Amazon Stock Soars on Booming Sales

Study indicates literary decline might be reversing

(NEWSER) - The percentage of Americans reading fiction has increased for the first time in years, a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts indicates. The reported 50.2% of the population who picked up a book for pleasure marks a turnaround from a statistical decline in literary culture over the past two decades, the New York Times reports. More»

(NEWSER) - A new book by JK Rowling, patterned on one mentioned in the final Harry Potter installment, is set to be released tomorrow, Reuters reports. Profits from The Tales of Beedle the Bard will go to Rowling’s charity for Eastern European children. In addition to a global print run of 7.5 million, Amazon will release a collector’s edition facsimile of a handwritten, illustrated copy it bought at auction for $4 million. More»

Print with us or sell elsewhere, company tells on-demand publishers

(NEWSER) - Publishers who print books on demand will have to use Amazon’s printing service if they want to sell their books on the leading online bookseller's site. Amazon's new policy means print-on-demand publishers will have little choice but to accept Amazon’s prices if they want to sell via the site. It also threatens to steal business from competing on-demand printers, reports the Wall Street Journal. More»

Friday outage leaves businesses in the dark with customers

(NEWSER) - Part of Amazon.com’s 2-year-old Simple Storage Service went down for several hours Friday, leaving some customers in the dark and unable to access their own files, reports PC World. The pay-as-you-go “S3” service is used by companies to run websites and warehouse large amounts of data. The outage was resolved by 7am Pacific Time for most users. More»

Proceeds from the handwritten book will go to charity

(NEWSER) - The Internet giant of book sales revealed today that it was behind the purchase of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" in auction yesterday. Amazon paid $3.98 million for the handwritten manuscript -- a record for a children's book and for any modern literary manuscript, not to mention JK Rowling herself, reports Bloomberg. The money will go to a charity co-founded by the "Harry Potter" author. More»