The Kobo Touch will be available for sale in Japan as soon as July, according to a report from the Asahi Shimbun. Rakuten ceo and chairman Hiroshi Mikitani said the company plans to price the Kobo Touch reader at around 10,000 yen ($126) or cheaper, with plans to sell 50,000 ebook titles by the end of the year. “As a Japanese company, we cannot lose (to overseas rivals),” Mikitani told the paper. “With Kobo devices, we will be able to export Japanese content. The Japanese publishing industry will become a huge content industry.” Further details will be announced at a […]
ebookstores
Google Launches eBooks In Both Germany and Spain
Google has rolled out Google Play storefronts in both Germany and Spain this week, with ebooks featured in both offerings. Those store openings have come quickly after their first non-English ebookstore in Italy, which debuted in early May. Particularly after their settlement of lawsuits related to the Google Books scanning project in France earlier this month, a French ebookstore is expected to follow soon.
At Least Two Amazon Publishing eBooks Are Now Sold Everywhere
With Tuesday’s release of Oliver Pötzsch’s THE DARK MONK: A Hangman’s Daughter Tale in the US, the follow-up his to successful THE HANGMAN’S DAUGHTER, at least two titles whose US publishing rights are controlled by Amazon are now being carried widely by major ebookstores. The ebook editions for sale are published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which had previously licensed only print rights to the Potzsch books from Amazon Crossing (along with print rights to other titles from Crossing and Amazon Encore). Up until now, Amazon has sold ebook versions of titles from their growing family of publishing imprints exclusively through […]
Sainsbury’s Relieves HMV of Anobii
UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has taken HMV’s 45 percent stake in ebook social network site Anobii off of their hands for a mighty £1. They are making an additional, unspecified “investment in the future” of Anobii that will provide them a total controlling share of what is “anticipated” as a 64 percent stake. HarperCollins, Penguin and Random House UK will remain as minority partners, presumably with some dilution as the result of Sainsbury’s additional investment. HMV paid $3.25 million for their Anobii holding in early 2011, and recorded a £1 million loss in the most recent year on Anobii and another […]
Regal to Launch Zola Books Platform at BEA
Among the start-ups debuting in a private industry beta at next week’s BEA is former literary agent Joe Regal’s Zola Books, an ambitious ebook retailer that aims to innovate in multiple ways, aspiring to improve book discovery, share data with authors and publishers, empower book “curators” of all kinds to recommend titles (and get compensated), move forward the state of the art of how an HTML5 reader can work across multiple devices, and make “social reading” more natural and less obtrusive. A separate component, launching when Zola Books formally opens for business (which will not occur until after the DOJ […]
The New New eReaders Are Browser-Based In HTML5
OverDrive is just the latest company to announce plans to offers an HTML5, browser-based reading platform. Called OverDrive Read, it is built with the help of the recently-acquired Australian company Booki.sh. The company will demo the new platform at BEA and ALA. “Unlike eBook apps or devices, OverDrive Read enables readers using standard web browsers to enjoy eBooks online and offline without first installing any software or activating their device.” Start-up Inkling made a similar announcement earlier in the week. Previously available only through an iPad app, their Inkling for Web is an HTML5 web reading app works for all […]