Last year, the release of the Hollywood adaptation of Gillian Flynn's 2012 novel "Gone Girl" propelled the book onto best-seller lists in several countries around the world. Millions of people bought it, but how many of them actually read it from cover to cover? The Toronto-based e-reading platform Kobo, which delivers digital books to 23 million people in 190 countries and is a competitor to Amazon Kindle, recently released statistics for 2014 that showed the best-selling books in the company's major markets and how frequently readers finished the titles they bought.
Australia and New Zealand
HarperCollins UK has seen a 66% drop in profits for the year ending 30th June 2013, according to results filed with Companies House. Pre-tax profits at the publisher dropped from £8.3m in 2012 to £2.8m in 2013, a decline of 66%. Profit after tax stood at £1.07m, falling 80% from £5.3m. HarperCollins has attributed the decline in profits to costs incurred by a change in its distribution system.
Kobo, a global leader in eReading, today unveiled its new Kobo Family of eReading devices: the Kobo Glo, Kobo Mini, Kobo Touch and the Kobo Arc – a 7” Android tablet. Designed by booklovers for booklovers, the new Kobo Family starts at $79.99 and provides readers with more choice and more ways to personalize their eReading experience than ever before – including new stylish colors, accessories, lighting and multimedia options.
This summer, HarperCollins announced it would be launching a global publishing program called HarperCollins 360, designed to increase availability of the publisher's titles across all English-speaking markets.
The idea is to use a network of print-on-demand [POD] facilities located in regional warehouses so that any title in English will be available in any English-language market, making rights, and not technology or geography, the only impediment to getting a book into a customer's hands.
As the lawsuit over Google’s mass book-scanning moves to an endgame, news reports say the company may have to pay billions in copyright damages if it loses. These predictions, based on the Authors Guild’s decision to seek $750 per book, appear off the mark. Even though Google has scanned more than 20 million books, a closer look at the Authors Guild’s case shows that the number of writers eligible to receive any potential payout is a fraction of that number.
From the press release: Softlink, leading developer of Knowledge, Content & Library Management (KCLM) Systems, and OverDrivedistributor, observes the growth of eBooks and audio books in schools. Australian and New Zealand schools are embracing the use of digital resources as more libraries, iCentres and classrooms incorporate eBooks, audiobooks, music and video in their teaching using [...]
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