Digital publisher Safari Books Online has purchased PubFactory’s Electronic Platform for an undisclosed amount.
Effective since December 31, 2012, the sale makes it the owner of this proprietary software solution, which helps publishers develop scalable and semantically-rich electronic libraries.
Andrew Savikas
Thorin McGee is editor-in-chief and content director of Target Marketing and oversees editorial direction and product development for the magazine, website and other channels.
The Book Industry Study Group (BISG), a leading U.S.-based trade association representing the entire book supply chain, announced today the publication of a new Policy Statement endorsing EPUB 3 as the accepted and preferred standard for representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced Web content — including XHTML, CSS, SVG, images, and other resources — for distribution in a single-file format. BISG member companies, and other industry stakeholders, can visit http://www.bisg.org/what-we-do-4-155-pol-1201-endorsement-of-epub-3.php to download a copy.
E-book subscription services have gained traction in the past few months as several publishers have adopted the alternative access model.
Safari Books Online, which allows users to stream e-books for a subscription fee (think Netflix for e-books), has been using the model for ten years. But the sudden and recent rise of e-book subscription models isn’t so much a vindication for the company as a welcome party.
“I’m only surprised it hasn’t happened sooner,” said Andrew Savikas, CEO of Safari.
It has to be some kind of sign of the times that none of the expert presenters at the 8th Annual Making Information Pay conference of the Book Industry Study Group on May 5 bore the title of Publisher, Editor, Operations or Production executive.
Nonetheless, getting to the heart of the matter, “we can no longer go with gut instincts,” said Scott Lubeck, BISG Executive Director. … “Show me the data,” and we can point ourselves in the right direction.
"The market for digital books … has been roughly doubling every 18 months,” says Andrew Savikas, O’Reilly Media’s vice president of digital initiatives. “Follow that line out, and in less than a decade it’s 64 times the size it is now.”
Registration is now open for Book Business magazine's first-ever Publishing Business Virtual Conference & Expo—Digital Content Day @ Your Desk—which will be held on Thursday, Oct. 29. The virtual show is free to all registrants and will offer a full day of interactive conference programming, including live and on-demand educational sessions and audio and e-chats with industry-leading digital-content experts.
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