Publishing Trends has an interesting article looking at the problem of manga scanlation, which a number of manga publishers feel is retarding the potential international market for their product. Scanlation, the manga equivalent of fansubbing, has been around for a while, but really kicked into gear around 2007. (I covered this in detail a couple of years ago.) [Kurt Hassler, Publishing Director at Yen Press (Hachette’s manga imprint)] argues that rather than “pushing” manga publishing into the digital age, the genre’s robust digital piracy-base has retarded its progress. As if the challenges of image-rich content weren’t...

In an article that showed up complete in my RSS reader but turned out to be behind a paywall when I tried to click through, The Bookseller reports that a group of 180 Japanese publishers are joining forces under an initiative with a goal of creating 1 million e-books. This may be just a bit optimistic, given how slow the Japanese market has been to develop so far: “Digitising one million books would revolutionise the market here but it is difficult to take that number seriously given that it has taken the Japanese publishers nine years...

In my email this morning, I received a notice from Quora that I had been invited to submit an answer for the following question: Are there any services or business models in which one can trade paperback or hardcover books for digital books, without having to pay full price again? After typing my answer, I thought it was interesting enough to repost here: Not that I've ever heard of—or no model that is legitimate under copyright law, anyway. The idea has been suggested by a number of people as something that publishers should...

On Wired’s Epicenter blog, Tim Carmody writes about why he thinks that the main global e-book competitor Amazon has to worry about is Kobo. He points out that while Amazon and Apple have been making highly visible splashes with their new hardware or e-publishing initiatives, Kobo has quietly been building support from a multinational network of bookseller partners, including major booksellers in England, Hong Kong, and France. And now its acquisition by Rakuten adds all of Rakuten’s previously-existing worldwide digital book and media operations to the Kobo brand. “An e-book reader will ultimately not be only...

Engadget has the press release from Kobo on the completion of its purchase by e-commerce company Rakuten. Kobo’s HQ will remain in Toronto, though Rakuten is based in Japan. Given that Rakuten owns a lot of popular e-commerce and other industry sites already (including e-tailer Buy.com), it has the potential to give Kobo a lot more expansion and marketing opportunities than its erstwhile partner, the late Borders. Will that be enough to let Kobo catch up with Amazon, or even maintain its lead in international areas Amazon doesn’t service yet? That remains to be seen. But if there...

Found this on the Moorcock website.  Dated August 11, 2011, but the links still work and the cause is still important. {Blockquotes omitted.} Edited by Brent MillisKindle ebook: $9.99Print version: TBAThe earth shook. The waters rose. Japan cried out...And we listened. After the devastating earthquake, people from all over the world have found ways to help, and Kizuna: Fiction For Japan is one that is new and unique.Kizuna: Fiction for Japan is a mixed-genre anthology of short fiction, most of it 1000 words or under. It boasts internationally-known authors like Michael Moorcock, Ken Asamatsu, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, John Shirley, Shinya Gaku,...

From Discovery News: “E-books have grown in popularity, but we think they lost the physical features that real books have,” said Yuichi Itoh, an associate professor at Osaka University and project manager for the new device, called “Paranga.” Itoh worked with Osaka University students as well as Worcester Polytechnic Institute alumni to develop the hardware and software for the reader. The device is a mixture of high and low technology. Inspired by flipbooks, the prototype has two facing parts resembling an open-faced book. Page turning is controlled on the right-hand side, which is made from a flexible rubber sheet covered in spongy cloth....

This isn't an ebook, but I'm a lover of Japanese art and I just found out about the publication of this book.  It's an important resource to all us Japanophiles. From the Amazon description: The legendary masterpieces of Hokusai-fifteen volumes in a single chunky book. Hokusai Manga is one of the masterpieces by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), a master of Ukiyo-e art, depicting ordinary people’s lives, animals, plants, landscapes and human figures, historical and supernatural, even demons and monsters, as if it were a visual encyclopedia, amounting to fifteen volumes. Hokusai Manga turned out to be very popular among every class of people,...

From The Bookseller: Tokyo-based consumer research group Net Mile polled over 1,000 men and women on attitudes to e-books in Japan and in China for a survey that reveals stark contrasts between the two. Of the 600 Japanese respondents asked, "Do you use or do you want to use e-books?",  57.7% responded they would "never read an e-book". Of the 450 Chinese respondents, only 4.5% answered the same. While 70% of Chinese respondents said they had already downloaded and read an electronic book at least once, only 10% of Japanese participants in the survey, titled "E-book trends today: a comparison",  said they...

From the press release: Rakuten, Inc. (JASDAQ: 4755) and Kobo Inc. today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Rakuten intends to acquire 100% of total issued and outstanding shares of Kobo for US$315 million in cash. Kobo was founded by and spun out of Indigo, the largest book, gift and specialty toy retailer in Canada, in December, 2009. Since that time, Kobo...

From Publishing Perspectives: On September 15, when Sharp announced that it was suspending production and sales of its much hyped flagship e-reading tablets, called Galapagos, it was seen as proof that Japan would not able to develop an e-book market “in an isolated environment.” That Galapagos failed to survive the first year, many also took it that Sharp was abandoning the proprietary XMDF file format. Why is this important to international readers? Let me explain. RIP Galapagos The XMDF e-book data format, developed by Sharp several years ago, was considered by many in the publishing industry to be the...

From the press release: ACCESS CO., LTD., a global provider of advanced software technologies to the mobile, beyond-PC and digital TV markets, today announced the availability of NetFront™ BookReader v1.0 EPUB Edition, a new, platform-independent eBook reader that features support for EPUB® 3, the latest version of the distribution and interchange format for digital publications and documents developed and maintained by the ...