McGraw-Hill is well-known for its strength in academic (educational and professional) content. It is partnering with Follett to expand sales of ebooks into K-12 schools.

This will have a good impact on authors. The availability of ebooks allows for more readers to find authors they might otherwise never hear about. Ebooks also provide publishers with a way to monetize their backlist, which means that authors whose works are out of print can derive fresh income when their books are re-released in electronic form.

The disruption is doing its job. Things are looking up for publishers and for authors, and this is just one example!

Hachette recently bought Perseus books. What hasn’t been discussed widely in the media is that the deal included 400 indie publishers. The indies represent $300 million in distribution sales volume of the total value represented in the deal.

This is great news for authors. Although the merge hasn’t been without its issues for the indies, it does signal that traditional houses are taking indies seriously…and that they value the products they produce. In time, we are likely to see more mergers like this with traditional houses and indies teaming up to revitalize publishing…and reading.

A new ebook subscription service will offer 1 million titles.

Bllon will launch in beta form this summer. Details on how many books readers can view each month still aren’t clear but 3 ebooks will be provided for free when users first subscribe.

Although Bllon is based in Germany, similar services for the American market average 500,000 titles. So keep an eye out for Oyster and Scribd to ramp up their games and match that number.

In June and July, the University of Rochester’s resource for international literature, Three Percent, held the first ever World Cup of Literature.

The program featured a 32-book knock-out tournament during soccer’s World Cup game. Each match pitted two books against each other. Only one of the books moved on until the championship match determined the ultimate winner.

This program might look like it would draw more attention outside the United States (which doesn’t share the soccer fever that infects other nations). But keep in mind that Britain has a reality TV show that features authors, and publishers in the U.S. are constantly looking for new ways to engage readers. We might see similar events tied into American obsessions like football or the Fourth of July.

I look forward to holidays spent counting down competitions like this!

Target is partnering with a startup ebook subscription service called Librify to provide an online platform for buying, sharing and discussing books. Librify has more than 500,000 titles available already (about half of Amazon’s number), and it has only been beta testing since March.

Even better, the social aspects of the platform allow readers to review and discuss their favorite books…providing word-of-mouth validation that is so critical to readers. Authors should check into Librify now to ensure their titles are available once Target is ready to launch.

Young adult novels account for 18% of children’s unit purchases. Although this is down a few percentage points for the same period the year before, YA is still a strong category.

It’s strength comes in part from the tendency of adults to purchase YA titles. The single largest group buying these titles is the 18- to 29-year-old demographic.

This means two things. First, if you are working on a YA book, keep going.
Second, if you’re working on the new category called New Adult, get it out there. Connect with me at any time for assistance and advice on breaking into this powerhouse category!