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A book of short stories has leaped up Amazon's book charts to become second only to Dan Brown after Stephen Fry endorsed it on his Twitter feed. 11.09.09 Catherine Neilan, The Bookseller.
Early today (10th September), the actor told his near-750,000 followers: "You will not read a more dazzling book this year than David Eagleman's Sum. If you read it and aren't enchanted I will eat 40 hats." The book subsequently rose by nearly 250,000% in the Movers & Shakers list.
Coincidentally, the author was also interviewed on "The Today Programme" this morning. However, Canongate publisher Jamie Byng said he thought it was the new medium that had propelled the book up the charts.
"'The Today Programme' is great, and can have an incredibly beneficial effect on books . . . there's no question it's fuelling it somewhat. But what has really done it, without a doubt, is Stephen's tweeting completely from the heart."
He added: "Sum's had great [print] reviews, but none of them have even had a fraction of the effect to what Stephen Fry did, even if you took all of them together . . . This is a lesson in how you can publish a book in a less conventional way, and suddenly it's paying dividends."
A further print run has been confirmed to meet renewed retailer demand, making 20,000 in print by the end of the month.
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Posted on 04 Nov 2009 around 10am by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
The iPhone may take market share from the Amazon Kindle, following an explosion in the supply of book apps last month, according to a report by San Francisco-based mobile application analytics company Flurry.
The iPhone may take market share from the Amazon Kindle, following an explosion in the supply of book apps last month, according to a report by San Francisco-based mobile application analytics company Flurry.
The number of book apps supplied to the iPhone App Store overtook the number of games apps for the first time in September, Flurry reported.
Between August 2008 and August 2009, most of the apps released were in the games category. But in October, one out of every five new apps launching in the iPhone was a book. "During the month of August, 1% of the entire US population was already reading a book on iPhone. Now, with books shipping in droves, we are seeing the supply-side explode," Flurry stated.
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Posted on 04 Nov 2009 around 10am by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Last summer a survey website, Teenreads.com, conducted a poll of some 4,000 people 18 years old or younger about their reading habits and preferences, and many of the results will come as a surprise. For parents who fret that their children text or yak too much or immerse themselves day and night in YouTube or Facebook, the surprise will be a pleasant one. As for those of you who believe that youth are in the vanguard of the e-book revolution - well, you're in for a shock.
While we hear that teens have embraced all things digital and thus have a large interest in reading e-books, our findings didn't support this claim.
When we asked about their affection for a digital reading device for fun reading (not schoolwork) if the price were affordable, 46% said they preferred printed books. Another 38% said they would like one, and 16% indicated they were not sure how they felt about this.
When asked if they'd like to read textbooks as e-books, they were evenly split, with 36% saying yes, 33% saying they were not sure, and 31% saying they would not be interested.
Nearly one-quarter (24%) have read an e-book, while 27% would like to read one. Almost half (49%) said they have no interest in reading e-books.
When asked how they have read an e-book, 26% have done so on a computer while 33% used a dedicated digital reading device and 5% used another method. Seven out of 10 (71%) say they have never read one.
To keep things in perspective, the surveyors state, "We recognized that we were surveying an exceptional group, what we call über readers. So the results reflect teens who are already drawn to books; we are not studying what keeps nonreaders from picking up a book."
Richard Curtis
Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by Publishers Weekly.
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Posted on 04 Nov 2009 around 10am by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
An overview of how L.W.W. is providing online resources alongside traditional paper textbooks.
I work as a sales representative for Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins. We are a publisher of health related books at all levels. Much of my job is promoting our student textbooks to lecturers for recommendation on their courses, and to promote library sales. We have recently launched an online web portal called the Point which can be found at http://thepoint.lww.com
This portal has several distinct functions. Firstly, students who buy our textbooks no longer just get a paper book. They use a unique code from the front of the book to access online resources designed to complement their text. These vary from text to text, and in the degree of their sophistication. As a quick list, we provide image collections from the text and self testing features, both written and in audio (MP3) format, specially commissioned animations, videos of procedures being carried out, journal articles, online workbooks, glossaries, podcast lectures, interactive case studies, fully searchable text online – the list is extensive.
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Posted on 28 Jun 2007 around 7am by Web Admin
Linda Bennett has co-ordinated this entry. This piece is by Professor Huw Morris, Manchester Metropolitan University.
The staff at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School have been experimenting with a range of print on demand and customised e-textbook solutions to support their courses, working with Pearson Education. An increasing number of the modules on offer on general business degrees and accounting and finance awards now have custom edited textbooks which bring together chapters from a range of Pearson titles under one cover. These books also frequently include case studies from Pearson’s extensive range of collaborative partners as well as the tutors own course notes.
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Posted on 20 Jun 2007 around 12pm by Web Admin
Linda Bennett has co-ordinated this entry. This piece is by Christoph Chesher, Taylor & Francis. This is in response to the piece by David Parkes 'The Codex Book'.
eBooks for most publishers currently represent between 5 and 6% of their total print book sales and whilst this is now beginning to ramp up considerably (growth estimates of between 30 and 50% are not uncommon) eBooks in the vast majority of cases remain as David Parkes says "simply digitised texts". Despite the huge array of possibilities that the electronic world afford us there is of course a very old fashioned reason for this: saleability, costs vs income and the risk to reward ratio.
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Posted on 20 Jun 2007 around 12pm by Web Admin
Linda Bennett has co-ordinated this entry. This piece is by David Parkes of Staffordshire University.
The codex book has been described as the perfect machine - power independent, extremely portable (for all but the most formidable of computing manuals), you can read it in the bath, on the train, airplane or the beach, lying down, sitting up, you can lend it, borrow one and - everyone knows how to access it and use it without too much training. But what of the book in the electronic environment? Ebooks - in fact there are very few real examples of ebooks - what exists are largely digitised texts, not really ebooks, not as we would like them to be realised anyway, not in a format which fully exploits the potential of the eworld.
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Posted on 20 Jun 2007 around 12pm by Web Admin
Some thoughts on a recent Open University Press Questionnaire
Of passing interest is a question from a recent Open University Press questionnaire sent to lecturers, 'Would you consider buying e-books rather than printed books?'
How many of you out there would answer 'yes' or 'no'???? And why????
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Posted on 02 May 2007 around 12pm by Web Admin
