Just like last year, the Social Media Week starts mid of February in Hamburg. A huge variety of events on all kinds of digital topics will take place from 18th to 22nd of February. We are definitely in on it - especially since our eBook manager Maike will host the panel "The future of book publishers - chances and risks 2.0" on February 21st at 7.30 pm in the Gertrudenstraße 3.
You can find further information about the event here.

We'd love to meet you there!

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On March 1st the 6th Swiss Music Awards will take place in Zurich. The Press Play association will be presenting the award to national and international musicians in over ten categories. The evaluation criteria have been defined in a set of rules drawn up in conjunction with Media Control Switzerland.
Among this year's nominees are the artists Müslüm, LiricasAnalas, Pegasus, Sir Colin and Aloan, who are signed to our partner Musikvertrieb. Congratulations und we keep our fingers crossed!

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ACT-artist Nils Landgren is one of the most successful Jazz artists in Europe. Now the third edition of his "Christmas With My Friends" series was already awarded with the German Jazz Award - four weeks after release. The Swedish trombonist and singer received the award during his performance at the German television show Sat 1 Frühstücksfernsehen on December 5th.

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Like in 2011, we will attend the E:Publish congress in Berlin from 15th to 16th of November. Maike Prehn - our manager eBook - presents a table session on the topic of piracy in the book business. She will try to give some food for thoughts about the matter of illegal downloads. We are looking forward to meeting you in Berlin!

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October 12th marks the release of Dieter Meier's "An autobiographic picture book" as a lavishly illustrated enhanced eBook, exclusively available at the iBookstore. On the following day, October 13th at 3 pm, the author presents this extensive piece of work at the stand of Edel publishers at the Frankfurt Bookfair (hall 3.0 stand C151).

In "Out of Chaos", the original book title, the charismatic artist and musician employs his talent at weaving words to charmingly retrace the steps of his creative life: starting with little Dieter who wants to mingle with the grownups early on, continuing with his performance art in Zurich an New York, his remarkable success with his band YELLO, and finally arriving at his films and his most recent art projects. Numerous videos and live recordings accompany this creatively designed eBook and make it an unforgettable experience - not only for fans.

Dieter Meier, born in Zurich in 1945, is an artist, musician, poker gamer and eco farmer. He is probably best known as the lead singer of the electro-pop group YELLO, with which he influenced the sound of the Eighties like few others. The Swiss combo achieved their major breakthrough in Germany with the 1988 single "The Race", which became the theme music for the highly popular music video show "Formel Eins" on German television. For their 30th anniversary in late 2009, YELLO's Dieter Meier and Boris Blank returned to the stage with their new CD Touch Yello. Only a few months later, they received the Swiss Music Award for their new release in the category "Best Album Rock/Pop National" as well as the Outstanding Achievement Award for their continuing success.

You can pre-order the eBook here.

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"Live fast - die young" was unfortunately also her life's credo: A year ago, Amy Winehouse died on July 23rd in London. The Soul diva left us with an amazing musical legacy of an all too short career.
The official biography "Amy - My Daughter" offers emotional and intimate insights into her private and public life. Written by her father Mitch Winehouse, all author proceeds from every copy sold will be donated to the "Amy Winehouse Foundation", the charity set up in her name. And of course eBooks also add to the donation. So: join in and help!

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Today Apple announced the launch of the iTunes Store in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and nine additional countries in Asia featuring an incredible selection of local and international music. Customers can choose from over 20 million songs and can also rent or purchase movies from the iTunes Store, with many available in stunning HD. The new countries include Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore. Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Therefore the iTunes Store is currently represented in 61 countries!

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Almost every adult and every child in Germany knows the great adventures of the radio play and cartoon characters Bibi Blocksberg and Benjamin the Elephant by the British author Elfie Donnelly.
Kontor New Media and Kiddinx Media now extend their cooperation for these two fantastic brands. This includes the video distribution of both characters, which belong to the best known figures of children's entertainment in Germany. The licence deal comprises the complete visuell catalogue as well as new releases!

