On FutureBook, Robin Harvie of publisher Aurum Press has a brief post talking about “how things got better for e-book only publishing.” He’s discussing a 26,000-word e-book publication, Things Can Only Get Bitter: The Lost Generation of 1992, about the watershed 1992 Tory victory in UK elections, of which this month year marks the 20th anniversary: It may be a coincidence, but in the same week that it was announced that Century had bought 50 Shades of Grey, the surprise worldwide eBook hit, the emails started landing in our Camden office. The New Statesman agreed to...

The Bookseller reports on a Bowker UK survey that the overall value of consumer book purchases in the UK has dropped 9% since 2008. Bowker blames the decrease on the rise of e-books—even though people are buying more e-books, the price of the e-books tends to be lower (especially since so many of them are self-published). E-books made up 5% of consumer book purchases by volume in the fourth quarter of 2011, but only 3% of the book market by value. According to Bowker, that low average e-book price is due not least to purchases from...

Earlier today, I blogged Mike Shatzkin’s post that bookstores may be going away and it might be a good idea for publishers to do more to keep them around. In that post, Shatzkin mentioned a statistic that 40% of all UK “high street” shops might have gone away within 5 years. I came across a possible example of that sort of thing today on PaidContent. It seems that the largest European plastic-box video game retailer, Game Group, is in financial trouble. It has closed 277, almost half, of its 609 UK and Ireland stores, and has called in administrators...

A brief piece on PaidContent by Laura Hazard Owen today covered the Barnes & Noble Nook Development Conference at Mobile Monday London. B&N didn’t really say much about when or if the Nook would be available internationally. The company did say it had no plans to open stores outside the US, and has not confirmed the rumors that it will be partnering with Waterstones to sell the Nook in the UK. This led to some puzzlement about the event in posts on Twitter—why was B&N recruiting developers in the UK if its devices weren’t even available there? Of course,...

From JISC Collections: The British Library and JISC eCollections have announced the launch of JISC Historic Books, a new website developed by Mimas for researchers and students that includes recently digitised editions of more than 65,000 books from the British Library’s extensive 19th century collections. Amounting to more than 25 million pages, the resource spans subject areas including philosophy, history, poetry and literature, with the original typeface, illustrations and fold-out pages for each book. Many rare or inaccessible books published between 1789 and 1914 are now digital, discoverable and searchable for the first time, enabling their use by many more scholars than...

On The Bookseller’s blog, Ed Handyside of UK publisher Myrmidon Books complains that the price of a standard paperback in the UK has not risen with inflation—six years ago it was £7.99, and today it is still £7.99 (US$10.52). Since the publisher’s recommended retail price is printed on the cover of the book, this means that booksellers cannot raise prices to account for inflation—so they take their margin out of the publishers’, writers’, and agents’ share instead. Handyside writes: Book prices must be allowed to rise organically and incrementally. Booksellers themselves must be allowed and...

From a BML Bowker Announcement: While the majority of the U.K.’s undergraduate students are now using e-books, none are yet relying on them as a primary source of information. Print continues its hold as a key resource for at least two-thirds of students. That’s one of the key findings of a major new study that explores student information sources in the digital world from the book research experts at BML, a Bowker business. The study was conducted in December 2011 and shows significant change since 2003 when BML conducted similar research. [Clip] Indeed, the study plots a variety of changes and pace at...

More proof, if any was needed, that writers write for more reasons than just money. J.K. Rowling, who could live comfortably off of Harry Potter even if she never wrote another word in her life, has announced she will be publishing an adult novel later this year. There is no word yet as to what the book will be about or even what genre it will be in, but Rowling is publishing it through Hachette’s Little, Brown imprint in both the US and UK, and other Hachette companies worldwide. Notably, Little, Brown will have the e-book as well as...

Really fascinating glimpse of the development of the UK ebook business from BML/Bowker (as a teaser for their annual conference in March): The survey also looks at how the e-book industry fares by genre. The adult fiction market saw spectacular e-book growth in 2011, up from 2.8% of purchases in the four weeks ending 26th December 2010 to 12.5% in the four weeks to 27th November 2011. But again, as e-books are being bought for lower prices, they accounted for only 7.1% of adult fiction spending in the latest period via Bowker – British Book Buyers are Switching to “e” from Print and...

From a BML/ProQuest News Release: E-book sales are rising to offset a decline in physical book purchases, but only in volume. With the lower price points of e-books versus their print counterparts, the value of book sales is shrinking.” “The Books & Consumers survey shows that in the 48 weeks ending 27th November 2011, compared to the same period the previous year, British consumers’ purchases of physical books declined by 4%, with value down some 6%. However, with e-book purchases included, the total consumer book market grew very slightly in volume terms, up 0.4%, with a market value drop of 3% overall. “The survey...

The BBC reports that the UK government’s Department for Education is launching a reading contest for 7 to 12 year olds. (Press release.) The idea is to get kids hooked on reading for pleasure—a good intention to be sure. [Schools Minister Nick] Gibb said: "Children should always have a book on the go. The difference in achievement between children who read for half an hour a day in their spare time and those who do not is huge - as much as a year's education by the time they are 15." (It’s worth...

From The Bookseller: Nearly a quarter of all books sold on Hive since October have been digital, Gardners has revealed. The book wholesaler launched the consumer-facing site in June, linking with 350 independent booksellers and giving them the much called-for ability to compete with larger, chain retailers in selling e-books. In September, the company announced it would be the first UK platform with the capability to sell Google e-books and now Hive says nearly 25% of all sales through Hive have been digital. However, the company would not give exact sales figures and Google declined to give an update on its digital book...