Scribd, HarperCollins deal casts long digital shadow

Whether publishers want it or not, the Netflix model is coming to the book business.The San Francisco startup Scribd, best known as a site for posting PDFs of documents, announced Tuesday it is launching a multi-platform digital book subscription service that will provide access to a wide range of titles for $9 a month. Users can read ebooks on iOS and Android devices, as well as on Web browsers, and keep as many as 20 titles available for reading offline.Unlike other Netflix-like services that have launched recently, including Manhattan-based Oyster, Scribd is starting with thousands of titles from HarperCollins, or the majority of the publisher's backlist up until July 2012. Getting the cooperation of the so-called Big Five New York publishing houses has been the holy grail of subscription-service startups, and having even one of them represents a significant advance.More than 30 smaller publishers are also working with Scribd, including Sourcebooks, Workman and Kensington.Scribd, founded in 2007, also starts out with a high profile and an enormous user-base: It claims 80 million active readers monthly, and says that the subscription service—which soft-launched in January—has been growing by 60% every month. The company declined to provide subscriber numbers."There's never been an access model rolled out with this level of support and scale," said Trip Adler, Scribd's 29-year-old CEO and co-founder.Publishers have typically shied away from subscription services on the... Continue reading at 'Crains New York'

[ Crains New York | 2013-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Optimal Production Model for Today—and Tomorrow: Digital Printing in 2012

High-speed inkjet printing has been described as the biggest development in book publishing in the past 50 years. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A Publisher's Dream: Never Overprint Again: Digital Printing in 2012

For decades, large and small publishers alike have wrestled with one simple but crucial question about their books, on which success and failure often hang in the balance: How many copies should we print? Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Find Cost Efficiency Adapting Printing To Today's Realities: Digital Printing in 2012

The book publishing industry is dealing with two conflicting trends at the moment: the number of individual titles produced continues to rise while the number of print units sold continues to fall. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A Solution for Right Now: Digital Printing in 2012

General George S. Patton Jr. once famously said that "A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Penguin joint venture deal agreed

Publisher Pearson says it has agreed a deal with German media group Bertelsmann to combine their Penguin and Random House businesses. Continue reading at BBC News

[ BBC News | 2012-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Optimizing Profitability In a Blended Production Environment: Digital Printing in 2012

To take advantage of the many exciting opportunities in the book market today, you need a partner that understands your business and offers a variety of tailored solutions. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital Printing and Kodak

This week's issue of Publishers Weekly magazine includes a feature on how digital printing is changing book production and the printer-publisher relationship. There is also a supplement on Kodak's role in that transition. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Technology Review Relaunches With Digital Focus

Technology Review has relaunched itself as MIT Technology Review, completing a digital-first transformation worthy of its cutting-edge namesake. Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2012-10-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Age of Digital Printing: Printing and Paper 2012

Digital print production has long been heralded for its ability to offer publishers the capability to economically produce books as needed and in smaller quantities than traditional offset printing. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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MIT Technology Review Relaunches 'Digital-First'

Some 20 weeks before Newsweek set the media into a frenzy with its announcement of a digital-first publishing strategy, Jason Pontin was already grappling with how to move his 113-year-old publication toward a digital future. Pontin announced in June that MIT's Technology Review magazine would... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2012-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Spider-Man writer lands book deal

One of the writers behind disaster-prone Spider-Man Broadway musical, Glen Berger, will reveal all in a "fly-on-the-wall" book. Continue reading at BBC News

[ BBC News | 2012-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pippa Middleton book deal worth some $640,000

Pippa Middleton book: On Thursday her 416-page glossy hardback will be released in Britain. The title of the Pippa Middleton book of recipes and party planning tips? "Celebrate: A Year of British Festivities for Families and Friends" Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-10-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hot deal for Myriad

Myriad has signed a third novel by Isabel Ashdown, the author of Glasshopper, the winner of the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Wimpy Kid books to go digital

Puffin is releasing the first six Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney as ebooks for the first time on... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Thalia parent to sell in €1.5bn deal

One of Germany’s largest retail groups is changing ownership in a deal that is anxiously... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Frankfurt 2012: Making the Digital Leap

At the beginning of a standing-room-only Frankfurt Book Fair discussion, Richard Mollet, CEO of the U.K. Publishers Association, said he imagined there was a day 100 or more years ago at a book fair when, after yet another panel on how electricity was going to revolutionize the business, an... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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