As we had heard a while ago, in conjunction with their quarterly earnings release Sony confirmed that they are turning over the North American Reader market to Kobo. “Sony’s Reader Store customers and their current ebook libraries will transfer to the Kobo ecosystem starting in late March,” they say in their announcement. Kobo will service Sony Reader device owners and will be the ebook provider for Sony’s continuing lines of tablets and smartphones in the US and Canada. The Kobo app will be pre-loaded onto “select” Sony phones and tablets. Sony effectively abandoned further development of the US market last September, […]
ebookstores
Soft Holiday Sales for Barnes & Noble Are Still An “Improvement” As Digital Content Falls Again
Barnes & Noble followed up their weak second quarter sales report with some improvement over the following 9-week holiday sales period (through December 28): Same-store sales at the BN superstores and BN.com declined 6.6 percent overall, and 5.5 percent on a comparable-sales basis, at $1.1 billion. But nearly all of the retail decline was due to weaker sales of Nook devices and accessories; “core” store sales were “essentially flat”, down 0.2 percent compared to last year. General book sales probably declined more, since the company points to “strong increases in our juvenile, gift and toys & games categories.” But the […]
Nook Store for Windows Launches Internationally
Just a day before reporting second quarter earnings, Barnes & Noble’s Nook has finally launched their long-promised international sales rollout — which works through Windows 8.1 devices. The new app and expanded storefront is said to be available in 32 countries in all, primarily across Europe (but also Australia and Canada), and 21 languages. The focus, offering “customized local market Nook storefronts with robust local content offerings,” is on these 9 countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland. Barnes & Noble executive Jim Hilt says in the release, “Nook is one of the leading digital reading platforms […]
Amazon Opens Australian Kindle Store
Amazon launched a Kindle store in Australia, which lets people there buy in local currency instead of purchasing through the US Kindle store and is said to more prominently feature local authors and publishers. Multiple Amazon devices are now for sale in Australia in local currency as well, and retailers Big W (owned by Woolworth’s) and Dick Smith will carry the Kindle Fire tablets starting in December. Australian KDP authors can now get paid faster and more efficiently in local currency as well. (Previously they were paid by paper checks sent from the US, experiencing a time delay and often […]
Intel Buys Kno; Kindle Said to Eye Sweden; Ransom’s Free Resources
Big companies, and big investment, continue to flow towards “ed-tech,” as Intel announced on Friday that it acquired education software company Kno. Intel had previously made a$20 million investment in the company, as part of a $37.5 million round of financing in 2011. Kno started as a hardware company, aiming to make tablets for educational markets, and then shifted to a strategy of helping to digitize, enhance and sell electronic textbooks. Intel says in the announcement: “The acquisition of Kno boosts Intel’s global digital content library to more than 225,000 higher education and K-12 titles through existing partnerships with 75 […]
Harper Launches Reader App and Direct eBook Sales, Starting with CS Lewis
HarperCollins has relaunched their CS Lewis and Narnia websites, adding for the first time a direct-sales ebookstore to both sites, selling Lewis’s work in English in ebook editions in major territories around the world. As part of that new ebook sales offer, they have launched a branded Harper Reader app on iOS and Android. A customized version of the Bluefire Reader, it displays the encrypted EPUB files that Harper is selling — along with digital “extras” that Harper is offering their direct customers. So when you download the app, it comes with an “exclusive” free copy of Beyond the Wardrobe: […]