Booksite Digital News
A Quieter But Productive London Book Fair
By Lynn Andriani – Publishers Weekly, 4/22/2009
For a fair that was predicted by many to be quieter than years past, the London Book Fair has been busy by many accounts (fair organizers have not released official attendance figures yet). On Wednesday, the fair's final day, attendees were walking the show floor in the early morning, and meeting tables at most stands continued to be filled. "Overall attendance may not be that great, but the quality of the attendance has been phenomenal," said Frank Daniels, chief commercial officer of Ingram Digital. "People are very focused," he said, and those who did show up "came to do business."
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In U.K., Sony E-Reader Says Bring It On, Kindle
By Andrew Albanese – Publishers Weekly, 4/21/2009
Until now Sony has had the dedicated reading device market to itself in the U.K., where the Kindle has yet to be introduced. But Wesley Dearing, the product manager in the U.K. for the Sony Reader and part of the team who launched Reader in September 2008, knows the Kindle is coming, eventually, and even has a message: bring it on. "So far, we’ve had the market to ourselves, and that’s been okay," Dearing told PW, "but competition will help raise awareness."
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British Publishers Try to Find the Money in E-books
By Lynn Andriani – Publishers Weekly, 4/21/2009
A standing room only crowd jammed into the Cromwell Room at Earls Court mid-morning on day two of the London Book Fair, hoping to learn the answer to what moderator Torin Douglas, media correspondent for BBC News, called "the $64,000 question: where’s the money" in e-books? Heads of some of Britain’s largest and most powerful publishing houses entered into a heated hour-long discussion, all of them of the mind that e-books can’t be ignored, but differing in their ways of dealing with the pitfalls of e-books, namely piracy and pricing.
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At London Book Fair, Panel Says Two-Year British E-Textbook Study is Myth-Shattering
By Andrew Albanese – Publishers Weekly, 4/21/2009
The growth of trade e-book sales has been a hot topic at this year's London Book Fair, but it has also been acknowledged on the show floor that the education and academic markets for e-books are much further developed. In findings that portend even more growth for digital publishing, a packed end-of-the-day panel on Monday featuring participants and administrators from Britain’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) discussed the results of a recently concluded "observatory" project in which JISC provided free access for two years to 36 core e-textbooks in science, technology and medicine to all U.K. university students, in order to study usage patterns.
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At London Book Fair, E-books on the Outside, But Looking In
By Andrew Albanese – Publishers Weekly, 4/20/2009
At the London Book Fair, the Digital Zone and Theatre, a 23-seat area on the edge of the show floor, drew overflowing crowds to hear presentations about e-books and digital publishing—an almost poetic embodiment of the e-book market itself: a few on the inside, but with big numbers milling about. Kicking off the day’s presentations, Michael Smith, Executive Director International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), briefed conference-goers on the growing market, and, most notably, the development of EPUB, the open source e-book publishing standard launched some 18 months ago.
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London Book Fair Opens, Attendees Optimistic
By Lynn Andriani – Publishers Weekly, 4/20/2009
The 2009 London Book Fair opened this morning with a long line of attendees wrapped around Earls Court in unusually bright sunshine. It was an auspicious start to the fair, which was predicted by many to be quieter this year, but by anecdotal accounts at least appears to be busy.
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Random House Launches 'Enhanced' Ebooks
booktrade.info, 4/20/2009
Random House is launching the first list of ‘enhanced‘ ebooks to be released by a major UK publisher. Announced on the first day of the annual London Book Fair, ‘Book and Beyond‘ "explores the opportunities and new reading experiences which the digital format can offer to book lovers and new readers alike."
The enhanced ebooks offer readers a range of additional content such as videos, games, quizzes, photos, author interviews, interactive graphics and the option to listen to or read the text at the start of each chapter. The initial list of ten enhanced ebooks includes titles from popular authors such as James Patterson, Danny Wallace and Derren Brown. More enhanced ebooks from Irvine Welsh, Katie Price and other bestselling authors are planned for later this year.
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