OverDrive released its lists of the most-downloaded e-books from libraries in December 2011. These lists look pretty different from the current New York Times e-book bestseller lists. Here’s why, plus a few interesting tidbits.

I asked publishers and authors how they’re promoting their e-books for the holidays and got answers from bundling and free samplers to Kindle Fire giveaways. Click through to see who’s doing what.

$9.99 is often treated as a magic price—the cost of a New York Times bestseller on Kindle back in the good old days, before big-six publishers adopted agency pricing models and ended Amazon’s discounting of their books. However, for a variety of reasons, few readers ever had the chance to…

Penguin is once again making its e-books available to libraries through Kindle, OverDrive reports. New Penguin e-books, however, remain unavailable to libraries on any platform. Update, 11/28/2011: Penguin has issued a statement and I have updated this post.

Following yesterday’s news that Penguin, citing security concerns, is pulling its new e-books from libraries—and making none of them available for library lending through Kindle—many are wondering why the publisher would do such a thing. (Penguin and Random House had been the only two “big six” publishers to offer unfettered…

Citing unspecified “concerns about the security of our digital editions,” Penguin Group USA is pulling new e-books from libraries; in addition, it is not lending any e-books to libraries through Kindle.

Many popular self-published authors are coming down hard on the self-publishing services that Penguin added to community writing site Book Country earlier this week, calling the initiative overpriced, royalty-grabbing and “truly awful.”

Aspiring writers come to Book Country, Penguin Group USA’s online genre fiction community, to post and workshop their romance, science fiction/fantasy, thriller and mystery manuscripts in progress. Now Book Country is adding a self-publishing option, with packages ranging from $99 to $549. While companies like HarperCollins have launched their own…

Penguin is the latest publisher to test out e-singles with the launch of Penguin Shorts, an ongoing digital series of original fiction and nonfiction titles from authors like Colm Toibin and Anita Brookner.

Pearson (NYSE: PSO) Australia’s acquisition of REDGroup’s online business, including the Borders Australia website and the website of bookstore chain Angus & Robertson, won’t give Pearson-owned publisher Penguin a monopoly over Australia’s e-book supply chain, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has decided.

As the race to be be ebook format of choice hots up, Penguin is making some bold, experimental bets. These first-look demos of forthcoming books from iPad’s iBook Store, presented by Penguin Books’ CEO John Makinson in London on Tuesday, give an idea how publishers might approach Apple’s tablet…

Penguin Group USA and Random House are both cementing plans to bring more of their books to the iPhone and other mobile devices, the AP reports. The two publishers announced new mobile initiatives today as the book industry sets its sights on increasing digital sales in a worsening economy. Penguin…