Rosetta Books is launching a Crimescape digital imprint, featuring short-form true crime writing from established authors. They are starting with six titles, adding at least two new titles a month. All titles will be Kindle exclusives for one year. Running 10,000 to 20,000 words, the initial selections are all priced at $2.99. Founder of CrimeLibrary.com Marilyn Bardsley is overseeing the line for Rosetta, “focusing on writers she has worked with over the years” but also open to submissions. Rosetta founder Arthur Klebanoff sees it as “example of how an original ebook line can be established in an area of traditional […]
eNews
Mondadori to Put Thousands of eBooks on Kindle
Italy’s Mondadori will make “more than 2,000 ebooks” available via Kindle stores in the UK, Germany and the US. They expect to add another 1,000 titles before the end of the year, and hope to have 80 percent of their 10,000-title list as ebooks “by 2012.” Remarks from deputy chairman and chief executive Maurizio Costa at least imply that an Italian Kindle store might not be far off, following Amazon’s recent launch of an Italian web site. Italy is on Kobo’s list of local ebookstores planned for the coming months as well, though today’s release only mentions Amazon. Barnes & […]
People, Etc.
OverDrive has hired Brian Gurewitz as director of content sales. He was formerly president of library sales for Random House’s Books on Tape. Katie O’Callaghan is joining the Harper as associate director, marketing, working across all of the Harper imprints including Harper, Harper Business, and Broadside Books. She was most recently senior marketing manager at Ballantine Bantam Dell. The Los Angeles Times book review will no longer employ freelance book reviewers or non-staff columnists. LAT spokesperson Nancy Sullivan tells PW, “This was a cost-saving move, strictly related to our budget.” She said “staff writers from outside the book department will take […]
Other Major eBook Apps Fall In Line with New Apple Rules
As expected, Apple’s new rule requiring content-based apps that sell outside of Apple’s own channels to remove any external purchasing links is being enforced broadly across all the major players. Yesterday the Apple Kindle app was updated, with the company saying in a forum posting “in order to comply with recent policy changes by Apple, we’ve removed the ‘Kindle Store’ link from within the app that opened Safari and took you to the Kindle Store.” Barnes & Noble announced that their Nook for iPad app will “soon be updated,” at which time you can expect their purchasing link to be […]
Kobo and Other eReading Apps Comply with Apple’s New Rule On Purchasing
Apple is doing exactly what they said they would do–enforcing a new rule on the makers of content-driven apps that requires them to remove any links to purchasing content through the web that bypass Apple’s own purchasing systems (through which Apple gets a 30 percent commission). The move gained additional attention with respect to ebook apps over the weekend, as Kobo revised their iOS app to remove the purchasing link over the weekend: “Earlier today Apple instituted new rules which affect your experience on iPhone and iPad apps. The biggest change is the removal of the ability to shop within […]
AAP May eBook Sales Nudge Up As Print Sales Take Another Hit
eBook sales reported by 15 companies to the AAP comprised $73.4 million for May, and accounted for 18.5 percent of all net trade sales for the month, consistent with the prior two months. eBooks were the second-largest trade format again, behind trade paperbacks. Between the rise of ebooks and the decline of Borders, overall trade sales suffered their biggest monthly drop so far this year, though, with the steepest falls in adult hardcover and adult mass markets. Down $52.9 million even with the gain in ebooks, overall trade sales of $398.3 declined almost 12 percent in the month. Here are […]