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OverDrive's industry-leading catalog of eBooks and audiobooks topped 1 million titles in July, with surging demand for eBooks and new publisher partnerships driving unprecedented growth. The fastest growing segments, Children's/Young Adult and International (including popular non-English content), signal exceptional expansion opportunities in library and school markets in the U.S. and overseas. Every day throughout OverDrive's growing network of 19,000 libraries, schools, retailers and device manufacturers (OEMs), millions of readers in 20 countries enjoy popular titles from bestselling authors on Kindle® (U.S. only), iPad®, Nook™, iPhone® and all major eReading devices.

It looks like all those avowed Kindle fanatics might be going through ink withdrawal -- or so says a new report funded by a few titans of old media. The report, published last week by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), found that fewer consumers are purchasing books exclusively in electronic formats, while the number of booklovers who have "no preference" for e-books over print books is increasing. The percentage of e-book consumers who purchased books "exclusively or mostly" in e-book formats has decreased from 70 percent in August 2011 to 60 percent in May 2012.

E-book consumers are becoming more diverse in their format preferences, says the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)'s closely-watched Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading report. The third installment in Volume Three of this Bowker-powered study shows that the percentage of e-book consumers who exclusively or mostly purchase book content in e-book format has decreased from nearly 70 percent in August 2011 to 60 percent in May 2012. Over the same period, the percentage of survey respondents who have no preference for either e-book or print formats, or who buy some genres in e-book format and others in print, rose from 25 percent to 34 percent. The study also tracks changes in device ownership, showing that Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet has overtaken Apple's iPad among e-book consumers for the first time. Ownership of the Kindle Fire has grown from seven percent of respondents in December 2011 to 20 percent just six months later. Apple's iPad has remained static at 17 percent over the same time period.

Penguin Books India is releasing its first set of eBooks. This will be the first extensive list of Indian ebooks to be published internationally by an Indian publisher and will be available from all the major international ebook retailers – Amazon, Apple, Kobo and Google, Gardners, Sony, OLF, Apabi, Go Spoken/Mobcast, OverDrive, Txtr, Ebooks.com, IGroup and Baker & Taylor. The first list of over 240 titles consists of all of their new books published in 2012 and select best sellers from the backlist. Over the course of the following months they will continue to publish the remaining backlist while

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA--(Marketwire - Jul 9, 2012) - Australian Library and Information Association Conference - OverDrive, the leading global distributor of eBooks and audiobooks to libraries, schools and retailers, is accelerating its growth with the opening of a new office in Melbourne, Australia. OverDrive Australia supports the company's ongoing effort to deepen its relationships with library, publisher and bookseller partners in Australia, New Zealand and throughout the Asia Pacific region. At the Australian Library and Information Association Conference (Booth 24) in Sydney, July 10-13, OverDrive will introduce its new team members and showcase Next Generation services that enable instant access to eBooks and audiobooks, rich integration of digital content and a streamlined user experience.

June is Audiobook Month, and leading digital distributor OverDrive announced today that it will update its popular audiobook download services to include new options for readers to instantly “See Book—Hear Book.”

Quark has announced an update to QuarkXPress 9 that allows designers to export digital content directly to the Amazon Kindle format. The upgrade is available now for free to current QuarkXPress users. Complete Coverage Ratings Similar Articles QuarkXPress 7 The new Kindle support in version 9.3 allows users to export content directly to the Kindle format without conversion tools or plug-ins. This is especially helpful to small and self-publishers in reaching the growing Kindle ebook market faster and more easily. Using Quark 9's reflow features, users can get both the ePub and Kindle formats without additional time and effort,

Author Solutions, Inc. (ASI), the world leader in indie-book publishing, announced the release of its 100,000th e-book, "Arise, O Phoenix," marking a major milestone for the company and indie authors worldwide.

"In late 2009, we launched an initiative to become the world's largest publisher of original digital content. With our latest milestone, we're on pace to achieve our goal by the end of 2012," said Kevin Weiss, president and CEO of Author Solutions, Inc. "As the market leader, we've accelerated our pace by offering authors the right mix of print and digital services with access to the marketing and distribution they need to promote their works."

E-book author Victoria Hudson doesn't like Amazon or the power it seems to wield with independent writers.

She didn't want to sell her book and short stories on its Kindle Direct Publishing Select program, something she calls "too restrictive to authors." Instead she chose an alternative book distributor based in the San Francisco Bay Area called Smashwords.

"I want my work to be available in as many places as possible," she said.

E-book consumers’ preference for tablets is accelerating rapidly as dedicated e-readers drop in popularity, according to the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)’s closely watched Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading survey. The second installment in Volume Three of the study shows that, over the course of just six months, consumers’ “first choice” preference for dedicated e-readers such as those from Amazon and Barnes & Noble declined from 72 percent to 58 percent.