After taking on Shelfie’s customers in February after the service closed, Kobo has now acquired what was left of Shelfie itself — including their technology assets, IP, and the infrastructure on which the ecosystem runs, plus the hiring of Shelfie’s teams. Kobo says that in “the coming months,” it will “work to integrate the Shelfie platform into its Android and iOS apps, enabling readers to add their print libraries to their reading history to generate ever more tailored eBook recommendations, as well as the option to get digital versions of print titles they already own.” Rakuten Kobo ceo Michael Tamblyn says […]
Customized/personalized
Can BuzzFeed Finally Make Customized Cookbooks Work?
Since the early days of online interfaces and quality print-on-demand manufacturing, a number of companies have taken ultimately unsuccessful passes at building a business around user-customized cookbooks. In the wake of Tastebook and many others comes Tasty: The Cookbook — though this latest effort is driven by BuzzFeed, which is aiming the initiative at their substantial audience of 75 million Facebook followers for their Tasty food vertical. As Fast Company notes, “The company claims 50 percent of all Americans see a Tasty video every month—which back of napkin math equates to almost every Facebook user in the country seeing the content over […]
Harvard Common Press Sold to Quarto; Put Me In the Story Expands at BN; More From Basford
Quarto has completed their acquisition of The Harvard Common Press, as of February 1, adding hundreds of titles to their backlist along with over 25,000 recipes. HCP will become an imprint of Quarto, with editorial and production run out of Quarto’s office in Beverly, MA and editorial director Dan Rosenberg keeping the same role. Harvard Common Press president and publisher Bruce Shaw and associate publisher Adam Salomone will no longer have daily operational positions, but will “remain in advisory roles with Quarto.” The two are partners at Salt Venture Partners, investing in food-related start-ups, and co-founders of The Food Loft. Shaw says in the announcement, “I’m pleased […]
Book Country Relaunches, Adding Wider Genre Map, Bookstore, and More Self-Publishing Tools
Penguin’s genre community Book Country, which focused on romance, mystery/thriller and science fiction & fantasy upon arrival in April 2011, will formally relaunch on Wednesday with a broader array of categories and services. Book Country’s genre map has expanded to include literary fiction, memoir, narrative nonfiction, New Adult, and several sub-categories within Young Adult. In addition, Book Country, which now has 8300 members as well as eight authors who landed publishing deals, will launch a bookstore that allows community members to sell titles, both through Book Country as well as through all major outlets that Penguin distributes to. Book Country […]
Amazon Sells Subscription Package of Kids Books, Videos and Apps
Amazon’s latest announcement has two interesting aspects: They are bundling digital children’s content across media into a combined “library” or subscription, and they are broadly selling that subscription to all customers, not just Prime “members.” Called Kindle FreeTime Unlimited, the all-in-one subscription service works on any Kindle Fire device and will be available as part of an automatic OS software update “in the coming weeks.” The package features books, games, educational apps, movies and TV shows focused on children ages 3-8. Amazon Prime members get preferred pricing–$2.99/month per individual child (or $6.99 per family)–but others can subscribe for $4.99/month (or $9.99 […]
Under Fire For Business Model Change, Flat World Says “After Analyzing Our Fall Results, It Was Necessary”
Flat World Knowledge vp Michael Boezi posted a letter to customers about their recent decision to abandon free browser-based access to their textbooks. They write: “As we struggled with the decision, we realized the timing would be an issue for instructors who had made their spring book selections based on free access. We understand your disappointment and frustration. But after analyzing our fall results, it was necessary to implement the change effective January 1, 2013.” He says their “business is viable and growing” though the previous statement makes it sound like they are under some stress, and adds “we stubbornly […]