Apple iBooks App Now A Free Download For UK iPhone & iPod Touch

If you've been itching to have a go on the iBookstore but don't have an iPad you'll be pleased to hear that Apple have now issued the free iPhone iBooks App.

You do need the latest versions for it to work, though (compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, requires iOS 3.2 or later). Download here.


iTunes' 12 Days of Christmas free download today is the great Life of Pi by Yann Martel. But you have to be quick - it's only available for 24 hours on 30 December.

Happy New Year!

How Literary Agents View The Ebook Explosion

Preliminary results of a survey of 135 US literary agents on ebooks and epublishing have just been released by New York-based Publishing Trends.

"A new business model needs to be invented", commented one agent. "Almost everything in a contract is negotiable, including royalty rates," said another. On the question of agents becoming ebook publishers, one agent said that in 25 years' time that's what literary agencies would be and that "publishers" as the term is now understood wouldn't exist.

Carried out by the Idea Logical Company and Market Partners International, the survey will be discussed by a panel chaired by Mike Shatzkin and Constance Sayre at Digital Book World, New York, on 26 January.

Read the full article here

Kindle Sales Figures For 2010 Set To Become 60% More Than Predicted

Bloomberg Businessweek reports that total sales of Amazon Kindle in 2010 are likely to reach 8 million (as against appx 2.4 million in 2009) - 60% more than predicted. As Amazon doesn't release Kindle sales figures, their source within the company has asked to remain anonymous.

From its launch in April until September 2010, Apple have sold 7.46 million iPads.

Read the full article here

The Educational Ebook Boom in China, India and South Korea

UniversityWorldNews has just produced a report on the academic digital publishing boom in the Far East. China alone's output in 2009 was worth  US $12 billion. Propelled by the availability and choice of e-readers (there are currently over 40 manufacturers in China alone, all making ereaders with similar functionality), China and India are set to take the lead in the digital publishing of academic books and papers.


Read the full article here. 

Amazon Authors To Get Nielsen Bookscan Sales Figures

.

Amazon is to make Nielsen Bookscan data available to authors from next Thursday.

Los Angeles Times

Google Ebookstore Opens For Business...

..but in the USA only for now.

This is what the front page looks like. 

Read the New York Times report here.

12% of UK Population Will Soon Own Ebook Reader Says YouGov

Feedback from the FutureBook conference, held in the UK earlier this week, is now coming in. With some interesting twists. Henry Volans, Head of Digital Publishing at Faber & Faber, showcased the most innovative story of the day - a preview of their complete guide to the solar system, made in collaboration with Whitby and Touch Press.  Though the App will be coming out on Faber Digital which is independent of its print and epublishing departments, Faber is traditionally the UK's most literary publisher of all.  "The demo was incredible" said Publishing Perspectives.

The Solar System for iPad

Read Publishing Perspectives' report from the Futurebook Conference

Digital Bookstores "Most Likely" for UK, Germany & France in 3 Years' Time Says Barnes & Noble CEO

William Lynch, who took over as CEO of Barnes & Noble in 2009, is credited with turning the store's prospects around by embracing digital. Intially hired to run Barnes & Noble's ebook sales site, Lynch has overseen the introduction of the B&N digital reader The Nook (over a million already sold) and the self-publishing arm, PubIt; built up the children's ebookstore section (including enhanced picture books) and introduced a Spanish language ebook store (there are more Spanish speakers in the US than English). The Nook and B&N ebooks are only available in the USA but, in an interview with The Bookseller, Lynch said he anticipates having a B&N digital placeholding in Europe in three years' time, "most-likely first in the UK, Germany and France".

Read the full article here.

Ebook Conference Futurebook 10 Opens Today

Futurebook is a digital blog about ebooks from the European perspective run in association with The Bookseller, the UK's top publishing trade paper.

On the The Futurebook 10 blog, Alastair Horne, Innovations Manager for Cambridge University Press's New Directions Group, reflects on how much can change in a year.

Follow Alastair's live tweets from Futurebook 10 (hashtag #fb10) at @pressfuturist .

Dutch Ebook Market Ahead of Most Other European Countries

The UK's ebookmagazine.co.uk reports today on the launch of 2 new ebook readers in Holland.

With more than 1500 downloads a day, Holland has clocked up an early lead in the European ebook consumer market.

Read the full article here. 

Ebook Reader for Christmas? Which functions best - Kindle or iPad?

The UK's Daily Telegraph says there's going to be a Christmas ebook sales boom this year.


See blackbirdebooks' Kindle review and round-up of the alternatives.

How Publishers Put Books Into The Marketplace - Complete Re-Think Needed Of

.

Realising the changing role of the publisher's sales department wasn't due to be covered at the forthcoming Digital Book World conference (Jan 24 - 26, Sheraton Hotel & Towers, New York, NY), Mike Shatzkin has put together a panel to discuss "this very important topic".  Moderated by David Wilk, a veteran of trade book sales and distribution, the panelists will be Rich Freese of the National Book Network (US), Alison Lazarus of Macmillan (US) and Michael Selleck of Simon & Schuster (US).

"I just don’t believe the status quo can hold a lot longer. Selling by seasons in the digital age is nutty. Preparing printed catalogs that are out of date before the ink on them dries in the digital age is nutty. And making the entire publishing house’s marketing staff work around sales conferences and list preparation when most of its customers don’t buy that way is beyond nutty. There needs to be a complete re-think of how publishers put books into the marketplace." Mike Shatzkin


Read the full article at the Shatzkin Files

Short Stories Thriving on Ebooks

It's still early days here in the UK ebook world - this blog has twice as many American and Dutch readers as Brits. However, Kindles and iPads are starting to appear on the tubes and buses here and one long-neglected area in the world of literature, the short story, is showing early signs of a new boom.

New ways of telling are emerging fast. For a different kind of short story experience, see US media artist Alan Bigelow's digital story site Webyarns. In the UK, Ether Books is a stylish short story App that publishes short stories by well-established authors alongside new talent, including Breaking News, the latest mini-offering by our friend Jacqui Hazell.

The current free offer at blackbirdebooks.com, The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology, is an anthology of 25 of the best short stories published on the web in 2009 and 2010 as chosen by the editors of  the contemporary literary site Chamber Four. We particularly love and recommend the hilarious The Naturalists by B J Hollars (storySouth), the graphically weird and wonderful Watchers by Scott Cheshire (AGNI) and the sharp but lyrical poignancy of For The Sake of The Children (Night Train) by UK author Sarah Salway.

US Ebook Sales Up 188% ($39.9M) in Year

"It's one thing when Amazon says ebooks outsell hardcovers, but when a publisher says the same thing for a given title, it's of real significance."

See full article from DailyFinance