TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Britain’ Category

By Paul Biba

From the press release:

The Random House Group is delighted to announce that Graham Greene’s best-loved titles will soon be available in ebook format for the first time.

Greene is one of the most versatile, prolific, popular and successful British authors of the twentieth century. By his own admission, Greene wrote both ‘entertainments’ and ‘serious novels’. An editor, essayist, playwright and novelist, Greene’s most famous works include Brighton Rock (1938), The Power and the Glory (1940), The Quiet American (1955), Our Man in Havana (1958) and The Honorary Consul (1973). Many of his novels have been turned into films, including the ever-popular The Third Man (1949) and more recently a new version of Brighton Rock starring Helen Mirren and Sam Riley, which will be released in 2011.

Twenty-four of Greene’s novels will be published in ebook format on 2 October 2010 – the anniversary of Greene’s birth – along with two collections of short stories, the Collected Essays and Collected Plays and an ebook edition of Journey Without Maps. The latter will be available simultaneously as a new Vintage Classics print edition, with a foreword by Tim Butcher and an introduction by Paul Theroux. A further seven titles will be published in ebook format in 2011.

The ebooks will be available to readers across the UK and Commonwealth (including Canada) and can be read on PCs, Macs, laptops, the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices. They are published by Vintage Classics, an imprint of The Random House Group, which is also the home of Graham Greene’s print titles. …

Award-winning author Tim Butcher, who retraced Greene’s steps in Journey Without Maps for his book Chasing the Devil (Chatto & Windus) said: “Throughout his career Graham Greene was a great supporter of innovation – he was one of the first full-time film critics in Fleet Street, he embraced reading clubs long before it was fashionable and he was as happy writing screenplays as he was novels. I am certain he would have approved keenly of ebooks and been proud to have his titles published in e-format.”

By Paul Biba

From the press release:

Poole Literary Festival in partnership with the Media School at Bournemouth University has established a prize for new media writing. The prize creates an exciting opportunity for writers working with new media to showcase their skills, provoke discussion and raise awareness of new media writing and the future of the written word. The competition deadline is approaching rapidly, with a cut-off point of Midday (GMT – UK time) on 15 September for entries.

There are two awards, one for Best New Media Writing and one for Best Student New Media Writing. Prizes will be awarded at a prestigious Awards Ceremony on 31 October 2010. Please ensure all entries are received by the closing date. This is very important as in the interests of fairness to all entrants exceptions cannot be made for late submissions.

Entry details:

HYPERLINK “http://www.poolelitfest.com/new-media-prize.php” http://www.poolelitfest.com/new-media-prize.php

The judges of the New Media Writing Prize have a blog at:

HYPERLINK “http://www.newmediawritingprize.co.uk/” http://www.newmediawritingprize.co.uk/

Poole Literary Festival:

HYPERLINK “http://www.poolelitfest.com/index.php” http://www.poolelitfest.com/index.php

By Paul Biba

According to The Booksellser, Hachett UK says that ebooks are about 8% of new title volumes sales in publication month. Year to date Hachette’s ebook sales are 5 times what they were in 2009.

Although this is still far off the figures quoted by Amazon, it seems likely the gap between digital and print is closing: in the first quarter of 2010, hardbacks accounted for 20.3% of the UK print market by volume, according to Nielsen.

“As we see in the US, things are changing rapidly,” said Walkley [of Hachette], adding he “certainly” believed e-books would outsell hardbacks in the UK. Much depends on the book and the author and, in some cases, the genre—some authors already have big bestsellers in e-books in the US and it will happen in the UK

too.”

By Paul Biba

It’s located in Canterbury at the University of Kent’s Templeman Library. It has a library, archive, and exhibition gallery, and is dedicated to the history of British cartooning over the last two hundred years. The BCA holds the artwork for more than 150,000 British editorial, socio-political, and pocket cartoons, supported by large collections of comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines. The collection of artwork dates back to 1904 and includes work by W.K. Hasleden, Will Dyson, Strube, David Low,Vicky, Emmwood, Michael Cummings, Ralph Steadman, Mel Calman, Nicholas Garland, Chris Riddell, Carl Giles, Martin Rowson, and Steve Bell, amongst many others.

