Apple reported another strong quarter of sales overall, including moving 9.25 million iPads in their third quarter. That’s the best quarter ever for iPad sales, well ahead of the previous high set in the period ending last Christmas, when they sold 7.33 million tablets. And it’s nearly double the second quarter iPad sales of 4.7 million units. In a separate release touting the downloading of 15 billion apps, Apple gives some special attention to Callaway Digital Arts, with ceo Nicholas Callawy exclaiming, “We knew the iPad was going to be a revolutionary storytelling device, but never could have anticipated it […]
eNews
eDeals: Google + Pottermore; Cookstr eBooks; Princeton Review Adds eBooks; Lee Child’s eStory; Gollancz to Bring Thousands of Sci-Fi/Fantasy Titles Back as eBooks
Google announced that their Google Checkout will be the “preferred third-party payment platform” for Pottermore.com (which will also accept debit and credit cards). The site will use YouTube for global video broadcasts and the Harry Potter ebooks will work just fine via Google eBooks in the US. Google blog Cookstr is looking to monetize digital recipe collections with the launch via the iBookstore of recipe sets of varying sizes–offering 10 recipes for $.99; 50 recipes for $3.99; and 250 recipes for $9.99. Starting with Rozanne Gold’s 1-2-3 Collection, they have 31 different options on sale at once. The company says […]
Judge Chin Will Push Google Books Case to Trial If There’s No Settlement By September 15
It took Judge Denny Chin thirteen months to consider and reject the Google Books Settlement, but in court Tuesday he indicated that he will not let the case drag on forever. The parties have had only four months to start all over, but Chin expressed some pragmatism is noting, “I have a sense that we’ll come back here in September and you’ll just want more time,” noting that “Google has all but said they would not accept an opt-in deal.” (The company already has an opt-in program that exists outside of the settlement.) Absent being “resolved or close to resolved […]
eNews: BookLamp’s Recommendation Engine Enlists Publishers; UMich Press Serializes Novels on Facebook; and More
Book recommendation service BookLamp will reportedly launch in August after a lengthy development period, with more than 20,000 available books from Random House, Kensington and other publishers. The idea is to search through full-text books and analyze them in order to make reading recommendations. Ceo Tom Stanton told Mashable that he doesn’t anticipate selling books or advertising on the site. BookLamp’s efforts at text analysis and recommendations have been underway since 2008, focused on science fiction and fantasy books to start, and according to site postings have mostly lacked a sufficiently large database to search against and analyze. A video […]
eNews: Kindle Textbook Offers; Sony Denies Exec’s Comments on New Devices
Amazon is entering another new market with Kindle Textbook Rental, making available textbooks to students at up to 80 percent off list prices for a usage period of between 30 and 360 days (paying only for the time needed, with the option to extend the rental period or buy the textbook outright.) “Tens of thousands” of textbooks from Wiley, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis are available through the program, whose announcement would seem to anticipate Amazon’s long-rumored tablet plans for the fall. Release Meanwhile, it seems as if Sony has some explaining to do in-house, as the company denied VP […]
International News: PA and IPG Want to Block Amazon/Book Depository Merger; Competition Commission on the Pearson/REDGroup Case; and More
As expected, the UK Publishers Association and Independent Publishers Guild are asking the government to block Amazon’s purchase of The Book Depository, calling for a wider public investigation into the competition between the online and bricks and mortar bookselling market. What’s less expected is that their request is a joint one, which PA ceo Richard Mollet said in a statement “reflects the strength of feeling among publishing companies that the OFT should block this merger.” Bookseller Meanwhile, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will conduct an ‘informal review’ of Pearson’s proposed acquisition of REDGRoup Retail’s online business. The closing […]