THE EREADING BLOG

08

April

2015

By: Richard Starr

Categories:

Amazon’s Vulnerability to be Highlighted at London Book Fair Conference

Publishing-PerspectivesIn this Publishing Perspective article, Mark Piesing covers an upcoming speech at the London Book Fair Publishing for Digital Minds conference by Charles Arthur, former technology editor at the Guardian

The significant theme of Mr. Arthur’s speech, “Amazon: An Objective Case Study”, is that the online retailer is no longer as fearsome as it once seemed.  In fact, Mr. Arthur is now making the same case I have been for several years now: that Amazon is, in fact, not an especially profitable entity and far more vulnerable than people have suspected up to now.

I hope that when Mr. Arthur makes his speech, he also points out that much of Amazon’s assault on the...

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26

March

2015

By: Richard Starr

Categories:

Another ‘Enhanced’ Ebook Company Takes a Shot at Disrupting Digital Reading

LOGO-Metabook An article in today's Publishing Perspective reports that a startup called Metabooks is the latest company to take a stab at the 'enhanced' ebook market. 

According to Metabooks' Creative Director, Benjamin Alfonsi, the company's first project is an iOS-exclusive edition of John Berendt's bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.  The book appears to be a stand-alone app--nothing new in the so-called interactive book arena--and includes a variety of content such as a full-length audiobook recording (Alfonsi refers to it as an "audio dramatization").   

Which is kind of an odd thing to call it.  Because aren’t audio...

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