After Thursday’s morning press conference, Apple published some online documentation that cleared up at least a few details regarding their new iBooks Author software. Once books are created, they can be offered for sale in the iBookstore (under its standard revenue split) or given away there for free. All books must be no larger than 2 GB (and the software can easily create very large files). Creators can also turn iBooks Author files into PDFs or iBooks documents that they can distribute independently–but only for free. Apple requires that if the ebooks are to be sold, “you must do so […]
Direct publishing
eNews: Another Textbook Reader (From Chegg); eBooks Are 28% of Sourcebooks’ Sales; Cemetery Dance’s Digital Subscription; and More
Taking advantage of interest around Apple’s press conference tomorrow, textbook rental company Chegg is wading into the morass of too many proprietary ereading platforms for students with yet another product. Their cloud-based eTextbook Reader is HTML5-based, developed by 3D3R, an engineering team recently acquired by Chegg. The app is currently optimized for iPads and computers, though the company says other platforms are on the way. Their product uses publisher-supplied PDFs, and the company says they have about 40,000 textbooks available from all of the major publishers. (The WSJ says Kno claims about 150,000 titles, with options to either purchase or […]
eNews: Amazon Trumpets Kindle Owners Lending Library; Plagiarized Titles Plague Kindle Store; and More
Amazon is delighted to declare “strong customer adoption” of the Kindle Owners Lending Library and oodles of money for participating Kindle Select (e.g. Kindle-exclusive) self-published authors. Interestingly, however, the extra money that Amazon claims participants received–“an incremental 26 percent in December”–is roughly equal to the proclaimed market share of No. 2 ebook player Nook, where Select authors and publishers can no longer sell. Which begs the question of whether participants are actually making more money in toto. Even the top 10 authors–whom Amazon says earned over $70,000–only got a 30 percent boost over their ebook sales with their lending library […]
E Ink Sales Drop Far More Than Expected; Kickstarter Funds Over $5 Million of Publishing
E Ink Holdings surprised Asian stock markets Monday with worse-than-expected December sales, with the company’s shares dropping the maximum allowed in a single day. December sales declined 55 percent from the prior month, and were down 57 percent compared to December 2010. November’s sales were 33 percent lower than October, but chairman Scott Liu indicated that all of their holiday orders had been shipped early “in response to customer demands,” with “a portion of November orders [going out] in October, which contributed to the fact that November sales revenues were lower than earlier expectations. But December’s sales were far below […]
eNews: Safari Acquires Threepress and Ibis, and More
Threepress Consulting and their Ibis Reader have been acquired by Safari Online. Threepress founder Liza Daly (who created our first BEA web app) writes: “Safari provides us with an unparalleled reserve of content, sales team, marketing savvy, and publisher relationships. We’re bringing our focus on standards, accessibility, interactivity, and emerging technology.” Daly will be vp of engineering at Safari. The company writes, “They’re joining us as part of an acquisition that brings a rich set of web-based ebook reading technology to Safari, along with a talented engineering team that includes some of the world’s foremost engineers working with EPUB, ebooks, […]
How Many Self-Published Authors Were Bestsellers In 2011?
Self-publishing success stories were another big, perhaps overplayed, theme in 2011, and the new year starts off with the transition of Amanda Hocking bestsellers to St. Martin’s. The first in her Trylle Trilogy SWITCHED was reissued on January, with both the ebook and 336-page paperback priced at $8.99. TORN follows on February 28 and ASCEND will be rereleased on April 24. Here’s a link for an NPR All Things Considered piece on Hocking. Meanwhile, a user of Penguin start-up Book Country, Kerry Schafer, elicited interest from agent Deidre Knight for her fantasy novel BETWEEN, and made a two-book deal with […]