The web giant’s move into bricks-and-mortar bookselling has upset many in the books community – but there is much to praise in this innovationYou could describe it as a troubling development in publishing: someone comes along with no real knowledge of the book business, a brash salesman who sells books cheaply, undercuts established rivals, drives them out of business. Then he moves into publishing as well, and allows people to publish themselves without recourse to the gatekeeping taste-makers.But I’m not talking about Jeff Bezos and Amazon. I’m talking about James Lackington, who turned the book business upside down – at the end of the 18th century. His London bookshop accepted cash only, so he could slash prices, and he used his accumulated wealth to buy whole libraries and pounce on publishers’ remaindered stock to sell dirt cheap. One of the books his company subsequently published in exchange for a payment from the author’s husband was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2016-02-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
In just a quarter-century of existence, Amazon has grown from an online bookseller to a company valued at $1 trillion and sells pretty much anything that can be imagined. With such a hefty inventory, Amazon has had to grow beyond Jeff Bezos' garage in Bellevue to a huge headquarters in... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-06-25 11:18:10 UTC ]
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Writer Heather Marks has won this year’s Quarto Translations Diversity Award, run by the Golden Egg Academy, for her story set in both the 18th century and contemporary Bristol. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Where Jeff Bezos goes, other tech billionaires follow. The latest titan to invest in print media is Salesforce founder Marc Benioff who, along with wife Lynne, is buying Time magazine. The pair are using $190 million from their personal fortune to bu... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2018-09-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Shelley spent nine months by Lake Geneva writing the story of the bringing to life of a monster Percy Shelley’s correction of Mary Shelley’s misspelling of “igmmatic” in the notebooks in which she scrawled the story of Frankenstein – “enigmatic o you pretty Pecksie!” he wrote – will be seen in... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-02-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Wren & Rock, an imprint of Hachette Children’s Group, is marking next month’s 200th anniversary of Frankenstein with a book about Mary Shelley. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-01-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The last time the Supreme Court took a hard look at how to impose sales taxes on home shopping, it was the era of mail-order catalogs — “before Amazon was even selling books out of Jeff Bezos’ garage,” lawyers recently told the justices. In 1992, the high court upheld a constitutional rule that... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2018-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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If Jeff Bezos really wants make an impact, he should look to places where books aren't sold—but lent. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2017-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Scholastic UK has signed a "tense" YA psychological thriller inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and titled Shell. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-07-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Twenty-three years ago, Jeff Bezos was selling books out of his garage. On Thursday, the Amazon chief executive at least temporarily dethroned Bill Gates as the richest person in the world. Following a 1.3% jump in Amazon.com Inc. shares Thursday morning, Bezos, 53, was worth as much as $91.3... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2017-07-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ad Age "Media Guy" columnist Simon Dumenco's media roundup for the morning of Friday, May 19:I came thisclose to being able to make this a Trump-free edition of your daily media scan, but then, well, see Nos. 5 and 6, below. (Sorry!) Anyway, let's get started ...1. More evidence that Jeff Bezos... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2017-05-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Consumer sales down to £204m last year and are at lowest level since 2011 – when Amazon Kindle sales first took off in UK Britons are abandoning the ebook at an alarming rate with sales of consumer titles down almost a fifth last year, as “screen fatigue” helped fuel a five-year high in printed... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Every day, digital publishers are challenged by the fragmentation of media. Third-party and social platforms appropriating content, mobile "snacking," low-quality "clickbait" competition and content recommendation services that drive visitors off-site are just some of the factors depressing... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2017-03-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It can be cheaper to buy the physical copy of a book than a digital download thanks to changes in Amazon’s deal with publishersAt the start of this decade publishers feared the death of the paperback. Britons abandoned bookshops at an alarming rate, seduced by e-readers and cheap digital... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-03-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jeff Bezos has sold 1% of his stake in Amazon - which is just over a million shares, at a value of $671m (£465.2m) - the New York Post has reported. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-05-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jeff Bezos probably wasn't pleased to see his surprise spoiled this week, but ebook fans still have reason to get pumped. Amazon just pulled back the curtain on its new premium reader, the Kindle Oasis, and it's the slimmest and sleekest model the c... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2016-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The web giant’s move into bricks-and-mortar bookselling has upset many in the books community – but there is much to praise in this innovationYou could describe it as a troubling development in publishing: someone comes along with no real knowledge of the book business, a brash salesman who... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-02-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Also this week, hiccuping through the Australian national anthem, Jeff Bezos is joining the space race, and a Jane Austen classic gets the zombie treatmentWith Thanksgiving over for another year and the heartwarming American tradition of Black Friday upon us, let’s start this week’s roundup with... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-11-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon c.e.o. Jeff Bezos has admitted to making “billions of dollars of failures” at the company, and has said it does not matter. Speaking at Business Insider’s Ignition conference, Bezos also addressed the dispute the online retailer had with Hachette Book Group in the US, which has now been... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'The Kindle is trying to reduce friction for reading a whole book, and it’s working,' Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said at a conference yesterday. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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There's no sign that Amazon and Hachette are close to burying their ebook hatchet, which has prompted the authors caught in the middle to speak up. One of those affected, Douglas Preston, penned an open letter to Jeff Bezos, requesting that he... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2014-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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