10:18 AM by fjtorres in E-Book General | News

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...elf-publishing

The success of EL James and her Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy did much to overturn the stereotype of a self-published author. Now academic research further challenges the image of eccentric hobbyists scribbling away in their sheds by revealing that it is middle-aged and well-educated women who dominate the growing e-publishing market.

Alison Baverstock, an associate professor in publishing at Kingston University, Surrey, said her research showed a clear gender split, with 65% of self-publishers being women and 35% men. Nearly two-thirds of all self-publishers are aged 41 to 60, with a further 27% aged over 61. Half are in full-time employment, 32% have a degree and 44% a higher degree.

Baverstock said there was a widespread misunderstanding about who decides to self-publish a book, and how the genre was changing the publishing industry.

Nicola Solomon, chief executive of the Society of Authors, said that self-publishing had “come of age”, was making decent returns for some and was not just for people who want to be published at any cost.

A quarter of self-publishers already considered themselves to be writers. “Publishers are narrowing around safer options, bigger brand names. Lots of middle list authors, with a steady return, are too small for them to engage with,” Solomon added.

Baverstock said that, far from feeling desperation, there was a consistently very high satisfaction with self-publishing. Nor did it necessarily mean going it alone. In current research she is tracking self-publishers’ rising use of freelance editors and marketing and legal experts after discovering in a 2012 survey that 59% had used an editor – removing one of the last distinctions between published and self-published books.

The rising demand for freelance editors means the quality is rising. She said that self-publishers had to take personal responsibility for the management and production, so opening up an understanding of how publishing worked. “This will hopefully diversify participation, widen involvement. The author with experience of self-publishing is empowered,” she said.

More at the source, including this:

Presenting her work to the Westminster Media Forum on the prospects for books, publishing and libraries , Baverstock said there were popular subjects that traditional publishers had ignored, including “respectable soft porn” and “gentle memoirs of everyday disasters, such as losing a child”. Most publishers, she said, were being outpaced by a heady mix of democratisation and digital distribution, because they came from a “very limited gene pool … all agree on what they like … they know each other, and are not necessarily in touch with popular taste.

Ouch.

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

If you've been a bit too busy to keep up, here are a few of our favorite stories from the past week.

E-Book General - News

• Scribd adds Audiobooks to its Plan

11:23 AM by tubemonkey in E-Book General | News

Scribd Adds Audiobooks To All-You-Read Library, Piling Pressure On Amazon

In July, the San Francisco company woke up to find that Amazon.com had imitated one of its core services, introducing an all-you-can-read book subscription service that rivaled the “Netflix for books” model pioneered by Scribd and fellow competitor Oyster. With “Kindle Unlimited,” the Seattle retailer made it a selling point that it had more titles than the little guys, as well as something the others didn’t have: more than 2,000 audiobooks.

On Thursday, that distinction is no more as Scribd launched its own audiobook vertical, a collection that will feature 30,000 titles at no extra charge to subscribers. For the 7-year-old company, the new service is an opportunity to tap into more than $1 billion audiobook market that lacks a dominant player, and challenge Amazon as the tech giant faces a host of problems in the digital publishing space.

“Audiobooks are just a good fit for your iPhone or your Android phone, while you’re driving or if you’re going to sleep,” said Scribd CEO Trip Adler. “They’re a very good use case [for reading] and we think it’s a big, growing market.”

This adds a new dynamic to these subscription plans. The ball is now in Amazon's court.

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Ok kids, time for the weekly roundup of what we've covered this week:

E-Book General - News

• UK Copyright Law - more stuff freed & available.

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• November 2014 Book Club Vote

E-Book Readers - Kobo Reader

• New online preview feature on Kobo's website

01:11 AM by WT Sharpe in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

November 2014 MobileRead Book Club Vote
November
Help us choose a book as the November 2014 eBook for the MobileRead Book Club. The poll will be open for 5 days. There will be no runoff vote unless the voting results a tie, in which case there will be a 3 day run-off poll. This is a visible poll: others can see how you voted. It is You may cast a vote for each book that appeals to you.

We will start the discussion thread for this book on November 20th. Select from the following Official Choices with three nominations each:

• Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Overdrive

• The Bat by Jo Nesbø
Amazon US / Google / Kobo / Overdrive

• Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Amazon US / Overdrive

• The Iron King by Maurice Druon
Amazon US / Kobo CA / Kobo US / Overdrive

• As Red as Blood by Salla Simukka
Amazon US / Goodreads

• How to Make Love To a Negro Without Getting Tired by Dany Laferriere
No links provided.

• Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
Amazon US Search / Goodreads

10:59 AM by GeoffR in E-Book Readers | Kobo Reader

I just noticed there is a new preview option available on the Kobo website. I can preview a book in a popup window in my browser, I don't need to be logged in or download the preview to a Kobo app or device.

This is from the New Zealand site, it might not be everywhere, so I've added some screenshots of what I see:

06:01 AM by carpetmojo in E-Book General | News

Copyright law has been amended regarding "orphan" works, such that a lot are now free of copyright problems.
A kind of arcane area, but of interest to some, especially if those that can, start to be made available digitally. Some look very interesting indeed.
Here's the link to the article in today's Independent - hope it works, and is of interest.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...s-9824266.html

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for our weekly roundup of what's new and interesting in the world of e-books.

E-Book General - News

• Simon & Schuster has reached deal with Amazon.
• Barnes & Noble's latest collaboration with Samsung is the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook 10.1