By Edward Nawotka UNESCO world Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries starts today in Monza, Italy. It runs from June 6-8 and will cover “The Future of the Written Word.” Plenary sessions will focus on “The E-book Economy,” “Author’s Right in the Digital Era,” and “The Digital Library.” Nine workshops are devoted to the following sub-themes: “Blog versus Newspaper”, “Future of …
Will Collaborative E-book Distribution Platforms Last?
Spain’s Libranda, Italy’s E-digita, France’s Eden Livres, Brazil’s DLD — they’ll all last only as long as publishers need them. By Edward Nawotka Several markets have seen collaborative e-book distribution platforms launch within the last year: Libranda launched Spain; in Italy Rizzoli, Feltrinelli and Gruppo Gems developed the E-digita platform; a French group comprised of Gallimard, Flammarion and others brought out …
Casablanca Book Fair Roulette
A dramedy of errors starring North African literati, Italian bureaucrats, and an innocent American journalist lost among the phone trees of Morocco. By Amanda DeMarco MOROCCO: The road to SIEL is paved with good intentions. This I learned while trying to write an article for Publishing Perspectives on the SIEL (Salon international de l’édition et du livre) Book Fair in …
Mark Your Calendars for Book Expo America
By Erin L. Cox This year, Book Expo America returns to New York City’s Javits Center for events starting May 24th and, back by popular demand, the show will return to three full days in the exhibit hall. With a little something for everyone, “the largest publishing event in North America” is sure to be a blockbuster this year. For those …
Storytime Goes Digital: Assessing the Children’s E-Book and App Market at TOC Bologna
O’Reilly’s Tools of Change conference at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair focused on apps vs. e-books, legacy publishers vs. start-ups, and adapting to this digital world. By Sophie Rochester The children’s market is a huge opportunity within the digital publishing arena, but for the first time, computer and tech publishing giant O’Reilly Media took it’s “Tools of Change” conference on …
Price Fixing vs Fixed Prices: Europe’s Emerging E-book Quagmire
On Monday, the European Commission investigated several French publishers for illegal e-book price fixing, this in a country with fixed book prices. Ironic, hypocritical…or merely confusing? By Edward Nawotka Yesterday we learned from a dozen news sources that on March 1 several European publishing houses were “raided” by European Commission officials in search of evidence of price fixing among e-book …
How Visible Is Arabic Lit on the International Scene?
This article is part of a series on publishing in the Middle East which is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. By Yasmina Jraissati As a literary agent specialized in representing Arabic literature for world translation rights, I am often asked how visible Arabic literature is on the international scene. This question most of the time translates into: …
In Europe E-books are Approached with “Concern, Not Hysteria,” says Italy’s Mussinelli
By Daniel Kalder MILAN: “The problem in Italy and in Europe in general, is that data on e-books is scarce, says Cristina Mussinelli, a digital publishing consultant for the Italian Publishers Association and European member of the IDPF board. “There is no central entity collecting information in an organized way, and the ways in which different countries collect data may not …
Hurry! Last Day for Early-Bird Registration for Italian E-book Confab
By Edward Nawotka Italy’s first e-book conference – IfBookThen — is taking place this February 3rd in beautiful Milan. If you register by the end of the day today, you pay just €252 — instead of the €350 tag applies at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. If you’re curious about this new event, you can find the program and line-up of speakers …
Amazon Launches Italian Site Amazon.it
By Emily Williams Amazon announced today the launch of Amazon.it, the first time the company enters the Italian market with a dedicated portal. According to the press release, the store launches with more categories than any Amazon site has ever launched with, focusing for now on video games, music, DVDs, toys, computers, electronics, small appliances . . . and “over …