The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today issued a response to American Library Association (ALA) President Maureen Sullivan’s open letter, which on Monday sharply criticized the ongoing refusal of several major publishers to sell ebooks to libraries. The AAP’s response counters that “publishers support the concept of e-lending but must solve a breadth of complex technological, operational, financial and other challenges to make it a reality.” Individual publishers are working to address these challenges, and antitrust laws prohibit publishers from convening to find common solutions to these emerging issues, the statement argues. It goes on to question the timing of the open letter, noting that the AAP had scheduled a meeting between ALA and more than 100 representatives from the publishing community in a few days.
Ebook Adoption Still Growing Fast
Australia, India, the U.K. and the U.S. lead the world in e-book adoption rates, according to Bowker Market Research’s Global eBook Monitor, released on March 27. In each of those countries, more than 20 percent of respondents report purchasing e-books in the six months before the survey, and about a third of respondents in the […]
Librarians Reach Out to Publishers at AAP Conference
At the Association of American Publishers (AAP) annual meeting today, a trifecta of librarians presented their views on how libraries and publishes can collaborate—particularly around the vexed question of ebook sales.
Digital Public Library of America: Pro and Con
They are miles apart in their thinking about digital books, but the Association of American Publishers’ (AAP) president, Tom Allen, and Harvard University library director Robert Darnton came face to face to discuss the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) on October 11. The occasion was a forum organized by Maurice J. Freedman, publisher of The Unabashed Librarian, and hosted by James Neal, University Librarian at Columbia. Also on hand was the University of California, Berkeley’s Pamela Samuelson, an expert on copyright law.
LJ: New Statistics Model for Book Industry Shows Trade Ebook Sales Grew Over 1,000 Percent
A new annual survey of the total U.S. book publishing industry released today shows growing revenue and, even without numbers from 2011, exponential ebook sales.
Link: Industry Sales Rose 3.1% in 2010; Trade E-book Sales the Big Winner
Total book publishing revenue rose 3.1% in 2010 to $27.9 billion and posted two-year growth of 5.6%, according to figures released Tuesday by BookStats, the joint AAP, BISG program developed to create a comprehensive analysis of industrywide sales.
