When IPG-distributed ebooks were inactive at Amazon.com for three months as the two companies renegotiated selling terms, some observers suggested that IPG clients would be in stronger position if their titles were available DRM-free–and could be read on Kindle devices even without being sold in the Kindle store. Tuesday the distributor announced that Chicago Review Press (owned by the same parent company) as well as clients ECW Press, Medallion Press and Triumph Books are removing DRM and selling their 1,100 or so ebooks without it. IPG says they are now offering all clients the option to sell their ebooks without DRM. […]
Archives for June 2012
Teicher Promises New Indie eBook Solution, Calls Again for Letters to DOJ
At the American Booksellers Association’s annual meeting at BEA, ABA chief executive Oren Teicher celebrated encouraging membership and indie sales data and reinforced that “I believe this moment in our industry is rich with promise and opportunity.” (In addition to the data we have already reported, Teicher declared that across the network of Indie Commerce stores, “gross annual sales, year-to-date over year-to-date, are up 92 percent.” And separately, ABA board vice president Steve Bercu clarified that the reported gain of 55 new full ABA members comprises 77 new locations in all.) Teicher told members “you have our strongest assurance that there […]
Kobo Formally Announces Self-Publishing Portal “Writing Life”
As promised over the past six months or so, Kobo has finally entered the self-publishing realm with Writing Life, which the company formally announced Tuesday morning. As with similar direct-publishing programs offered by other ebookstore platforms, Writing Life will be free to use, and Kobo claims the service will offer “10 percent higher royalties on sales in many growing international markets and allows authors much more freedom on pricing.” They also will allow authors to give their ebooks away for free “at any time without restrictive exclusive agreements,” and they make clear on their site that they do not seek […]
BEA Kicks Off with Colbert, Diaz, Kingsolver and Nesbo
Book Expo America kicked off Tuesday morning’s author breakfast with attendees lined up early to enter and offered the classic mix of humor, appreciation and creative inspiration. In a new twist, BEA is live streaming the marquee convention events, and the stream actually worked. (We have the player on the PublishersMarketplace.com home page, and you can find it on many other trade sites, as well as BEA’s own site.) Emcee Stephen Colbert was in classic form, setting the stage for “three of the world’s best authors of books other than mine.” Of his own forthcoming book AMERICA AGAIN: Re-Becoming the […]
Sony Announces First Potter Product, Wonderbook: Book of Spells, Combining Reading and Gaming
Sony announced their first production collaboration with JK Rowling’s Pottermore, BOOK OF SPELLS, to run on their new PlayStation3 peripheral, called Wonderbook. The new product, releasing in November in Europe and December in North America, is called “the next step in reading and augmented reality gaming. Book of Spells will feature “new and original writing” from Rowling that lets player/readers cast spells with their PS motion controller, “which becomes your own magic wand.” Rowling says in the release, “Wonderbook: Book of Spells is the closest a Muggle can come to a real spellbook. I’ve loved working with Sony’s creative team […]
“Traditional” Print Titles Grew Almost 6 Percent in 2011, As POD Factories Pulled Back
Bowker followed those self-publishing-focused statistics we noted yesterday with the formal release of their estimates of print book production in 2011. What they call “traditional” output–which includes self-publishers like Create Space, but excludes public domain POD factories like BiblioBazaar–grew for the sixth consecutive year. The preliminary title count was 347,178, up almost 6 percent from 2010’s final count of 328,259. (NB we have observed that the final count is almost always higher than the preliminary tally; that 2010 number listed here is about 12,000 titles higher than the preliminary estimate issued this time a year ago.) As reported yesterday, at […]