Greece lowers tax on e-books and audiobooks from 24% to 6%
22 July 2021 (Good E-Reader)
The minister of culture said the move is aimed at boosting demand for ebooks and audiobooks in the country.
Byju’s acquires kids online reading platform Epic for $500M
21 July 2021 (VentureBeat)
Byju’s has acquired Epic, a digital reading platform for children.The company cut deals to make digital versions of books with more than 250 book publishers. Now Epic has more than 40,000 digital books. The effort is part of a plan to invest more than $1 billion in the U.S. educational market. Epic, founded by Suren Markosian and Kevin Donahue, has 50 million users—children in the United States who access digital books for free.
US Ebook Sales Drop in May
21 July 2021 (Publishing Perspectives)
Ebook revenues were down 23.4 percent in May, compared to May of 2020 for a total of $86.3 million. But ebook revenues were up 4.7 percent as compared to the first five months of 2020 for a total $455.2 million.
New bitBook is a print and e-book hybrid with the feel of a real book
17 July 2021 (Good E-Reader)
One of the obvious benefits, if it can be so said, with bitBook is that it has the look and feel of a real book. That includes even the smell of a real paper book as well. That said, there is none of the cables, plastic, or electronic components visible to the eye. That way, users will have almost the same feel as reading a real book, with all the electronics concealed underneath.
tiktok Now Driving Book Sales
16 July 2021 (Simon & Schuster)
BOOKTOK 101: Your guide to a major new force in publishing. As Goodreads, Instagram and YouTube once fundamentally altered the way people read, review and recommend books, TikTok is the latest social media phenomenon to exert a seriously powerful influence on the bestseller lists.
OverDrive Completes Acquisition of Kanopy
15 July 2021 (Press Release)
OverDrive, the digital reading platform for libraries and schools, has completed the acquisition of Kanopy, a video streaming service for public and academic libraries.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt changes library ebook terms
9 July 2021 (Good E-reader)
Ebook titles from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will change from one copy/one user perpetual access model to 26-lend metered access model, one copy/one user on August 1st, 2021.
25% of Canadians read ebooks
4 July 2021 (Good E-Reader)
When it comes to reading books, the vast majority of Canadians continue to read hardcover and paperback novels. In 2020 and the first few months of 2021, 75% of purchases were print books, while digital books made up about 25% of purchases.
Bookwire Releases 2020 ‘Digital Consumer Book Barometer’ Report
28 June 2021 (Publishing Perspectives)
European publishers report massive surge in digital sales, shifts in pricing preferences, and growth in subscription and library deliveries.
AAP reports US Ebook Sales Growth Stabilising
28 June 2021 (Publishing Perspectives)
In the first 4 months of 2021, ebook revenues were up 14.5 percent (as compared to Jan-Apr 2020), for a total of $368.9 million. But April 2021 sales are slightly down on April 2020, for a total of $90.8 million.
Profile of UK Edtech startup Kortext
27 June 2021 (The Mirror, UK)
Under £20 million revenue. Under 1 million users. Attracted £15 million of outside investment. Adding 50 new staff, taking the number of employees to almost 200.
Fiftieth anniversary of the first ebook
26 June 2021 (Ebook Friendly)
Yes, it’s been 50 years since Michael Stern Hart had typed the text of the US Declaration of Independence on a terribly expensive Xerox Sigma V mainframe and sent it to other users of the University of Illinois network.
Aron Levitz Leads the Newly Merged Wattpad Webtoon Studios
24 June 2021 (Publishing Perspectives)
Aron Levitz, who had led the fast-growing Wattpad Studios division since its inception in 2016, will lead what’s being called the Wattpad Webtoon Studios. Naver, the new parent company, has committed US$100 million to the studios division, which—if Levitz’ success with Wattpad Studios is any indication—could eventually become the main engine of the combined company’s earning punch.
EdTech firm Kortext raises £15m from dmg ventures
23 June 2021 (FE News, UK)
Kortext announced that it has finalised additional investment funding from dmg ventures. The platform hosts 2million e-textbooks from over 4,000 publishers and provides every student with their own personal study space, connecting them to their course, their peers, and their lecturers. Paul Zwillenberg, CEO of DMGT will join the Kortext Board. Everyone is excited.
New Browser-Based Reading and Publishing Platform Launched
14 June 2021 (Publishers Weekly)
Legible’s in-the-works subscription model will cost $14.99 a month and offer a 60/40 revenue split, favoring the publishers. Legible has attracted international investment. It currently has some 40 employees. “We are unambiguously ambitious. We are a Canadian company, but we are making a global play.”
U.S. judge dismisses antitrust lawsuits over college textbooks
15 June 2021 (Reuters)
Judge Cote said the independent bookstores and online textbook sellers (plaintiffs) lacked standing to sue because it was the adoption by hundreds of colleges and universities of digital textbooks, rather than the defendants’ conduct, that hurt their sales. “Any injury to the plaintiffs is due to the institutions selecting brick-and-mortar retailers other than the plaintiffs as their on-campus bookstores.”
Where Is Our Spotify for Books?
7-June-2021 (Slate)
Congress could fix the problem instantly by extending the first sale doctrine to allow school and public libraries to purchase e-books at regular retail prices and keep them in their collections permanently. At a stroke, this would triple to quadruple the number of e-books libraries could purchase with current budgets and, since the books would never expire, increase their e-book holdings by orders of magnitude over time.
Deadlock between PA and academics in e-book pricing row
7 June 2021 (The Bookseller)
A row over the pricing models of academic e-books has continued, with the Publishers Association (PA) and Higher Education organisations blaming each other for a lack of movement on the issue.
Maryland: Publishers Now Obliged to License Ebooks to Libraries
1 June 2021 (Publishers Weekly)
Bill number SB432 requires any publisher offering to license “an electronic literary product” to consumers in the state to also offer to license the content to public libraries “on reasonable terms” that would enable library users to have access. The bill is scheduled to take effect in January, 2022.
More Ebook Industry News (back to Aug 2017)
