U. S.

In recent months, the double-digit sales growth of e-books in English has begun to plateau, but since the Spanish-language book market tends to be around three to five years behind the English-language market, e-book sales of Spanish books in the U.S. are just beginning to gain traction. Publishers of Spanish books based both in the U.S. and abroad are positioning themselves to benefit from the hoped-for uptick in sales.

A piece of news has surfaced that makes for some pretty alarming headlines: Amazon.com Inc., Kobo Inc., and Sony Electronics Inc. have formed a self-described “Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers” to petition the U. S. Federal Communications Commission, “for Waiver of Sections 716 and 717 of the Communications Act and Part 14 of the Commission’s Rules [...]

The post Are Amazon, Sony, Kobo and company dissing on disabilities? appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Bowker, the global leader in bibliographic information, released its annual report on U. S. print book publishing for 2011, compiled from its Books In Print® database. Based on preliminary figures from U.S. publishers, Bowker is projecting that traditional print book output grew six percent in 2011, from 328,259 titles in 2010 to a projected 347,178 in 2011, driven almost exclusively by a strong self-publishing market.

I missed this report when it was released back in December, 2011 by COSLA, the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies.  According to a survey of state libraries from the summer of 2011, 39% of public libraries reported offering no downloadable media service – no ebooks, no audiobooks, and no videos. Here is more from [...]