LibWorm.com provides a librarian RSS filtering service. Data from over 1500 librarian RSS feeds is collected and output via different categories. This feed contains the latest headlines from the user generated query: ebook Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:33:17 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/xarUubsBc7E/ OverDrive’s monthly listing has just come out. Here are the most downloaded adult fiction books: The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold I, Alex Cross, James Patterson The Help, Kathryn Stockett Alex Cross’s Trial, James Patterson Pirate Latitudes, Michael Crichton Bed of Roses, Nora Roberts The Last Song, Nicholas Sparks “U” is for Undertow, Sue Grafton Vision in White, Nora Roberts You can find the rest of the listing here. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:43:57 +0100 814174 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/3ebSS1RS2sU/ One of the chief functions publishers serve is gatekeepers. Because they invest a lot of money into publishing and publicizing a given book, it is in their best interest to make sure that book is good. Hence, with the understanding that not every book is to every reader’s taste, we rely on publishers to filter out the “slush” and give us books that are good to read. But now the Internet has come out to play, and writers who do not want to have to bother with going through the traditional publishing structure can post what they write freely or inexpensively, or even self-publish it through Amazon. Some have complained that this turns the Internet into one giant slushpile. However, others counter that this just means other methods of picking out the good stuff have to come to the fore. One such method is the trusted reviewer. With that in mind, in these “Cheap Reads” columns I am going to pick out a few free or inexpensive e-books that are a bit off the beaten path, and that are certainly available for less than the $14.99 Macmillan wants to charge for e-books. I encourage other TeleRead contributors to do the same. In a way, I have already started doing this: Henry Melton is a great independently (self-)published writer, and I have reviewed six of his books: Emperor Dad, four others, and Golden Girl. (And I look forward to reading and reviewing his next, Pixie Dust, whenever it is available.) Melton’s books can be had as Kindle or Mobi titles for much less than Amazon’s standard $9.99, or in autographed trade paperback in your hands (including shipping) for less than the cost of a Macmillan e-book. But for this column, I am going to recommend some free Internet fiction: the “Paradise” series from Shifti.org. I have mentioned Shifti in my “Paleo E-Books” series as a site where people can post transformation-related stories. ... Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:04:54 +0100 814176 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/VfX35_PVchQ/amazon-macmillan-ebooks-apple Macmillan capitalises on bitter rivalry by forcing through price increase for digital versions of its bestselling titlesIn a plot twist worthy of one of its own thrillers, publisher Macmillan has capitalised on the bitter rivalry between two of America's largest technology companies to strike a blow for old media by forcing through a price increase for digital versions of its bestselling titles.Apple and Amazon are locked in a fight over the future of the book. Both are trying to dominate the market for ebooks, which are expected to become increasingly important to readers in the digital decades ahead.Amazon made an early play two years ago with its monochrome Kindle ebook reader, but last week Apple's tanks arrived on Amazon's lawn with the launch of its latest invention. Having taken the music market by storm with its iPod and iTunes combination, Apple now hopes to repeat the trick with its new iPad and iBookstore.Macmillan is one of five publishers – the others being Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette – that have signed up with Apple to make ebooks available through its online store.In doing so, they have moved the pricing of ebooks away from the bargain $9.99 (£6.26) price Amazon has been criticised by publishers for charging in an attempt to lure more people on to the Kindle.Last weekend, Amazon removed Macmillan books – including Booker prize-winning Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – from its US website in protest at the publisher's demand that Amazon stop discounting its titles and start selling them instead at the $12.99 and $14.99 suggested by Apple.There was outrage in the publishing industry at Amazon's move, and hours later it was forced into a U-turn.It is now assumed that Amazon will have to match Apple's price for ebooks on Macmillan titles. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:02:25 +0100 814112 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/-ORfaGIKFVw/amazon-macmillan-apple-ebook-row Macmillan has flexed its muscle with Amazon on ebook prices – and Apple has helpedThe net book agreement, that price-fixing arrangement that publishers gave up defending in the mid-1990s, lives again. Well, sort of. Macmillan has told Amazon that $9.99 (£6.25) is just not enough to charge for a bestseller or hardback released in ebook version. It considers $12.99, or even $14.99, to be fair. Amazon is furious but concedes there's nothing it can do. It's a rare victory for the champions of copyright.It is interesting to note the role of Apple here. The group has indicated that it will give publishers freedom to set prices on its new iBookstore. That move undercuts the negotiating power of Amazon.Apple's stance looks the smarter. There is something ridiculous about Amazon's bleats about Macmillan having "a monopoly over their own titles". Yes, that's the publishing trade and that's how it seeks to stay in business.Newspapers & magazinesEbooksInternetNils Pratleyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:50:03 +0100 814114 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/cnhtjIWaZUE/ As mentioned in her article below, TeleRead contributor Ficbot has opened a website for free and cheap ebooks. Here is what she has to say: I am not aiming for this website to be simply a giant compilation of every link out there. This will be a more personal site about books I have personally and and vouched for. I realize that my personal taste may be just that, personal, but I am hoping this more intimate approach will help people winnow their way through the vast Slush Pile of the Internet with books that are tried and true (by someone, at least….) If you also want to read reviews of the more ‘commercial’ books I read, those reviews (and more detailed reviews of some of the books here) can be found on my blog. If you are an author and you would like me to consider reviewing your ebook, drop me an email and we can discuss the details. My goal for this website is to point people toward the quality stuff! I want to encourage readers to support independent authors. Genres which interest me include mystery, light romance and general fiction. I am not interested in fantasy, and only rarely read sci-fi. