From April 4th-6th YUDU Media will be exhibiting at this year’s Publishing Business Conference & Expo at the Marriott Marquis in New York City.
Since our last foray overseas to the Abu Dhabi Book Fair was such a success, we will once again be leaving these shores behind to show Publishers how YUDU technology can be used to their benefit.
We will be exhibiting in booth 414 so if you’re at the event make sure you come by the stand and see what we have to offer!
We’ve just got, not 1, not 2, but 3 shiny new white iPad 2′s in the office!
We’re not usually ones to try and provoke jealously, but they really are lovely.
Once we’ve stopped fooling around taking photos with all the fun settings in the photo booth and marveling at how light it is compared to the iPad 1 we will post a proper review!
Sam with 2 new iPads, the third was used to take the photo
As you may already know, the YUDU team are dedicated attendee’s at some of the most important publishing exhibitions around. Keen to preserve this reputation, YUDU Media will be ditching the normal commute, in favour of The Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2011.
The event is starting today at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, and continues till March 20th, so if you’re lucky enough to find yourself there, make sure you visit us at stand 11I18.
We will be displaying YUDU’s ePub solution and its ability to deal with the most complex conversion, whatever the language. But if there’s anything else you’d like to discuss feel free to drop by!
For all the info on this year’s event, click here: http://www.adbookfair.com/cms/general-information
The considerable growth of eBook sales in 2010 has displayed a remarkable shift in how consumers chose to read published content. Amazon remarkably reported that their eBook sales had overtaken their paperback editions for the first time in the last there months of 2010.
This shift in reader’s habits is set to continue in 2011, with it already being tipped as the “year of the eBook” by Nigel Newton, CEO of Bloomsbury, where it is estimated that fiction eBooks already account for 15% of the company’s total sales in the US.
So what does that mean for publishers of illustrated books? This new technology clearly presents a new opportunity to generate revenue, but for many, the question of where to start and how you can take the next step remains.
All this will be answered in a free webinar hosted by The Bookseller and FutureBook on 21st March. You’ll hear from two publishers about their experiences; Simon Appleby, Project Manager for Octopus Publishing Group and Gavin Griffiths, Author and Publisher for Microvar Media. Then YUDU’s CEO Richard Stephenson will present an overview of how illustrated book publishers can best utilise the opportunities of the new digital age, and monetize their content digitally.
The free webinar for book publishers is taking place Monday, March 21 2011, 3pm-4pm GMT. The event, titled “eBooks: How illustrated book publishers can monetize their content with digital platforms” is free, and can be registered for here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/770596034
The evidence is now irrefutable.
Global sales of eBooks rose by approximately 400% in 2010 reaching nearly $1 billion in sales according to Forrester. O’Reilly has revealed that 88 per cent of its unit sales in 2010 were ebooks. In addition, 79 per cent of its dollar revenue was generated by digital versions of its titles. Pearson reported in their 9 months interim statement last October that strong publishing and rapid growth in eBook sales offset tough physical retail markets for Penguin, increasing threefold. E-books are substituting physical books but there is good evidence that the growth of e-books is outpacing substitution and growing a new market.
Margins on ebooks are strong. Even after paying fees charged by Amazon and Apple, the publisher can enjoy a gross margin of more than 60%. Many publishers struggle to get better than 15% on physical books after discounts, commissions, printing and distribution cost are totted up. The important news is that the prices readers are prepared to pay for ebooks is not that dissimilar to the physical book.
The most commonly accepted format is ePub and there are some great advantages in the book industry having adopted this standard. Kindle uses their proprietary AZW format and Mobi pocket which have close similarities to ePub but they all have the same limitation when illustrations and complexity are added to the page. These e-reading formats are single files with no predefined page breaks so the reader can resize text to suit their needs. This reflowing of text moves headers, pictures, graphs and unless these are anchored to the relevant text, the book looses structure. Layouts that use multiple columns of text also need special treatment if the reader is to have a quality reading experience. The simple fact is that ePub was not designed for illustrated books or complex layouts and so the e-reading opportunity has not been able to be grasped as it has been done with plain text books.
Last October at the Frankfurt book fair we showcased our iPad App solution for illustrated books and we now have some great book apps live on the AppStore. However, many publishers wanted to offer their illustrated books on the Kindle and the Apple iBook Store to get greater exposure. The Kindle is, of course, a monocrome device which is not suited for quality images but Amazon has now made the Kindle store available on other platforms, particularly tablets, that can do justice to illustrated books. The excellent resolution of the iPad screen makes illustrated book reading a great experience and the growth of tablets opens up new opportunities. Over 50 million tablets are expected to be sold in 2011 of which 40 million are forecast to be iPads.
