Andrew Rhomberg

The subscription model has already taken off in music and television, with providers such as Spotify and Netflix. Consumers have shown an increasing preference for such all-you-can-eat bundles, as opposed to buying each item separately. That worries book publishers and authors, who still make most of their money from sales of single copies. So far they have approached subscription services cautiously, holding back their newest and most popular titles from them. Only three of America's five biggest publishers have so far made their works available on Oyster or Scribd.

  London based publishing start-up Jellybooks has won £25,000 from the Government-backed Technology Strategy Board to develop user tracking tools for e-books. The prize was awarded this week at IC Tomorrow’s latest digital innovation contest, which this time around was focused on the collection and use of data.

Digital Book World has an intriguing analysis up today about Amazon’s “weak points.” With all the chatter about how “invincible” Amazon is and how much power they wield in publishing today, Andrew Rhomberg highlights some of the areas where Amazon actually might not be the Best of All—areas where a savvy competitor might find a [...]

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Two new book-related startups that launched in beta this week seek to redefine the book buying, browsing and selling experience. A host of reading-related startups to launch recently—Subtext, Readmill, Findings—focus on social and sharing but don't touch on the down-and-dirty, selling-more-books part.

Bilbary and Jellybooks are different. Both have UK-based, book-publishing-backgrounded founders and neither has Silicon Valley investors or big funding. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing—just that the sites are in early stages and somewhat barebones for now. Bilbary, founded by former UK bookstore chain Waterstones managing director Tim Coates, focuses on an

From Publishing Perspectives comes an article by Mark Coker: Approximately 90 Scandinavian publishing executives gathered earlier this month in Copenhagen at the historic Carlsberg brewery for the annual invitation-only Scandinavian Publishing Executive Meeting. Schilling, a strategic consultancy for Scandinavian publishers, organizes this annual confab. For the first time, Schilling held the conference entirely in English. Also [...]