Are Teens Embracing E-books? A recent PubTrak survey from R.R. Bowker indicated that teens remain reluctant when it comes to e-books. Accustomed to social media, they find that electronic stories have “too many restrictions,” according to the report. But many industry players—agents, booksellers, publishers, and authors—are saying just the opposite: digital sales are booming for YA fiction.
Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 Moving Toward a Hybrid Market Even as more consumers buy dedicated digital reading devices and tablets, a hybrid market for books is developing in which readers will buy both print and digital books. That was one of the main conclusions from Verso Digital’s “2011 Survey of Book-Buying Behavior,” presented by the company’s Jack McKeown at last week’s ABA Winter Institute held in New Orleans.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 What Sold in E Over Christmas Last year, when we asked publishers for their five bestselling e-books over Christmas, we received lists full of frontlist bestsellers, with a handful of backlist hits in the mix. This year, we again approached publishers for the same lists—in most cases sales are only for December 25 and 26, though in some instances sales are for the entire holiday week—and results are similar. While a number of expected bestsellers drew consumers who were given a tablet or e-reader, or a gift card to one of the e-book storefronts, there were also a healthy dose of backlist titles being downloaded.
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 SnapTags Push Scanning Technology Forward In October, PW looked at publishing and QR codes, those little squares that appear on advertisements and look a lot like barcodes. While publishers are still figuring out how best to utilize that technology, they’ll have to make room for the next step in scannable code technology: SnapTags.
Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500 Kindle Fire and the Future of E-reading What better place to be the day after Amazon unveiled its $199 Kindle Fire tablet (plus three Kindle models starting at $79) than a conference on e-readers? Intertech’s two-day eReaders 2011 conference examined a fast-changing digital reading marketplace.
The Kindle Multiplier Amazon has made no secret of the fact that a major reason for selling its family of Kindle devices for as low a price as possible is that once consumers have a device they will buy more products from the giant e-tailer. A new study of past month book buyers just completed by the Codex Group shows just how much Amazon gains when customers start using Kindle devices.
Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500 Kindle Fire Reviewed: Do Not Compare to iPad The Kindle Fire is really a distant relation of the handheld portable TV that was popular about 20 years ago--you can consume lots of things fairly effortlessly on the Fire--movies, music, magazines, some kinds of apps, and, more importantly for us, books; but the Fire's real innovation is how easy, and tempting, the device makes buying content--from Amazon.
Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500 Digital Devices Riding High When the e-reader tablet wars heat up this holiday season, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other companies will be selling their wares to a consumer market that is growing increasingly comfortable with digital reading. According to BISG’s final report in volume two of its “Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading” survey, consumer satisfaction with e-reading devices is generally high, with 75% of device owners pleased with their e-readers.
Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500 Tale of the Tablets: Comparing New Devices Amazon’s Kindle may have launched the e-book boom we’re seeing today, but Barnes & Noble’s NookColor brought on a new generation of 7-in. multimedia tablet devices priced to undercut the 9.7-in. iPad.
Libraries, Tech-Smart Authors, and the Coming Digital Apocalypse Whatever else can be said about Tools of Change, O’Reilly Media’s traveling road show on publishing and technological change, it seems to come along just when a concentrated dose of discussion—or perhaps muted confrontation—is needed. Over the course of the three-day conference in New York City, February 13–15, there were timely presentations on libraries and e-books, the bewildering evolution of copyright in the digital era and the related role of digital piracy—not to mention a parade of authors, whose books and entertaining presentations served to illuminate some of the most contentious issues in media and business culture.