FutureBook

Paul Cameron admits that the official launch of  Booktrack—a company that is for the moment heavily linked to the Apple ecosystem—might have benefited from a bit better timing. "We launched about 12 hours before Steve Jobs resigned," he says with a laugh. "We were lucky; we did get a lot of press. But had it been 24 hours later I think we might not have gotten any attention." Read more »

There are many pertinent questions that need answering in the digital books market. Here are just a few: What is the actual size of the overall e-book sector? What is the hard data telling us about the trends that are emerging? Which genres are up and which are down? The best answer to those questions may be with another: who the hell knows? Read more »

So John Locke, the million-plus e-book-selling self-publishing poster boy, has signed a deal with Simon & Schuster US. This is a few months after Amanda Hocking, self-publishing's poster girl, signed on the dotted line with Pan Macmillan for a four-book contract.
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My favourite story of the week was Brewster Kahle (pictured), the MIT brainbox who 15 years ago founded the Internet Archive, announcing to the Associated Press that he is building an archive for every print book in the world, collecting one copy of each, and shutting them up into climate controlled containers to be stacked away in a warehouse in northern California. Read more »

Does this announcement signify the new battlefield in the e-book wars (apologies for that increasingly tired metaphor)? A couple of days after the Sony Reader for Android App was launched, the news has come out that Apple has rejected the Sony app for the iOS. On the Sony Reader store website, Sony has said: Read more »

Stratospheric. Rowling, the longtime e-book refusenik, indicated last year through the Christopher Little Agency (CLA) that the time is nigh for something to finally be done with the Harry Potter digital rights. Read more »

2011 opens with perhaps more uncertainty than most years for the trade. You all know the reasons why: a stuttering economy, a shaky high street, falling print sales and, germane to this site, difficulty in gauging which way the digital winds will blow. So, over the next few days, we will attempt to address some of the big questions facing the industry this year.     

First up: will the agency model hold? Read more »

The e-book wars have entered the next phase. First Google eBooks (the artist formerly known as Google Editions—the new name far, far clearer for the consumer, surely) launches in the US, to be followed by a UK and Continental Europe launch presumably early next year. Read more »

I happened to catch some of Naomi Campbell's testimony at Charles Taylor's war crimes trial at the Hague about whether the supermodel received 'blood diamonds' from the former Liberian president, broadcast live on Sky News. Read more »

When Amazon announced last week that it was going to sell Kindle books through Amazon.co.uk, it said it was going to have the lowest e-book prices. That wasn't an empty promise. Read more »