Harry Potter is coming to Amazon, the Kindle
The Harry Potter series is one of the most popular series of books ever written, but if you're looking for your fix of wizardry, you'll have to put your Kindle down.
That's because Harry Potter's author, J.K. Rowling, has refused to sell her books in digital format directly through companies like Amazon.
Amazon launches eBooks Kindle en Español
According to new research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 21% of American adults have read an e-book in the past year. In mid-December, that number stood at 17%.
Chalk that increase up to the rise of affordable e-readers and tablets, like the Kindle Fire and NOOK Tablet, which many Americans received as gifts this past holiday season.
More than 2m Kindle Singles sold by Amazon: report
As ebooks become a more prominent part of the publishing market, authors, publishers and digital distributors like Amazon are increasingly experimenting with new formats.
One of those formats is the 'esingle'. As the name suggests, these are ebooks that are fairly short (usually longer than a magazine article but shorter than a full book).
Typically sold in the range of 99 cents to $2, or 70p to £2, the value proposition of esingles to the consumer is simple: quality content, no bloat.
The future for Barnes & Noble may be the NOOK
With the iPad, Apple is the dominant tablet manufacturer and with the Kindle Fire, Amazon has become the company to watch in the tablet space.
But don't write bookseller Barnes & Noble (B&N) off. Its NOOK business, which started with E Ink e-readers, now has two tablets in its stable, the NOOK Color and the NOOK Tablet.
Amazon wades into the US video streaming market
Amazon has announced a new partnership with Viacom which allows Amazon Prime members and Kindle Fire owners to stream unlimited television onto their devices.
Extending Amazon's partnership to include streaming puts them ahead of the race against Netflix and the new Verizon and Redbox partnership as the retail giant looks to capitalize on a market wanting more TV on demand.
Amazon rumoured to be opening shop on the high street
Amazon is said to be opening a trial brick-and-mortar store in Seattle to see if a chain of shops could be profitable.
Though this might seem like a step backwards for Amazon, the need to give its tablets and e-readers a physical shop window seems to be the main motivation.
Amazon planning a Kindle smartphone for next year?
Amazon is said to be launching a Kindle smartphone in 2012, according to reports.
Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney is quoted on AllThingsDigital saying that the device is set for launch in Q4 next year.
Amazon readies the Kindle Fire: report
Amazon's Kindle e-reader may be one of the most popular e-readers, but the company's long-term position in the market is far from certain.
On one flank, the Kindle competes with the most popular tablet device, the iPad, and on the other, competitors like Barnes & Noble have built more sophisticated devices like the NOOK Color.
So Amazon is rumored to be responding later this week with a new version of the Kindle that's more like the iPad and NOOK Color.
Dubbed the Kindle Fire, it will reportedly feature a 7" backlit display, books (of course), plenty of magazine subscriptions, and apps to boot.
Can ad-supported hardware trump ad-supported content?
When it comes to online content, consumers by and large prefer to pay for it in attention rather than currency. As a result, it's no surprise that far more publishers have built successful ad-based business models than paid content business models.
Advertising, of course, usually isn't a path to easy money for publishers. Yes, advertisers love the internet, but digital still accounts for a minority of total ad spending, and advertisers generally pay less for digital ads than traditional ads.
Digital may not save book publishers, but...
For many industries, digital technology is both destroyer and savior. Take the newspaper and music industries, for instance. The internet is frequently blamed for their demise, yet new technologies are also expected by many to help save them.
When it comes to how digital is killing and saving established industries, book publishing may not grab the most headlines, but it is arguably one of the most affected.
