HarperCollins and Cornerstone will release ebook and audiobook editions of Harper Lee‘s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in the US and UK on July 8, making available one of the longest-standing digital holdouts. Lee, who turned 88 on Monday, said in a statement released by Harper that “I’m still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries. I am amazed and humbled that MOCKINGBIRD has survived this long. This is MOCKINGBIRD for a new generation.” The news comes months after Lee settled a copyright lawsuit with her former agent Sam Pinkus that returned the rights to MOCKINGBIRD to her in full. […]
Apps/iOS
Taste Barnes & Noble College’s New Yuzu
A yuzu is a hybrid citrus fruit with curiously high ratio of seeds to juice — which makes it the perfect name for Barnes & Noble College’s new textbook app: “Yuzu is a next-generation digital education platform that enhances the everyday learning experience and makes college the rewarding journey it’s meant to be.” It has launched as an iOS app and web reader (but for now it only works in iOS 7, and the latest versions of Safari). A replacement for Nook Study, this is the “higher education digital product” that the company touted on their last earnings call, and […]
eNews: Verso’s eBook/Print Bundle; DropBox Rumored to Buy ReadMill; and More
Verso Books will sell its books, both print and digital, direct on its website as of April 8, and will also offer print/ebook bundles for all new titles and “hundreds” of recent ones (free postage is also included.) Verso is working with Booxstream on DRM, and each ebook will be visibly watermarked. In a statement managing director Jacob Stevens said Verso readers can choose which title to read regardless of format, print or digital. We know that our core readership would like to support radical publishing directly, and we hope that this new approach will benefit our writers, readers, and […]
eNews: Mondadori Takes Over Anobii, Plus Indie Links for LAT and A Rooster
Sainsbury’s has passed on the social network part of Anobii (a European Bookish, with all that implies), to Mondadori. Despite Anobii’s multi-year efforts to build a viable ebookstore focused on the UK, the site’s strength — if there was one — was an international audience centered in Asia (since it was founded in Hong Kong in 2006) and Italy (Anobii was run for many years by Italian-born Matteo Berlucchi). Mondadori says in the release that Anobii’s “strongest base” is Italy, “with 300,000 users.” Mondadori Group chief executive Ernesto Mauri says, “A platform that will enable us to listen to people is […]
iPads and Chromebooks In Schools; Scribd Hosts Kindle Fire App After Failing to Get It Listed By Amazon
In Apple’s investor conference call on Monday afternoon, cfo Peter Oppenheimer celebrated stats for iPad adoption and iBooks use in K-12 schools: “To-date, U.S. education institutions have purchased over 7 million iPads. In fact, we’ve sold over 750,000 iPads to K-12 schools in the State of Texas alone…. We have expended the availability of iBook textbook from four countries to over 50 countries, so that students and teachers around the world can experience the power of what a textbook can be. We continue to add new titles from key education publishers like Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. “In […]
Abrams Announces eBooks for Libraries
At the ALA meeting in Philadelphia, Abrams announced that their frontlist ebooks are now available for libraries to purchase and lend, through the established vendors. Each “sale” activates the ebook for a year of lending, on the one-copy/one-user model. Abrams says they are selling to libraries at their standard digital list price. They are also offering “a full catalog of backlist” titles, so the program includes the Diary of Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. Abrams ceo Michael Jacobs says in the announcement, “We’ve been eager to fulfill library requests for both our frontlist and backlist e-books and are thrilled […]