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 ]
Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Thu, 24/03/2011 - 09:36 Sampling free content is inspiring customers to buy ebooks, with a fifth of UK readers citing it as the primary reason for purchase, according to new research. Surveys by Book Marketing Limited (BML) and Bowker Publishing... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Wed, 23/03/2011 - 07:10 Lendle, the US-based tool that allows Kindle users to lend their ebooks, has been reinstated after Amazon said that its concern related to its "Book Sync tool". The news that Amazon had locked the services out of its API caused... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Wed, 23/03/2011 - 11:58 A third of UK trade publishers think that over 10% of their total book revenue will come from ebooks by 2012, according to new research released by Publishing Technology at BMLs annual Books & Consumers Conference. The... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Barbara Casassus Publication Date: Mon, 21/03/2011 - 11:26 E-book sales by Hachette Livre in the United States are in line with the national average, according to the group's chairman and c.e.o. Arnaud Nourry. He told the Buzz Média service of the French daily Le Figaro that ebooks... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Barbara Casassus Publication Date: Thu, 17/03/2011 - 06:39 French authors have urged culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand to intecede in order to break the deadlock in their negotiations with publishers over electronic rights. For the second year running, the Permanent Council of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 17/03/2011 - 06:47 Orange has launched an ebook app for Android, with a "one-click buy" system which directly bills a user's Orange account. But the app will not be available on Apple's iPhone or iPad devices at the same time because of the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 17/03/2011 - 09:23 The Society of Chief Librarians and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council have signed a joint position on ebook lending in libraries, saying the Publisher Association's baseline position has "limited practical use"... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publication Date: Thu, 17/03/2011 - 17:10 Novelist Bi Feiyu has won the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize, becoming the prize's third Chinese winner in four years. He was awarded the US$30,000 award at an event in Hong Kong for his novel Three Sisters (Telegram/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).The... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Barbara Casassus Publication Date: Tue, 15/03/2011 - 09:23 French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand has urged French publishers to speak with one voice in forthcoming negotiations with Amazon over supplying their ebooks for the Kindle. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Thu, 03/03/2011 - 07:34 Almost half of teenagers have read a book on a computer, according to a new survey to mark World Book Day. As hundreds of events get under way across the country today, 40.8% of teenagers said they had read a book on a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Thu, 03/03/2011 - 08:45 Half of all book buyers expect to pay less for ebooks, according to new research by Mintel, but those book readers who already own ebook devices have marginally more realistic expectations over price, suggesting that the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 28/02/2011 - 09:20 Bloomsbury is anticipating 2011 to be the "year of the ebook", as it reported ebook sales were just under 10% of trade print sales in its latest results. For the 12 months ending 31st December 2010, sales were up 4.01%... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Bookseller Staff Publication Date: Fri, 25/02/2011 - 08:20 Google has introduced ebooks to the web version of its Android Market of apps. By buying an app on the webstore, a user can then push it onto any Android-enabled device. PC Mag reports the book capacity was added yesterday... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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By Tim Conneally, Betanews The Android Market has never had any specific ban on carrying and selling straight up text documents, and users could search through the market and find apps that were, in effect, standalone ebooks. Now, however, there is a section dedicated specifically to ebooks... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2011-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Thu, 24/02/2011 - 09:35 The price of ebook readers has been slashed again with wholesaler Makro advertising the Binatone ReadMe Classic for around £35. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 21/02/2011 - 08:40 Man Booker winner Hilary Mantel and Susan Hill are among the writers longlisted for the £30,000 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2011. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Wed, 16/02/2011 - 15:42 read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 10/02/2011 - 10:08 Bestsellers from Hachette UK helped limit the decline in sales at parent Lagardere Publishing, according to results filed by the French group, which is continuing to suffer from a year-on-year drop in sales of Stephenie... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Mon, 07/02/2011 - 16:12 ASDA has launched the UKs cheapest e-reader at £52. The View Quest Mediabox 5in Media Tablet went on sale today through its Asda Direct website. The Asda site does not sell ebooks with the supermarket chain instead... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Amazon.co.uk has reiterated its opposition to agency pricing as it revealed its top-selling ebook authors are not governed by the model. Last week Amazon.com announced ebooks had begun to outsell paperbacks in the US for the first time, with 115 ebooks bought for every... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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