Penelope Lively's recent short ebook for Penguin drew criticism for its brevity – but readers should not be put off the genre as a whole"Overpriced", "ridiculous", I feel cheated". Amazon reviewers haven't been wholly positive about a digital short Penelope Lively has written for Penguin Specials. On the evidence of the story itself, it's not Lively's fault. Abroad is about a pair of art students who travel to 1950s Spain in search of picturesque peasants and are disappointed when they don't live up to expectations. It's funny and evocative of a time when rural Europe was still exotic.It also peters out after just 4,000 words, so I sympathise with anyone who felt ripped off by its £1.99 price tag. These days you can buy two whole novels for that. The sad fact is, publishers don't make any money if an ebook costs less than £1.99. Amazon does, because singles are the literary equivalent of a gateway drug.This was brought home to me on finishing Susan Hill's latest effort, Printer's Devil Court (99p), a haunting tale about pre-second world war medical students who experiment with resurrection. More substantial than Lively's, it's a great, old-fashioned ghost story, whose chilling impact was somewhat undermined by turning the final page to find Amazon ordering me to rate, review, tweet, Facebook and buy more books by Susan Hill. Was the ebook I'd enjoyed little more than a trailer?Singles are a clever marketing tool. But it would be a shame if readers short-changed by one... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
In 2012, Brazil became the latest battleground for the big international ebooksellers. Ebook sales have since skyrocketed, with Apple in the early lead ahead of Amazon. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Times Literary Supplement will be the media partner for the The Literary Consultancy’s... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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World Book Night gives away 500,000 print books. Wouldn't it make good sense to extend the promotion by offering free ebooks as well? Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Visitors to London's Science Museum will be offered a free ebook from author Tony White, to... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Last week two of China's leading ebookstores Dangdang.com began offering nearly all of their ebooks for free, a move criticized by authors and publishers alike. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Thames & Hudson is releasing a colourful list of “literary art” books this autumn... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It's well off the triple year-over-year growth that ebooks saw a few years ago, but the latest report from the Association of American Publishers shows that ebooks did inch up even further in 2012 to account for a sizeable chunk of overall book sales. According to its figures, ebooks now... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Random House has appointed ePubDirect to manage distribution of ebook assets and provide retail support for the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ebooks accounted for 22.55 percent, or nearly a quarter, of U.S. book publishers’ sales in 2012, according to a full-year report released by the Association of American Publishers Thursday. That’s up from 17 percent of sales in 20 ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Line, the popular messaging platform based in Japan, is challenging ebook vendors like Amazon and Rakuten with a new service to download and view manga, or Japanese comic books. The company has launched "Line Manga," a mobile app for Android and iOS phones. Line's initial offering consists of... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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From a longlist of 154 titles, ten novels have been shortlisted and are in the running for the €100,000 2013 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Houston-based Kbuuk is one of the latest in a long line of file conversion and self-publishing ebook platforms to emerge in the wake of the digital explosion. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An old cliché goes: You can have it good, fast or cheap, pick any two. But all three? When it comes to ebooks, new tools might be able to deliver all three. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference (AWP) began decades ago as a meet-up for academic creative writing departments, students, and writers. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Slicebooks offers tools for producing re-mixable ebooks. But the implications of this go far beyond generating more sales, explains co-founder Jill Tomich. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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By the end of last summer, I was worn out. It seemed like every week brought a new, awful incident of plagiarism or fabrication at news organizations large and small. My job was to write about all of them, to try and get more information about wh ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, editor of Johannesburg’s inventive art books publisher Fourthwall, discusses how publishing on the periphery of the world can give you an edge. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new report on the ebook market in 2012 shows the continuing dominance of fiction, with fiction... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The response of people to the sad news concerning Iain Banks, who announced he has terminal cancer, makes us realize how the book trade is like a huge, extended family. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Discussions at this year's Leipzig Book Fair proved that ebooks and self publishing are gaining wider acceptance in Germany, and readers are more open to digitization. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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