By Hannah Johnson Consumer-oriented innovation, online content strategy and digital brand management were at the center of many discussions and panels during the Digital Life Design Conference (DLD), which ended on Tuesday in Munich, Germany. DLD was started six years ago by Hubert Burda Media, one of Germany’s largest magazine publishers, as an invitation-only “platform for progression” and a meeting …
Is Amazon’s 70% Royalty on E-books Worth the Restrictions?
By Edward Nawotka Today’s lead story by Emily Williams questions the “exclusive” status of Amazon.com e-book deals with Paulo Coelho and Harvard Business Review Press. As she demonstrates, both Coelho and Harvard Business Review Press have offered e-book versions of their work for sometime, including titles that overlap with Amazon’s offerings. Of course, the news that these two well-known brands …
The Myth of Amazon’s “Exclusive” E-books
By Emily Williams Amazon.com made a big splash earlier this month with its announcement that international megastar Paulo Coelho would make 17 of his books in the original Portuguese available exclusively on Amazon for six months. The press release, parroted on a number of news sites, proclaimed this “the first time any of these editions have been available as electronic …
Amazon.de Guilty of Flouting Fixed Price Laws
By Siobhan O’Leary In the David vs. Goliath-esque battle between Buchhandlung Schopf in northern Germany and Amazon, the little guy has come out on top. As we reported last month, the bookstore took Amazon to court for allegedly flouting Germany’s fixed book price laws. According to the Buchreport the Hamburg regional court has ruled against Amazon, stating that it must …
One-star Ratings on Amazon for Book Without Kindle Version
By Hannah Johnson The recently released book, Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin (published by Harper), was well-received by newspaper and online book reviewers for its examination of the 2008 presidential campaign in the USA and how Obama won the election. So why does this book have a 2/5 star-rating on Amazon.com? It has nothing to do with …
Bookseller Sues Amazon for Thwarting Fixed Price Laws
By Siobhan O’Leary Buchhandlung Schopf, a small bookstore in the town of Brunsbüttel in northern Germany, was fed up with customers strolling in brandishing printouts from Amazon.de touting cheaper prices and took Amazon to court, alleging the online retailer is ignoring Germany’s fixed book price laws. The bookstore’s owner, Dietrich Wienecke, began sending warnings to Amazon as far back as …
What’s the Buzz: Twitter Considers Subscriptions; Amazon Reveals Kindle Statistics; Waiting to Buy an E-reader
By Hannah Johnson Would you pay to read certain people’s Twitter streams? Next year, you might have to. As reported in Techradar, a new subscription model is set to launch in Japan in 2010, which will give Twitter users the option to charge a fee to their followers. Most likely, the fee will be a small one. If the model …
Global Trade Talk: PEN Prioritizes Indigenous Language Preservation; Club Bertelsmann Becomes Zeilenreich; Amazon International Profits Up
By Edward Nawotka and Siobhan O’Leary Last Wednesday, London-based International PEN elected Canadian writer John Ralston Saul as the organization’s new director, replacing Czech writer Jirí Grušá who has held the position for the last six years. In an interview with CBC Radio, Saul said that in addition to PEN’s traditional role of fighting for freedom of expression, he would try …
What’s the Buzz: Time to Start Talk of the Amazon Book Settlement
By Siobhan O’Leary and Edward Nawotka It’s finally here! Following months of speculation, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has announced that Amazon will start shipping the Kindle outside of the USA. The GSM-enabled e-readers will be available in hundreds of other countries starting on October 19th, reports the Boersenblatt. (and virtually every other news outlet). The advertised price is $279, and which …
German Buch News: Amazon Tops Ranking of Germany’s Online Stores; Court Rules for More Pay for Translators
By Siobhan O’Leary The German E-Commerce Center Handel (ECC) — a research and consulting firm focused on e-commerce — has released the results of its ECC Shopmonitor “image ranking” survey of online shops in Germany. As reported in the Boersenblatt, Amazon landed in the top position. The ECC asked 1,000 people representative of internet users to rate online shops on …