In addition to promoting childhood obesity, McDonald’s in the UK is now promoting childhood literacy. Until February 7th, in cooperation with England’s National Literacy Trust, all UK McDonald’s locations will be distributing print copies of the popular UK children’s series Mudpuddle Farm by Michael Morpurgo as a free Happy Meal “toy”. A 2011 survey showed that 33% of British children do not own a book, according to the National Literacy Trust. This program is meant to help remedy that by putting an actual printed book, rather than a cheap plastic toy, in the hands of young would-be readers....

Digitization of public-domain works is a good thing, right? Most literature fans would be quick to agree. However, Glyn Moody writes on Techdirt that some of the new public digitization projects have terms and conditions that seem to be right out of the dark ages. The Cambridge University’s Digital Library, for example, places strict limits on what users can do with the books—non-commercial use only, no modification, no passing it on to third parties, and so on. A number of the works in Cambridge’s library date from well before the 1710 Statute of Anne invented modern copyright, suggesting that...

Dan Gillmor, who we’ve mentioned here a number of times, has an article in the UK paper The Guardian about high American e-book prices, and how they have helped him rediscover his local library and used bookstores. When new ebooks were $10, I was buying them all the time. In almost all cases, book purchases are impulse buys – something you want to have, right now. I was buying new best-sellers at a rapid rate, and happy to do so. (The books I bought this way tended to be mysteries and thrillers – the kind...

After the matter came up in Parliament last week, the UK has once again declined to lower the value-added tax on e-books, which currently stands at 20%. The Bookseller reports David Gauke, the UK’s exchequer secretary, said the UK could not do this and remain in compliance with European Union law, which classes electronic media as services rather than goods and requires they be taxed at the higher rate. Other European countries, including France and Luxembourg, have reduced their own VATs on e-books significantly. France has told its publishers it will pay any fines the EU imposes on them for flouting...

FutureBook’s Philip Jones has a piece looking at the problems of value-added tax (VAT) on e-books in Europe. The fundamental problem is that, in the UK, e-books are charged the highest possible VAT rate, 20%, while print books have been exempt from VAT for decades. Other parts of Europe are in similar situations. This has the effect of inflating the price of e-books and slowing down their adoption compared to paper. When Parliament member Tom Blenkinsop asked the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer about reducing or eliminating VAT for e-books, the Chancellor said, essentially, that under EU agreements...

The Bookseller reports that Theresa Horner, vice-president for digital content at Barnes & Noble, has announced that the Nook will be coming to the United Kingdom in the “not too distant future.” Though B&N hasn’t determined whether it will be partnering with a UK company or creating its own UK presence, it is seriously considering expanding now that it has created “a successful platform in the US to work from.” There has been speculation B&N might partner with the Waterstone’s chain, since having a print bookstore to work from would be beneficial to an e-reader. However, the company has...

FutureBook carries a review of a BBC program on that old e-cliché, the Death Of The Book. Called “Books – The Last Chapter?”, the program is available on BBC’s iPlayer, but only for people in the UK. Judging from review writer Philip Jones’s description, it doesn’t sound like I’m missing very much. Jones notes that the show started from the position that it was a sad thing that print books were on the way out, and went on from there. It seems to have some rather odd blind spots, such as not really looking at why readers were...

A couple of popular British novel series, one for children and one decidedly not, are coming to e-books, The Bookseller reported last week. The children’s series is Paddington Bear, the adventures of a small, talking bear named for the London railway station where he was found. The series already has a £3.99 (US $6.23) multimedia iPad/iPhone app, which among other things will let parents record video readings of the story, and children take photos of themselves “with” Paddington to send to family and friends. HCB said the digital adaptation had been done "carefully" to...

The new chair of the UK-based Society of Authors, Lindsey Davis, has said that she is going to focus on pressing for a better e-book royalty rate during her two-year term, the Bookseller  reports. Davis said: "Naturally I follow the well-warmed footsteps of my King Wenceslas predecessor Tom Holland and believe we should claim 30% e-book royalties, and that higher than that would be right. It is important that we remember that when we signed our e-books away it was with a review period of two years—and those two years are now up. We must make...

Following up an earlier story about Penguin withholding library e-books in the UK as well as the US, The Bookseller reports that the Publishers Association supports Penguin’s decision to withdraw its e-books. PA c.e.o. Richard Mollet said: "Today's announcement [by Penguin UK] underlines what the Publishers Association has been saying for some time about the risks around e-lending. Whilst publishers are and always have been fully supportive of libraries, it also has to be recognised that in this still developing area, it is right to be concerned about the security of digital files in the...

The Bookseller has a feature interview with James Daunt, the new managing director of UK bookstore Waterstone’s. Daunt talks about his impressions of the future of the book and e-book, and why publishers are still important in the modern publishing landscape. Daunt thinks that we will continue to read books in multiple ways, on a number of different platforms including paper. Paper will not disappear, but we will read a lot more digitally than we have been. And with so many other distractions available on tablet devices at the swipe of a finger, books will face a challenge competing...

As Amazon goes, so goes Kobo? A report from CBC suggests that would seem to be the case. Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis says that Kobo is developing a publishing arm to offer complete publishing services (including editing and design) for authors who would like to publish through it. It’s not clear from the article whether this service just covers e-books, or is like Amazon’s new publishing division in offering both electronic and print publication services. Either way, it’s one more way e-book-based firms are competing with traditional publishers, though traditional publishers don’t necessarily seem to be worried just yet....