E-Books and Interactive Publishing

Even though you probably never stray from the Kindle reader app I’d like to encourage you to expand your horizons. It’s a good idea to keep an eye on Apple’s iBooks and Google Play, for example, to explore other platforms and keep Amazon honest. After all, Amazon’s need to innovate diminishes if ebook platform competition…

Anyone who has read George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series will know that it's not the most straightforward of tales. There are time jumps, epic histories, two vast, sprawling continents and enough characters to require an enormous appendix rammed full of different family trees.…

When you purchase a book from a bookstore your rights to that particular stack of paper are pretty intuitive. It becomes your personal property, not much different from a t-shirt, a diamond ring, or anything else you might carry around. You can sell your book, lend it to a friend, or toss it in the…

Pearson has signed a one-year partnership agreement with Jisc to speed the transition of its school textbooks to digital. The agreement with Jisc, a UK not-for-profit specialised in digital technology for higher education, further education and research, is said to be based on "extensive engagement and feedback" from Jisc members and following six months of talks between Jisc and Pearson. Pearson revealed yesterday (22nd September) a pilot scheme that will enable…

Academic libraries continue to add to their ebook collections, but while ebooks are becoming the preferred format for reference materials, many students still prefer to read and study monographs and textbooks in print, according to “Ebook Usage in U.S. Academic Libraries 2016,” a survey conducted by Library Journal and sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning. Forty-seven percent of…

Emma Moore could have been the health and weight loss guru you spent your life looking for. You might be forgiven for not knowing her work -- after all, she has a common name, one that she shares with other similarly successful authors on Amazon. Until this week, she had dozens of health, dieting, cooking,…

What if publishers could sell more books by learning the secrets of selling chicken sandwiches? In my hometown of Atlanta, GA, Chick-Fil-A is the dominant fast-food restaurant chain. Started in 1967, the company’s annual sales now eclipse over $6 billion. In addition, their stores generate more revenue per restaurant than any other fast-food chain in…

TORONTO — September 20, 2016 — Rakuten Kobo, a global digital reading company created by booklovers for booklovers, is working with Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand (part of Sainsbury’s, one of the UK’s leading food and non-food retailers), to offer Sainsbury’s customers the opportunity to transfer their ebook libraries to Kobo’s eReading service as Sainsbury’s exits…

An analysis of the Future Today Institute report, summarizing key technology trends and what they mean for book publishing.

Matthew Cody began his new book ReMade with a premise sure to be a hit with fans of dystopian YA fiction: In a post-apocalyptic future, 23 teenagers wake up to look for answers in the wreckage of human civilization, all while being hunted by machines. But beyond its initial chapter, he didn’t write the details…