Marion Cunningham, 90, author of cookbooks such as LEARNING TO COOK and THE FANNIE FARMER COOKBOOK, died Wednesday in an assisted-care home in Walnut Creek, CA from complications of Alzheimer’s Disease. Her longtime editor at Knopf Judith Jones said in a statement that Cunningham “epitomized good American food…She was someone who had an ability to take a dish, savor it in her mouth, and give it new life. At a time when Americans were embracing all kinds of foreign cuisine, Marion Cunningham’s love and respect for American food helped The Fannie Farmer Cookbook once again earn a place in kitchens […]
eNews
Ingram’s Vital Source Pairs with Blackboard for Broad eTextbook Offering
Ingram’s Vital Source unit will work with Blackboard, the leading education learning management system (LMS), for an expanded electronic textbook offering. Blackboard will incorporate the Vital Source etextbook platform, comprising over 80,000 titles, directly into their LMS, giving students and faculty easy access. Vital Source coo Kent Freeman says in the announcement, “With the integration, there would be no extra software for users to install, no separate logins and passwords to remember. You get immediate access to the digital copies of your textbooks, and they are an integral part of your Blackboard Learn courses.” Faculty will be able to select […]
eNews: Kobo to Launch Italian Platform With Mondadori; eBook Sales and Expectations Up in Germany
As previously promised, Kobo will officially enter the Italian market “this fall”–the news is that they will do so through a partnership with Mondadori, “Italy’s leading retailer, and publisher of books and magazines.” Mondadori will sell the Kobo Touch online and through 400 stores at 99 Euros and promises to offer over 30,000 ebooks in Italian. Kobo will join Amazon’s Kindle, Google Play and the iBookstore, all of which have started selling ebooks in Italy over the past year. For Kobo, it will be the fifth store in a language other than English, joining operations in France, Germany, Holland and […]
eNews: Macmillan’s $100 Million+ for Acquisitions; TED Launches Reading App/Store
Former Questia founder Troy Williams, who joined Macmillan as general manager of New Ventures in fall 2010, tells Pando Daily that Holtzbrinck has allocated something over $100 million for him to purchase “ed-tech startups that will eventually be the future of Macmillan…as Macmillan transitions out of the content business and into educational software and services.” Williams indicates to them he “plans to do five deals this year and 10 to 15 over the course of the next five years.” Acquisitions so far include Prep-U, a student “quizzing engine,” i-Clicker, a mobile classroom polling company, and most recently Educational Benchmarking, a […]
European Commission Takes First Step Against Luxembourg and France’s Rogue eBook VAT Rates
Luxembourg and France clearly broke free from European Union law at the beginning of 2012 when they lowered the VAT applied to ebooks, to 3 percent and 7 percent respectively–with Luxembourg’s move particularly advantaging international players like Amazon that as a legal matter “sell” ebooks across Europe from Luxembourg. Now, six months later, the European Commission has dispatched a stern letter: “This situation is creating serious distortions of competition that are damaging to economic operators in the other 25 Member States since digital books can easily be purchased in a State other than the one where the consumer resides and, […]
Angry Robot Tries Free eBook Bundle for UK Indies
As part of the UK’s Independent Bookseller week, Angry Robot has announced a small pilot for a program they hope to extend to other stores. Working just with Mostly Books in Oxfordshire for now, they are going to give away a free–and DRM-free–ebook edition (called the Clonefile) with each in-store purchase of a physical paperback. “This Clonefile means that customers at Mostly Books can buy Angry Robot’s books and enjoy them in whatever format they prefer, whether physical or electronic…. A dual-format offering for Indies seems like a natural extension of our customer-first ethos and a great way for Angry […]