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June e-Book Sales Up 119%
Electronic books continue to show explosive growth in the Association of American Publishers Monthly Sales report. The AAP reports that June 2010 gross e-books sales were $29.9 million, an increase of 118.9% over the $13.7 million in sales reported for the same period in 2009.
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Thieme Medical Publishers Picks Ingram's CoreSource
Thieme Medical Publishers has chosen Ingram's CoreSource platform, an online database for storage, management, and distribution of digital content, to archive and distribute its digital content to its partners around the world. Thieme specializes in producing content for medical and scientific students and professionals, and publishes 137 peer-reviewed journals and more than 500 new books each year.
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Shelf Unbound Brings Small Press Coverage to the iPad
It's not just books that are going digital--so are magazines about books. Shelf Unbound, a new publication set to launch in September in a digital-only format through the Zinio magazine platform for computer, iPad and other iOS devices, will cover small press books, authors, presses and trends.
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CourseSmart offers iPad App, iPad Give Away
CourseSmart, a consortium of major textbook publishers that offers cheaper digital versions of their textbooks, has launched eTextbooks for iPad 2.0, an upgraded version of its iPhone and iPod Touch app that is optimized to run on the iPad.
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Crown Releases 'Secrets of Eden' Enhanced E-book
Today, Crown announced the release of Secrets of Eden, the bestselling thriller by Chris Bohjalian, as an enhanced e-book for video-enabled reading devices.
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Open Road Readies Conroy Titles
Open Road Integrated Media is readying titles by one of the authors it touted at its launch, Pat Conroy. The digital publisher, headed up by Jane Friedman, announced that it will be publishing (and marketing) e-book editions of The Prince of Tides, The Lords of Discipline, The Great Santini, and The Water Is Wide this month.
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RH Children's Does First Enhanced E-book
Knopf Books for Young Readers is publishing its first enhanced e-book, a tie-in edition of Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen. The publication marks the first foray any Random House imprint has made in publishing an enhanced e-book for the children's market. The e-book went on sale August 10 for $14.99, leading up to the August 27 release of the film, which is directed by Rob Reiner.
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A Different Kind Of Reading
Susan Sontag, one of the great advocates of the written word, unknowingly anticipated the fear of many book lovers about the dawning of digital books: will reading on screens, our e-books spliced with video, links, and other gizmos, turn the concentrated act and escape of reading into something diluted and distracting?
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The Only Social Network You'll Ever Need?
With the price of a basic black and white e-ink digital reading device fluctuating somewhere just under $150, the news that Copia plans a $99 color device is the latest volley in the e-reader price wars. But after seeing a beta version of Copia's social networking platform, an impressively comprehensive effort that allows members to use, share (and comment on) as well as buy content, the company's software—and its ability to connect like-minded consumers around topics of interest—may well be more important than the device's price points.
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Amazon Releases Two Free Games for Kindle
Amazon has made good on its long-ago promise to bring games to the Kindle. This week, the company released two free games--called Every Word and Shuffle Row, both of them word scramble game--downloadable for free from the Kindle Store. They both only work on Kindle devices, not the Kindle apps.
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Apple, Amazon Under Antitrust Scrutiny from Connecticut Attorney General
The office of Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is bringing pricing agreements between Amazon, Apple and book publishers over e-book pricing under scrutiny to see whether these agreements violate antitrust laws. According to Blumenthal, both companies have made agreements with publishers guaranteeing them the lowest prices on some e-books, preventing rivals from offering competitive prices.
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HarperCollins Releases First Enhanced E-Books, More Planned
HarperCollins has entered the enhanced e-book market, putting three titles into the iBookstore last week, and it has plans to do at least five more in the coming months. Ana Maria Allessi, v-p of Harper Media, said it is quite possible HC will do additional titles before the end of the year. "We want to do as much experimentation as possible between now and the new year," Allessi said.
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The Odyssey of Wylie vs. Random
Of all the comments and reactions to the Wylie Agency's decision to launch Odyssey Editions and sell its e-books exclusively through Amazon, the Authors Guild message to its members best captures the complexities and ramifications of the agency's actions. The memo finds fault with all parties involved in the arrangement.
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Follett Teams with Blackboard to Offer CafeScribe Digital Texts
Follett Higher Education Learning Group has entered a partnership that will allow students to use its CafeScribe interactive digital textbook technology in coordination with Blackboard, the online teaching platform used at colleges around the country.
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S&S Unveils Two Digital Initiatives
]Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers has announced two new digital reading ventures: the online serial novel Loser/Queen by Jodi Lynn Anderson, and the release of the first iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app in the U-Ventures series.
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FastPencil Hires Former S&S Exec Bruce Butterfield, Signs More Authors
Self-publishing company FastPencil has made a number of inroads into e-books lately, and made more announcements this week. The company has appointed former Simon & Schuster executive Bruce Butterfield to its board of directors, and is developing a new imprint which, said co-founder Steve Wilson, "will cater to mid- and upper-tier authors."
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Wattpad Joins Forces with Bubok for Spanish-Language Content
Toronto-based online writing community, social networking site, and mobile phone e-book developer Wattpad is partnering with Bubok, a self-publishing service for authors writing in Spanish, based in Spain.
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Authors Guild Weighs In on Odyssey Editions, Warns Publishers to Raise E-book Royalties
The Authors Guild has now weighed in on the intense debate that flared up last week over the Wylie Agency's entry into e-book publishing, Odyssey Editions. In a memo posted today on its site, the Guild called the situation "the most important development in electronic publishing since Apple entered the market," both celebrating the agency for seemingly monetizing e-rights it feels authors control, and blasting it for setting up an exclusive deal with Amazon.
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Betting the House on HTML5
Scribd CTO Jared Friedman talks to PW about his company's bold move, e-books, and the future of digital publishing.
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Wylie, Random House Dispute Heats Up
Thursday's news that the Wylie Agency was getting into the publishing business, though a Kindle-only side project called Odyssey Editions, brought widespread reaction throughout the industry, turned CEOs to blog and ultimately ended with Random House declaring it would no longer do business with the powerful literary agency.
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