Archive for March, 2012

Barnes & Noble Comes To Germany

March 29, 2012 at 10:29 am · Published under eBook Readers, eBooks

The second biggest e-publishing company and ebooks retailer, Barnes & Noble,  is taking its first step to enter the large European market by incorporating Barnes & Noble Digital Media GmbH in Germany.  The new company will be based in Berlin.

Along with the fact that getting an online presence is very important for any bookseller looking to take a piece of growing revenues for ebooks sales, expanding outside of the existing market is essential for B&N, as they want to get more interest  for their Nook ereader and attract more publishers and developers to its ePub ecosystem.

Leave a Comment

Harry Potter Books Are Now Available As eBooks And Audiobooks

March 28, 2012 at 8:56 am · Published under Audiobooks, eBooks

Starting today, fans of Harry Potter can get any book from the collection as an eBook in ePub or Kindle format, or choose to enjoy Potter and Co’s adventures with audiobooks.

Pottermore ebook Store

Pottermore Store website

“Pottermore Shop” – a new online hub for all digital stuff around Harry Potter

Pottermore.com, the official J.K. Rowling’s website that aims to become a digital hub for all things around Harry Potter books has been opened for business as the first and exclusive distributor of Harry Potter ebooks and audiobooks. This is for the first time in the history of digital publishing that a popular author has ventured forth to sell ebooks and audiobooks directly to the customers and completely bypass  online bookstores and even the publisher in the process. Thanks to the “Pottermore Shop” readers are able to buy the books directly from the website by simply choosing their ereader platform: as of ebooks, both Kindle and ePub format are available. Books are available in English (both GB and US).  French, Italian, German and Spanish version are expected to come soon.

Two biggest online bookstores, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are now directing customers wishing to buy Potter eBooks and audio-books to the Pottermore store due to affiliate marketing arrangements.

Leave a Comment

France Proposes “The Amazon Tax” To Help Independent Bookstores

March 22, 2012 at 11:41 am · Published under eBooks

France has developed something of a reputation in trying to tax larger companies on the Internet to use the funds to help out smaller players. The latest development in that scheme: a proposal to tax large booksellers to help French independent bookstores impacted by the rise of online giants like Amazon.

This is a development on a model that has seen proposals to tax online ads from the likes of Google and the revenues made from ISPs, in order to help out media companies that have been negatively impacted by the rise of digital content.

This newest tax, as described by the French daily Les Echos, would be applied not only to books sold online by companies like Amazon, but also those sold in larger physical stores, with the proceeds then going into a fund for smaller booksellers.

Amazon is not the only online bookseller in France — there are some very big local players, too, like FNAC, selling a range of goods in addition to books, just like Amazon does — but it is very popular there. France is also one of the international markets where Amazon has launched its Kindle ereader and ebooks.

Comments (1)

Amazon announces its mobile app marketplace’s first birthday

March 15, 2012 at 2:43 pm · Published under eBook Apps

Today, Amazon announced that its mobile app marketplace, the Amazon Appstore for Android, is celebrating itsbirthday with a week-long sale on some of its most popular apps.

The company also took the time to share some figures about the Appstore’s growth over the past year, including the size of its selection, which grew from 4,000 apps at launch to 31,000+ apps today. In addition, Amazon released lists of its best-selling apps of all time, both paid and free.

Today, Plants vs. Zombies will go on sale at 67% off. Tomorrow, two apps will go on  sale. On day three, three apps will go on sale, and so on for the remainder of the week-long event. The week-long sale will offer deals on some of Amazon’s top-selling apps, including Fruit Ninja, Wolfram Alpha, Splashtop Remote Desktop, Dr. Seuss’s The Shape of Me and Other Stuff, TuneIn Radio Pro, TETRIS, PAC-MAN, The Lost City, MONOPOLY, AccuWeather Platinum and Jamie Oliver’s 20 Minute Meals.

In conjunction with the sale, Amazon will be running a contest that will give away a Kindle Fire to eight winners who enter the sweepstakes by March 31st. Amazon also revealed a few facts about the Amazon Appstore’s growth, but it was notable that the company didn’t release an exact download number. Perhaps not looking forward to the Apple comparisons, where some lucky customer recently downloaded the 25 billionth iOS app, Amazon’s director of Amazon Appstore for Android, Aaron Rubenson, hedged exact figures by referring to “millions of apps and games” instead.

Leave a Comment