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The award winners of the Echo Jazz 2012 are fixed and there are eight fantastic artists from our partner labels ACT, Skip Records, Content und Enja!

Iiro Rantala - Lost Heroes (pianist of the year international)
Magnus Öström - Thread of Life  (drummer of the year international)
Joachim Kühn - Out Of The Desert - Live hr Bigband At Jazzfest Berlin (big band album of the year)
Tingvall Trio - Vägen (ensemble of the year, national)
Jasmin Tabatabai - Eine Frau (singer of the year national)
Renaud García-Fons - Méditerranées (instrumentalist of the year international bass/bass guitar)
Joo Kraus - Painting Pop & More Songs from Neverland (instrumentalist of the year national brass instruments)
Johannes Enders - Billy Rubin (instrumentalist of the year  national saxophon/woodwinds)

The winners of the Echo Jazz 2012 were chosen by a twelve-headed jury, which had to choose between 230 nominees for 28 winners. The requirement for a nomination was an album release between November, 1st 2010 and October, 31st 2011, as well as at least two outstanding reviews by music journalists. We are very happy about these great news and congratulate all participants!

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Springtime is here - along with the Leipzig bookfair. You can find us together with Edel publishing house, Zabert Sandmann and Elisabeth Sandmann publisher in hall 3 at booth E 213. If you are interested, feel free to have some coffee and a chat with us. We would love to discuss eBooks, possibilities in digital distribution and our services with you.

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A great cookbook feature of the famous German TV chef Christian Rach started in the iBookstore today. As a special promotional offer, the two E-Books "Rach kocht" and "Das Gästebuch" are available for only 6,99 € each. We are excited by this opportunity and keep our fingers crossed for the publisher Edel!
The TV-Show "Der Restauranttester" by Christian Rach is one of the most successful TV formats in current German television, reaching a viewing rate of amazing 25% of the relevant target group for advertisers.

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iTunes just published the most successful releases of 2011 in Music, Apps, TV shows, Books, Movies and Podcasts. We are very pleased, that Kontor New Media has several titles in these very special charts.
The achiever of the year was the Swiss DJ Antoine, who delivered the iTunes Dance single of the year in Germany and Austria with his hit "Welcome To St. Tropez". Next to this, the French star DJ Martin Solveig had some great successes as well. His catchy single "Hello" was a real topseller in Germany and Austria. Here are all results:

Germany
Dance Single of the Year: DJ Antoine & Timati feat. Kalenna - Welcome To St. Tropez
Top Seller Songs (11) : DJ Antoine & Timati feat. Kalenna - Welcome To St. Tropez
Top Seller Songs (21) : Martin Solveig & Dragonette - Hello
Cook Books: Alfons Schubeck - Meine Kochschule, Gwyneth Paltrow - Meine Rezepte für Familie und Freunde

Austria
Dance Single of the Year: DJ Antoine & Timati feat. Kalenna - Welcome To St. Tropez
Top Seller Songs (13) : DJ Antoine & Timati feat. Kalenna - Welcome To St. Tropez
Top Seller Alben (17) : Martin Solveig & Dragonette - Hello

Switzerland
Top Seller Songs (18) : Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette - Hello

Belgium
French Album Of The Year: Pierreck Pedron - Cheerleaders

Finland
Breaktrough Artist Metal: Symfonia - In Paradisum

France
French Album Of The Year: Pierreck Pedron - Cheerleaders

Italy
Metal/Hard Rock Album Of The Year: Chickenfoot III (Bonus Track Version)

Norway
Breaktrough Artist Metal: Symfonia - In Paradisum

Together with our partners we are very happy about these results and look back to a very exciting and succesful year.