This is a great new market opportunity and with new techniques we can now deliver an illustrated book service to help publishers take full advantage. Our mission is to provide publishers a fast, cost effective and efficient service to place illustrated books onto the iBook Store and Kindle and to offer publishers specialist branded iPad apps using the YUDU tried and tested platform.
Our CEO Richard Stephenson will be speaking on this subject in a free webinar for book publishers on Monday, March 21 2011 3:00PM-4:00PM. The event, titled “eBooks: How illustrated book publishers can monetize their content with digital platforms” is free, and can be registered for here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/770596034
Thank you to everyone who came to see us on Tuesday and Wednesday at Publishing Expo in Earls Court, London. We hope you found it as beneficial as we did! As a long term partner and exhibitor at publishing expo, we’ve seen it grow and improve every year.
If you were unable to attend the show this year, view the digital show guide, to see who was there and find information on each company, speakers and seminars.
What was striking about this year’s event was the sense of excitement amongst many of the attendees regarding the future of the publishing industry.
This optimism was expressed by Keynote speaker and PPA chair Barry McIlheny, who proclaimed a new “golden age” for the publishing industry. His comments came off the back of encouraging survey results reported by Wessenden Marketing. The 101 surveyed publishers predicted turnover would be up on average 6.8% over the next two years- promising projections from an industry that has supposedly been in decline.
Much of what seems to be fuelling publisher’s optimism is the increasing strength of digital publications. The importance of ‘going digital’ for a publishing company was echoed by Dennis CEO James Tye, who stated that at Dennis, “We don’t talk about print or digital any more – we’ve moved to a brand model.”
Comments such as these reflect how digital publications are now perceived. They are no longer considered an experiment that is somehow less important than print. Instead, digital content is now an important component of publisher’s business models, and for many, seen as a key to the future growth of their company.
Alongside the speakers who commented on this topic and variety of others, YUDU Media’s CEO Richard Stephenson presented in the panel “Subs: Taking a bite out of the Apple” which questioned how publishers could function alongside Apple’s subscription service, and if there would be any alternatives.
To read the views put forward by Richard Stephenson in the presentation, see the PowerPoint slides here – http://content.yudu.com/A1raf1/YUDUPubExpo2011
The whirlwind of excitement and anticipation that precedes a new Apple product’s launch is truly unlike that of any other company. It seemed that with the original iPad barely out of its box, technology enthusiasts the internet wide were already speculating on when its follow up would be released, what it would improve on, and seemingly most importantly, would it have an embedded camera this time?!
Last night at the Yerba Buena Centre in San Francisco these questions and more were answered by a returning Steve Jobs, who announced the new model of its tablet device, the inventively titled iPad 2.
Set for release next week in the US on March 11, and in the UK on March 25, the new device is a honed version of its predecessor. It is thinner by 33 percent and lighter- shaving off a hefty 0.2 pounds from the previous model.
On the technical side of things, the device comes equipped with Apple’s latest operating system, iOS 4.3. Its CPU speed is reportedly 2 times faster, and its graphics are rendered up to 9 times faster. The improved speed that visuals are rendered is likely to benefit publishers, with reduced lag improving the reading experience as a whole.
The new model is also available in two colours, white and black, and both will be instantly available.
As for the issue of a camera, the new iPad 2 comes complete with both front and back facing cameras as well as FaceTime support, that had previously only been available on the iPhone.
As is customary, technology blogs, websites and forums have been keen to pass judgment on the new device and its features. The general consensus so far is that the iPad 2 represents an improvement on the previous model, rather than a complete reimagining of it. ‘Evolution not revolution’ seems to be a popular line trotted out to describe the device.
Whatever the verdict of critics, the iPad 2 is destined to sell in droves. It is available at the same price, so cost is unlikely to deter any potential buyers. It is likely to solidify Apple’s stranglehold on the tablet market, and reaffirm its status as the company that all others should be aspiring to.
In the final section of our white paper “Trends and Statistics 2“, we highlight the iPad’s dominance as a device used to read magazine and newspaper content.
In the report, we have examined research by ChangeWave, which found 51 percent of iPad owners read newspapers on the iPad, while only 11 percent do on the Kindle. Furthermore, 36 percent of iPad owners read eMagazines on the device, while only 8 percent of Kindle owners do.
For more analysis on this topic, view the complete report “The Apple iPad: Trends and Statistics 2“.
The fifth section of our ‘Trends and Statistics 2′ whitepaper highlights the iPad’s ever growing share of the eBook market.
The evidence in this section displays how the iPad is gaining ground on more established eReader devices such as the Kindle. Research published by ChangeWave found that in November 2010 the iPad had doubled its share of the eReader market since August that same year, whilst in the same period, the Kindle has lost 15 percent of its market share amongst those surveyed.
This analysis is only a fraction of what we have published however, for the full report featuring all the stats, graphs, facts and analysis, read the full ‘Apple iPad: Trends and Statistics 2‘ whitepaper.