We mentioned ScrollMotion’s interface for iPhone books a few weeks ago and now the company is unveiling some of their other arrangements with multiple publishers (ok, so they’re tech guys, not publicists). Random House gives their press release in advance to AP and as result the story only mentions that the company will release a dozen books on iPhone, including Christopher Paolini’s Brisingr, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy and Peter Matthiessen’s award-winning Shadow Country. Wired reports more broadly via a blog that ScrollMotion’s release will include such other books as Kindle bestseller Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, along with Scott […]
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Isn't It Ironic? Houghton Leads Amazon's "Inside Publishing"
Picking up on a program begun at Amazon.UK (with a letter from Harper UK ceo VIctoria Barnsley), Amazon.com in the US today launched an Inside Publishing promotion. And who better to take the lead for our business than Houghton Harcourt Mifflin trade and reference president Gary Gentel, right? He begins: “Dear Amazon Customers: Even as the winds of change swirl around us this Election year, some things never change. Among them is the perennial fascination with the subjects of family, betrayal, social status, and money.” Gentel goes on to recommend Meryl Gordon’s Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a […]
Random House: Free iPhone Book Promotion
Random House and Ballantine are offering free books to read on the iPhone via Lexcycle’s fast-growing Stanza reader. (The app has been downloaded approximately 500,000 times.) The works come from the backlist of popular authors such as Alan Furst, Julie Garwood, Charlie Huston, David Liss, Laurie Notaro, Arthur Phillips and Simon Rich, and include promotional excerpts for new hardcovers scheduled for 2009. The company says it is also “providing links to retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com, Borders.com, Powells.com and IndieBound.org to encourage readers to purchase more books by these authors.”
Penguin 2.0: Groundbreakingly Revolutionary, If They Say So Themselves
Penguin has pulled together a few electronic initiatives under the umbrella of a Penguin 2.0 mini-site, which does sport a fun logo (the zero is depicted by a Penguin, naturally). It gathers up the eSpecials program begun earlier this year, a promotional iPhone app launched recently, and a new program with SharedBook to offer Penguin classics with customized dedication pages (for now, the first and only offering is a paperback of The Christmas Carol–personalized for $17, versus $9 for the regular edition). Most intriguing is a forthcoming feature for next year, Penguin Custom, in which “you will have the ability […]
Firebrand Takes Over NetGalley
After a slow-motion launch earlier this year, Rosetta Solution’s Net Galley–designed as both an electronic galley system as well as a review-workflow product for publishers–is being taken over on an operational basis by Firebrand Technologies. Constructed as a joint venture called NetGalley LLC, Firebrand’s Fran Toolan will serve as ceo of the new entity, though most of the team that launched NetGalley will remain with the company. Toolan indicated in a preliminary bulletin to customers that Firebrand intends to integrate NetGalley with its title management and metadata management products. He says, “From every angle this seems like a natural fit […]
Amazon Launches iPhone Shopping App; Stanza Reads 40,000 More Titles
Amazon has launched an iPhone app to let users search and browse the site for products. Their big “twist” is an “experimental feature” using the built-in camera called Amazon Remembers. It’s basically another extension of the idea of using physical stores as a place to browse real products to help people decide what to buy online. You snap a photo of a product and Amazon “tries to find products similar to the ones in the photos. As soon as the customer receives the results, they can then purchase the item immediately or ‘remember it’ for later in their Amazon account.”Release […]