After launching the program in limited beta last December, Google eBooks’ affiliate program is seemingly ready for prime time. The program is only open to “Retailers, bloggers, book publishers and other website owners in the U.S.,” and no specific commission rates are cited, but they will have access to Google’s affiliate network and to APIs for more specifically targeted programs. Inside Google Books Blog The jury still seems to be out on the effectiveness of book apps, though two of them merited attention at Thursday’s Futurebook Innovation Workshop conference in London. UK studio Ustwo said its Nursery Rhymes With StoryTime […]
Apps/iOS
eNews: Raccah on What Sells Digitally and Physically; OverDrive Announcements; and More
In a data-drive blog post Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah underscores that fiction is disproportionately dominating ebook bestseller charts as well as her company’s digital sales. While well over half of Sourcebooks’ print sales come from adult nonfiction, over 80 percent of their ebook sales are from fiction. “Right now we’re seeing relatively weak conversion of adult non-fiction to ebooks,” Raccah writes. While reference is the single largest category within nonfiction, she says “our experience at Sourcebooks is that it’s the hardest category to get right in ebooks.” Which is ironic, since epublishing and the internet were widely expected to eliminate many […]
eNews: OverDrive Windows Phone App; Booksurfers for Kindle
Today’s eNews is decidedly app-centric, for devices bearing no relation whatsoever to Apple. Overdrive announced its Windows Phone app, enabling readers at the more than 15,000 services that use Overdrive to download EPUB ebooks and audiobooks. Overdrive Windows Phone app page Children’s author David Gatward’s new series Booksurfers, which mixes well-known stories with new adventures in an interactive manner, will be available exclusively at Amazon on various Kindle platforms starting today. Starting with the first two titles, TREASURE ISLAND and THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, the series features four children who are “forced to jump ‘into’ classic adventure stories to […]
Apple Modifies App Store Rules to Avert Total Shutdown of eReading Apps
In advance of a June 30 deadline that would have potentially kicked all major third-party ereading apps from the likes of Amazon, Nook and Kobo out of the Apple App Store, the computer company has revised their rules to provide at least some leeway. The Apple rule that caused controversy earlier this year–beginning with the rejection of a proposed ereader app from Sony, which has still yet to launch such a feature–was a requirement that any content sold outside of approved apps must also be offered for purchase through Apple’s in-app purchasing program, “at the same price or less than […]
eNews: Angry Birds Cookbook; Amazon Sales Guesses; and More
Speaking at the Open Mobile Summit in London, Rovio director of marketing and business development Peter Vesterbacka said the maker of the popular mobile game Angry Birds will self-publish its first book, a cookbook devoted to egg recipes, on various platforms. He told MocoNews that Rovio decided to self-publish after brief conversations with traditional publishers: “They offered to help us make the book, in exchange for 90 percent revenue share,” he said. “It was a short discussion.” Perhaps showing how much they know about the field they are about to enter, “Vesterbacka says Rovio will net 90 percent on sales […]
Finally, iBookstore Is Integrated Into iTunes
Though a minor piece of Monday’s Apple news through most lenses, the company has finally gotten serious about making the iBookstore easily accessible to the tens of millions of users on the iOS platform. The iBookstore is now incorporated directly into iTunes, alongside music, movies, TV shows, apps and other major elements. And Apple is promoting the inclusion on the iTunes home page. At Monday’s WWDC presentation, Apple also updated their tabulation of ebooks downloaded worldwide through the iBookstore. In March they were still saying 100 million downloads; now they are saying 130 million.