Online book discovery doesn’t work very well. Random House is attempting to address that problem with a new Facebook app, BookScout, that gives users book recommendations from multiple publishers, not just Random House. Based on my extremely preliminary testing, the app’s recommendations leave something to be desired.
Debbie Macomber
The Department of Justice’s ebook pricing settlement was approved last Thursday, and HarperCollins, one of the three settling publishers, has already entered into new contracts with ebook retailers – including Apple. The retailers can now set their own prices on HarperCollins titles. So what kinds of changes are we seeing? A roundup of select titles (the prices are correct as of Tuesday morning, but are subject to change).
Debbie Macomber will join the Random House Publishing Group in 2012, to be published by its Ballantine Bantam Dell division's Ballantine imprint.
With the explosive growth in e-book sales and the entrance of multiple new devices and players, it seems like we are at the tipping point for e-books. But have any of us who are deeply involved in e-books—publishers, retailers, technology developers, standards organizations and writers—asked the question: What do e-book readers want?