Check them out!!! Buy them!!! Enjoy the magical world again, digitally!
Pottermore is the only place to buy them, as of right now.
Confirmed by Publisher’s Weekly and Shelf Awareness. Go here to shop.
Check them out!!! Buy them!!! Enjoy the magical world again, digitally!
Pottermore is the only place to buy them, as of right now.
Confirmed by Publisher’s Weekly and Shelf Awareness. Go here to shop.
Vook Launches E-book Creation and Publishing Platform – Publisher’s Weekly – Craig Morgean Teicher
Vook, one of the pioneering e-book app developers, is launching a new business today with its Vook e-book creation and publishing platform, a comprehensive, cloud-based tool that allows authors and publishers to turn any document into a professionally styled e-book. Vook’s platform then makes it easy to distribute the finished e-book to Amazon, iBooks and BN.com. The platform also allows users to embed images, videos and other multimedia into e-books to create enhanced e-books. PW has been testing the platform and it could indeed be a game changer, giving small and large publishers fairly inexpensive, one-stop access to e-book publication.
*impressed, low whistle* Well, there you have it, folks!
Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Either you’re thrilled, because I update sporadically (and with abundance in those random moments) and it may clog your inbox, or you’re sad (to which I’m flattered). I thought I’d offer an explanation, and it’s exciting news!
I’m in the middle of preparing for a move to the East Coast, so lots of my time has been spent searching for jobs, internships, and apartments. On top of that, I am in my final days (45, to be exact!) of undergrad and need to focus on my schoolwork. My focus is paying off, apparently.
Remember my review of the memoir Carrier by Bonnie J. Rough? She is currently at my university for our 7th annual In Print festival, where newly published authors and poets come to read to and answer questions from young writers. My professor and the assistant chair of the department asked me to write the introduction to Rough’s reading, and I couldn’t be more thrilled! I spent the majority of my weekend working on several drafts. After reading it in front of my peers and professors, Rough joined me at the podium, hugged me, and thanked me for “the best” introduction she’s received “by far.” A bit of a starstruck moment for me!
In other news, remember my post about Parragon Books and their new line of baby/toddler/children’s books? I was astonished at the traffic my blog received after they tweeted my post!
A big thank you once again for noticing my post!
So now, followers, I’d like to ask you – what’s new in your bookworm/publishing life? Share your stories! I’d love to hear them.
Goodreads’ CEO on Winning the Battle of Book Discovery – Publishing Perspectives – Otis Chandler (guest contributor, CEO)
We’ve all known for a while that the most valuable commodity for the sustained promotion of a book is word-of-mouth buzz. Goodreads was founded on the belief that a recommendation from a friend is the best way to find a book, more powerful than a glowing review in the New York Times or a mention on a TV show. There’s something about that trusted friend handing you the book and saying, “You must read this!”
And it has worked. According to a recent survey of Goodreads members, 79% of them report discovering books from friends offline, and 64% find books from their Goodreads friends.
Interestingly, the power of a friend’s recommendation has grown. Today, the recommendation doesn’t even have to be explicit, it can be as simple as seeing a friend reading a book. When you see what a friend is reading – whether on Goodreads, through an update on our Facebook Timeline app, or in person – it automatically triggers your interest. It becomes a new form of a recommendation, social validation.
Chandler breaks down the “evolving nature of book discovery” through five key points:
U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers – Wallstreet Journal – Thomas Catan & Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
The Justice Department has warned Apple Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter.
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The Justice Department believes that Apple and the publishers acted in concert to raise prices across the industry, and is prepared to sue them for violating federal antitrust laws, the people familiar with the matter said.
This article details the digital history between Apple and publishers, the changes both have made for purchasing digital books, and what the Justice Department believes should be done.
Barnes & Noble Sells More Books, But Liberty Share Dilute Earnings – Publishers Lunch – Michael Cader
Yesterday’s big announcement was B&N’s quarterly sales report. If you would like to see the specific data, please click the link and continue to read.
CEO William Lynch says in the release that “our traffic and sales in stores were the highest we’ve seen in five years.” He reports that “physical book sales at our stores increased more than 4 percent over last year, and our merchandising changes in our juvenile business and our toys & games department experienced double-digit revenue growth.” The Nook business continues to grow “and according to some of the largest US publishers, we maintained or slightly gained share in the eBook market during the third quarter.”
Lynch further explains the future of the Nook business and potential plans.
TOC 2012: Children’s Books Must Exist in Digital and Print – Publisher’s Weekly – Gabe Habash
The “What Works Well Where? Considering Books for Children in Different Formats” session at TOC 2012 stressed the necessary coexistence of digital and traditional books for children, an opinion put forth by Junko Yokota, director of the Center for Teaching Through Children’s Books.
I couldn’t agree more! There are some aspects of a print book that are necessary for infants and children in order to adapt to the environment and to learn! In this case, there are things technology cannot touch.
Penguins Severs Ties with OverDrive – Publisher’s Weekly – Calvin Reid
Penguin, which only offered backlist e-book titles for library lending, is terminating its contract with OverDrive, the library digital vendor, and starting February 10 will cease to offer any of its e-books or audiobooks to libraries. Penguin is negotiating a “continuance” agreement that will allow libraries that have already purchased Penguin e-books to continue to loan them.
Amazon and Kindle users are effected as well.
BAM Picks CoverCake to Track Social Media Book Data – Publisher’s Weekly – Calvin Reid
Books-A-Million is teaming up with CoverCake, a startup venture focused on title discovery and analytics that can track book trends and overall online interest in titles and publishers across multiple social media platforms. CoverCake will be used by BAM in its internal and external systems to enhance its merchandising and shopping experience.
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Costello said that using CoverCake, publishers and marketers can track individual titles and get specific data on how many people are posting about a specific title on Twitter, say, on any other social media site. Users can track the online discussion around genres—biography, fiction, travel, romance and so on—the gender of readers for a specific title or specific publishers and authors.
Barnes & Nobel, Taking on Amazon in the Fight of its Life – New York Times – Julie Bosman
Like many struggling businesses, book publishers are cutting costs and trimming work forces. Yes, electronic books are booming, sometimes profitably, but not many publishers want e-books to dominate print books. Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, wants to cut out the middleman — that is, traditional publishers — by publishing e-books directly.
Which is why Barnes & Noble, once viewed as the brutal capitalist of the book trade, now seems so crucial to that industry’s future. Sure, you can buy bestsellers at Walmart and potboilers at the supermarket. But in many locales, Barnes & Noble is the only retailer offering a wide selection of books. If something were to happen to Barnes & Noble, if it were merely to scale back its ambitions, Amazon could become even more powerful and — well, the very thought makes publishers queasy.
“It would be like ‘The Road,’ ” one publishing executive in New York said, half-jokingly, referring to the Cormac McCarthy novel. “The post-apocalyptic world of publishing, with publishers pushing shopping carts down Broadway.”
I laughed at that last comment, but it really is a Doomsday approach. B&N v Amazon, with publishers siding a chain bookstore. Oh, so complicated. What do you think? Be sure to read the whole story – it’s pretty extensive.
Scribbles & Wanderlust 