eBook Rumors – Page 265 – Rumors about eBooks, eReaders, and Digital Publishing

Apr 20

Romance titles account for 50% or Smashwords’ sales

Citing a recent survey, Galleycat says that while Fiction accounts for 89.5% of overall sales at the Smashwords Indie publishing platform, 50% of them are Romance titles.

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Apr 19

Supreme Court passes on Google book copying case

Digital Book World reports on the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to review the fair use finding in the ten-year-old book copying case against Google.

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Apr 17

Russian platform vKontakte going after eBook pirates

TorrentFreak reports that Russian social networking platform vKontakte is FINALLY cracking down on eBook piracy. The marketplace expected that there would be some eBook piracy, but things are out of control.

And up until now, it seemed there was very little being done about it. Let’s hope this is just the first of many efforts to slow the torrent of pirated eBooks.

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Apr 15

OverDrive signs 500 new publishers

Digital Book World reports that industry-leading distribution platform for eBooks and audiobooks OverDrive has added 500 new publishers to its Global eBook Catalog.

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Apr 14

Amazon veers away from democratized eBook reading

Techspective continues the discussion about the expensive new Kindle Oasis eReader as Amazon increases the price of reading an eBook by adding bells and whistles few have asked for.

The Oasis is a good looking piece of hardware, but the online retail giant has forgotten it once championed the low cost, convenience and accessibility of eBooks. Forget “even playing field” and “democratizing” publishing. Who’s going to read a $16 eBook on a $379 (without ads) eReader?

Ironically, Kindle2 first hit the market priced at $379 (without ads) back in 2010. So, has Amazon lost its way, or is it finally getting back to its original game plan?