Well reported is an email from Kobo chief content officer Michael Tamblyn to authors in their self-publishing program Kobo Writing Life, providing an update on their now-completed review and cleansing of their title catalog. “The review had to happen fast, and we didn’t enjoy it, but with our esteemed 300-year-old retail partner on the front page of major newspapers and some content clearly in violation of our posted standards, we needed to move quickly.” Tamblyn makes clear, “For those few titles that remain unavailable, some feel that we chose a path of censorship. All I can say is that if […]
eNews
Briefs: AudioGo Suspends Operations Pending Sale; Inkling Acquires OpenAir
UK-based audiobook publisher AudioGo has suspended operations and is looking for an investment or outright sale, the company’s head of sales and marketing Rachel Josephson confirmed to the the Bookseller. She added: “There is a considerable amount of interest in AudioGO and we are hopeful of achieving a swift resolution. Protecting and respecting the rights of everyone that we work with is uppermost in our considerations and we are grateful for the fantastic support we have received from our colleagues throughout the industry.” The company recently sold its US-based arm Blackstone Audio back to its founders, just ten months after […]
WH Smith Back Online, But Kobo CEO Says eBooks Won’t Return Until Weekend — As Kobo Launches in India
Kobo chief executive Mike Serbinis finally addresses their issues with self-published books personally, in an interview with the UK’s Telegraph. Meanwhile, WH Smith has managed to get their website back online and open for business — though it appears they are only selling print books and have not restored sales of Kobo ebooks yet. The Telegraph reports that “Kobo hopes that the majority of its catalogue – minus the offending titles – will be back online by Saturday 19 October.” As Serbinis indicates indirectly, part of the problem is that they look to technology to screen titles rather than direct […]
Macmillan Expands eBook Library Lending to Total of 11,000 Backlist Titles
A little more than 6 months after entering the digital library market with a pilot program including 1200 backlist Minotaur titles and other titles from romance imprint Entangled, Macmillan has expanded its digital library offerings to include an additional 9,300 backlist titles across all company imprints. That brings the total number of backlist Macmillan titles available for digital lending to approximately 11,000. The news was first reported on Twitter by 3M collection development coordinator Heather McCormack, and Macmillan president of sales Alison Lazarus told us in a statement that “as part of our ongoing evaluation of eLending we have decided […]
eNews: Kobo Disabled at Whitcoulls; Scholastic’s Ed-Tech; Scribd’s Subscriber Report; and More
WH Smith still has not restored service to their website in the wake of controversy over some of the Kobo ebooks they were offering for sale. In New Zealand, retailer Whitcoulls “has suspended the sale of eBooks through our website.” They write in a site note: “This suspension will remain in place until we can guarantee that any inappropriate material, that has been available through self published eBooks, has been removed from the Kobo eBook catalogue.” But Australian partner Angus & Robertson is still selling what appears to be the full and unexpurgated Kobo catalog (at least judging by a […]
Self-Publishing Takes Down WH Smith
On Saturday the UK’s Mail on Sunday ran a sensational article focusing on the “disturbingly graphic content” available in abundance through major online bookstores, including WH Smith, Amazon, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble, generally as ebooks. The prime focus of their piece was WH Smith, where children’s ebooks and pornography were freely mixed under the first page of results for a search for “daddy.” (The story appears to have begun with a tweet during the week and an article in The Kernel that focused on Amazon.) In response, WH Smith took their entire website offline, and it remains still closed […]