The BCA Gallery is located within the Templeman Library, and is freely open without appointment during library hours. If you would like to carry out research in the BCA collections, or talk to a member of staff, the office is open on weekdays between 9.00am and 5.00pm.

You can find their website here. Thanks to Bookofjoe for the heads up.

By Chris Meadows

It seems that not just school libraries are in danger of being considered “luxuries.” A Chicago Fox News story (found via BoingBoing) casts a gimlet eye on the Windy City’s public libraries, which Chicago finances to the tune of $120 million per year—2.5% of yearly property taxes.

The article wonders whether libraries are necessary now that the Internet and e-books are around, and whether the money could be better spent elsewhere. The reporter says she spent an hour in Chicago’s Harold Washington Library, one of the largest and busiest libraries in the nation, and counted 300 patrons, most of them using Internet resources rather than bookshelves. As if that’s supposed to prove anything.

As news stories go, this is really just a puff piece. And it’s Fox News on top of that, whose slogan “fair and balanced” I am unable to say aloud without making little finger-quotes around it. It’s impossible to extrapolate from this piece to say for sure whether the Chicago libraries really are in danger of having their budgets cut.

But over in the UK, it may be a different story. In the last month or so, the Bookseller has reported that the PLR (Public Lending Right), the program that pays writers when their books are checked out from public libraries, may be in danger under the current budget crunch. A coalition of publishing-industry groups is forming to try to defend it.

Apart from lending books, public libraries are vitally necessary for the services they provide to people who can’t afford computers or Internet service of their own. Hopefully they can weather the current fiscal situation relatively unscathed.

Related: Peggy Kessenger: ‘Libraries are nearing extinction’

By Paul Biba

Here they are, according to the Bookseller:

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Doubleday/Transworld)
2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate)
3. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Bantam Press)
4. Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster (Faber)
5. An Utterly Impartial History of Britain by John O’Farrell (Black Swan)
6. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Canongate)
7. Making Money by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday)
8. The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett (Corgi)
9. Train to Trieste by Domnica Radulescu (Black Swan)
10. To Heaven by Water by Justin Cartwright (Bloomsbury)

By Paul Biba

The Inquirer is reporting that the Kindle has been cut in price to £180. In a rather arcane discussion of Kindle pricing the Inquirer says:

The Kindle was first available for UK consumers in October 2009, and for that quarter and the next UK buyers had an exchange rate of about 60p to the dollar. That meant the then $259 Kindle was priced at a mere £155 in the UK. Despite this week’s $70 price cut, the actual saving to the UK consumer, due to the pound having since declined, is only £23. Today the Kindle will cost £132.

But on top of that, UK consumers, with their weak pound, have higher shipping costs and then there is an ‘import fee deposit’, which is now set at £28.02. It is not clear if the exchange rate affects that too.

Ordering through Amazon.com today will mean the $189 price becomes £132.70 with Amazon’s 70p to the dollar exchange rate. But then a power adaptor will also be needed, adding $19.99 or £14.03, bringing the basic cost up to £146. For shipping, priority international courier seems to be the only option, adding a further £18.93, but that is then reduced by a £10.53 “promotion applied”. However an “import fees deposit” of £28.02 brings the final hit on your wallet to just over £183. µ

All this makes perfect sense to you, I presume.

By Paul Biba

According to the Bookseller, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that VAT will not be applied to books and other printed materials. However, the top VAT rate will increase in 2011 from 17.5% to 20% and that means that the price of ebooks and audiobooks could increase.

By Paul Biba

That’s what the Bookseller is reporting.

HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan have consistently scored well, with Chris Evans’ memoir, It’s Not What You Think, priced £3.99, holding onto the top spot for nearly two weeks. It was knocked off on Wednesday morning by Peter James’ £1.99 Quick Read Perfect Murder. The print a.s.p. of Evans’ book is £5.37, while James’ book is £1.98. Gordon Ramsay’s Humble Pie (HarperCollins) is £1.99 on the iBookstore, where it is fourth, but has a print a.s.p. of £7.74.

As The Bookseller went to press on Wednesday (9th June), the two publishers had six of the top 20 paid-for titles apiece. Within the top 20, Penguin has benefited from reduced prices for The Big Short (£15.99 versus £17.97), Berlin (£7.99 against £8.86) and Freakonomics (£7.99 compared to £8.55).

Conversely, Hachette, which has two of the top 20 iBooks, has plumped for smaller discounts. Stephenie Meyer’s The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner costs £8.99 through the iPad—where it is fifth—while the print a.s.p. is £5.72. Meyer’s Twilight, which is currently 11th, costs £6.99 on the iBookstore, while it is priced £4.85 in print.

By Chris Meadows

Reuters reports that Penguin and Amazon have come to an agreement allowing Penguin’s books to be sold for the Kindle once again. Penguin’s books had been absent since the April 1st agency pricing implementation deadline, a period of almost two months.

The international iBookstore has launched—people in England who already own iPads can download the iBooks application and access the store as of May 26th, two days before the iPad’s official May 28th launch. However, at the moment only public-domain titles from Project Gutenberg are available—no commercial titles yet. The Bookseller reports negotiations with publishers are still ongoing.

We all know about reading e-books on the iPhone, but what about keeping track of p-books? That’s the purpose of BookLover, a 99-cent iPhone application that lets you keep a list of books you want to read, or have read. It will even download metadata and cover image, and allow you to take notes, bookmarks, reviews, and so on, and even share information via Facebook or e-mail.

E-book library lending is a bit newer in the UK than in America. The local paper for Barnet, Hertfordshire reports that since the service was added to the local library in February, patrons have checked out nearly 1,000 e-books. The Barnet Council is now looking into adding audiobooks and additional e-book titles.

By Chris Meadows

The Bookseller’s “FutureBook” blog reports on the results of The Bookseller’s third annual survey of UK consumer reading habits—with some figures that show that digital is definitely on British citizens’ minds.

But apparently dedicated readers aren’t so much. Only 26% of the survey participants had ever heard of a Kindle, 41% the Sony Reader—but 60% had heard of the iPad at the time the survey was done in March. (The iPad is scheduled to launch in the UK on Friday.) And 70% said they would either definitely or likely not buy an e-reading device in the coming year.

The only way forward I can see for a dedicated e-reader is to drive price down. After Friday, who would want to buy an e-reader (particularly a monochrome one), when you can get an iPad for around the same ball-park price-wise, and it will play video, surf the web etc? And our survey backs that up. The main driver for customers who said they could be persuaded to buy an e-book was that if it ‘cost less than £100.’ Over to you, Amazon and Sony.

Of course, the UK market has not had as great a focus on e-books as the USA has, which could partly explain the results. But still, it seems as if there as here, it might take the release of the iPad to really turbocharge the e-book market.

By Chris Meadows

MediaBistro’s eBookNewser and GalleyCat have been putting together a directory of good Twitter accounts to follow for e-book news. Gratifyingly, our very own Paul Biba tops their list. Thanks for the mention, MediaBistro!

Engadget reports that Amazon and ASUS are teaming up to pre-install the Kindle Reader software on some of the netbooks and laptops ASUS sells through Amazon. Engadget speculates that the pre-installation might extend to ASUS’s forthcoming Eee Pad tablet, but expects to hear more about that at an upcoming industry event.

