Welcome to TFP’s weekly roundup of interesting and noteworthy stories from the publishing world. Here’s what happened this week in publishing.

  • On Tuesday, Amazon released a software update for the Kindle Fire to address user complaints. Amazon also updated its iOS app, adding a built-in PDF reader and several features that were previously available only on the Kindle Fire, including integrated access to personal documents and the ability to read all magazines in a new Newsstand area of the app.
  • Big consumer brands and niche publishers share some of the same challenges in finding ways to engage their audiences across multiple channels and platforms. EMedia Vitals has published a list of case studies that highlight five innovative approaches.
  • Condé Nast, in partnership with Random House, is exploring a new platform on its Epicurious site that lets members save recipes from electronic cookbooks into their online recipe boxes. The cross-marketing plan lets users peruse the books and buy them online. The new model makes the recipes accessible to members across web, mobile, and tablet platforms and lets users combine the recipes they’ve already collected online with new ones from the digital books.
  • According to a new report (PDF) from app market research firm Distimo, the App Store, traditionally dominated by U.S. downloads, is seeing a huge increase in activity from the Chinese market. The Chinese App Store for iPhone devices accounted for just 18% of the download volume compared with the U.S. at the beginning of 2011. By November, that share had climbed to 30%. The numbers are even more interesting for the iPad: China’s take is just south of 50% of the two countries’ combined downloads.
  • For a quick view of the big digital stories of 2011, take a peek at the timeline published by FutureBook.

This Week in Publishing appears every Friday on the TFP blog. Every week we compile interesting and noteworthy stories from the publishing world and put together a wrap-up to help our readers stay up-to-date. Think we missed something great? Leave a comment below and let us know.

Posted by: tfpadmin

0