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The Swiss DJ Antoine received gold and platin awards from our partner Kontor Records for the single "Welcome To St. Tropez". Next to this, Kontor honored the track with gold for 15.000 sold records in Austria. Antoine also received an Impala Diamond Award for the single and an Impala Silver Award for his album "Welcome To DJ Antoine".
"Welcome To St. Tropez" is in the German single charts for 31 weeks now, the album entered the Top 100 14 weeks ago. At the end of October, the remix album "Welcome To DJ Antoine - Remixed", as well as the new single "Ma Cherie" were released.

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On Thursday, November 10th 2011 we arrange an informative event for and with our labels within the scope of a "Digital Day". Here we give the participants the opportunity to adept important news and information in the IT- and marketing section and get an insight into our internal processes. Questions and problems will be discussed in detail and as special guests their will be two colleagues from Simfy, who will present their service and the opportunities of streaming services in detail.

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The eBookCamp Hamburg will take place on November 5th and it's idea is to show the widespread acceptance of the medium eBook meanwhile. Issues and problem areas will be elucidated and appropriate solutions are developed through exchanges, joint brooding and creative interaction.
Within the scope of the camp the interesting workshop "Publishers in digital spheres - requirements and perspectives" takes place. Maike Prehn (Kontor New Media) will present the special requirements of the publishers in the digital business. Next to important discussions about  licencing righs, pricing and negotiation of terms, the issue of technical requirements and the piracy will be also a topic. It seems natural to compare this branch with the music industry for elaborating opportunities and prospects for the book trading segment.

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Meet us at the The Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) on October, 19th till 22nd. The ADE is the leading electronic music conference and the world's biggest club festival for electronic music. The event offers a unique blend of daytime conferences, including interactive workshops, technical demonstrations and in-depth round-table discussions, alongside a nighttime music festival which takes place in 52 venues around the city. The annual event attracts 3,000 business professionals and 130,000 festival visitors from all around the globe. We looking forward to see some of you there!

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Maike Prehn joined Kontor New Media on September 15th as the new contact person for book publishers. She oversees the development of the eBook segment. Maike has wide experience in the publishing business due to her prior occupations as a bookseller, Foreign Rights manager at Hoffmann und Campe publishers, customer service agent and travelling saleswoman at the book wholesaler Libri, and scientific author.

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Some of our artists can boast of awesome chart results this week: After DJ Antoine entered successfully the Top Ten last week, the cult-rocker from J.B.O. imitate him as their new record "Killeralbum" hit directly  # 3 of the German Longplaycharts.
Also Matt Gonzo had a great week too and entered #17 with his solo album "Blitz&Donner" and the band  "Unantastbar" enjoya a fantastic  #33 for their album "Schuldig".
Furthermore, last weeks chart positions of the German trend charts are pretty impressive, too! Mike Candys & Evelyn's hit-single "One Night In Ibiza" became #12, the album "Antirockstars" by Betontod is currently on #12 of the album trend charts and last but no least, Nils Landgren's new Jazz record "The Moon, The Stars And You"  entered  #38.

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"Welcome To St. Tropez" by DJ Antoine and the Russian star rapper Timati reached gold status in Germany. With more than 1.1 million records sold DJ Antoine is the most successful international DJ ever to emerge from Switzerland.  In a successful collaboration with Kontor Records he succeeded to conquer the German market.  
As well the single "Hello" by French DJ and producer Martin Solveig reached Platinum status. Since October 2010 the track is constantly present in the top 100 singles and is still on #5 of the German single charts until now!

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From now on iTunes customers can pre-listen to 90 seconds of a music track before purchase (but only if the song is not shorter than 2:30 minutes). This was only possible in the US before, but now it is available in almost every iTunes store worldwide. The only exception is Germany, as there is no agreement with the GEMA fixed yet. We will keep you up to date.

