Kobo has been saying for a while now they would launch an ebook self-publishing service along the lines of Amazon’s KDP and Barnes & Noble’s PubIt. Canada’s CBC News has a report that Kobo will develop an in-house publishing division akin to Amazon’s efforts, though we’re told the CBC might have interpreted the company’s plans a bit liberally. The broadcast report has one very brief sound bite from Kobo ceo Michael Serbinis, who says, “It’s part of the new market and if you expect to be a No. 1 player in that market globally it’s table stakes — you have […]
eNews
eNews: Anobii Prepares to Sell eBooks; Freethy Sells 1 Million Self-Published Books; and More
UK-based social book recommendation site Anobii announced that as part of their coming relaunch, they have reached agreements to sell ebooks from more than 10 publishers, including the UK divisions of Penguin, Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette, Bloomsbury, Harlequin and Wiley, along with Pan Macmillan, Faber & Faber and Canongate. Digital editions will be available for sale as of the end of October, with print books to follow at a later date. get them instantly on their free Anobii ebook apps. They will have Anobii iOS reading apps at launch, and plan to add Android apps “shortly.” Their cloud-based service […]
Accounting House of Horrors? What Agency Does to Amazon’s Reports
Ever since the agency model first appeared in early 2010 we’ve been writing about some of the unanticipated effects of that shift, and today we turn our attention to another previously overlooked ramification: what agency does to retailer accounting. In public Amazon opposed the agency model on behalf of protecting their power to price ebooks and offer discounts to their customers. But agency has an important accounting impact as well. For regular/wholesale ebook sales, Amazon books the full value of what the consumer pays. But for agency ebooks, under standard accounting rules the company only books the commission they receive […]
Subtext Joins the Social Scene
Social reading has yet to take off among ebook readers, but it’s already a hit among technologists and venture capitalists. The latest entry, launching today, is Subtext, an iPad app created by a group of people from the gaming world. With an announced $3 million in seed capital from Google Ventures, Mayfield Fund, New Enterprise Associates and Omidyar Network, Subtext is run by ceo Andrew Goldman, who was ceo of Pandemic when it was sold to Electronic Arts. Other founders include cto Adam Iarossi, a Pandemic colleague, and vp of marketing Rachel Thomas, who worked at game company Playdom, sold […]
eNews: HBG Licenses System to Create App Storefront
Book packager and publisher Round Table Companies is licensing Hachette’s digital content management system to create an app storefront that allows Round Table to sell their titles on the iPad. Hachette’s system provides app publishers features for direct consumer relationships that include push notifications, feedback generation, analytics tracking, and direct sales. HBG is hosting the content on their servers and licensing access to their digital platform, but spokesperson Sophie Cottrell says that “going forward, HBG will consider licensing the software” for installation on third-party servers. This is their first software-as-a-service agreement, and they are interested in licensing additional clients. The service […]
Another Frontier for Kindle: Japan
Amazon is moving quickly on their expansion of the Kindle platform into multiple languages. Both the Nikkei business daily and Jiji press in Japan report that the company is close to launching a Japanese Kindle store, “hoping to start the business in time for the Christmas sales season.” Japanese publishers were understandably concerned about ebook pricing, but Nikkei says Amazon has been discussing “a framework in which the timing and scope of price cuts would be discussed with publishers in advance.” Japan’s electronic content market is already estimated to comprise $850 million, which is considered small since that’s about three […]