leader in the digital industry through its exploding NOOKbrand of eReaders, reader’s tablets, and digital content.In 2012, Barnes & Noble and Microsoft announced thecompletion of their previously announced strategic partnershipin NOOK Media LLC, with an investment of $300million by Microsoft in NOOK Media LLC at a post-moneyvaluation of $1.7 billion in exchange for an approximately17.6% equity stake, with Barnes & Noble owning the remainingshares. At the end of 2012, Pearson bought a 5%stake in Nook Media by investing $89.5m in cash. (TheBookseller, 2 January 2013).Barnes & Noble had received a $204 million investmentfrom Liberty Media in August 2011.In fall 2012, Barnes & Noble had brought its Nook and digitalbookstore to the UK through a new www.nook.co.ukonline storefront. This marked the first time the companywas expanding its business internationally.Barnes & Noble has thereupon formed partnerships withseveral British retailers, including John Lewis, Dixons,Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Blackwell’s, Foyles and Argos, to sellNook HD, Nook HD+, and E-Ink devices. The company hasalso opened its European headquarters in Luxembourg.In October 2009, B&N had introduced its eReading devicebranded as Nook, the first Android-based eReader. Oneyear later, Barnes & Noble launched Nook Color, the firstfull-color touch Reader’s Tablet. In 2011, Barnes & Nobleintroduced Nook Simple Touch, a full touchscreen device,followed by Nook Tablet. This spring, Barnes & Noble introducedNook Simple Touch with GlowLight, the world’sfirst E-Ink Reader that enables reading in the dark. And inSeptember, Barnes & Noble launched Nook HD, the lightestand highest-resolution 7-inch tablet, and Nook HD+,the lightest full HD tablet. The company also announcedthe premiere this fall of Nook Video. Barnes & Noble has anestimated 27% market share of the U.S. ebook market anda catalog of more than 3 million titles in its Nook Bookstore.GoogleIn 2004, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) introduced booksearches of full text and, in order to increase the amountof digitized books available for such a search, an initiativeto digitize significant numbers of printed books from publicand university libraries. Initially named Google BookSearch, Google Print, and Google Library Project, all of theseactivities are today combined under the label of GoogleBooks. As of March 2012, over 20 million books have beenscanned, Google reports.As early as 2005, a controversy emerged between Googleand authors’ as well as publishers’ associations and individualpublishers in the US and overseas over the inclusionof “snippets” of copyrighted works. After seven years oflitigation and an initial settlement rejected in 2011 by aNew York court, an agreement has been reached betweenGoogle and the American Association of Publishers as ofOctober 4, 2012. The agreement offers US publishers theoption to either withdraw titles under copyright and scannedby Google in libraries, or to keep them in Google’sprogram and receive in return a digital copy and permissionto commercially use the scan. Furthermore, users canview up to 20 percent of a title and, provided the publisherconsents, purchase it through the Google Play shop. Thesettlement was expected to make available several milliontitles scanned by Google. Related litigation between Googleand several French publishers, including Hachette, AlbinMichel, Flammarion Gallimard, and La Martiniere, hasbeen settled in out-of-court agreements (Livres Hebdo, 7September 2011). However, the US Authors’ Guild is pursuingtheir legal battle with Google. (Publishers Weekly, 3April 2014)In theory at least, with a settlement, the road might openup for the largest library of digitized works to be broadlyand globally disseminated, including massive numbers oftitles under copyright, as procedures for their legal distribution,including commercial downloads through Google,emerge. At this point, those 20 million books are maintainedby the library of the Hathi Trust, a “partnership ofmajor research institutions,” funded notably by Google.Only half of the digitized works are in English. The otherhalf, consisting of over half a million books in German,434,000 in French, and over 10,000 in Ukrainian, Bulgarian,or Serbian, turn this into the largest and most linguisticallydiverse repository of ebooks (for a detailed discussion, see“Global ebook distribution complexities”, 28 November2012). However, after years of litigation, it is yet unclear ifthat digital archive comes to life, in terms of readers accessingany of it, or if the long quarrel, in practical terms,has after all exhausted the initial campaign of Google, forbetter or for worse.While Google’s ambition with regard to books started atsearching and cataloging them based on a full-text searchand earning revenues from customized advertising in thesearch results, books have started to be included in its digitalmultimedia distribution service, branded Google Play,99 The Global eBook Report
which includes options for purchases via Google (or, in thecase of books, various other online shops) as digital downloadsas well as through third-party online platforms forordering printed books. Google claims to have 3 millionebook titles available on Google Play, mostly free ofcharge, with hundreds of thousands available for purchase.Similar to the iTunes Store, however, the Google Play Storeis currently available only in a limited number of countries,including Australia, Canada, Spain, Germany, Italy, SouthKorea, the UK, and the US. So far, Google’s policy has beento roll out book services one country at a time, often witha long interval in between (UK in September 2011, Italy inMay 2012, Germany and Spain in June 2012, France in July2012) and delays attributed to long and tedious negotiationswith publishers over rights (for the example ofFrance, see Livres Hebdo, 18 July 2012).In 2012, Google started to venture into the device marketin cooperation with selected hardware manufacturers (inthis case, Asus) by launching a tablet computer with anAndroid operating system, branded the Nexus 7.In the second half of 2012, Google, together with Amazon,was challenged in a widely publicized debate, notably inthe UK, over its practice of minimizing local tax paymentsthrough a complex fiscal sceme across Europe (for details,see “Google, Amazon, Starbucks are immoral and ridiculousover UK tax”, The Register, 13 November 2012).In the US, Google had a long partnership program with theAssociation of American Booksellers (ABA), which it cancelledin April 2012, to expire by January 31, 2013. In themeantime, Kobo stepped in to replace Google in this regard.KoboUpdate spring 2014Kobo’s founder, Michael Serbinis, stepped down as CEO ofthe company, to be replaced by Rakuten’s Takahito “Taka”Aiki in a move highlighting a transition from radical expansionto consolidation at the initially Canadian ebookcompany. Serbini’s new role is that of a vice chairman.