by Michael Corkery at The New York Times Walmart is making a circuitous and belated push into the digital book market, teaming up with a Japanese company to sell e-books and audiobooks. The deal with Rakuten, an e-commerce giant based in Japan, will allow Walmart to start selling digital books on its website… Read More Walmart Makes a Late Entry Into the E-Book Market
by Mark Coker at Smashwords Welcome to my annual publishing predictions post where I prognosticate about the future and share my views on the state of the indie nation. Each year around this time I polish off my imaginary crystal ball and ask it what the heck is going to happen next. My… Read More 2018 Book Industry Predictions: Are Indie Authors Losing Their Independence?
by Michael Kozlowski at Good e-Reader Barnes and Noble has just launched a new e-book promotional system called Nook First Look that offers readers a chance to buy e-books at a discount before they are released to the public. Every month the bookseller will release two or three different titles and offer varying degrees of savings.
by Michael Kozlowski at Good e-Reader Over the course of 2016 overall publisher revenue was $14.3 billion, down 6.6% from 2015. One of the key trends from last year was that reading preferences continue to shift. Print books saw growth, and for the second consecutive year publisher revenues from eBook sales declined and downloaded audio grew.… Read More US E-Book Sales Decline 13.9% in 2016 [But Print Sees Growth]
by Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader With its universal book links, mailing list and ePub creation services, and broad distribution network, Draft2Digital has positioned itself as an upmarket alternative to Smashwords. Now D2D is adding a service offered by no other ebook distributor: audiobooks.
by Laura Northrup at the Consumerist In the age of online shopping, are bookstores irrelevant? The new CEO of big-box bookstore chain Barnes & Noble doesn’t think so. If they were, why would Amazon be opening physical bookstores across the country, with a new one opening in New York City tomorrow? He sees this growth as… Read More Barnes & Noble CEO Uses Amazon to Justify His Company’s Continued Existence
by Michael Kozlowski at Good e-Reader The Association of American Publishers has reported that from January to November 2016 e-books declined by 16.4% and digital audiobooks increased by 29.2%.
by Romain Dillet from TechCrunch Amazon has accepted new contract terms with book publishers in the European Union after Commissioner Margrethe Vestager led an investigation into Amazon’s practices. After today’s decision, Amazon will no longer force publishers to provide the best price on the company’s Kindle store.
by Mark Sweney at the Guardian Consumer sales down to £204m last year and are at lowest level since 2011 – when Amazon Kindle sales first took off in UK Britons are abandoning the ebook at an alarming rate with sales of consumer titles down almost a fifth last year, as “screen fatigue” helped fuel a… Read More “Screen Fatigue” Sees UK eBook Sales Plunge 17% as Readers Return to Print
