Kobo has been saying for a while now they would launch an ebook self-publishing service along the lines of Amazon’s KDP and Barnes & Noble’s PubIt. Canada’s CBC News has a report that Kobo will develop an in-house publishing division akin to Amazon’s efforts, though we’re told the CBC might have interpreted the company’s plans a bit liberally. The broadcast report has one very brief sound bite from Kobo ceo Michael Serbinis, who says, “It’s part of the new market and if you expect to be a No. 1 player in that market globally it’s table stakes — you have […]
Direct publishing
eNews: Kobo’s Tablet, Berkley/NAL’s Digital Imprint, S&S’s Author Portal, 11 Million iPads, Google’s Bookshelf, and More
Kobo is joining the ereader/tablet movement with their just-announced Vox, dubbed “the People’s eReader.” Selling for $199.99 and shipping as of October 28, it runs Android 2.3 and promises easy web browsing, e-mail, and access to “over 15,000 hot music, video and game apps.” It weighs 14.2 ounces (lighter than Nook Color or Kindle Fire), and a vibrating Kobo pulse icon signifies pages with more social activity. Kobo says it comes with three free color ebooks. Berkley/NAL has announced a digital imprint (actually they call it an “e-initial eBook imprint”) launching in January 2012, InterMix. The line will debut with […]
When Authors Run the Numbers on Argo Navis Proceeds
What’s going to happen when authors analyze the terms being offered by Perseus’s new Argo Navis? It has been positioned as sounding like Amazon’s KDP program (“Argo Navis offers these authors a 70/30 revenue split”) and the NYT obligingly declares it “a favorable revenue split that is unusual in the industry,” comparing the proceeds to royalties rather than other sef-publishing and distribution arrangements. But for ebooks that qualify for the highest rates from KDP and PubIt, it looks as if Argo Navis will yield gross proceeds that are just half of what authors would get when they participate in those […]
From Pottermore, Potterlate
JK Rowling’s ambitious-if-not-fully-explained plan to publish the ebook versions of the Harry Potter book directly from the new Pottermore web site this October has been postponed. They will miss the holidays for certain, and according to their post, the wait could extend by as much as 9 months. The site claims it’s a change in “priority,” but the inability to deliver is certainly a challenge to those who jumped to the early conclusion that her strategy was some kind of large “game-changer.” The message on the site reads: “the Pottermore Shop, which will sell the Harry Potter eBooks and digital […]
Perseus Adds Digital Distribution for Authors and Agents, Argo Navis
The Perseus Books Group’s digital distribution platform Constellation is adding a service offering targeted at the many literary agencies helping their authors epublish, called Argo Navis Author Services. After presentations to a small set agencies, Perseus is announcing that Janklow & Nesbit and Curtis Brown “are planning to make [the service] available to their clients.” Separately, co-head of publications at ICM Sloan Harris confirmed to Publishers Lunch that the agency is close to finalizing a deal to participate in Perseus’s initiative. “They are not going to be an exclusive destination for us,” Harris said, “but I expect that they will […]
Trident Launches eBook Division
Trident Media Group has become the latest–and by far the largest–literary agency to announce an initiative to help their clients epublish, often independently of established publishing houses. The new initiative, called Trident E-Book Operations, will “create, manage and implement innovative e-book strategies for its authors, including the distribution of a variety of e-books directly” to major etailers. (Though they also see establishing “new business relationships with traditional and non-traditional publishers.”) Lyuba DiFalco and Nicole Robson will serve in the new position of co-directors of E-Book Operations, supervised by Trident’s top executives. Chairman Robert Gottlieb, who has been outspoken in the […]