When you are looking for accurate and authoritative information, do you turn to print books or the internet?
What Kinds of Content Should Authors and Publishers Give Away for Free?
By Edward Nawotka Sometimes giving it away for free seems to work: Cory Doctorow gave away several of his early novels online for free and it has subsequently turned him into a successful, traditionally published author. Or so that’s the story he likes to tell. Of course, giving away an entire book has it’s risks. Notably, that the book will proliferate …
How Neal Stephenson’s The Mongoliad is Revolutionizing Immersive Online Storytelling
By Michael Bhaskar People constantly talk about social reading as the next business model for publishing. Well, it’s here, it’s The Mongoliad. In the febrile, occasionally paranoid, always news hungry world of digital publishing, it seems strange that something so important should have slipped by so unnoticed, yet The Mongoliad seems to have been largely overlooked by the publishing Establishment. …
Berlin Verlag Launches Open Access Academic Press
By Siobhan O’Leary Berlin Verlag plans to launch a new academic division called Berlin Academic. The entire program will be published on a new online platform, a beta version of which will go live this summer, using an open access approach (Creative Commons licenses). The titles will be available via print on demand and in a variety of e-book formats. …
Online Dictionary Pons Succeeds with Advertising
By Siobhan O’Leary Over the past 18 months, foreign language instructional material publisher Pons has been testing out a new business model for their online dictionary. So far, the results have been positive. Faced with competition from other online language dictionaries like LEO, Pons has turned to advertisers to help finance www.pons.eu. In addition, the site will incorporate more Web …
German Buch News: Books are #3 in Online Shopping Popularity
By Siobhan O’Leary A recent survey conducted by Bitkom (the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media), published in the Boersenblatt, reveals that books are the third most popular products purchased online. Plane and train tickets were first, while concert tickets came in second. According to Bitkom, 35% of those surveyed have purchased a book online. Music landed …