Hours after Barnes & Noble’s price cut on Nook and announcement of a new lower-priced wi-fi model, Amazon announced a price reduction of its own. They lowered the price on the regular model of Kindle from $269 to $189, effective immediately. The press loves “price wars” and of course everyone is an expert on what this means, and what it portends. Barnes & Noble is particularly vocal in media accounts. CEO William Lynch tells the NYT, “I don’t see more than two, or maybe three dedicated reading companies in the market for selling e-books. I think you are starting to […]
eNews
eNews: Nook Drops Price, Adds Inexpensive Model; Report Says Amazon Is Using Up Kindle Inventory
With Father’s Day buying finished, Barnes & Noble is dropping the list price on the original model of their nook ereader to $199 and has launched a model that connects via wifi instead of 3G priced at $149. They have released another software update as well (version 1.4) and nook owners now have access to free wifi on AT&T’s “entire nationwide network.” The company says online orders for the new model “will begin shipping this week” and they “expect [it] will be in-stock in select Barnes & Noble and Best Buy stores for immediate purchase later this month and rolling […]
Wiley Finishes Strong; Signs with Apple
Wiley reported fourth quarter sales of $436 million, up 8 percent from a year ago, and full-year sales of $1.699 billion, up five percent. Professional/trade sales rose 18 percent in the period, at $115 million, with growth “particularly in the US.” For the full year, the segment had sales of $430 million, up 7 percent. Trade ebook sales comprised $7 million (less than 2 percent of overall trade), and the company says that it now has an “ebook agreement signed with Apple.” The company took a small $800,000 restructuring charge in the fourth quarter “related to offshoring and outsourcing certain […]
Digital Announcements: S&S Serial Verticals; Chicago Meets Beck Demand, and More
Simon & Schuster has developed a program that uses non-fiction book content from their list to drive vertically-targeted consumer service websites. They have started with Tipsonhealthliving.com, Tipsonlifeandlive.com, and Tipsonhomeandstyle.com, and will follow with sites on other topics such as career & money and religion. The company says the sites were inspired by the success of content syndication partnerships that push articles derived from S&S books to partners including MSN and Yahoo!. S&S the syndication has “garnered millions of page views, generated high click-through rates and helped to increase sales levels of select titles” and the company “expects to enter into […]
eBook Numbers
We generally do not report on the AAP’s monthly numbers (or the Census Bureau’s monthly bookstore numbers) because they are so incomplete and idiosyncratic that they produce more confusion than clarity as far as we are concerned. (It leads to disconnects like today’s pairing from Shelf Awareness:) “AAP: April Sales Increase, Big Gain for Hardcovers”“Bookstore Sales Slip 5.1% in April, Flat for Year” But with the thirst for ebook data and general confusion about the changing landscape of business terms, lots of outlets are seizing on the monthly AAP ebook numbers. Year-on-year numbers are still increasing–April was up 127 percent […]
Skiff eBooks Team Admits They Are Leaving
Cliff Guren and Pam Turner have admitted in a letter to Skiff ebookstore partners that they are both leaving the venture, and imply that Skiff will not be pursuing the ebook portion of the venture for now. They write that “Skiff, LLC will be winding down its current operations. We fully expect News Corp. may want to consider opportunities to renew the relationship we’ve had with you at Skiff.”Via eReads