By Siobhan O’Leary There were only 38 mergers and acquisitions in the German publishing and media industries in 2009, as compared with 66 in 2008, according to the consulting firm Bartholomäus & Cie and as reported in Buchreport. The acquisition of bol.com from the Holtzbrinck Group by Dutch equity investor Cyrte Investments was, according to B&C, [...]
By Erin L. Cox On Wednesday, reclusive American writer J.D. Salinger died. Author of The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey, Salinger had spent the last 50 years in seclusion. Famed New Yorker writer Lillian Ross had a close personal friendship with Salinger over the years and wrote a powerful piece about the life and [...]
By Erin L. Cox According to an article in The New York Times, Amazon has pulled all Macmillan books from their site (or removed the buy buttons) in response to Macmillan’s request to raise the cost of ebooks on Amazon from $10 to $15. Macmillan author Cory Doctorow wrote a piece on BoingBoing.net sees a bleak future in this [...]
By Edward Nawotka Today’s editorial, like so many others on the Web, discusses the launch of Apple’s iPad. There are a myriad of opinions, reviews, and view about the device and no clear consensus other than to agree that Apple is taking a risk by offering a device that appears compromised to many. So, in the [...]
Editorial by Edward Nawotka Earlier on Publishing Perspectives (“CES is not a Book Fair and Steve Jobs is no Joe Gutenberg“) I warned that the launch of Apple’s internet tablet would “likely be a revolution in computing, not a revolution in reading.” I take that back: iPad isn’t even a revolution in computing, it’s [...]
By Edward Nawotka “Millions of people now own Kindles. And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting [...]
By Emily Williams Harvard Business Review Press filled us in a bit further on their reasons for partnering with Amazon to launch its Short Cuts series — digital editions of chapters from some of their popular business titles, sold in the shorter format to appeal to busy business readers (as discussed on Monday). Group Publisher Josh D. Macht [...]
By Siobhan O’Leary Though Apple’s iPad may not be available in Europe for months, the Börsenverein des deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers and Booksellers Association) has nonetheless released a statement about it, pointing out that they are pleased to see another device on the market that will make the mobile reading of e-books more attractive. The Börsenverein [...]
By Edward Nawotka The instant and virtually frictionless digital distribution of e-books is posing a real challenge to the enforcement of territorial copyright. As discussed in our lead article today, English language e-books are in demand all over the globe. But that demand is likely to put US, UK and even Australian publishers in [...]
By Edward Nawotka “E-books should be like television,” said literary agent Larry Kirshbaum, founder of LJK Literary Management, at the first annual Digital Book World conference held in New York this past Tuesday and Wednesday. The former publisher-turned-agent offered a vision of e-books that resembles the way a television works, where you can turn on [...]