Also found on Engadget, Amazon’s Kindle 2.5 software is now rolling out to Kindle 2 and DX devices. This update includes implementation of a “Collections” feature, improvement in how the devices handle PDFs, a new “huge” font size, and social networking integration. Still no sign of EPUB capability, alas. We covered the update’s contents in more detail a few days ago.

By Chris Meadows

Caren Milloy, head of research for British digital technology thinktank JISC, has a piece on Research Information about the different ways students are using e-books than they are printed books.

E-books are helping turn students into researchers. The convenience of online access allows users to view e-books off campus and throughout the day and night to find information on the move. The user doesn’t immerse themselves continuously as they might in a printed book. Instead they use e-books to find facts quickly – using research type skills to skim and scan the information to extract it for their assignments.

She suggests that, since the way e-books are being used is so different from p-books, the two are probably used in tandem, rather than switching to e-books at print books’ expense.

Milloy then notes that it is important to find business models that take these different use cases into account. She mentions that college use-cases for e-books are different in America than in the UK, then talks about the long-term study JISC is undertaking to determine the best way for libraries to make e-books available.

It is good to see this sort of forward-thinking research project at work. I’m not sure how much overlap this will have with commercial e-book vendors, but anything that helps to create a working ecosystem for e-books of any kind is worth keeping an eye on.

(Found via TheDigitalReader.)

By Chris Meadows

Recently, the Frontline Club held a roundtable discussing the issue of newspapers and paywalls. Present, among others, were representatives from the Financial Times, which recently instituted a paywall, and Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London, which will be doing so soon.

British journalist and blogger Adam Tinworth was present, and writes of a considerable disconnect between the newspaper representatives and the rest of the audience. When the audience brought up social sharing, the paper reps talked about “being on as many platforms as possible”.

The message seemed to be clear – the majority of the audience, and the remaining two panelists, thought that the social web was important, the national newspaper representative did not.

William Owen of the “Made by Many” blog observes and expounds upon three fallacies that still govern much newspaper thinking:

1. that the internet is free because of a mix of habit and a spurious moral right, and that if you can change habits and challenge morality we’ll go back to paying for content.
2. that a newspaper’s competition is other newspapers.
3. that nothing else changes, content is still just the end product of the publishing process.

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By Chris Meadows

Remember the public domain e-book cartridge that was made available for the Nintendo DS?

Now British children’s author Anthony Horowitz is publishing three selected horror stories from his forthcoming collection, More Bloody Horowitz, as digital downloads through Nintendo’s DSi Ware download service at a cost of 200 points. The article on TheBookseller.com indicates that would be equal to £2, though the same amount of points would cost only $2 in America. There is no indication this e-book will be available in America, however.

Horowitz said: "I think it’s great that my horror stories are going to be available on the DSiWare service. It’s the best of both worlds . . . the fun and interactivity of a computer game combined with the pleasure of reading. This is definitely the way forward."

I was curious about what he meant by interactivity, so I searched on “Flips”, the line of digital children’s books for the DSi from Electronic Arts that launched in December and I somehow didn’t hear about—perhaps because they seem to be exclusive to the UK.

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By Chris Meadows

The Nieman Journalism Lab has an interesting report looking at the BBC’s new link policy for its online news site. While the conventional wisdom might be to link to as few other sites as possible, especially other news sources one might see as direct competitors (after all, why give your traffic away?), the BBC is actually planning to double the number of outbound links from its site by 2013.

As BBC News website editor Steve Herrmann puts it:

Related links matter: They are part of the value you add to your story – take them seriously and do them well; always provide the link to the source of your story when you can; if you mention or quote other publications, newspapers, websites – link to them; you can, where appropriate, deep-link; that is, link to the specific, relevant page of a website.

Herrmann is interested in making his site as useful as possible to its readers—and this makes a lot of sense. If someone wants to know more about a story than you are able to report, if you don’t drop the link in they’ll just go google it—and will be annoyed at the extra effort required.

But if you provide them with a good start on learning more themselves, they’ll remember you helped them out and be that much likelier to come back again.

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