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The Financial Times’ Digital Media Conference took place in London today, and one of the panel discussions focused on ‘the eBook (r)evolution’, a talk which shifted from tablet and eReader usage to eBook prices.

Kobo CEO Michel Serbinis revealed that eReading is growing ‘faster than expected’ on a month-on-month basis and said that a market which first boomed in the US and Canada, is ‘beginning to play out’ in western Europe. Despite this boom, Serbinis stressed that there is a profound difference in usage between dedicated eReaders and tablets.

Lerner Publishing Group has hired Patricia Stockland as Editorial Director of Lerner Publications, the Company’s flagship imprint for series nonfiction, effective March 19, 2012. Stockland was previously Editorial Director for Red Line Editorial, Inc. With this key hire, the publisher plans to continue enhancing its Lerner Publications imprint by strengthening and building upon an already successful publishing program that includes highly reviewed and recognized nonfiction series for children in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Actors use a physical platform to raise themselves above their audiences, focusing the attention on themselves so that they can more easily be seen and heard. The concept of building a marketing platform is not dissimilar. Publishers generally assume that if their authors’ platforms are significant enough, potential buyers will either buy their book upon its publication or spread the word about it to others. But this is often not the case. Simply because people have heard of you or have befriended you on Facebook does not necessarily mean they will buy your book or support its introduction.

To all you publishers who are struggling and stressing about catching up on the latest techniques for search engine optimization (SEO) in the hopes that your books will become more easily discovered by searchers:

Stop. Take a breath. SEO is dead. We've entered the days beyond SEO. We're now playing a new game.

Since the earliest days of search (remember AltaVista?!), search engines have been locked in a battle with Web developers for control over their search engine results pages.

Indian service providers for typesetting, e-book, copy-editing and other production services are an established fact and part of virtually every major publisher's workflow.

To be sure, the business process outsourcing (BPO) of publishing services is a growth business, forecast to reach $1.2 billion in 2012 (according to a report by research and intelligence organization ValueNotes, "Offshoring in the Publishing Vertical: 2009"), including outsourcing for book, magazine and newspaper publishing—with 60 percent of these revenues being directed to Indian providers.

That said, it appears that we may be on the verge of a new addition to the existing Indian business model—an initiative that the Indian book manufacturing community has named Book City—Vision 2017.

Barnes & Noble, Inc., the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today expanded its portfolio of bestselling NOOK® devices with the introduction of NOOK Tablet – with 8GB of memory, a tremendous value for the company’s fastest and lightest tablet at just $199. NOOK Tablet – 8GB version offers reading and mobile entertainment enthusiasts another great option in the NOOK family of devices. In addition, the company’s highly popular NOOK Color just became an even greater value at $169.

Open Road Integrated Media, a digital publisher and multimedia content company, announced today the launch of Listen to Bob Marley: The Man, The Music, The Revolution, an enhanced ebook featuring a collection of Marley’s lyrics and sayings as chosen by Cedella Marley.

Controversial changes to people's profile pages on Facebook are supported by just one in ten users, a new survey has revealed. It recently emerged that Facebook's Timeline - which will expose people's entire history on the site - is to become mandatory for all users.

As tablet sales surge and put downward pressure on dedicated e-reader ownership growth, publishers are pessimistic that tablets will provide readers with an enticing reading platform. According to a recent Digital Book World survey, conducted by Forrester Research, 31% of publishers think iPads and other tablets computers are the ideal e-book reading platform, down from 46% a year ago.

Only 30% of publishers think reading tablets like the Nook Color and Kindle Fire are an ideal reading platform. This question was not asked in the previous year’s survey.

Major book publishers should abandon the use of technology that limits how their copyrighted digital material is used by readers after sale, according to Matteo Berlucchi, CEO of London-based social e-retailer Anobii. In a speech at the Digital Book World Conference in New York, Berlucchi argued that digital rights management technology, or DRM as it is known, prevents more readers from buying e-books and may actually encourage piracy of copyrighted material.