Category: Ebooks

StreetLib completes Pan-African digital footprint. Launches a publisher portal for every nation in Africa. 800m Africans online by 2025

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Italy-based digital books distributor and publishing facilitator StreetLib has completed the third stage of its global roll-out, and now offers an author and publisher portal for every nation in Africa. The New Publishing Standard (TNPS) is published by StreetLib to further the debate about the global book markets. TNPS is not a StreetLib promotion tool. Read More …

French ebook store Numilog rolls out pay-per-page reading for consumers. Will it be vulnerable to the problems that Kindle Unlimited faces?

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The French ebook and audio store Numilog has been focused primarily, although not exclusively, on academic and reference books, which can be expensive to buy and often are not read end to end. That can be a deterrent to buying, unless you really need to, and so Numilog has rolled out a new consumption model Read More …

Storytel prepares Germany launch, consolidating subscription as a serious challenger to the traditional publishing model

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It all seemed so implausible at the start of this decade. Ebooks had officially arrived, thanks to Amazon’s Kindle store breathing life into a format that had been around since long before. But it was just a digital extension of the status quo retail model. It was printed books on a screen, not remotely exploring digital’s Read More …

Storytel Q4 report: Subscribers up 44% Y/Y. Streaming sales up 38%. Targets 1.1 million subscribers by end 2019

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We won’t know the full story for Storytel 2018 until April, but the Q4 results are out and include an overview of the year, and a clear picture is emerging of consistent and sustainable growth, driven by digital. As I’ll explore in a follow-up report on the Swedish book market, what we are seeing in Read More …

‘Jessica Jones,’ ‘Punisher’ Canceled. Netflix led the streaming surge and now pays the price as suppliers copy the Netflix model and content is siloed

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“Jessica Jones, Punisher Canceled as Netflix Completes Marvel Purge” runs the headline in The Hollywood Reporter, but it’s not so much a purge as the inevitable consequence of the direction video streaming is taking. And publishing is not so far behind. Original content is of course a great draw for consumers, to a degree. But Read More …

India’s Kolkata International Book Fair sees 700,000 spend $1.1 million in first five days, despite free ebooks available

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“Book fair rakes in Rs 8 crore with 7 lakh footfall ” is the headline in the Times of India this week, reporting on the first five days of the Kolkata International Book Fair. The Indian notation equates to 700,000 visitors at the event up until Monday, spending over 80 million rupees ($1.1 million) on Read More …

StreetLib completes January tranche of global expansion. 21 countries on 6 continents

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When StreetLib launched The New Publishing Standard in September 2017 we made clear the function of the journal was to stimulate debate about the much-neglected global book markets. It was not a StreetLib promotional tool, and not a vehicle to advocate digital at the expense of traditional formats. But occasionally StreetLib becomes part of the Read More …

Bookwire sees 65% ebook sales growth in Ibero-America in 2018. Moves into audiobooks

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Germany-based Bookwire has reported 65% sales growth and a 25% increase in titles registered for its Spain and Latin America market venture. The increase in Spanish-language titles was to the tune of 33,000, while for Portuguese-speaking Brazil the number of titles rose 40% to 32,000. Bookwire also announced its venture into the audiobook arena. Elena Read More …

Venezuela’s National Book Centre understands the role of digital in building a nation of readers. Other countries should take notice

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Venezuela’s National Book Center (Cenal), backed by the Ministry of Culture, gave a three day workshop on the value of digital publishing at the end of January. Cenal president Raul Cazal stressed the need for quality content, but the workshop was focused on the mechanics of ebook production and distribution with the aim of boosting the Read More …

“A sweeping fantasy epic steeped in Pan-African history and folklore—one of the most anticipated books of the year.” Widely unavailable in Africa

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That was the Wall Street Journal this week. Well, maybe not that last bit. What the Wall Street Journal actually said was, Four years after winning the Man Booker Prize, novelist Marlon James returns with a sweeping fantasy epic steeped in Pan-African history and folklore—and one of the most anticipated books of the year Sadly Read More …

Storytel partners with airline and ups its reading game with Ztory buy out. Spotify gets into podcasts. Others discuss digital fatigue

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It sometimes seems like the US book market and the rest of the world are on different planets. “Capitalizing on Book Publishing Trends in 2019” is the title of a free webinair from Book Business later this month. I did think about signing up, but when they wanted my address and telephone number as compulsory Read More …

Scribd defies its critics. Hits 1 million subscribers

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It all seemed so improbable just a few years ago, when many believed Scribd would follow Oyster into oblivion as Amazon moved into the ebook subscription game. And then of course there’s all that nonsense about how people are reading less nowadays and how the digital reading fad has faded and how… By the logic Read More …

Romania’s biggest online bookstore sold 1.5 million books in 2018

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With a population close to 20 million Romania is by no means one of Europe’s smallest book markets, but often is overlooked by publishers outside the country looking to maximise reach and revenues. Yet Romania has a vibrant online book sector, with Libris leading the online print stores and Elefant the dominant ebook player in Read More …

Kindle’s Islamabad Children Literature Festival concludes in Pakistan, but no, it was nothing to do with Amazon

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When we in the west hear the word kindle we immediately think of ebooks and reading.  After ten years in which Kindle has become as synonymous with e-readers as Hoover has with vacuum cleaners that’s a natural association. So when someone tipped me off that Amazon was involved in a children’s book fair in Pakistan, Read More …

Amazon Prime Video launches on UAE’s du while global ebook ambitions remain on the shelf

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We’re now well into our fifth year without a new Kindle store being launched – the last was the Netherlands in November 2014 – and there seems little prospect of any new Kindle store launches in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile Amazon Prime Video is available pretty much everywhere in the world, and this week comes Read More …

Looking Ahead: The Manila International Book Fair September 2019

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I frequently hear from TNPS readers that they wish they’d known about a particular book fair, festival or other literary event and its background in advance so they could have attended, or organised something on social media to mark the occasion. So this will be the first of an occasional series looking at events well Read More …

Is China now the biggest book market, redux. Alibaba says 30 million new Chinese readers were added in 2018

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While one report citing a $55 billion value for the Chinese book market cannot be taken as gospel, a new report from China’s online giant Alibaba adds weight to the possibility the USA’s claim to be the world’s largest book market is now out of date. As reported here at TNPS a few days ago, Read More …

“Realising Africa’s Potential as a Global Publishing Leader in the 21st century” will require abandoning 20th century attitudes towards publishing

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The International Publishers Association Seminar on Sustainable Development for African Publishers 2019 will be hosted in Nairobi on June 14-15 with the theme “Realising Africa’s Potential as a Global Publishing Leader in the 21st Century.” James Murua has the scoop on this story, so I defer first to the James Murua African Literature Blog for Read More …

In 2018 750,000 digital book downloads a day went uncounted by Nielsen Bookscan and Data Guy’s BookStat, fuelling the nonsense that people are reading less

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Regulars here at TNPS will not have been surprised that Rakuten OverDrive last year surpassed the quarter billion download mark, serving 274 million digital books to eager consumers through its global library distribution service. While the USA is by far the bigger client country of OverDrive we should remember that the company delivers digital books Read More …

Print Sales Top 700 Million Units for first time since 2010

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NPD Bookscan has reported 2018 print sales at 707.4 million, the highest since 2010. Michelle Obama’s Becoming played a big role in that, and of course in previous years it’s been JK Rowling. Nice to know, in this era of diversity in publishing, that women authors are keeping the industry afloat. Over at Publishers Lunch Read More …