(Publishers Weekly, 4 February 2014)By early 2014, Kobo claims to serve 18 million users in 190countries from an ebook inventory of 4 million titles. In itsinitial market Canada, where Kobo is the largest retailer forebooks, the company could settle with the government ina dispute that would have opened possibilities for significantdiscounts on ebooks to lower ebook prices. (TheBookseller, 21 March 2014)From March 2014, the Kobo ebook store will also serveSony’s former ebook customers in the US and Canadian,after deciding that “Sony is withdrawing from the digitalreading business in North America”. (Company statement,quoted in Digital Book World, 6 February 2014)Kobo: Developments in 2013“Kobo’s greatest asset? It’s not Amazon”, wrote the BritishObserver in spring 2013. (The Observer, 28 April 2013). It istrue that next to paramount players who either representthe entirety, or significant portions, of the world wide web,there must be a niche open for a contender that is different,and Kobo is busy to fill out this space.Kobo was launched in 2009 by the Canadian bookstorechain Indigo Books & Music Inc. (TSX: IDG), which wasfounded in 1996 by Heather Reisman and her husband andmajority owner Gerry Schwartz. Kobo was at first a businessdivision, meant to cater to the emerging ebook market,then spun off as a separate business entity, and ultimatelysold to Rakuten (JASDAQ: 4755), the largest e-commerce company in Japan. Rakuten has recently seenaggressive and forceful global growth by acquiring multiplerelated online marketplaces, notably Buy.com (US), Priceminister(France), Ikeda (now Rakuten Brasil), Tradoria(now Rakuten Germany), and Play.com (UK), as well as aninvestment in the leading Russian online bookshopOzon.ru. Rakuten has reported revenues of $4.7 billion for2011. In 2012, and after the acquisition of Kobo, Rakuten’shead, Hiroshi Mikitani, has announced plans to confrontAmazon in a competition on global e-commerce (quotedin Handelsblatt, 22 January 2012).Kobo claims to be “one of the world’s fastest-growingereading services”.By late summer 2013, claims to have sold ebooks from itscatalogue of 3.5 million books and magazines into 190countries, with its devices supporting 68 languages. As ofSeptember 2013, Kobo has expanded beyond Canada,where in 2012 it controled a market share of 46%, accordingto Ipsos, by establishing localized platforms in Brazil,France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal,South Africa, Thailand, Taiwan, UK, and the US. Rakuten’sCEO Hiroshi Mikitani has been quoted that Kobowas the market leader for ebooks in France. (Forbes, 6 September2012).The Global eBook Report 100
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ContentsAbout the Global eBook Repo
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• The Bookseller (United Kingdom)
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Executive SummaryThis report provid
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The ambitions, and thelimitations o
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ending requests by email and face t
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Chris Kenneally, Copyright Clearanc
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A Global Industry, and Many Local P
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transformation longer than other se
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The Bookish Elites: Market size & n
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Book markets evolution in selected
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Market share of ebooks (in various
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English Language eBookMarketsThe fo
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United States (2010-2011 Book Marke
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Ebooks accounted in 2013 for one in
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stores, and 700 Argo stores, as wel
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Metadata is the key to online sales
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EuropeGermanyUpdate spring 2014Afte
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GermanyKey Indicators Values Source
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Ebooks evolve in a complex and chal
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actively seeking Google’s coopera
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SpainKey Indicators Values Sources,
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early days there. Yet according to
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According to the Danish book trade
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and Amazon is as well. Barnes & Nob
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- Page 54 and 55: The emerging role of ebooks in Cent
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- Page 58 and 59: play a role for starting to change
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- Page 62 and 63: RussiaKey Indicators Values Sources
- Page 64 and 65: OzonOzon is a general retailer sell
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- Page 74 and 75: lion in 2008 to ¥60 million in 201
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- Page 78 and 79: tion. Of these, 73% youth are liter
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- Page 100 and 101: $1.8 billion”, equalling some 8%
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- Page 110 and 111: Self-publishingUpdate spring 2014In
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- Page 116 and 117: Regulatory frameworksThe litigation
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- Page 120 and 121: suffers not in spite of but because
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- Page 128 and 129: In France, the independent literary
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- Page 132 and 133: dotbooksEdiciones B, founded in Bar
- Page 134 and 135: Neowood Éditions is a French digit
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Advertising in the eBookYellow Page
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The acceleratedtransformation of th
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IndexSymbols100knygu, 13224Symbols,
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INscribe, 139Integral, 139iStoryTim