Unbound: Digital Publishing Round-Up Winter Edition
By Erika Liodice | February 13, 2016 |
For many, the new year is a time for new beginnings. A fresh start. A clean state. The same is proving true for digital publishing as 2016 ushers in new ideas, new partnerships, new markets, and, of course, new legal battles. Here’s the latest…
Google Launches E-book Experiment
Google has launched a new digital-only bookstore “for books that cannot be printed”…https://bit.ly/1KZSWZs
Audible Expands into Original Content
Amazon is ramping up its investment in podcasts and other radio-style shows to expand the types of programming it offers via Audible…Audible has recruited well-known comedians, along with radio and podcast producers for the initiative, and job postings suggest a significant global push…https://bloom.bg/1QNHHd5
Indie Authors Can Now Develop an Audiobook via ListenUp Audiobooks
The global audiobook industry is currently worth over two billion dollars and digital is the fastest growing segment. Major publishes have a tremendous amount of infrastructure to create audio editions of their bestselling novels, but indie authors don’t have many alternatives. ListenUp Audiobooks is a new company that is exclusively focusing on indie authors who want to make an audiobook…https://bit.ly/1Qbdt4X
Amazon is Opening a Bookstore in San Diego
Amazon is planning on opening a new bookstore in San Diego. The e-commerce giant is hiring store managers, booksellers and gadget enthusiasts. This will be the second retail location that the Seattle company has launched in the last six months…https://bit.ly/20jAJNs
Amazon’s Other Physical Retail Test: A Mini Bookstore for Kindle ebooks
It only takes up a couple square feet, a small fraction of the size of Amazon’s first real bookstore in Seattle, but the company has been quietly making another foray into physical retail — offering individual ebook gift cards for sale under a pilot program at Bartell Drugs in Washington state…https://bit.ly/1nvz6QZ
Hoopla Announces Deal with Ingram
Library service provider Hoopla Digital today announced a new agreement with Ingram that will make e-books and audio titles instantly available, 24/7, and every time a title is borrowed the publisher gets paid…https://bit.ly/23ZVJgQ
Microsoft is Offering Support for Apple Pencil
The iPad Pro is starting to resonate with authors who like to scribble and jot down notes. Microsoft is listening and they are in the process of updating their complete line of Office apps to be compatible with the Apple Pencil… https://bit.ly/1Lk4QgU
Kindle Warns Readers of Poor Quality ebooks
Ebook authors and publishers who ignore quality issue warnings at the time of publishing on Kindle Direct Publishing now face the reality that readers will be warned that their ebooks are sub-standard…https://bit.ly/1PGwab8
Kobo Wants Indie Authors to Buy ISBN Numbers
Kobo wants indie authors who publish via Kobo Writing Life to buy ISBN numbers. This will allow companies like Nielsen who track digital book sales to be able to accurately track sales figures for the purchase of meaningful data. Kobo has just partnered with Bowker to give Writing Life Authors a discount on ISBN numbers…https://bit.ly/1nOydD7
People are Starting to Read More e-books in Europe and Russia
e-Book adoption may have plateaued in Canada and the United States but the digital format is growing in Europe and Russia…https://bit.ly/1Q8Lek3
Bestselling Authors and Rights Groups Support Authors Guild in Asking Supreme Court to Review Google Ruling
Bestselling authors, book publishers, rights organizations, and copyright experts from around the world filed briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the Authors Guild’s petition asking the Court to hear its case that Google must be held accountable for digitally copying millions of copyrighted books without permission or payment…https://reut.rs/1TbPXUt
[coffee]
The first time Erika Liodice saw the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower, and Holland’s tulip fields was on the postcards her father sent from his business trips. Those postcards inspired a deep desire to see the world long before she stepped foot out of her small hometown in Pennsylvania. Today, Erika is an accomplished world traveler and freelance travel writer for National Geographic. Through her new Places That Inspire column here at Writer Unboxed, she sends postcards to fellow writers about the places she’s discovered and the creativity they’ve inspired along the way. To learn more about Erika and her work, visit erikaliodice.com.
I’m glad to see Amazon putting some guidelines on the quality of ebooks that they’ll sell. And an Apple pen for my iPad? Be still my heart!
Erika, thank you SO much for staying on top of all this and sharing with us. A great variety of news.
I really appreciate the link to ListenUp and an idea of what an audio book would cost. And I’m very thrilled to hear Amazon has come up with a way to warn of poor quality ebooks. I doubt they would ever want to judge books before they’re allowed to be published.
You’re very welcome, Carmel! Glad you found this season’s round-up helpful!
Erika, thanks for pulling this together. I’m especially interested in the Hoopla deal with Ingram and the update on the Google controversy. I appreciate having all this information in one place!