Digital Book | featured news

For the first time, revenue from the sale of e-books has outstripped revenue from hardcover sales. Using information compiled from 1,189 publishers, the Association of American Publishers reports that for the first quarter of 2012, adult e-books sales were $282.3 million, up 28% from last year.

Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) (BKS), the largest U.S. bookstore chain, introduced a Nook e-reader with a screen that glows in the dark, challenging Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) (AMZN) at a time when prices for digital books may start falling.

Apple on Thursday lifted the veil on its plans to remake the educational landscape in a way that centers on its best-selling tablet computer, the iPad. "Education is deep in Apple's DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, said in a statement.

Harry Potter fans will have to wait a bit longer to buy the magic tales in electronic form. The creators of the online Potter portal said Friday that the launch of an e-book store has been pushed back to next year. The seven Harry Potter books had been due to go on sale in October, exclusively through the "Pottermore" website.

Amazon.com Inc is in talks with book publishers about launching a media library service similar to Netflix Inc for tablets and other digital books, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

In the midst of an essay on teaching long-form reading that’s well worth your time, Alan Jacobs sticks in a little tidbit about how the Kindle saved him from losing the ability to read books.

What happens when a pioneer like Borders goes out of business? Depends on who you ask. A day after the bankrupt Ann Arbor, Mich.-based chain said it would seek court approval to sell off its assets and shutter its remaining 399 stores, everyone from publishers to consumers is assessing what it would mean if the company that started the big-box bookseller concept vanished. The move could have a wide ranging - and different -- impact on everyone from authors to consumers to competitors at a time when the industry is desperately trying to adapt to a new generation of readers who'd rather browse on an electronic book or tablet computer than turn the page of a paperback.

FOR decades, even after it was renamed and relocated from its original home at Radcliffe, the Columbia Publishing Course seemed unchanging, a genteel summer tradition in the book business, a white-glove six-week course in which ambitious college graduates were educated in the time-honored basics of book editing, sales, cover design and publicity. Not this summer.

Author J.K. Rowling has joined the 21st century on her own special terms. One of the world's most famous digital holdouts, Rowling announced Thursday that a new interactive website ...

Harry Potter battled the forces of evil and now is set to conquer the web - coming to e-books in a groundbreaking deal that has delighted fans but alarmed the book industry that helped make creator J.K. Rowling a billionaire.