In a DBW presentation, Kobo executive Michael Tamblyn reintroduced Kobo as “the largest ebook company that you may not have heard much about”–since, up until recently, “we have for the most part left the US alone.” Tamblyn noted, “we left our US competitors to club each other bloody while we went to other places” to serve unmet demand and expand markets. With the first results in from their new US efforts in concert with ABA stores, Tamblyn reported some of their early observations–which make a clear case that the “indie store” ebook customer is very different than Kobo’s standard US […]
eNews
eNews: Penguin Joins Espresso; Kobo Eyes Russia, India, China and Beyond
Penguin Group is making their titles available through the Espresso Book Machine. EVP of business operations Doug Whiteman says in the announcement, “Penguin is always looking for new ways to bring our writers to readers and On Demand Books gives us another channel to further fulfill that mission. We are grateful to have this opportunity to extend the way we serve our booksellers, authors and readers.” Penguin’s self-publishing and workshop community Book Country announced new changes and features, including a free ebook creation tool and a online editor. Book Country has also raised the royalty rates offered to authors who […]
DBW: “Clock Is Ticking” On Industry Consolidation
The morning sessions at Digital Book World closed with a conversation between Providence Equity Partners senior advisor (and former Macmillan president) Brian Napack and Michael Cader of Publishers Lunch, speaking about how private equity views the publishing business, opportunities for scale, and what recent transactions–the pending Penguin Random House merger, other recent news involving McGraw-Hill and HarperCollins, and Barnes & Noble’s investments–may mean down the line. Napack, answering a question about what will be of value, generally believes that private equity opportunities in traditional media “stem from confusion in marketplace.” With respect to the publishing industry, the recent moves are […]
More eNews: Inkling’s Searchable Books, and More
In concert with today’s Digital Book World event, Inkling formally announced a program they have had running for some time now, what they call their Content Discovery Platform. A “way for publishers to make digital books more discoverable and profitable,” Inkling is making any books within their format to be fully indexed and searchable via Google, like any other web content. Search engine discovery leads to free samples and a system to purchase small slices of book content at modest prices. The next phase, “the big how-to-get-it-into-our-platform question,” will be addressed in a second announcement next month at TOC. CEO […]
DBW: Executive Doubts About Transition So Far; Kobo Stats
James McQuivey from Forrester Research kicked off this week’s Digital Book World with his third annual survey of the views of 55 publishing executives on the pace of digital change. While a majority of executives still expect to succeed in the digital transition, only 34 percent said “my company is stronger today because of digital.” Forty-five percent of those surveyed thought “ereaders will soon be irrelevant” though McQuivey said, “I’d warn you not to take this too seriously yet. The people who bought them first still read them the most.” In one odd result, even as all actual sales data […]
Kids Retain Strong Preference for Print, As Influence of Online Bookstores and Friends Rises
Bookigee founder Kristen McLean and Bowker executive Carl Kulo kicked off this morning’s Publishers Launch conference Children’s Publishing Goes Digital with updated data findings from fall 2012, the latest installment in their ongoing analysis of the purchase and discovery of children’s books. McLean underscored the overall stability of the children’s book market: As to “the fear–that we were going to lose readers” with the rise of other electronic media, “there’s no data we’ve seen to support the idea that kids are reading less, and we’ve seen some data to support the idea that kids are reading more. We really believe […]