Michael Tamblyn, Kobo Books: Launched December, 2009.  David vs. Goliath story: ecommerce, bricks and mortar, search.  10 months to get 1st million users, 70 days tyo get second million users.  Delivered books to 200 countries, 200 employees.  Year past: 5 things learned - 1. happening faster than we ever thought;  2. price landscape has changed, price tolerance has changed, two peaks $8 and $10 and "agencyland" is much lower in sales, new is price points at $1.99 and $2.99.  Half of low prices are publisher experimentation and the other half is from self-publishing; 3. self-publishing exploded, represents 7% of their...

  There are three events coming up that I hope to cover for you: May 23 - 24 IDPF Digital Book 2011 in New York.  Held in conjunction with BEA May 23 - 26 Book Expo America June 28 - July 1 Romance Writers of America annual conference in New York  ...

Just got an email announcing the speakers for the upcoming annual IDPF conference, which will take place May 23-24.  Looks like an interesting group.  Paid admission to the IDPF event includes free admission to the BookExpo America exhibit hall and trade show.  You can register here and the complete program is here.  According to the site less than 170 seats are left. Here's the speakers list: “The Year of the eBook” - Abe Murray, Google; Yoshinobu Noma, Kodansha “Publishers Roundtable” – Dominique Raccah, Sourcebooks; Richard Nash, Cursor/Red Lemonade (formerly of Soft Skull Press) “Special Keynote: The Mongoliad, Year One - a ground-breaking investigation into...

Just got an email from former IDPF Executive Director Michel Smith saying that Bill McCoy will be his replacement. From the press release: An experienced manager and entrepreneur, Bill most recently served as General Manager, Digital Publishing at Adobe Systems Incorporated. Bill previously served two terms on the IDPF Board of Directors, playing a key role in the development of the IDPF EPUB standard, and has been actively contributing to the development of EPUB3, the forthcoming major revision to the standard....

All the usual caveats apply. ...

From the release: Effective November 19, 2010 Michael Smith will be leaving the IDPF to pursue other opportunities in the digital book space. Mike has volunteered to work with the IDPF through its recruiting efforts and transition to a new Executive Director. It is hoped that this transition will be completed by early January 2011. Michael says: "It has been a pleasure to speak, work, and communicate with IDPF Membership these last three years. The growth of international participation within the IDPF, the burgeoning eBook community, and the continued adoption of EPUB across the globe indicate the best is yet to...

Year to date ebook sales were up 192%. Here are the numbers. Remember, these numbers are always low because a lot of companies don't report and they only represent trade book sales via wholesale channels. The IDPF says the retail numbers can be as much as double the amounts due to industry wholesale discounts. ...

Sales are up - a lot. Trade eBook sales were $40,800,000 for July, a 250% increase over the previous July’s $16,300,000. The previous high was $31,900,000. Remember that the way these figures are compiled understate sales by quite a bit....

The figures from the IDPF show a slight decline in ebook sales in Q2 10, but a huge increase in sales over Q2 09. What a lot of commentators on this subject miss, however, is that the IDPF is very clear about the caveats to these numbers. I will repeat them here: # The data above represent United States revenues only # The data above represent only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts. # The data above represent only data submitted from approx. 12...

The official ePUB logo has been announced. According to their web page the IDPF received 203 entries from 18 different countries, and the contest was won by Ralph Burkhardt from Stuttgart, Germany. You can find more details here. Of course, as a lawyer who has had a fair amount to do with trademarks and intellectual property, I can tell you that this is a fairly meaningless exercise. Unless the IDPF decides to enforce a set of standards on people using ePUB, and then only license those who follow the standard, and then police the standard, the logo has no teeth...

Quarters Revenues Quarters Revenues Quarters Revenues Q1 02 $1,556,499 Q1 06 $4,100,000 Q1 10 $91,000,000 Q2 02 $1,258,989 Q2 06 $4,000,000 Q2 10 Q3 02 $1,329,548 Q3 06 $4,900,000 Q3 10 Q4 02 $1,649,144 Q4 06 $7,000,000 Q4 10 Q1 03 $1,794,544 Q1 07 $7,500,000 Q2 03 $1,842,502 Q2 07 $8,100,000 Q3 03 $1,789,455 Q3 07 $8,000,000 Q4 03 $1,917,384 Q4 07 $8,200,000 Q1 04 $1,794,130 Q1 08 $11,200,000 Q2 04 $1,887,900 Q2 08 $11,600,000 Q3 04 $2,460,343 Q3 08 $13,900,000 Q4 04 $3,477,130 Q4 08 $16,800,000 Q1 05 $3,161,049 Q1 09 $25,800,000 Q2 05 $3,182,499 Q2 09 $37,600,000 Q3 05 $2,310,291