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Finally: Six months after release, DJ Antoine's hit "Welcome To St. Tropez" (together with rapper Timati) climbed to the top of the German iTunes charts! The single is a little pretaste for the upcoming album "Welcome To DJ Antoine", which will be released on August 12th.

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The waiting has come to an end: After more than a year of proceedigs with the major records companies, our partner Spotify is successfully launched in the U.S. on July, 14th.

From the beginning the U.S. launch had the highest priority for the company. The service, which is so far only available in its home country Sweden as well as Finland, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain, is currently used by around ten million music lovers. With the U.S. launch Spotify lead of the fight against the competitive from Google Music, icloud by Apple and Amazon's music-streaming service.

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On July 1st Christian Frahm joined the team of Kontor New Media as label manager. After studying applied cultural sciences (musicology and business administration), he worked as a product manager at Sony BMG in Munich, starting in 2004. In October 2006 he joined the Lighthouse distribution. Together with his colleagues, Christian Frahm founded the independent DVD label SAD Home Entertainment GmbH in March 2008.
At Kontor New Media, Christian will now take care of the Edel Germany repertoire divisions and other partners, especially in the fields of jazz and classical music.

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Interessting news for all book lovers: Apple's iBookstore is now on iTunes - available for PC and Mac. By the way, the book "Die 100 besten Fußball-Sprüche" (The 100 Best Soccer Quotes), which is distributed by us, is the current number one in the German charts for free books.

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In time for the launch of our new data base system we have some interessting facts. At the moment we store about 720,00 tracks for our partner labels, which are on more than 100,000 products. The current storage has a size of 35 Terabytes. That's a playtime of more than 66 years of music in CD quality.

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We are very happy to release a new data base system for our label partners. Next to a faster performance, a quicker scan of data and an optimized upload function, the system also offers a much better search functionality and of course a new contemporary optic. Our labels will then have a really strong and comfortable tool to act in the digital business.

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This weekend the 56th Eurovision Songcontest will take place in Düsseldorf. The official motto this year is "Feel your heart beat!" The young singer-songwriter Anna Rossinelli has qualified for the finals on Tuesday and starts for Switzerland with her great song "In Love For A While". The song was releaseed by her label das office and is distributed by Kontor New Media. We keep our fingers crossed for this young talented artist!

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The E-Book "Märchenhaft GEIL - Männer sind Frösche", written by Owen Benjamin Parker and Emerson Marie Parker, is #1 of the general charts on the German iBookstore! The E-Book was releasend at the end of March by our distribution partner Satzweiss.com - Chichili Agency. The humorous story is about the everyday life of three girlfriends who are searching for their "frog kings". We are pleased about our first number 1 position in the E-book section!

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The German Phono Academy, the cultural institute of the federal association of the music industry recently announced the winners of the Echo Jazz 2011!

This year, five artists of our distribution label ACT are going to receive the Echo, Germany's most important music award. The album "LIVE at JazzBaltica" receives the Echo in two categories: Ensemble of the Year national for the band Wollny, Kruse, Schaefer and Drummer of the Year national for Eric Schaefer. A big surprise and at the same time well deserved is the Echo for the Korean singer Youn Sun Nah in the category Female Vocalist international. The award as Saxophonist of the Year national is presented to Heinz Sauer and his album "If (Blue) Then (Blue)". The Echo Jazz Lifetime Achievement Award goes to the brothers Joachim and Rolf Kühn.

The official award ceremony takes place on June 17th 2011 at the Gläserne Manufaktur of Volkswagen in Dresden. Congratulations to the lucky winners and ACT! 

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Kontor New Media has a new music service in its distribution network: Beyond Oblivion. The company was founded in 2008 and has offices in New York City (Headquarters), Silicon Valley, Salt Lake City and London.

They have developed a Music Service which monetizes every music content played on their player - even ripped and shared files! They charge a license fee per music-capable device (computer, smartphone etc. - only one player per device) and pay content owners a micro-royalty per play on those devices, whether or not the song-files were legally or illegally downloaded.

