When it comes to Russian ebooks and audio, one company leads the field. LitRes holds 66% of the Russian digital books market, is a significant player across Eurasia, and is expanding into east Europe. In 2018 LitRes saw its revenues rise 48%, and over 2 million audiobooks were sold, double that in 2017, comprising 25% Read More …
The latest results from Storytel offer no surprises but also, sadly, no real detail beyond what we’ve come to expect. On target for one million subscribers by end 2019, Storytel hit 887,500 subscribers in Q2, an increase of 53,200 on Q1. The forecast was 800,000, and a predictable press release says simply, Storytel therefore surpasses Read More …
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman is no stranger to options. The graphic novel has been in line to become a feature film on a few occasions, reports The Hollywood Reporter, but none managed the distance. One reason was summed up by screenwriter Eric Heiserrer, who said in 2016, the best version of this property exists as an HBO Read More …
One reason digital books haven’t, mostly, take off as they did in the US this past decade has been the VAT rate which, in the EU, meant digital books were treated as services and therefore attracted a higher duty than regular printed books. Following an EU ruling last year individual countries have the right to Read More …
It will have surprised few that, for the second year running, the StatShot Annual Report of the Association of American Publishers has reported online retail exceeded bricks & mortar stores in delivering revenue to member publishers. And taking a step back, if we allow that most AAP member publishers have a lot of investment in Read More …
With a name like Boldwood Books one really wouldn’t expect anything less than a bold launch of a new publishing operation, and that’s exactly what Amanda Ridout has delivered. While many bigger publishers have chosen to window releases, eschew the benefits of POD, downplay ebooks and carry on with archaic territorial restrictions, Amanda Ridout’s Boldwood Books Read More …
StreetLib is the publisher behind The New Publishing Standard, and while TNPS is not a StreetLib promotional vehicle and we don’t routinely carry StreetLib news, StreetLib’s global expansion clearly falls within the TNPS global publishing industry news remit. As ever on such occasions, we re-print the StreetLib Press Release in full below without further TNPS commentary. Read More …
Teachers invariably view the long summer break from school with mixed feelings. A chance to relax and recharge the batteries on the one hand. On the other, knowing that some of the progress made in the previous academic year will be undone as many children will have fewer opportunities to read. It’s not a problem Read More …
When it comes to identifying publishing opportunities in the emerging African markets one can do worse than watch the telcos. Telcos potentially provide the ideal connection between consumers and publishers in countries and regions where traditional ink on paper publishing faces insurmountable challenges, and that the mainstream digital book operators have deemed not worthwhile. Telcos Read More …
It was back in 2015 that China jumped the US to take top spot for the most cinema goers. Hardly surprising, given China’s 1.4 billion population. But the film industry wallowed in the complacency that in dollar terms – the only metric that matters for some – the US was unassailable. Not any more. The Read More …
The rise and rise of audiobook and ebook subscription streaming across the Scandinavian countries has been mentioned here at TNPS so often it hardly needs rehearsing again. But this week the tremendous interest in digital reading in northwest Europe takes on new significance as we learn that video-streaming is still rising in these same countries, Read More …
It was November 2014 when Amazon last launched a new Kindle store, almost seven years to the day from when the Kindle first launched in the US. Kindle Netherlands became the then latest in a seemingly unstoppable roll-out of Kindle stores across the globe and few could doubt that the Bezos doctrine of every book Read More …
When it comes to publishing, while everyone understands the value of data, few publishers look beyond their own industry data when making decisions. And that perhaps in part explains why publishing has been so slow to grasp the global digital opportunity. Because publishing is so busy looking at what happened yesterday, and making judgment calls Read More …
StreetLib is the publisher behind The New Publishing Standard, and while TNPS is not a StreetLib promotional vehicle and we don’t routinely carry StreetLib news, StreetLib’s global expansion clearly falls within the TNPS global publishing industry news remit. Moreso on this occasion as the presentation StreetLib CEO Giacomo D’Angelo delivers at the Thessaloniki International Book Fair Read More …
Germany’s Bookwire has launched its new operating system Bookwire OS across its core markets – Germany, UK, Spain and Latin America. Bookwire CEO Jens Klingelhöfer said, Bookwire OS offers a solution for all aspects of digital publishing of eBooks, audiobooks and print-on-demand products. In the coming months, we will launch new intelligent features for our Read More …
The 19th Nigeria International Book Fair got underway today. I’ll report on the event further as news comes in. Here to briefly look at a pre-launch call for the establishment of a Nigerian Book Commission to help guide the industry in a period of transition and challenges. Challenges? Everything from piracy to distribution to rising Read More …
The rebranding of online Arab marketplace Souq will surprise few. Two years after Amazon bought Souq it is now, for the UAE at least, rebranded as Amazon AE, and the previously reported January 2019 focus on opening up the Middle East to the US marketplace continues as expected. Middle East online bookstore Jamalon raises $10m Read More …
Jeff Bezos has on many occasions said he welcomes failure, because failure helps the company rethink and revitalise. That’s not a luxury every company has, but then most companies aren’t Amazon. From the Firephone to holidays to diapers, not everything Jeff Bezos touches turns to gold. This week comes news that the latest admission of Read More …
Italy-based digital books distributor and publishing facilitator StreetLib has partnered with India’s Storyweaver to deliver 5,000 free multilingual stories to the world’s children, as part of its commitment to UNESCO’s International Year of Indigenous Languages. Full disclosure: The New Publishing Standard (TNPS) is published by StreetLib to further the debate about the global book markets. Read More …
This week the Indian telco giant Bharti Airtel finally launched its long-anticipated ebook store Airtel Books. Long anticipated? In fact Bharti Airtel signaled its intentions back in December 2017 when it bought into the digital-focussed Indian publisher Juggernaut Books. Bharti Airtel acquires strategic stake in Juggernaut Books So no surprise that the launch this week Read More …
