The WSJ got wide pick-up for revealing something already announced: “Google will begin selling digital books as early as late June or July, a company representative [Chris Palma] said Tuesday” at a BISG event. Just as Google’s Roland Lange said at a conference in early March that the service would launch…in June.WSJ
eNews
Amazon Pays Referrals on Kindle Books; As iPad Soars, Two Other Tablets Are Spiked
Amazon told the company’s “associates” by e-mail that as of May 1 they are paying “advertising fees” (their name for referral commissions) on Kindle book sales (and magazine, newspaper and blog subscriptions) for the first time since the launch of the store. Those fees range from 4 percent to 8.5 percent. At the same, they are reducing the fees paid on Kindle device sales to the same range of 4 percent to 8.5 percent. In an interesting but unconfirmed side-effect, it looks as if Amazon has restored Kindle data to their web services program as part of the new sales […]
One Million iPads In A Month, and Counting
With the release of its 3G model, Apple says they sold their one-millionth iPad last Friday. They got there in 28 days, noting that it took the company 74 days to sell a million iPhones. They also report “over 1.5 million ebooks” have been downloaded from the iBookstore (presumably including free books).Apple release
eNews: iPad 3G Releases, Agency Books Returning?
Today marks the next wave of the iPad release, with pre-orders of units with 3G connectivity arriving and new units going on sale in stores (“order limit: two per customer. While supplies last.”) Almost a month after the launch of the agency model in the marketplace, Diesel eBooks reports that they expect to have Penguin ebooks restored by their distribution (Ingram) next week if all goes well. “We are working to sign our second A5 by the end of this week and will update you as soon as we can disclose any further details.”Blog post
eNews: Penguin Has Most iBooks Available; Kindle Upgrades Software
In more stats analyzing the iBookstore, O’Reilly’s Radar shows general fiction as the dominant category by far, with 30% of all titles. Adding other fiction genres brings the total close to 50 percent. A chart of market share by publishers has Penguin Group on top with 23.5 percent of available titles. (As we’ve told O’Reilly, they need to bundle imprints together with their imprints, which is currently inconsistent–they will fix that later.) S&S has over 21 percent and HarperCollins has about 18.5 percent. The biggest surprise could be Smashwords’ 5.2 percent share–or maybe it’s the confirmation that very few publishers […]
Music Players Provides eBookstore Retail Solution
MediaNet, a digital music distribution player, has launched an on-the-fly ebookstore service that may be of appeal to independent booksellers and others looking to enter ebook retailing. The company says that their open API makes it possible to have an ebookstore “installed and ready to go within 48 hours.” They are working with EPUB files (and pdf’s) and claim a catalog of over 200,000 titles. The press release and online documentation do not provide any details about terms, or how they are dealing with a hybrid world of agency and wholesale selling models, divided tax responsibilities, etc.