News Roundup: Online's Share Increases, New York's "Amazon" Tax, Open Source Textbooks, Edits Shown in Pan Macmillan Ebooks, Penguin UK's Simultaneous Print-Ebook Plan

Mac Slocum
April 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Amazon Growth Fuels Online's Book Market Share

Online retailers claim 21-30 percent of the consumer trade book market, according to two recent surveys. Publishers Weekly says much of this growth comes from Amazon. (Continue reading ...)

New York Eyes Amazon Affiliates in Tax Move

From the New York Times:

... people owe taxes on what they buy regardless of whom they buy it from. But the seller only has an obligation to collect those taxes (and thus the only time taxes are ever actually paid) when the seller has a physical presence in the state of the purchase. The state is proposing defining Amazon’s affiliates -- Web sites that earn commissions by referring customers to it -- as a physical presence. (Continue reading ...)

Open Source Textbook Adoption Grows

Inside Higher Ed notes the slowly growing open source textbook movement:

Colleges and individual faculty members continue to experiment with putting course information and material online, and "open textbooks" typically are licensed to allow users to download, share and alter the content as they see fit, so long as their purposes aren't commercial and they credit the author for the original material. This allows instructors to customize e-textbooks and offer them to students for free online or as low-cost printed versions.

Pan Macmillan Plans Ebooks Showing Edits and Changes

Pan Macmillan is releasing ebooks with extra sauce. From thedigitalist.net:

The idea that a special edition eBook can contain marginal material produced before, during, or after a print edition features in two other eBooks to be published by Picador this year. Sid Smith’s China Dreams, which we published in hardback in January 2007 and in paperback in January 2008, will be issued in a uniquely up-to-date edition, in the author’s latest version, with corrections, changes, and new material, and a foreword in which he considers the process of composition and revision. (Continue reading ...)

Penguin UK to Release Print and Ebook Editions Simultaneously

Beginning in September, print and ebook versions of Penguin UK's new titles will be available simultaneously for the same price. Digital editions will be made available in .epub format through Penguin's Web sites and via retailers. (Continue reading ...)

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