Surveys and polls are in the news – not on the presidential campaign, but on the rise of e-books in the US and the rest of the world. The French and the Japanese have something in common, it turns out, while in Brazil and India – two of the so-called BRICS group of developing nations – the size of the e-book marketplace is set to double and triple nearly overnight.
Bowker Market Research’s Global eBook Monitor has taken a close look at the international market for e-books, notes PW’s Andrew Albanese. The latest “GEM” survey finds a not very surprising center for potential growth. “India is especially interesting, because it is English, highly tech-focused, and it has a massive population—about 1.2 billion. And, they like e-books,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “Holding them back, for now, is the lack of Web access in many regions of the country—with only about 10% online nationwide.”
For the weekly review of PW reviews, Mike Harvkey, PW’s Deputy Reviews editor, has details on Paul Tobin’s sci-fi/fantasy novel, Prepare to Die!, a deconstruction of the superhero story, full of “fierce action, sexy romance, warm nostalgia, and wry observations on being a superhero in the age of YouTube,” according to the reviewer. Harvkey also covers It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership, by Colin Powell, with Tony Koltz. “There’s much inspirational sense here drawn from Powell’s matchless range of managerial and political experiences,” he says, though, “there is also a frustrating reticence on the great leadership crisis of his time, the Iraq war.”
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Every Friday, CCC’s “Beyond the Book” speaks with the editors and reporters of “Publishers Weekly” for an early look at the news that publishers, editors, authors, agents and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.