From The Bookseller: Amazon.co.uk increased Kindle e-book sales by five times in its fourth quarter but its parent company Amazon.com announced a sharp fall in profits as it failed to meet analysts' expectations in its financial results today. Meanwhile the company has had a setback in the US, with Barnes & Noble saying they will not stock physical books published by Amazon.com. ... In the UK, Amazon said sales of Kindle e-books in the last three months had increased five-fold in comparison to the same period in 2010 and it received twice as many orders for Kindle...

From The Guardian: The heads of more than 4,000 public libraries across the UK have agreed to national digital standards, which include providing free internet access in every library, and the ability to join a library and renew and reserve items online. The Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) said that National Digital Promise will set the minimum standard for online services provided by public libraries in Wales, England and Northern Ireland. Learn More: National Digital Promise for Public Libraries (via SCL) Key promises made in the National Digital Promise include: free access to the internet in every library (for a minimum period) 24/7 access to a...

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....

From The Bookseller's FUTUReBOOK blog: My colleague Philip Stone has put together a top 50 e-book chart based on our weighted bestseller lists, which appear each week on the FutureBook email. The number one title is Confessions of a GP, the Benjamin Daniels hit that has been in and around the the weekly chart for much of the year, thanks to somesmart pricing decisions and marketing from publisher The Friday Project: in print the book has sold just 8,500 copies in UK, but has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Top 10 1 Confessions of a GP Benjamin Daniels The Friday Project 2 The Girl with...

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...

From The Guardian: The Penguin Shorts progamme, a collection of short digital reads, has just launched with nine titles, ranging from a creepy short story by Dunmore to an essay on multiculturalism from Elif Shafak, accounts of the battles of Alamein and Isandlwana, recipes for the perfect Christmas day from Felicity Cloake and a novella by Anita Brookner. Toby Young has written an essay on How To Set Up a Free School, John Gapper an analysis of rogue trading, Colm Tóibín a memoir of growing up in Ireland. Priced at £1.99 – “approximately the same price as a cup of coffee,” says...

From The Bookseller: Asda will begin selling the Kobo wireless e-reader for £67 this Friday (9th December). The chain is the first supermarket store to sell the Canadian-based retailer’s product, which it is retailing at a discount of £20 off the r.r.p. The supermarket will also sell the Touchscreen Kobo for £107. In October, W H Smith was the first UK retailer to secure a deal to sell Kobo e-readers, but unlike Asda, W H Smith also sells Kobo’s e-books through its website, receiving a cut of every book sold. ... The supermarket said the Kobo was "rapidly becoming a serious contender to the...

Note: Full text search and snippets are free to all. Various payment plans to view full text. Details below. From the Announcement (Also Includes Video and Images): The British Library and online publisher brightsolid today launch a website that will transform the way that people use historical newspapers to find out about the past. The British Newspaper Archive website will offer access to up to 4 million fully searchable pages, featuring more than 200 newspaper titles from every part of the UK and Ireland. The newspapers – which mainly date from the 19th century, but which include runs dating back to the first...

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...