The European Commission has launched their Europeana project, meant to provide a collection of digitized cultural resources from across Europe. But the NYT notes that “more than half of its two million items will come from just one of the 27 countries in the European Union: France…. Only 1 percent of the content has information about Germany, 1.4 percent about Spain and only 10 percent about Britain.” The site draws on the archives of over 1,000 museums, libraries and archives, presenting books, paintings, maps, videos, and newspapers, all free of copyright restrictions. The EU’s goal is to present 10 million […]
eNews
More on Cellphone Bar-Code Apps
On a private mailing list I belong to there was considerable discussion of the bar-code-reading apps for the new T-Mobile phone that is first to use Google’s Android operating system. One looks at a bar code and searches Google Book Search; another, called Shop Savvy, looks at the bar code through the built-in camera and “and up pops the cheapest price on the product as well as reviews from people who have purchased the product,” so it will present book prices (among other things) from a variety of sites. Yesterday on NPR’s All Tech Considered feature, they said the software […]
Sourcebooks Offers Enhanced eBook
Following their successful pairing of books with discs offering supplementary audio and visuals through the Sourcebooks MediaFusion imprint (beginning with We Interrupt This Broadcast in 1998), the publisher is experimenting with extending that idea to enhanced digital books. Today they are releasing via their own site the digital version of Grammy winner Marty Stuart’s Country Music: The Masters, which released as a physical book last Friday. The ebook version includes a 13-minute video on “the making of” the project, but the most innovative part of Sourcebooks’ approach may be on price. The ebook lists for $19.95 (and they were providing […]
Amazon/Penguin Contest Returns
The e-tailer’s Breakthrough Novel Award competition will return for a second year, open to new manuscript submissions as of Groundhog’s Day, 2009, and once again they will partner with the Penguin Group. Amazon calls the first contest “enormously successful,” despite the tepid response from the marketplace to the August release of winner Bill Loehfelm’s FRESH KILLS. (Loehfelm’s book has sold approximately 4,000 copies through outlets tracked by Nielsen Bookscan.) But Penguin has acquired rights to four of the other ten finalists: Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan (Amy Einhorn Books, July 2009); The Wet Nurse’s Tale by Erica Eisdorfer (Putnam, […]
eNews: Stats on King's Video Promo; Google Previews at Borders;
Simon & Schuster says their 25 promotional short graphic-video episodes based on Stephen King’s short story “N” were viewed over one million times online and via mobile phones. The company declined to break out sales via iTunes, but spokesman Adam Rothberg says “the downloads and revenues were a very healthy number that exceeded our expectations, especially given that it was also available for free.” He also indicates that promotion produced “higher” pre-orders for the just-released book JUST AFTER SUNSET. Scribner printed “about 20,000” copies of a higher-priced collectors set that includes all of the video episodes on DVD, “which is […]
Yes, Google Will Let You Search Books with Cellphones
One of the many questions raised after the legal settlement over Google Book Search was announced was, “gee, do you think you’ll be able to search millions of books with the new Google Android mobile phone platform?” In a word: yes. Though as announced, the first phase actually aims to let you search current books (rather than out of print titles). It works via downloadable software called Barcode Scanner: “When you line up the camera in front of a book barcode, it will automatically zoom, focus and scan the ISBN – without you even needing to click the shutter. As […]