In a data-drive blog post Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah underscores that fiction is disproportionately dominating ebook bestseller charts as well as her company’s digital sales. While well over half of Sourcebooks’ print sales come from adult nonfiction, over 80 percent of their ebook sales are from fiction. “Right now we’re seeing relatively weak conversion of adult non-fiction to ebooks,” Raccah writes. While reference is the single largest category within nonfiction, she says “our experience at Sourcebooks is that it’s the hardest category to get right in ebooks.” Which is ironic, since epublishing and the internet were widely expected to eliminate many […]
Direct publishing
eNews: Amazon Cuts Ties to AR, CT Over Sales Tax; Kobo eBook Lending; and More
Add Arkansas and Connecticut to the list of states Amazon is cutting ties with over new sales tax laws. In Arkansas, where the law enables the state to charge sales tax on companies who exceed $10,000 in annual sales, Amazon notified associates by email that it would terminate their contracts on July 24. And in Connecticut, affiliates will be cut off “effective immediately,” per a separate Amazon email. AP UPI Kobo is said to be preparing its own ebook lending and self-publishing services to launch before the end of the year. GoodeReader Waterstone’s sale to Alexander Mamut will not affect […]
eNews: Angry Birds Cookbook; Amazon Sales Guesses; and More
Speaking at the Open Mobile Summit in London, Rovio director of marketing and business development Peter Vesterbacka said the maker of the popular mobile game Angry Birds will self-publish its first book, a cookbook devoted to egg recipes, on various platforms. He told MocoNews that Rovio decided to self-publish after brief conversations with traditional publishers: “They offered to help us make the book, in exchange for 90 percent revenue share,” he said. “It was a short discussion.” Perhaps showing how much they know about the field they are about to enter, “Vesterbacka says Rovio will net 90 percent on sales […]
eNews: Stats on Google, Kobo and James Patterson; Borders Transitions; Unbound’s Deal; and More
Making the rounds electronically now (we missed it when posted a week ago), Google eBooks said their apps for iOS, Android and Chrome “have exceeded 2.5 million” installs since December. In contrast, Kobo said in early May they were “close to 4 million users” with adoption accelerating. (They went from 2 million users to 3 million in somewhere between 60 and 90 days.) Google There are varying degrees of consternation online based on whether or not people were paying attention previously, but as announced, Borders is transitioning their branded ebook line–which was already powered by Kobo–over to the Kobo brand. […]
eNews: 3M Invests in txtr; Diesel Allies with E-Reads; More From Eisler
Further underscoring 3M’s commitment to the epublishing space, following of our pre-BEA report of their ambitious new library ebook initiative, the company formally announced an investment in Germany’s txtr. The ereading software company’s ceo Christophe Maire calls it a “considerable investment” and says it “demonstrates that 3M has recognized the growing importance of the eReading market.” He notes that txtr is already a vendor for 3m: “we provide a white label solution to 3M, which will allow them to open up new vertical markets.” Like many others in the space, txtr at one time planned their own reading device, which […]
Eisler’s Next John Rain Novel to Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer
At our Publishers Launch Conference Wednesday afternoon, Barry Eisler announced that, rather than self-publishing, his next John Rain novel THE DETACHMENT will be published by Amazon’s new mystery/thriller imprint Thomas & Mercer in both digital and print formats. “What Amazon has offered is everything that was so great to me about self publishing on the one hand, but everything you want from traditional publishing,” including marketing and distribution. “I get the best of both worlds,” he added. Amazon is also paying Eisler an advance, one “that was comparable to what St. Martin’s was offering in the deal I ultimately decided didn’t […]