Archive for the ‘uk’ tag
WHSmith to sell Kobo eReaders in UK no comments
Kobo announced today that WHSmith will begin selling the Kobo ereaders at its over 750 retail locations across the UK beginning Oct 17. This follows news from Kobo a few days ago that the Kobo ereaders would be sold in France by Fnac, France’s largest book retailer.
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Google eBooks now available in UK no comments
The Google eBookstore has just opened its virtual doors to customers in the UK. Readers in the UK can now purchase Google eBooks and read them on any device that is compatible with Adobe Digital Editions. As in the US, brick and mortar bookstores will also be able to sell Google eBooks — Blackwell’s will be one of the Google eBookstore’s affiliate partners.
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Agency Model Coming to UK no comments
Since the UK Kindle Store
All of that could be coming to an end very soon if the publishers get their way, and they most likely will. The Bookseller reports that Hachette UK, which is the biggest UK publisher, will impose the agency model there from this Monday, September 20.
Under the agency model the publisher sets the price rather than the reseller. It remains to be seen how Amazon will react to this. My guess is that there will not be a prolonged dispute with Hachette as there was a couple of years ago in the UK, and more recently with Macmillan here in the US.
Update 9/20/2010: The agency pricing model is not being greeted with open arms in the UK. The Bookseller reports today that Waterstone’s, WH Smith, Tesco and The Book Depository have all removed Hachette ebooks from their virtual shelves. Amazon continues to sell Hachette ebooks, but appears to be still setting the prices themselves.
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Amazon DLP Comes to UK no comments
Amazon announced today that publishers and authors can now use the Kindle Digital Text Platform to upload an make their books available in the UK Kindle Store. From the press release:
"Publishers and authors can now take advantage of the Kindle Digital Text Platform and make their books available to the millions of customers that visit Amazon.co.uk," said Greg Greeley, Amazon Vice President, European Retail. "Sales of Kindle books in the US continue to rise and we are now selling more Kindle books than hardcovers. We expect to see a similar pattern in the UK with publishers and authors benefitting from greatly increased sales as a result of adding their titles to the new Kindle Store via the Kindle Digital Text Platform."
Amazon recently made improvements to the Digital Text Platform such as a more intuitive ‘Bookshelf’ feature and a simplified process for publishing. Additionally, publishers and authors can upload and make available their books in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. They are also able to set the digital list price for their titles on Amazon.co.uk in pound sterling.
Publishers that hold publishing rights for the UK and related territories will earn a 35 per cent royalty for sales made on Amazon.co.uk. For sales made in the US via Amazon.com, publishers can take advantage of a 70 per cent royalty option. In the future, Amazon intends to make the 70 per cent royalty option available for UK sales as well.
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Amazon’s UK eBook Pricing Lower than Competition no comments
The Register is reporting that Amazon’s ebook pricing is lower than that of other sellers in the UK. A sample of 36 books that the Register compared was around 30 percent less than the same ebooks at Waterstones, and almost 25 percent cheaper than WH Smith. The ebooks at Waterstones were actually more expensive than the paper copies.
In the US Amazon offered lower prices on ebooks until the agency model, which lets publishers set the prices of their ebooks, took effect. For titles coming from publishers who have not adopted the agency model (Random House, of course, being the largest of these) prices are still usually lower at the Kindle Store.
£149.00
£109
