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
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 […]
eNews: Kobo Confirms Japan Launch; Amazon Brazil Tipped for Q4
Firming up reports from June, Kobo has formalized their July launch dates in Japan: The Kobo Touch device is available for pre-order as of today with a full ebookstore, with more than 2.4 million ebooks plus additional Japanese-only content, ready by July 19 on parent company Rakuten’s website. The e-reader will be priced at 7,980 yen including tax (or $100 USD). Amazon, reported to have been in negotiations with Japanese publishers for three years, is running a banner on its Japanese site saying that Kindle “will be on sale soon.” Also coming to a slow boil is Amazon’s Brazilian store, […]
People, Etc.
Matthew Ballast has been promoted to acting director of publicity for Grand Central Publishing, replacing Jennifer Romanello, who recently departed the company. Rachel Burley has been appointed vp, director of open access at Wiley, where she will facilitate the identification of open access opportunities and lead the development of products, policy, technology, processes, sales, and marketing initiatives necessary to provide support to authors. She has been at the company for five years, most recently as vp, publisher for current protocols. At S&S Children’s, Jacqui Hudson has been named ebook developer and specialist for the Free Press, Aladdin, Simon Spotlight, Paula […]