Judge Backs Dismissal of ‘Implausible’ Amazon, Big Five Price-Fixing Suit
5 August 2022 (Publishers Weekly)
from the outset of the case, lawyers for Amazon and the publishers have insisted the alleged conspiracy was “irrational” and “implausible” and that there was simply no evidence to suggest collusion of any kind. In a thoroughly reasoned 54-page report, issued August 3, magistrate judge Valerie Figueredo agreed.
Taylor & Francis grows 3% in first half as parent Informa’s profits soar
4 August 2022 (The Bookseller)
Stellar results for the overall Informa business (T&F’s parent company). T&F’s sales were buoyed by “improving growth in academic markets, robust subscription renewals and good growth in e-books and advanced learning.
Penguin Random House CEO defends merger, claims e-books, Amazon are bigger threat than consolidation
4 August (Associated Press)
Justice Department is suing to block $2.2 billion merger with Simon & Schuster, which would create publishing giant. The biggest threat to the publishing industry comes not from consolidation but from the explosion in recent years of subscription-based or cheap content, such as e-books, Dohle said, calling it “all-access.” He cited especially Amazon, which has some 50 million book titles available, and Disney.
Pearson Says Blockchain Could Make It Money Every Time E-Books Change Hands
1 August 2022 (Bloomberg)
“In the analogue world, a Pearson textbook was resold up to seven times, and we would only participate in the first sale. The move to digital helps diminish the secondary market, and technology like blockchain and NFTs allows us to participate in every sale of that particular item as it goes through its life.”
Kobo is now displaying advertisements on their e-readers
1 August 2022 (Good E-Reader)
Kobo has always made a big deal on their various marketing campaigns that unlike the Kindle, Kobo devices are ad-free, but apparently this is not the case anymore.
May Ebook Sales Were Soft, AAP Reports
1 August (Publishers Weekly)
The digital formats had mixed results with downloadable audio sales up 5%, but e-book sales falling 5%, compared with May 2021.
Are ebooks on the decline again?
28 July 2022 (Book Riot)
From @ArvynCerezo. In 2020, ebook sales rose by 11%. But in 2021, sales declined by 3.7%. Ebook sales also plummeted from January to March this year, according to the Association of American Publishers. In January, it was a 10.1% fall from last year. In February, sales dropped by 6.9% as that trend continued. In March, it went down again as sales dipped by a whopping 12.2%.
Books Are Now NFTs
27 July 2022 (Press Release)
Web3 Startup Book Token Launches eBooks on Chain, Sells $100K Worth of eBooks in First Day. The company created 10K NFT eBooks, all with unique computer generated cover art based on an original, a video inside the book, over 70 high-resolution images, and over 650K words. These “unburnable” books, will live forever on the blockchain, do not degrade over time, and can be transferred around the world in mere seconds. Books can be read in Book Token’s anonymous browser-based reading dApp(decentralized application.)
OverDrive’s Sora, the reading app for schools, clocks 100 million downloads
26 July 2022 (The New Publishing Standard)
“It’s difficult to quantify what 100 million books looks like — and doubly difficult when the books in question are ebooks and audiobooks. There’s no physical reference point that can paint an accurate picture — no quirky stat for how many times they’d wrap around the Earth lined up in a row or measure up against the world’s tallest skyscraper.”
The Crypto Revolution Wants to Reimagine Books
21 July 2022 (Esquire)
“That’s the beauty of web3,” Guerrero says. “At the end of the day, it’s all about ownership, and if you own something, you have the right to resell it. You have the right to lend it. For the first time in history, the author of the IP will always get something back.”
More Ebook Industry News (back to Aug 2017)
