E-Books

Amazon is finally providing some explanation for its ongoing dispute with the publisher Hachette, explaining that it’s taken issue over Hachette’s insistence on pricing ebooks above $9.99. In a note on Tuesday, Amazon explained that it’s not actually looking for a particularly large share of the revenue on ebook sales: it’s only interested in taking Continue Reading →

TechCrunch has learned that Apple has made another acquisition, one that it is using to boost its e-books effort and “beat Amazon at its own game.” It has bought BookLamp, a startup based out of Boise, Idaho, that developed big data-style book analytics services. (Apple has since confirmed the initial report of the acquisition. The Continue Reading →

They include some of the biggest literary names on the planet, among them Stephen King, Donna Tartt, Paul Auster, James Patterson and John Grisham; a Pulitzer prize winner in Jennifer Egan; and four from this year’s Man Booker longlist, Joshua Ferris, Karen Joy Fowler, Siri Hustvedt and Joseph O’Neill. Then there are first-time writers, historians, Continue Reading →

If there was any lingering questions around whether there is a market for monthly ebook subcriptions, Amazon surely went some way towards answering them when it introduced its $9.99 ‘all-you-can-read’ Kindle Unlimited plan last week. While this raised many concerns around the implications for authors’ monetization, it will also have piqued the interest of existing Continue Reading →

When word first got out about Amazon’s (then-rumored) Kindle Unlimited, I was more than a little excited. Unlimited e-books! $10 a month! I’m going to read everything all of the time, forever! When the program actually rolled out, I was underwhelmed. Yes, having access to 600,000 books for $10 a month is a ridiculously good Continue Reading →

So, you’ve signed up for Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited service and now you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by what’s on offer? That’s OK; it’s not often that you’re faced with the sudden availability of over 600,000 digital books to sample at once. If you’ve spent the weekend scrolling through your reading options in a nervous haze, Continue Reading →

True to the webpages uncovered earlier in the week, Amazon has unveiled a new e-book subscription service. Dubbed Kindle Unlimited, the service gives access to both e-books and audiobooks, though with restrictions on the latter. Kindle Unlimited is priced at $9.99 per month with a 30-day free trial, and it allows users to read any Continue Reading →

Apple has agreed to pay $450 million to resolve U.S. state and consumer claims the iPad manufacturer conspired with five major publishers to fix e-book prices, according to court records filed Wednesday. The settlement, which would provide $400 million for consumers, is conditioned on the outcome of a pending appeal of a New York federal Continue Reading →

Amazon is testing an ebook and audiobook subscription service called “Kindle Unlimited” that offers “unlimited access to over 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks on any device for just $9.99 a month.” Most of the test pages were pulled down Wednesday after some users on the Kindle Boards noticed them, but they are still available Continue Reading →

Picking up a book is gratifying: look at me, not reading dumb listicles on the internet! Finishing a book, however, is a challenge. Which of this summer’s top-selling books have the highest reader attrition? Dr. Jordan Ellenberg has a semi-scientific way to find out, using buyer-generated info from Amazon to identify this year’s most unread Continue Reading →