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Milk and Honey” and “Say You’re Sorry.”
Members explored loss and survival with “Milk and Honey” and are continuing their journey with the poet’s second book, “The Sun and Her Flowers.”
