Scholastic releases the fourth edition of their bi-annual survey, looking at views on reading of kids ages 6 to 17 and their parents. (The full survey comes out at 11, so much as we don’t like to write up press releases only when looking at data, that’s what we had to work with this morning.) Perhaps the best news in the survey is that among boys, they found an increase in “reading enjoyment”–26 percent say they love reading and 47 percent attest to the importance of reading for fun, up from 20 percent and 39 percent respectively in 2010. The […]
eNews
ABA Sales Softened In Second Half; UK eSales Still Lag US Considerably
As a group, ABA bookstores had a good year in 2012–but what’s implied in this BTW story is more significant than the stated statistics, ratifying our “story we can’t report” from yesterday. The ABA provides another indication that, despite happy anecdotal holiday sales reports,holiday book sales were soft, providing a soft ending to the year as early blockbusters (Hunger Games; Fifty Shades; etc.) gave way to a holiday season with few dominant, breakout books and a cooling off of the ebook market. (Barnes & Noble’s “core” non-Nook-related bookstores sales fell 3.1 percent during the holiday sales period.) What the ABA […]
More On the Story We Can’t Report
Despite a peppy press release from Random House UK declaring “a digital Christmas for all the family” and a story echoing that theme in the Bookseller, we’re still struck by the holiday story that no one is reporting: The significant post-holiday ebook sales burst that has lifted the step-level of the market over the past few yearsappears to have been substantially smaller in both the US and now the UK. And no device maker has provided exuberant news about sales so far. By Random House UK’s own account, “sales of ebooks in the Christmas week” were up only 13 percent […]
eNews: McGraw-Hill’s eTextbooks Adapt to Students; BabyFirst Digital Imprint; PIA Awards; and More
At the Consumer Electronics Show, McGraw-Hill has announced an “adaptive e-book” for college texts, which “focuses students’ attention on the content that is most critical to their learning.” They will launch in the late spring for about 90 course areas. As the WSJ describes it: “All readers essentially see the same textbook as they read for the first five minutes. But as a reader answers review questions placed throughout the chapter, different passages become highlighted to point the reader to where he or she should focus attention.” A company called Area9 developed the technology. Though digital textbooks have lagged so far, McGraw-Hill […]
Macmillan to Distribute ePublisher Entangled; SMP Will Co-Publish Some Titles In Print
Macmillan has made two agreements with digital romance publisher Entangled Publishing that demonstrate additional ways digital-first publishers and larger houses can work together. Macmillan will distribute Entangled’s ebooks worldwide as of February 1, and under a separate agreement, St. Martin’s will co-publish select Entangled titles in print editions under the joint-venture imprint St. Martin’s/Entangled. “We couldn’t be more excited about our alliance with these giants in the industry,” Entangled ceo and publisher Liz Pelletier said in a statement. “To be able to bring our titles to a global audience, meeting both the needs and expectations of our authors and readers everywhere, has […]
ReaderLink Pairs with txtr In the US
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 […]