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 ]
Joanna Ellis, former marketing director at Faber, is to join The Literary Platform as associate... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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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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Carlton Books has today (11th January) released the first ebook editions of its Olympic... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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TV presenter Stephen Fry is to judge an international competition, launched by literature and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Barnes & Noble shares under pressure as company explores Nook ebook business options Continue reading at MarketWatch.com
[ MarketWatch.com | 2012-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Daily Kobo ebook sales in the UK increased seven times in December as the company revealed one... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hachette has reported a "blockbuster Christmas for ebooks", selling more than 100,000... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins US is suing digital publisher Open Road for copyright infringement after it... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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China's biggest online book retailer Dangdang has launched its ebook platform in China, with... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The UK government has reiterated its view that it cannot bring down value added tax on ebooks... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Friday Project's Confessions of a GP has been crowned the top-selling UK ebook of the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pan Macmillan has launched its first ebook bundles, collections of two or three titles in a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Gallimard reduced the prices of its 1,500 ebooks on Monday (19th December), two weeks ahead of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Random House has released two more Nigella Lawson cookbooks as ebooks today (20th December),... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Since its launch last December in partnership with the American Booksellers Association, Google eBooks has yet to capture significant market share. According to the Codex Groups recent Showrooming study, while the number of people who read both print books and ebooks has grown from 25% in... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Oxford University Press will be releasing its 300th Very Short Introduction title in January 2012... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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China's biggest online book retailer E-Commerce China Dangdang plans to begin selling ebooks... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The BBC's award for short fiction is to turn international for one year to celebrate the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The five publishers being investigated over ebook pricing could face fines of many millions of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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I love reading, and I love books. I don't care much about the medium--paper or digital, it's all the same to me, for the most part. Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2011-12-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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