In a data-drive blog post Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah underscores that fiction is disproportionately dominating ebook bestseller charts as well as her company’s digital sales. While well over half of Sourcebooks’ print sales come from adult nonfiction, over 80 percent of their ebook sales are from fiction. “Right now we’re seeing relatively weak conversion of adult non-fiction to ebooks,” Raccah writes. While reference is the single largest category within nonfiction, she says “our experience at Sourcebooks is that it’s the hardest category to get right in ebooks.” Which is ironic, since epublishing and the internet were widely expected to eliminate many […]
eNews
eNews: OverDrive Windows Phone App; Booksurfers for Kindle
Today’s eNews is decidedly app-centric, for devices bearing no relation whatsoever to Apple. Overdrive announced its Windows Phone app, enabling readers at the more than 15,000 services that use Overdrive to download EPUB ebooks and audiobooks. Overdrive Windows Phone app page Children’s author David Gatward’s new series Booksurfers, which mixes well-known stories with new adventures in an interactive manner, will be available exclusively at Amazon on various Kindle platforms starting today. Starting with the first two titles, TREASURE ISLAND and THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, the series features four children who are “forced to jump ‘into’ classic adventure stories to […]
eNews: Amazon Cuts Ties to AR, CT Over Sales Tax; Kobo eBook Lending; and More
Add Arkansas and Connecticut to the list of states Amazon is cutting ties with over new sales tax laws. In Arkansas, where the law enables the state to charge sales tax on companies who exceed $10,000 in annual sales, Amazon notified associates by email that it would terminate their contracts on July 24. And in Connecticut, affiliates will be cut off “effective immediately,” per a separate Amazon email. AP UPI Kobo is said to be preparing its own ebook lending and self-publishing services to launch before the end of the year. GoodeReader Waterstone’s sale to Alexander Mamut will not affect […]
eNews: Google Doodles, Harper Promotes Enhanced eBooks
Google eBooks has added a “doodle mode” to a select collection of children’s activities books (from the “Everything Kids” series) that lets readers use a computer mouse as an electronic “crayon” to write in enabled ebooks. The feature works in all “modern browsers,” a category that apparently does not include Internet Explorer. Also, HarperCollins is highlighting their enhanced ebooks with a giveaway of enhanced versions of Jane Leavy’s THE LAST BOY and Bernard Cornwell’s THE FORT through select etailers, through June 22 (e.g. not on Kindle). Publisher of Harper Media Ana Maria Allessi says the titles “are a demonstration of […]
Tablets and Students’ eTextbook Resistance, and more eNews
A new study by the Pearson Foundation appears to show that students’ general resistance to etextbooks – documented in multiple reports from BISG – may be thawing somewhat. 55 percent of students still prefer print over digital textbooks, but among the 7 percent of students who own tablets devices such as iPads, 73 percent prefer digital textbooks. 70 percent of students surveyed say they are interested in owning a tablet (with 15 percent of those determined to buy one within the next six months) so no doubt the numbers will change by this time next year as more etextbook platforms […]
Apple Modifies App Store Rules to Avert Total Shutdown of eReading Apps
In advance of a June 30 deadline that would have potentially kicked all major third-party ereading apps from the likes of Amazon, Nook and Kobo out of the Apple App Store, the computer company has revised their rules to provide at least some leeway. The Apple rule that caused controversy earlier this year–beginning with the rejection of a proposed ereader app from Sony, which has still yet to launch such a feature–was a requirement that any content sold outside of approved apps must also be offered for purchase through Apple’s in-app purchasing program, “at the same price or less than […]