eBook revenues were up 18.2% in August 2020
13 Oct 2020 (Good E-Reader)
On a year-to-date basis, ebooks were up 14.8%.
US House subcommittee proposes antitrust updates: Ebook interoperability boost?
07 Oct 2020 (TeleRead)
Report recommends, “that Congress pass new legislation mandating interoperability and data portability between services.” It could also require Amazon to let you move your entire Kindle library to your Nook if you wanted, or import competitors’ DRM-laden formats to your Kindle.
Publishers Worry as Ebooks Fly off Libraries’ Virtual Shelves
01 Oct 2020 (WIRED)
Checkouts of digital books from a popular service are up 52 percent since March. Publishers say their easy availability hurts sales.
Open letter calls for ‘investigation of academic publishing industry’
30 Sep 2020 (Research Information)
‘Due to UK copyright law university libraries cannot simply purchase an ebook in the way an individual can – instead we are required to purchase a version licensed specifically for university use. Public policy to support education and research should support a healthy ebook market, but we in fact see the opposite.’
UK Libraries have lent out 3.5 million ebooks during pandemic
28 Sep 2020 (Good E-Reader)
Chrys Mellor, libraries general manager for North Yorkshire County Council, said ebook and audio were up 78% and 3,000 new members have signed up for cards during lockdown.
Playster has gone bankrupt
11 Sep 2020 (Good E-Reader)
Playster was initially founded in 2014. They offered a tiered subscription approach to not only have ebooks, but also games and videos. They formed relationships with HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Harlequin Paramount Pictures…
Publishers Dismayed By 25% Increase in eBook Revenues in July 2020
10 September 2020 (The Digital Reader)
Publisher revenue was down 9.4% for the month of July, and down 5.8% year to date. The decline is largely the result of steep declines in sales of educational materials for both college and K-12, while at the same time most other segments of the industry have shown surprising resilience in the face of serious supply issues.
Arrests in August led to a dramatic decline in pirated online content
4 September 2020 (Torrent Freak)
More than a week has passed since a US Government enforcement action hit the piracy scene hard. The release group SPARKS was the main target but, directly and indirectly, many other pirate groups were affected as well.
Bloomsbury shifts assets to the cloud
4 September 2020 (Diginomica)
Bloomsbury has migrated digital assets relating to its academic and professional titles to a cloud-based DAM platform from Cloudinary. In the four months to the end of June 2020, academic and professional book sales rose by 4% to £11.8m. Digital books and resources, meanwhile, accounted for almost half that revenue, up from 30% for the year to February.
EdTech Sharks Set to Snap Up Minnows
2 September 2020 (Hechinger Report)
Analysts and industry insiders expect a wave of acquisitions as already-dominant brands like Cengage seek to corner even more of the market by snatching up smaller players that provide services they don’t. “We’re seeing people with capital be opportunistic, who say this is the time to buy a company in a different subject area to round out their portfolio.”
More Ebook Industry News (back to Aug 2017)
![E-books, downloaded music and other digital products aren’t covered by Australian consumer law. [Shutterstock]](https://i2.wp.com/about.ebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/file-20180220-116365-1tkqbl91.jpg?resize=218%2C150&ssl=1 "Australia’s consumer laws still don’t cover ebooks")
