The overall message — or attitude — was pretty consistent throughout the day at a lively and informative Publishers Launch Kids conference kicking off Digital Book World on Tuesday. With a robust traditional market for children’s books of all kinds, “it’s a much more interesting place than it was a few years ago,” as Random House Children’s president and publisher Barbara Marcus put it. Previously, children’s publishers “looked at digital as an extension of what we were doing in print” and the results were not promising. Now, as Disney Worldwide publisher Suzanne Murphy agreed on the same panel, there’s an […]
Children's
Amazon Refreshes Kindle eReaders and Tablets, Adding Kids Tablet
After some leaks at their international stores, on Wednesday evening Amazon announced new ereaders and tablets, all set to ship in October. The new basic Kindle is thinner, adds a touchscreen, and sells for $79, with ads. (That’s $10 more than the previous basic model, or 15 percent higher. So the people who fight to control pricing because “e-books can and should be less expensive” are charging more for their least expensive device to read those ebooks.) The newest addition, tipped earlier, is the Kindle Voyage, “the thinnest device we’ve ever built” (7.6 mm thick), weighing 6.4 ounces, with a high-resolution display (300 pixels per inch) and improved front […]
Inkling Closes Consumer Business to Focus on Enterprise Side; Lays Off 25 Percent of Staff
Inkling is officially closing its consumer retail business and has laid off something close to 25 percent of staff as a result. (CEO Matt MacInnis confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch, indicating that 25 percent “was a little high.”) The company will focus on the enterprise/platform side, licensing their technology to publishers and large companies creating content for in-house use. MacInnis indicates that part of the business is performing well “and will continue hiring, he said.” MacInnis already discussed the company’s shift in a Fast Company article in March, “What Happened When A Digital Textbook Company Was Forced to Redefine Its […]
Google Play for Education Expands In K-12 with Houghton Books and More Devices
Google is rolling out an expansion of their education initiative (Google Play for Education) in the K-12 market with a number of announcements and new partnerships, timed in conjunction with the Florida Education and Technology Conference (FETC). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will “provide access to a broad range” their K-12 education content to Google’s content store, and Google’s blog indicates the Education store will also offer “classic literature” from publishers including Penguin Random House and HarperCollins. The “affordable access model” makes that content available for 60-, 180-, or 360-day periods, and “provides educators with the flexibility to regularly access updated versions, change […]
A New Children’s Subscription
There is a new entrant in field offering ebook subscriptions for kids, Epic!, which targets kids 12 and under with an app that offers unlimited reading for $9.99 a month (starting with a one-month free trial). They stream the books rather than download them, and the company says participating publishers include Simon & Schuster, Open Road, Lerner, Kids Can Press and others providing “thousands” of titles. Sample screens show books including Olivia; Click, Clack, Moo; and Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs. The company says it has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from Menlo Ventures, Webb Investment Network, Innovation Endeavors, Maven Ventures, Morado […]
New Ventures and Partners: Filmmakers Publish Mezrich, Random Buys Figment, Match Book Launches
RatPac Entertainment, run by media mogul/heir James Packer and film director/producer Brett Ratner, is creating a book imprint, RatPac Press, designed “to bring more Hollywood related projects to market in both non-fiction and fiction genres.” Their first announced project is author of Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House Ben Mezrich‘s new novel SEVEN WONDERS. They will publish in a joint venture with Running Press in late spring 2014, the first title under their joint publishing agreement. Ratner says in the announcement, “We are very excited at RatPac Press to be in business with Running Press and Perseus. Their years […]