In its ever-ambitious search for a business model and clear expression of why it exists at all, website Medium has acquired Paris-based Glose — an ebook platform and store, perhaps best known in the trade as the ebook vendor HarperCollins switched to for selling their ebooks directly to customers, after BookShout went of out of business. Glose and their roughly 20 employees will remain based in Paris, their ceo Nicolas Princen becoming vice president of books at Medium. Glose claims 1 million readers worldwide, and their separate Glose Education “serves as the ebook provider of choice for over a dozen […]
ebookstores
A New Vendor for Harper’s eBooks
Harper Collins had used Bookshout.com since 2016 as the platform for ebooks sold directly to customers from their websites, but recently the Harlequin site told customers that “BookShout closed their business in early 2020, ceasing all operations.” (In an earlier email, Harlequin had told customers, “On December 30th, 2019, Bookshout unexpectedly informed us of their intention to close their business on January 31st, 2020.”) Harlequin recently switched to Glose as their new ebook provider. Direct ebook sales have been disabled on the main Harper Collins online store, but the company tells us they are switching to Glose as well and […]
Kobo CEO Tamblyn’s Tips for Raising eBook Revenues
It’s only appropriate that a Book Industry Study Group (BISG) annual meeting Friday that opened with predictions of continuing tight markets for book paper and manufacturing concluded with Kobo (“often thought of as ‘Kobo-Who-We-Wish-Were-Bigger-In-the-US'”) ceo Michael Tamblyn running down six ways to sell more digital product — and retain readers’ attention — with better metadata. His biggest and most important suggestion/ask — which has been a staple of some of my own speeches for years — was, “Add series data. Every damn time.” As Tamblyn noted, series represent a whopping 52 percent of their ebook sales. Yet it is “one […]
EU to Allow Members to Drop E-Book Tax Rates
After two full years of debate (and years more of hand wringing), European Union member states now have the option to lower VAT tax rates on ebooks to the same rate charged for printed books — which in some countries are tax free. The measure unanimously agreed on by the EU’s Economic and Financial Affairs Council on October 2 is “the final step to ensure that the unequal treatment of the two products – paper versus digital – becomes a thing of the past,” said the EU Commission. The measure does not force member states to align the rates, but […]
Walmart eBooks, Kobo Integrates OverDrive, NYPL’s Instagram Books
As we previewed on Tuesday, today is the official launch day for Walmart ebooks (including digital audiobooks as well), in partnership with Rakuten Kobo. In separate news, Kobo has added “one-touch public library lending” to all of their ereading devices, for libraries that use Rakuten’s OverDrive. Kobo ceo Michael Tamblyn says in the announcement, “The insights and feedback gleaned from readers on our most premium device showed that those who borrowed ebooks directly from their public library on average read 30 percent more than those who did not use the library feature. Avid readers clearly appreciate the easy access to more […]
Walmart Readies eBook Rollout
Walmart is preparing to launch their retail partnership with Kobo ebooks, audiobooks and devices, announced in January. One Texas MobileRead user took pictures of in-store fixtures as they were being installed. Walmart stores will sell Kobo ereading devices, along with cards redeemable for ebooks, and audiobook subscriptions. Walmart’s website features ebooks help pages now, and Kobo posted a video about the Walmart ebooks app on YouTube on Monday. A Walmart ebooks app will launch shortly. The video only displays a Google Play icon, though the help pages talk about both android and IOS apps. Not unsurprisingly, Apple customers will need to […]