By Siobhan O’Leary
Libreka.de, the online book search database run by the Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels, a subsidiary of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, has begun offering DRM as an option for ebooks sold on the site. The site started selling ebooks nearly four months ago; but without DRM, writes the Buchreport, large publishers shied away. Since the announcement that DRM would be implemented on the site, Random House has since agreed to make 1200 titles available on Libreka by the end of the month. In total, there are currently around 12,000 ebook titles available for purchase on Libreka, 8,000 of which are reference books from the Springer group.
Germany now has a one-stop source for videos and trailers relating to literature: Bilandia.tv, says Buchmarkt. The site is an extension of online bookstore Bilandia.de, which launched earlier this year. The new multi-media platform will also feature interviews, author portraits, and film adaptations of books.
The German translation of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol will be published to coincide with the first day of the Frankfurt Book Fair, reports buchreport.de. Lübbe plans to use six translators to meet its deadline once the final manuscript has been delivered.