Amazon about to swallow another giant.  Amazon announced that it will buy The Book Depository. With much of his business located in Egypt to benefit from the low operating costs and a £2.3m  profit on the £6.9m sales last year, The Book Depository is an attractive candy for Amazon. Andrew Crawford, founder of The Book Depository, vows to keep the company’s independence regardless of any upcoming change in ownership. He intends to maintain the policy of selling “less of more” rather than “more of less”, a policy aimed at giving more exposure to less known books rather than frontloading bestsellers.

From self-publishing to being courted by the Big 6. Boyd Morrison was  the first writer in history to gain entry to the established publishing market by way of self-epublishing. His new novel  The Vault was released on July the 5th by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. It picks up the main character from his previous book The Ark. The author describes it as part of an ongoing series, but does not call it a sequel. The two books share a similar theme, where Tyler Locke investigates an archeological mystery and tries to save the world. Whereas the first novel had a Biblical theme i.e. Tyler trying to find Noah’s Ark, the new book delves into Greek mythology with King Midas and his touch.
In early 2009, tired of waiting for a publishing house to send him or his agent some letter other than a rejection letter, Boyd Morrison opted for self-epublishing through Amazon Kindle Store that was just beginning to pick up at the time.
By end of March 2009, his technothrillers were topping Amazon Best sellers list for that genre. By July 2009, he had signed up a double book deal with Simon and Schuster and was being translated into 4 languages.
Boyd Morrison attributes his success to the combination of two factors; the low competition at the time in Kindle Bookstore and his direct involvement in communication with readers through forums.

A whole new series of new eWords. The rapid ascension of the ePublishing industry and it’s slew of  new product is generating a whole new vocabulary. Lasts on the market, estributors, short for electronic book distributor and ebrary, short for electronic library.
Last June ALA (America Library Association) Annual Conference has seen a lot of excitement around the growing options for libraries keen to find ways to lend books electronically. In order to do this, they need to solve copyright/DRM, rising costs of digital collections and format issues.
A slew of applications designed to provide solutions for these problems, such as 3M Cloud Library eBook Lending Service, Library Ideas, LLC and ProQuest’s ebrary.