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It goes forward and Kontor New Media expands its list of distribution partners and welcomes the label Snapper Music! The label started in 1996 and is based in London. In their great artist roster you will find legendary bands such as WASP, Porcupine Tree, No-Man, Ozric Tentacles, Cradle of Filth, Fish, Happy Mondays, Garry Glitter, 3 Colours Red, Solomon Burke and Amen. As well as having its own imprint, Snapper Music distributes several sub-labels with different music genres: Peaceville (Metal), Kscope (Post Progressive), Charly (RnB, Jazz, Progressive and Blues music).

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Kontor New Media and the Australian company Valleyarm join forces. Valleyarm is Asia Pacifics leading digital distributor, publisher and marketer of independent music and video content. They will distribute the content from Kontor New Media in the entire Asian and Pacific market. This allows us to enable our labels to sell their products in stores such as Maxis (Malaysia), Singtel (Singapore), Starhub (Singapore), China Mobile (China), MELON (South Korea) and Bigpond (Australia).

We are excited about this new partnership!

www.valleyarm.com

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We look forward to offer two high-class eBooks from our new partner, the Zabert Sandmann publisher! They belong to the leading publishers in Germany in the areas of cooking, health and wine.
The celebrity chef Alfons Schuhbeck granted his readers a look into his very own kitchen and accumulated knowledge in his book "Meine Küchengeheimnisse". In addition, the celebrity chef Cornelia Poletto from Hamburg reveals all sorts of secrets of the professional kitchen in her book "Polettos Kochschule. Mein neuer Grundkurs für Einsteiger". Popular classics will be revamped and recreated with helpful tricks and tips.
Both books are available for iPad and iPhone in the iBookstore!

www.zs-verlag.com

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We are very proud to announce that "Hello", the successful single from Martin Solveig, is nominated in two categories at the 26th Annual International Dance Music Awards (IDMA). Also nominated are two another artists from Kontor Records/Napith Music, Tim Berg and Riva Starr! The Award will be announced and awarded at the Winter Music Conference in Miami. We are exited and cross our fingers for these great artists!

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Keith Jarretts album "The Köln Concert" is the recording of an improvisational solo concert at the Cologne Opera on 24th January 1975. It is the best selling and best-known release by Keith Jarrett, also the best-selling jazz solo album and the best-selling piano solo album ever.
"The Köln Concert" was just selected to be in the Grammy Hall of Fame as one of the most important records in history. Kontor New Media congratulates Keith Jarret and ECM to this sensational success!

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Kontor New Media welcomes a new partner, the film production company corazón international, and looks forward to a great and successful cooperation. An appropriate deal was recently selead by the managing directora of corazón Fatih Akin and Klaus Maeck with the Kontor New Media-Team of Michael Pohl. At first, Kontor New Media takes over the distribution and marketing of the three corazón-movies "Soul Kitchen", "Auf der anderen Seite" and "Crossing the Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul" on all major digital film platforms.
In 2009, Fatih Akin won the special Prize for his comedy "Soul Kitchen" at the Venice film festival. "Auf der anderen Seite" earned the Prize for best script at Cannes in 2007 and, one year later, was declared "Best Feature Film" at the German film Award, plus "Best Directors Screen Play And Editing".

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We congratulate our Labelpartner ACT Music and the American pianist Vijay Iyer for a Grammy nomination for his album "Historicity", for which he has already won the Echo Jazz of the German Phono Academy. The chances are good that Iyers debut on ACT is a winner of the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards on February 13th, 2011 in Los Angeles. "Historicity" became one of the most acclaimed jazz albums of the decade in the US: It was chosen as #1 Jazz Album of the Year by The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Downbeat International Critics Poll. Most recently, in the Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards, Iyer was named the 2010 Musician of the Year, an honor previously given to Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, Wayne Shorter, and Dave Holland.

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