Posts tagged kobo

1) Sales info from Publishers Weekly: The Bestselling E-books of 2012 (from 25,000 copies and up — prepare to be even more depressed by the sales of Fifty Shades of Grey) and Bestselling Children’s books of 2012.

2) Also from PW, Amazon Publishing starts a literary fiction imprint.

3) At the Atlantic: “Beyond Bodice-Rippers: How Romance Novels Came to Embrace Feminism”

4) At Flavorwire, 20 Embarrassingly Bad Book Covers for Classic Novels. Like, unbelievably bad. What’s deal with the large print Great Classic Series and the random stock art?

5) For the ebook readers out there, Kobo has a 90% off coupon on what I assume is select books here.

Today turned into a big news day in the digital publishing world:

1) The judge approved the settlement in the Department of Justice ebook price-fixing case against 3 publishers — more on Digital Book World.

2) Amazon announced a new range of tablets and ereaders, including the Kindle Paperwhite, a backlit e-reader ($119 for wifi, $179 with 3G), and reducing the price of the base model Kindle to $69. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has a rundown of all the devices and other updates to Amazon services. 

3) I guess to try to beat Amazon, Kobo also announced the new batch of Kobo devices (via DBW):

• Kobo Glo — touch e-ink with built-in light ($129.99)
• Kobo mini — five-inch touch-screen e-ink ($79.99)
• Arc tablet — with a new Pinterest-like feature and abandoned the Vox name, acknowledging their first tablet got bad reviews (8 GB for $199.99, 16 GB $249.99)

And in non-ebook news, an editor found three kittens abandoned near the office. Happily, all three found homes by the end of the day. Here’s a photo :)

1) March is now “Read an eBook Month” in Canada, via eBookNewser.

2) A few places have referenced this Wall Street Journal article about the possibility of ebook prices going up. The WSJ article is behind a paywall, but Digital Book World and eBookNewser have write-ups about it.

Print books being available for less than the ebook format doesn’t surprise me, but I don’t believe ebook prices are really going up. What I think is happening is: 1) agency pricing means ebook retailers can’t discount many bestselling titles from the Big Six, and 2) retailers are discounting bestselling print books more to compete with digital. As a commenter on Dear Author also pointed out, not all publishers update their ebook price when a book goes from hardcover to paperback, dropping the print price.

3) If you by ebooks at Kobo, they’re having a simple puzzle contest until Dec. 25 where you can win coupon codes or possibly an ereader. You can play daily and every play is a winner (so I’ve racked up a few coupons myself ;) ). Enter/play here.

1) Google launched their ebook store in Canada.

2) Shipments of the Kobo Vox is delayed until November 7. It was originally scheduled to ship Oct. 28. Some stores in Canada have it already, however.

3) HarperCollins has acquired publisher Thomas Nelson.

3) B&N will make an announcement on Monday. Speculation is it will be a Nook Color 2 or other form of Nook tablet.

Two fairly big announcements in the world of ebooks today:

1) Kobo announced a colour eReader/tablet, Kobo Vox. (I’m calling it an eReader/Tablet because Kobo seems to be focusing on the reading aspects, but it does support Android apps. I’ll wait for the reviews to see if which camp the device falls into best.) I admit this announcement surprised me since Kobo managed to keep this under wraps, other than a small mention of a Kobo tablet rumor I remember reading on Dear Author a while ago that I forgot about until today’s reveal. Price is $199 and it ships October 28 — next Friday, before the Kindle Fire.

And speaking of Dear Author and the Kindle Fire, Jane at DA already has a comparison of the specs of the Vox, Fire, and Nook Color (which it seems has come down in price, at least for a refurb). Read it here.

2) The other news, Penguin (or more specifically, the Berkley/NAL imprints) is starting a digital-first imprint, InterMix. They’re launching in January 2012, but the first releases are all reissues of previously published books by Nora Roberts and the Signet Regency line. Read the official press release here.