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In this issue, we’ve packed content galore on many of the most significant changes facing the industry. In addition to the features on the evolving retail landscape and ways to cut time and cost from production and manufacturing, there are three important articles on e-books.
In a classic, 19th-century short story, Washington Irving’s character Rip Van Winkle wakes up after being asleep for 20 years to find that the world has changed all around him. People he loved, including his wife, are no longer alive, and the country itself has—in the intervening two decades—gone through the massive trauma and upheaval of the Civil War. For Rip Van Winkle, it seems like only a few peaceful hours have passed; all he did was close his eyes. But in what seemed to him a short amount of time, everything around him had irrevocably changed.
"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.”
Book Business magazine announces that special guest Jane Friedman, CEO, OpenRoad Integrated Media LLC and former CEO, HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide
This week IREX Technologies revealed the latest development in their collection of eReaders: the IREX DR800SG.
Barnes & Noble Inc. (B&N) announced today that downloads for both the B&N Bookstore app and the B&N eReader app for the iPhone and iPod touch have hit the 1 million mark.
With a partnership with Barnes & Noble anchoring the late-2009 debut of its eReader, Netherlands-based IREX Technologies hopes to propel its new e-reading device to the top of the marketplace, according to North American CEO Kevin Hamilton. In addition to the more than 750,000 e-book titles eReader users may purchase through Barnes & Noble's eBookstore—many of which are priced at $9.99—IREX's new device also will allow users to download outside content, such as from Google—a feature that distinguishes it from Amazon's Kindle.
Coolerbooks.com Teams With Google Books
Digital rights management (DRM) is the most contentious topic in the world of digital media. The battle over DRM shows no signs of abating, and its outcome will shape the digital media landscape for decades to come.
CEO of Hachette Livre concerned by e-books' effects on hardcover books.
