Otis Chandler

IDPF Digital Book 2015 will take place from May 27-28, 2015, at BookExpo America (Javits Center, New York City). The 2015 IDPF Digital Book conference puts you right in the center of the digital action - register today and save with early bird rates. Registration includes free access to BookExpo America and BISG's Making Information Pay.

The digital adoption rate in non-English language markets where Amazon Kindle operates is matching that in the English-speaking world. This is according to Russ Grandinetti, vice-president for Kindle Content at Amazon, speaking to delegates at Publishers Launch held yesterday (Monday 7th October) on the eve of Frankfurt Book Fair.

We have our running shoes on today, day 1 of our Book Expo experience, as we race back and forth between two compelling events packed with content: IDPF
Digital Book 2013 and Publishers Launch. My colleague Brian Howard and I have each gathered snippets of wisdom to share with our readers from presentations we have heard today.
 
In a morning session at IDPF, Richard Nash talked about the book (ebook, that is) as algorithm vs. the book as data. As far as data, he says, the problem we face is abundance. He cites cognitive psychologists who study what our brains do when we read and it turns out what we do is we imagine ourselves doing the action we reading about. A novel, says Nash, is a novel is a program that runs inside the reader.

I decided to wait a few days before writing about Amazon's acquisition of Goodreads. I wanted to let the dust settle before weighing in with my own opinion. Now that I've had some time to mull it over, here's what I think: This has the potential to be a game-changer that could be the next, and possibly final, nail in the coffins of other ebook retailers...but only if Amazon actually does something with the Goodreads platform.


After two years of stops and starts, Bookish, the book discovery and e-commerce website co-owned by three of the world’s biggest publishers, finally opened for business in February. Seven weeks later, Amazon has acquired Goodreads, the leading book-centric social network.

Coincidence?

Of course, with 16 million members, San Francisco-based Goodreads is a logical enough acquisition target for the e-tailer. (The sale price hasn’t been disclosed but seems likely to have been in the low eight digits; according to Crunchbase, Goodreads had raised a total of $2.75 million in funding.)

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