The Digital Publishing Report

Medallion Media Group Releases e-Reader Book App

Medallion Media Group, Inc. (MMG), parent company of book publisher Medallion Press, has announced its free e-book reader iPad app, MMG Sidekick, app for iPad is available in the App Store. The e-book reader app lets users search for a specific Medallion Press book or browse by genre or author, view editorial reviews, and get personalized recommendations by opting in to the Notifications feature. Users can purchase selections from the Medallion Press e-book titles, but also includes a rotating selection of free e-books every month. more

Harlequin to Use Ingram MyiLibrary e-Book Platform

Harlequin has announced it will add more than 12,000 titles to the Ingram Content Group MyiLibrary platform. Frontlist, backlist, nonfiction, and fiction titles and from multiple Harlequin imprints will be included. more

Inkling Announces Inkling Habitat

Inkling has announced Inkling Habitat, an online tool for creating and publishing e-books. The company says the tool is intended to enable publishing professionals to collaborate online to create a wide variety of types of e-books include textbooks and novels and publish them in EPUB3 format. more

Ingram Content Group Adds Random House Content to MyiLibrary

Ingram Content Group has announced beginning in February it will offer Random House, Inc. U.S. titles to libraries via the MyiLibrary platform, adding more than 36,000 titles to the platform. Titles to be added include frontlist and popular backlist titles from Random House, Inc. imprints and each of their publisher- distribution clients including Beacon Press, National Geographic Books, North Atlantic Books, Quirk Books, Smithsonian Books, Soho Press, Wizards of the Coast, and others. more

Ingram Announces New E-book Lending Model

Ingram Content Group Inc. has announced Access Model, a new content access model to its MyiLibrary e-content platform designed to provide libraries greater flexibility in e-book lending. The company says the new model enables libraries to purchase a set of access credits for an e-book for a set cost and lending period and then lend the e-book simultaneously to multiple patrons. The new model could be used to eliminate the need for patrons to wait to read popular e-book titles. more

Harvard Health Publications and RosettaBooks Announce E-Book Series

RosettaBooks and Harvard Health Publications have released eight original e-books written by physicians on the Harvard Medical School faculty. The e-books are a first for Harvard Health Publications, which publishes a dozen or so print titles each year, and e-book costs $5.99. more

Workshop on Electronic Books and Open Web Announced

The W3C, in partnership with BISG and IDPF, is organizing a workshop on Electronic Books and the Open Web to be held in conjunction with the O’Reilly’s Tools for Change Conference in New York City February 11-12. The organizers want to bring together major players in the e-book market including publishers, standards organizations, booksellers, and accessibility organizations to promote partnerships to help bring e-book publishing to its full potential through standardization. more

Kindle Lending Library Coming to the UK, Germany, and France

Amazon has announced British, French, and German Kindle owners with Prime memberships will be able to borrow books for free from a 200,000 volume e-book library starting later this month. In addition, Independent authors and publishers using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) who enroll their books in KDP Select can have their books included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Authors will earn money every time their book is borrowed through the program. more

Kobo Announces New Partnerships with New Zealand Booksellers

Kobo has announced partnerships with Booksellers NZ and The Paper Plus Group. Kobo has already partnered with Whitcoulls, the leading book chain in New Zealand, and, with this latest announcement, is working with the majority of New Zealand booksellers. more

Government Printing Office to Sell e-Books Through Apple

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) announced it will sell Federal e-books though Apple iTunes. The GPO says the current title list includes: Ponzimonium: How Scam Artists are Ripping Off America, On Course to Desert Storm, and the Appendix, Budget of the United States FY 2013. The GPO also makes e-books available in partnership with Google’s, Barnes & Noble, OverDrive, Ingram, Zinio, among other e-book purveyors. more