
The New Reading Experience: BiB IV

Our new study, Measuring Attitudes and Adoption of Digital Content for Kids and Teens, delves into attitudes and behaviour around book buying and reading for the juvenile market. Do teens prefer ebooks to print books? When do kids start getting access to apps? Check out our snazzy infographic for answers to these questions… and more!
As the book industry focuses on reaching web-enabled readers, there’s an increasing need for technologies, like apps and APIs, that can be built quickly and altered often. This is why last month, a week before BookExpo America, New York played host to a significant publishing event: the Publishing Hackathon!
Children are now, for the most part, being raised as digital natives in North America. Their little fingers become adept at swiping screens at an early age, but parents and educators are still debating whether children should be reading much online. Where do things stand now? We’re working on some consumer research of our own to find out, but in the meantime I thought we could look at what’s happening in the US and UK.
Publishers have access to a huge amount of data about their titles, but knowing how best to use that data to give your business a competitive edge can be tricky.
Erin Creasey is the sales and marketing director for ECW Press, one of Canada’s largest independents, where she has access to data from sources including SalesData, BookScan, and traditional and ebook retailers. “I’m always looking for the story behind the numbers,” she says.
Publishers and retailers are exploring new ways to package and price digital book content and we can learn quite a bit about this by looking to other content industries. We’re talking more frequently about bundling and subscriptions, but there’s a little less chatter about paywalls and I think that’s because the jury is still out on whether it works for our counter parts in newspapers and magazines. But it’s worth examining now to stay on top and ahead of things.
Things have come a long way for e-singles over the past year. At last year’s Tech Forum, we heard from Laura Hazard Owen of paidContent about the American market for e-singles and then The Atavist talked about their business model. Since then, more Canadian companies have entered the e-singles fray, all trying different tactics in an effort to explore the possibilities of this growing market.
Kobo’s Ashleigh Gardner gave an information-packed workshop at Technology Forum 2013 that covered some important tips and trends for selling ebooks internationally. In this video you’ll learn some pricing basics and how to ensure your ONIX records have all the information necessary to sell your books into as many territories as possible. And you’ll also get country-by-country pricing trends and tax structure tips that will help inform the decisions involved in selling your ebooks worldwide.
BookNet Canada is a non-profit organization that develops technology, standards, and education to serve the Canadian book industry. Founded in 2002 to address systemic challenges in the industry, BookNet Canada supports publishing companies, booksellers, wholesalers, distributors, sales agents, industry associations, literary agents, media, and libraries across the country.