Calling itself part of Europe’s largest minority group (25 million people), the International Roma Writers Union (IRWA) will make its first appearance at the Frankfurt Book fair this year, taking its rightful place as part of Europe’s cultural heritage. According to a press release the International Roma Writers Union is the, only professional organisation for Read More …
One of the elegant beauties of digital is that it drives interest in all books, not just the format. Digital offers consumers new discovery points and streaming services give consumers the chance to try new authors at no risk, that lead to new sales across formats. The latest example comes from Norway where first quarter Read More …
After several years of ebook sales “plateauing” as publishers increased ebook prices to avoid cannibalizing print sales, and audio grabbing the headlines as the only digital format that mattered, ebooks have been gradually edging their way back into the publishing news. This week comes an announcement from the UK’s Canongate that ebook sales were up Read More …
It was never going to stand up to scrutiny, but whenever publisher sales dip an excuse is rolled out to explain it’s not the industry’s fault. Elections, screen fatigue, social media, bingeing on Netflix… Maybe the publishing industry spokesfolk tasked with putting a spin on the bad news should just number the excuses. Sales down Read More …
That headline finding comes from Kinder-Medien-Studie 2019 which took the pleasure pulse of 7.31 million German kids between 4-13 years old and lined up their media consumption habits. That will be Germany, one of the richest nations in the world, where we can safely say the kids have every option available to them when it Read More …
Storytel has added 200,000 new subscribers since the start of 2019, taking it across the one million subscriber threshold as of today, August 12. In a press release marking the occasion Storytel CEO Jonas Tellander said, I am extremely moved and very thankful for the fantastic response Storytel receives every day from people all over Read More …
Eurocon, the convention of the European Science Fiction Society, is being held in Belfast, Northern Ireland this year, from August 22-25, and the Romania sci-fi journal Helion has just published the Romanian nominations. The nominations come from the Romanian Association of Science Fiction Authors and Clubs, which organises the National Science Fiction Conventions. The European Read More …
Malta’s National Book Council has announced that the 2019 Malta Book Festival will take place 6-10 November at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta. With a population of just 430,000 it’s not a major logistical challenge but still a remarkable gesture of support for books and reading that the Festival programme will be published in Read More …
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 …
Nowadays we think of Mofibo as the ebook arm of Storytel, but Mofibo has been dominating the European digital books subscription scene since 2013, three years before Jonas Tellander paid $15 million in 2016 to bring the service into the Storytel fold. Now Mofibo founder Morten Strunge is set to take on Apple and Spotify Read More …
It’s one year since Storytel went head to head with Amazon’s Audible in Italy, and so far Storytel are keeping their consumer numbers quiet, but are more profligate with the catalogue figures. Having kicked off with just 1,300 Italian titles and “tens of thousands” of English-language titles it was clear Audible Italy was not going 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 …
Europe’s biggest book fair wound up earlier this month, and the numbers, actually announced a week ago, have just crossed my desk. 2.3 million people turned out to the Madrid Book Fair this year, spending some 10 million euros ($11.4 million) buying 550,000 books, an increase of 14% on 2018. From TNPS in 2018: Last Read More …
After the launch in Singapore earlier this year, Storytel was widely expected to follow through with Brazil and then Germany. South Korea had been confirmed for end of year, and Thailand, while not yet official, the prime candidate for the fifth new market for 2019. Stefan Tegenfalk, Head of Expansion at Storytel, said in a 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 …
We hear it so often it’s easy to start believing it. People are reading less. Nobody is buying books. The publishing industry is doomed. Yet with a handful of exceptions the evidence – if we step outside the oh-so-twentieth-century notion that bookstores are the only barometer of interest in and revenue from books – is Read More …
The 31st Skopje International Book Fair drew to a close this week, and information about the event remains scarce, but hopes were high that visitor numbers would exceed the record 45,000 that attended the 2018 edition. This year the 8-day event, somewhat overshadowed by the Thessaloniki International Book Fair in Greece and the Turin International Read More …
When Jonas Tellander announced Storytel’s plan to moved from a fixed rate payout for publishers to a per-minute-consumed model there was understandable disquiet from publishers, many of whom believed the new model would see their revenue streams cut. And of course some did. Under the old model a one-hour podcast would earn as much for Read More …
Launched last month by LVH Group, a new mobile reading app has taken an unsuspecting world by surprise with a menu of high class erotica written “by women for women” and targeting a global audience. Lady Victoria Howard is a far cry from the pseudo-porn masquerading as erotica that can be found on many mainstream ebook Read More …
