Mobinomics, the book by Alan Knott-Craig and Gus Silber on Mxit and Africa’s mobile revolution, has been published to the social network. This is the first time a printed book, available in national book stores, has been distributed via Mxit.
“The book is about Mxit,” says Alan Knott-Craig, CEO of Mxit. “It would be completely insane not to make it easily accessible to our users. It’s more their story than it is ours.”
Google is to reduce the visibility of websites that attract a high number of copyright removal notices, in an attempt to convince copyright owners of its commitment to enforcing intellectual property regulations. But it has stopped short of indicating that it will remove links to offending websites. Read more at theBookseller.com
Recent Freedom to Publish award winner Zapiro, never one to shy away from the topical, had something to say about the burning of books in the Limpopo Province. View his cartoon ANC Torch reaches Limpopo at the Mail and Guardian website http://www.mg.co.za.
In mid June, Penguin and 3Mannounced a deal with the New York and Brooklyn Public Libraries to make Penguin’s e-book catalogue available for lending. Amazon recently signed an exclusive licence with Potter, more to make all seven Harry Potter e-books available for free through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Read more
The Book Lounge has one of those jampacked, crazy, busy, implausibly exciting weeks for you, full of fun, laughter and food. Starting off, they have their usual storytime for children this Saturday, at 11am.
Cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (“Zapiro”) has been named the recipient of this year’s IPA Freedom to Publish Prize for his exemplary courage in upholding freedom to publish. IPA President YoungSuk “Y.S.” Chi will formally present this year’s award during the closing ceremony of the 29th Congress of the International Publishers Association (IPA) to be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) on 14 June. The keynote speech will be delivered by Brian Wafawarowa, Executive Director of the Publishers Association of South Africa (PASA).
Exclusive Books is set to launch a social bookselling platform next week that it claims will be a first for South African retail. The platform is named “Stickers”.
This social functionality will be built into the existing Exclus1ves website to try and encourage more user and group activity.
Hugh Lewin was awarded the country’s foremost book prize for non-fiction, the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award, on Thursday night for his book Stones against the Mirror, published by Umuzi.
A court application by EduSolutions to force the department of basic education to reinstate its contract has failed. Pretoria High Court Judge Hans Fabricious dismissed the application with costs, agreeing with the department’s argument that the contract was awarded irregularly. Read more at the Sowetanlive.co.za.
The Booksellers’ Choice Award is chosen and presented by the South African book trade in recognition of outstanding contribution to the industry. It is awarded to the book that booksellers across South Africa have enjoyed reading, selling or promoting during the previous year. The award is only open to South African authors who are published in South Africa and celebrates the excellence and high standard of South African writing. Nielsen sponsors similar awards in Australia and New Zealand. Read more
