A group of writers are quids in following an experiment to sell a bundle of DRM-free ebooks. Sales of The Humble Bundle, which included works from authors Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman and the much-loved xkcd comic strip, have been anything but humble, with over 84,000 bundles sold, earning the authors $1.1 million in sales. What made the experiment so extraordinary was the fact that buyers could choose what they paid for the bundle, and how much of their price went to charity. WIth the average price coming in at $14.18: anyone who paid more than that got extra content included. One user even paid $1,238 for his 13 books which, if bought separately, would cost $157. One of the writers has been left gobsmacked. Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City, initially saw the concept as a crazy experiment. "I didn't realise there would be over 75,000 of them spending more than a million dollars in two weeks on books!" she said. "This is New York Times bestseller-level sales." The online publishing industry will have been given a real fillip by this - especially authors who choose to publish their own work by themselves. Larger publishing houses and retailers such as Amazon, both of which swear by the draconian DRM, will be looking to see how future bundles, already in the Humble Bundle pipeline, fare. Continue reading at 'Fast Company'
[ Fast Company | 2012-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Michael Morpurgo's War Horse (Egmont) was comfortably the bestselling book in the UK last... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Stationery retailer Viking has reported a “promising” start to its bookselling... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fnac, the leading French cultural products chain, will lay off 510 of its 17,000 staff and may... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#cut costs
Waterstones has launched a "book club" promotion, with the strapline: "Books you... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The earnings of German book retailer Thalia's parent group Douglas Holding will be hit by the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Independent publisher Saqi Books is to launch a new non-fiction imprint, with plans to publish... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#non-fiction imprint
Print books sales in the US fell 9% in 2011, with strong growth in digital sales appearing to... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#borders collapse
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An "unprecedented" seven novels have been shortlisted for the 2011 Man Asian Literary... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An imprint of Penguin Group USA discovered Kerry Schafer after she posted samples on Bookcountry.com, a site that lets writers share their work. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2012-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#media decoder
Hodder & Stoughton has acquired music star Sir Elton John's first book, Love is The Cure... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ever since Algonquin used the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute to get booksellers to read and fall in love with Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, which sold more than a million copies before being turned into a film, publishers have been using the winter bookselling confab to... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"The TV Book Club" returns to More4 on Sunday 29th January with author S J Watson's... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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At least one publisher is looking to capitalize on some last-minute changes to Wael Ghonim's upcoming book tour to promote Revolution 2.0. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harper has scored two of the eight spots in Richard & Judy's Spring Book Club, with the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"The TV Book Club" returns to More4 on Sunday 29th January with author S J Watson's... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hot Key Books has signed two-books by journalist Dawn Porter, as the author follows her editor... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Physical book sales in the final week of the year totalled £22.5m — down 70% week on... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A man has been arrested and bailed in connection with a £1.9m fraud alleged to have taken... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has won the Costa Poetry Award for The Bees (Picador), and debut... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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At just five years old, the Savannah Book Festival, in the genteel coastal city of Savannah, Ga., is carving a space for itself among the book festival big leagues, boasting not one but two of the nation’s current #1 bestselling authors: Stephen King (for 11/22/63) and Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs). Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-12-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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