Book distributor ReaderLink (the company that used to be known as Levy Home Entertainment) has paired with Germany-based txtr as their exclusive partner US for independent booksellers and non-trade accounts, for txtr’s ebookstore and cloud-based reader. ReaderLink Digital president David Barker says in the announcement, “This partnership opens up an entirely new sales channel for our retail partner. Whether they are mass merchants, warehouse clubs, grocery chains, drug stores or department stores, they can quickly and easily begin offering eBooks to their customers.” The partners also intend to “make available to retailers an affordable dedicated eReader or tablet that they […]
ebookstores
eNews: Smashwords Hits $15 Million and Adds EPUB, GoodReads Eyes Bookselling?, and iBookstore to Open In Japan
Inside of some long and boosterish year-end blog posts, Smashwords made a couple of announcements. The privately-owned ebook distributor “will do around $15 million in ebook sales in 2012.” In June 2012, founder Mark Coker had told Forbes he expected to double his 2011 gross to $12 million for the year. Since romance and erotica comprised almost 40 percent of sales in June, we infer that growth in those categories helped lift overall results. It’s also increasingly clear that Smashwords’ growth is linked to the international expansion of the iBookstore. “For the month of November 2012, sales of Smashwords-distributed titles […]
Pearson Invests $89.5 Million In Nook Media, After Disappointing Holiday
Nook Media–the entity formed in 2012 that owns Barnes & Noble’s Nook business and their college bookstores–has its second major strategic investor, joining Microsoft: As of December 21 Pearson agreed to invest $89.5 in cash for a 5 percent equity stake. The bookseller paired an announcement about that investment with a preview of holiday sales that indicates “results will be below expectations” and Nook in particular will not meet their previous projections for the fiscal year. Perhaps because of that performance, Pearson is buying in to Nook Media at essentially the same the valuation given to the company when Microsoft […]
Holiday Nook Promotion Includes Free eBook–In Stores Only
Barnes & Noble and Nook have a one-free ebook with purchase promotion that takes modest advantage of some of the discounting freedom available to retailers under Agency Lite (though a number of the titles on offer are from publishers who sell ebooks wholesale anyway). The program focuses on selling ebooks from BN stores–the only place the offer is valid–and giving ebooks as gifts. The idea is that you buy one of the designated 20 ebooks for yourself, and then you provide an email address (or get a gift receipt with a code) to send another of those 20 titles to […]
New eBookstores for Germany and China
In the latest international ebookstore expansions, slow-moving Sony has finally launched their long-promised German Reader Store. They say it includes “thousands” of DRM-free books and at least one or two come from Luebbe, but there are no specific details provided beyond that. Fast-moving Amazon has launched a Kindle store and reading apps in China. A launch of Kindle reading devices there has long been expected, but still not announced. It has been a busy month for store openings. Kindle launched a proper Canadian store and went live in Brazil in December as well–at the same time as Kobo and Google […]
eNews: Google Books in Russia; eBooks From Time Inc. and USA Today
Google has launched its Google Play store in Russia, which will sell ebooks starting from 49 rubles ($1.59) to customers with an existing Google Wallet account. Time Inc. and USA Today are the latest magazine and newspaper publications, respectively, moving into the ebook market. Time Inc.’s MyRecipes.com is launching a new digital cookbook series with recipes taken from the company’s lifestyle publications Real Simple, Food & Wine, Cooking Light, Southern Living, Sunset, All You and Coastal Living. The first of the digital cookbooks, all priced at $3.99, is “MyRecipes Best-Loved Cookies for Every Occasion.” Meanwhile, USA Today’s first ebook, also released today, is USA TOMORROW, a […]