“Hi everyone, and thanks for tuning in! Welcome to another episode of Publishing Hypocrisy … the game where we show both faces of the bookselling industry!” “Our first contestant tonight - is Jane from Melbourne! Hi Jane.” [Applause] “Hi, Brad! I’m a bit nervous!” “Jane! [Pulls her in close] You’ve got nothing to worry about – you know exactly how the game works … You pick a topic and then simply rank three examples of modern publishing and bookselling hypocrisy in order of heinousness – and hilarity.” “Let’s go to the big board! And you folks at home - don’t forget to play along!” “Well...

Colour me excited. In recent months, a few things have happened in our sunburnt country that have left it teetering on the brink of the ebook mainstream. And they said it would never happen in our backwards, sundrenched, animals-made-from-bits-of-other-animals land. So look out North America, Britain and others … Here are five reasons why we’re about to enter the ebook big-time. (Please suppress any laughter – we’re painfully aware you’ve been enjoying these conditions for years). 1. Amazon just dropped the “Whispernet tax” for Aussies Early this week, some eagle-eyed readers here noticed that books they had on their Kindle wishlists got $A2...

Little more than a day since the launch of paid Aussie titles in Apple’s local iBookstore, Borders has hit back with price cuts across their ebook range. Due to the “old publishing” paradigm of geographical restriction, Borders in Australia can’t formally guarantee to beat Amazon’s price on ebooks, as they do (incl. postage) with paper books. However, a quick check of Borders.com.au reveals that they are selling most books cheaper than Amazon. Parent company REDgroup Retail is the first to sign all of Australia’s major publishers to ebook deals, as well as many of the small indie publishers missing from the iBookstore. In...

Yesterday’s announcement of the first Australian paid content released into Apple’s iBookstore has been met with a mixed response locally. In a market only boasting one major player – REDgroup Retail, with their Angus & Robinson and Borders/Kobo offering – the more the merrier, right? Maybe. Some are worried about Apple propensity to adopt the “agency model” of ebook pricing. Some are underwhelmed by Apple’s initial range, which is said to be 40,000 titles, 10,000 of which are self-published Smashwords books. And others have expressed disappointment at the prices, which seem to be commonly $A12 or above. (Keep in mind the...

The Australian iBookstore is finally open, five months after the iPad's release in that country. The store will be offering books by Macmillan, Hachette, HarperCollins, Hardie Grant, Murdoch Publishers and Wylie. HarperCollins has said that its full ebook catalog of local and international titles will be available in the store. Hachette Australia will be making its ebooks available to the store under the agency model and ebooks and print books will be available simultaneously. Of course, as reported below, Smashwords will be in the store as well....

This is great news for Smashwords authors and publishers, who now gain access to the fast-growing Australian ebook market. In addition to Australia, Smashwords is an authorized Apple aggregator supplying Apple iBookstores in Canada, France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. Just yesterday I returned from a five week speaking tour to Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. Unlike in the U.S., where ebooks now account for nearly 10 percent of the overall trade book market (and a greater percentage of unit volume), ebooks account for probably under percent of the book markets in Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. In other words,...

Upbeat outlook Despite all the RED(group) ink, the firm’s communications manager Malcolm Neil said the company was “relatively happy with the result in a tough market”. “We took $30m in writedowns, and a large part of that was CD and DVD inventory,” he said. REDgroup's balance sheet also suffered under the weight of a $24m interest payment on borrowing. They also announced a refinancing deal, as Bookseller + Publisher is reporting... Backed by its long-term bank BOS International and new financier Fortress Investment Group that will ‘refinance REDgroup's senior debt to December 2012' and redeem its NZX listed Retail Notes (valued at NZ$35...

Just got an email from the team behindBooki.sh – a new in-browser HTML5 ebook-reading platform. They’re out of Melbourne – Come on, Aussies! – and they’ve used open-source HTML5 Monocle software to create a nice way to read ebooks in you browser – any browser – and/or on your phone. Is it a platform or a bookstore, or both? "A little bit of both," says Joseph Pearson, the software guru behind the project. "Booki.sh is a platform that will power the ebook stores for a number of independent booksellers. Since it doesn't require a particular device and doesn't lock users to a...

Two days ago I had a long exchange with REDgroup Retail’s head of publicity, Malcolm Neil, about the company’s efforts in almost single-handedly dragging the country into the ebook era You can read the post here, but the upshot is that they are currently chasing a deal with Hachette, who are the only publishers in Australia yet to sign a deal to supply ebooks to REDgroup’s brands Borders.com.au, Angus & Robertson and Whitcoulls in New Zealand. A few months ago, the knives were out for REDgroup. A story about their finances broke, was largely beaten up to sound more serious than it...

 Much has been said, often, about how Amazon once automatically deleted, from Kindles, books that had been illegally uploaded -- and Jeff Bezos, in his forum apology, termed it "stupid, thoughtless" and a "self-inflicted" problem for which he said they deserved the criticism they got. In a later court hearing, Amazon gave legal assurances they'd not be doing that again, and before the hearings, Communications Director Drew Herdener had said they were changing their systems so that this situation wouldn't be repeated. Despite all this, hardly a day passes without online discussions...

Hold onto your hats, folks. We have raw data on the Australian digital book industry. Yes – actual data. Which really means we have data on Borders. Locally, Borders are the only ebookseller that has made decent progress in collecting “the full set”. That is, signing contracts with every major of Australian publisher to sell their ebooks. The fact that we are nearing the end of 2010 and no-one has cracked this yetis distressing. But we’ll ignore that whine for now. In talking with harassing REDgroup Retail head of publicity Malcolm Neil, I’ve weasled some data out of him about how many...

From the press release: Ingram Content Group Inc. today announced it will expand its presence in the Asia-Pacific market by establishing a full-scale Lightning Source print-on-demand book manufacturing operation in Australia. “The expansion of our Lightning Source global print solution into Australia is a significant step in the ongoing mission of Ingram Content Group to help content reach its destination swiftly and efficiently to retailers and readers worldwide,” said David “Skip” Prichard, President and CEO, Ingram Content Group. “This expansion of Ingram’s global presence, from the United Kingdom to France and now Australia, provides publishers with expanded market reach and sales...