Amazon’s new restrictions on ebook returns will be rolled out in the US by the end of the month, the Authors Guild reports. The policy, encouraged by the Guild and announced in September, will limit automatic returns on books where more than 10 percent has been read. This change to the policy was supposed to be implemented by the end of 2022, and a press release states that Amazon is “in the final stages of making these technical changes.”
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Ingram to Shut Down Aerio
Aerio, the innovative platform that enabled anyone to sell books easily online and brought Ingram Content Group their first direct-to-consumer option when they acquired the company (founded as Aerbook) in 2015, will close as a freestanding service at the end of January 2023. The company told customers in a “service alert” sent by email on Tuesday. Our queries to a company representative were not answered. Aerio provided the technical foundation on which the better-known Bookshop.org was built. And the advisory note sent to Aerio customers suggests, “Another great selling solution is Bookshop.org!” Aerio storefront sites will shut down on January […]
Kobo Plus Subscription Services Add Audiobooks
In Canada, Kobo is expanding their Kobo Plus subscription ereading service to include an option for unlimited use of over 100,000 audiobooks. A single format — reading only, or listening only — costs $9.99 a month, and the combined reading and listening subscription is $12.99 a month. In a separate report on ebook reading and sales in 2022, Kobo says reading time on their platform in Canada declined “a slight seven per cent” compared to last year, “understandable given relative freedom from lockdowns and an easing of pandemic restrictions.”
NFTs in Publishing Face Audience, Contract, and Market Obstacles
On day two of the Penguin Random House antitrust trial that recently captivated all of publishing, agent Ayesha Pande was asked by the government to name some of the rights in publishing contracts that are non-negotiable. “Ebook is one of those rights and audio is one of those rights,” responded Pande. “Now the new territory that seems to be a little bit in contention is NFTs.” Though it was far from the trial’s flashiest moment, this exchange brought to the fore a question that has lingered at the fringes of the business for over a year now: what is the […]
Webtoon and Wattpad Team Launch Yonder
The team behind Webtoon and Wattpad has launched Yonder, a new serialized fiction app. They write in a release that Yonder “elevates serialized fiction, with a focus on curation, stories from influential authors and publishers, and an enhanced experience that rewards readers with more to read.” Publishing partners with content on the app include Blackstone Publishing, Aethon, Sterling and Stone, Portal Books, and Wraithmarked. The app is currently available on Android and the company says it’s coming soon on iOS. Yonder does not have ads, but every story on the platform allows readers several chapters for free before requesting that […]
Ingram Invests in NFT eBook Company
Ingram Content Group has closed a seed funding round for NFT ebook company Book.io. The startup puts ebooks and audiobooks on the blockchain, where they can be sold as NFTs. The company says in a release that Ingram’s print-on-demand service Lightning Source will work with Book.io “to bundle NFT eBooks with bespoke printed physical books” in a process they’re calling “Mint & Print.” Ingram president and ceo Shawn Morin, said, “Ingram Content Group is excited to join with Book.io in pioneering new supply-chain models for eBook delivery that take advantage of the security of blockchain technologies, the promise of Web […]