Despite the digital wave sweeping over publishing, some publishers are surprised at how seldom e-books are talked about at this year’s London Book Fair
LONDON: As former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said (and I paraphrase) “there are known knowns, known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns.”
London has been rife with news about e-publishing, oddly, much of it coming from North Americans. On Monday, Canadian e-bookseller Kobo is launching a new local content e-bookstores in Germany and Spain in May, “with local stores for France, Italy and the Netherlands following shortly thereafter.” Amazon has sent over Philip Patrick, a recent hire and their new “senior leader, rights and licensing” (formerly of Random House’s Crown division) to buy up titles, and the e-bookseller has made waves at the Fair with the news that they are on a hiring spree to build out their publishing arm; the e-book developer Sideways is touting the launch of David Roberts’ Egypt, an enhanced e-book app featuring social media interaction…on and on.
When it comes to the UK, the most encouraging news has been that Quercus announced having reached the benchmark of having sold one million pounds worth of e-books — money likely derived almost entirely from the sale of digital editions of Stieg Larsson’s novels.
Speaking to the North Americans here in London, there is the distinct feeling that the UK publishing community has a way to go before they are fully invested in the digital domain.
Read the rest at Publishing Perpectives.
No comments:
Post a Comment