Aptara Inc.

Not surprisingly, Amazon is the most lucrative sales channel for eBooks, according to Revealing the Business of eBooks: 2009-2012, the fourth eBook survey of publishers conducted by Aptara and Publisher’s Weekly. The study, which was conducted in April, found that 68 percent of eBook publishers sell via Amazon making it the most popular sales channel for eBooks, followed by Apple’s iBookstore which is used by 58 percent of eBook publishers.

The 4th Annual eBook Survey of Publishers
Gain unprecedented insight into eBook publishers' business and production practices with the combined results of four years of surveys.

Sample Results
- 31% of eBook publishers produce enhanced eBooks, though only 12% correlate the enhancements with a positive impact on sales.
- Amazon.com is the most popular sales channel, used by 68% of eBook publishers. Apple's iBookstore comes in second at 58%.
- Amazon is also the most lucrative eBook sales channel. Publishers' own websites come in a distant second place for generating the most eBook sales.
- 4 out of 5 publishers now produce eBooks, a 30% increase in three years.

Get the step-by-step guide to preparing source content for quality eBooks.
Set-up your eBooks for success with the step-by-step instructions on source content preparation included in "What to Expect When You’re Converting."
This overview of eBook production pointers from Content Solutions Architect, Jean Kaplansky, includes:

- Starting from Scratch: A Brief Overview of the Content Conversion Process
- Creating eBook EPUB Format Files from Production-Ready XHTML
- What Publishers Can Do to Facilitate Content Conversion
- Best Practices for Preparing Source Content for Conversion
- Best Practices for Working with a Conversion Partner

I'll admit that it still thrills me to walk past and gaze up, wide-eyed, at the Empire State Building. Nonetheless, no tourist am I (proven by the fact that three people so far have asked me for directions). I am here to do business.

We Book Business and Publishing Executive editors are a peripatetic lot. Earlier this week you heard from Jim Sturdivant reporting from New Bern, N.C. (Yes, he’s on vacation—what dedication!) Now I am in New York to meet with some of the speakers for our forthcoming Publishing Business Virtual Conference & Expo.

Aptara, a provider of digital publishing services, has just announced a new publishing partnership with the Vatican, for whom they will produce ebooks. These ebooks, the Vatican’s first, will be an illustrated series of Pope Benedict’s weekly addresses, dating back to March, 2006.

Publishers Weekly (PW) magazine and Aptara announce that initial results from the 4th Annual eBook Survey of Publishers, conducted in April, reveal a 100% year-over-year increase in the number of publishers making greater than 10% of their annual revenues from eBooks (36% of eBook publishers surveyed as compared to 18% in 2011).

While only the most severe of futurists predict print's total demise, most publishers have accepted that digital products need to be a slice of their revenue mix, and a growing slice at that.

Yet it's one thing to recognize that change must happen; it's quite another to enact that change, especially when you can't exactly hit pause on your business while you reconfigure your workflow, to say nothing of tackling that massive backlist.

That's why many publishers are turning to the wide world of service providers who make it their business to help publishers solve digital content and digital transition issues.

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) announced today the preliminary program and speakers for Digital Book 2012 at BEA (idpf.org/db12). The conference, held in partnership with BookExpo America (BEA), will be held June 4-5, 2012, in New York City's Javits Center, and is expected to draw global leaders in the publishing industry, including technologists, marketers, retailers, solution providers, publishers, authors, and agents.

Featured speakers at Digital Book 2012 will include best-selling authors Seth Godin and Bella Andre, as well as publishing CEOs and senior executives including Jane Friedman (Open Road Media), Madeline McIntosh (Random House), Otis Chandler (Goodreads) and more.

Aptara, a global leader in digital media solutions and multi-channel content production, announces its acquisition by iEnergizer Limited, a publicly listed company based in London (LSE:IBPO.L) with a market capitalization of approximately USD 700 million. Aptara will continue to operate as a standalone entity and retain the Aptara name.

“iEnergizer recognizes that the market for digital content production is immense and still largely untapped,” said Dev Ganesan, Aptara’s CEO and President. “Their strategic investment gives Aptara a wider and longer runway for expanding the scope and scale of our operations at a time when publishers are pursuing vendor consolidation."

Book Business' own Eugene G. Schwartz was on the scene at the third annual Digital Book World Conference. He filed this comprehensive report from the proceedings.

Attendees at the third annual Digital Book World Conference heard reports that while publishers are in fact healthy and thriving in the new digital age, a lot more work is needed to let go of the habits of the past and live in the new interactive, multi-platform and vertically patterned business world of the future.

The cohort of newly minted consultants in attendance—emerging out of downsizing and transformation—are witness to their price as well as their opportunities.