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:06:44 +0100 814178 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/059QaSnHnaI/ So, who lost the weekend’s ebook war, Amazon or Macmillan? Neither, actually. Amazon gets to raise its prices, make more money and come off looking like the good guy. Macmillan proves yet again that Big Publishing doesn’t get it (did you see even a single mention of book-buying customers in their open letter) and who loses most? The customers—the ones who buy books and upon whose money the whole house of cards actually operates! I have been delighted to find that some readers are starting to fight back. There are alternatives to Big Publishing, if you know where to look and what to look for!1) Public domain and creative commons-licensed books. Manybooks (http://www.manybooks.net), Feedbooks (http://www.feedbooks.com) and Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org) are the big repositories here. All allow you to download the book in any format of your choosing, for reading on the device of your choosing. And if you haven’t been to such a site recently, you’ll be gratified to know that the public domain isn’t just Shakespeare and the Bible anymore. You can get pulp sci-fi classics, hundreds of novels from the golden age of mystery (Raymond Chandler just entered the public domain in Life+50 countries) and current titles from contemporary authors like Cory Doctorow, Kelly Link and Charles Stross who have licensed them under Creative Commons licenses. 2) Self-published titles from contemporary authors. Feedbooks (http://www.feedbooks.com) and Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com) are the main hubs for this. Feedbooks has only free titles and Smashwords has some free titles and some in the $5 and under range—nearly all of these titles allow readers to sample a portion of the book for free. Once you purchase a title, it’s yours to download, DRM-free, in the format or formats of your choosing, without restriction. 3) DRM-free titles from publishers who get it. Baen (http://www.baen. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:35:35 +0100 814180 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/pVS74SlVO-I/ More free stuff today. Download 20 free first chapters of contemporary titles, as well as 5 complete Classics titles at www.readhowyouwant.com/humanware. Classics titles selected for the February Free Download Program are Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Middlemarch by George Eliot, The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:23:55 +0100 814181 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/VhxH_L_axuo/ On January 23, 2010 The New York Times had a front-page article titled, “On Kindle’s List, the Best Sellers Don’t Necessarily Need to Sell.” The article went on to discuss the phenomenon with which most savvy ebookers are familiar: many of the “bestsellers” on any ebook bestseller list are free titles. More important to publishers is that many of those bestsellers are always-free public domain books, not paid-for ebooks being given away temporarily as promotions. The article went on to discuss publisher approaches to freebies, how freebies are promotional, and other good reasons why giving away an ebook is good and/or bad. (Sadly, the article neglects to mention some of the best sources for free ebooks such as MobileRead and Feedbooks. Free ebooks at these two sources are well-formatted and generally well-edited by a caring community.)Let me say upfront that I like free ebooks–after all, who doesn’t like free. Free ebooks have introduced me to authors whose work I never would have read otherwise. But let me also say that with rare exception, I have not proceeded to buy other books of the new authors I have liked. (I do, however, buy a lot of ebooks and hardcovers — more than 100 of each type in 2009.) Free ebooks are a two-edged sword for publishers and authors. On the positive side, it introduces readers to authors they might not otherwise have read. In my case, it introduced me to David Weber, author of the Honor Harrington Series, and now I buy all of his books in hardcover. On the other hand, it also introduced me to Fiona McIntosh, author of the Quickening Series. I liked her writing but have not bought either of her newest two books (books 1 and 2 of her Valisar Trilogy) because the publisher set the ebook prices higher than the paperback prices. So, problem #1 is that many publishers still have no clue about what differentiates an ebooker from a print copy buyer. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:58:31 +0100 814182 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/NAbJLQCqfrU/ It is easy to think that there are only two main constituencies in this ebook pricing war – publishers and readers. But there are the authors too. Richard Curtis points out that the increased price of ebooks will help authors. Currently most publishers pay a royalty of 25% of net receipts on ebooks. Macmillan actually is the lowest payer with a royalty of only 20%. Curtis points out that as the prices of ebooks rise it will be harder and harder for companies such as Macmillan to maintain lower than “standard” royalties, and it may even help in raising the standard in the future. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:40:27 +0100 814183 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/N4OAQ6qt-cE/ Here are the new features: * E-book viewer: Add support for viewing SVG images * Add category of Recently added books when generating catalog in e-book format * OS X: Allow adding of books to calibre via drag and drop on the calibre dock icon * Add support for masthead images when downloading news for the Kindle * MOBI metadata: Allow setting of metadata in old PRC files without EXTH headers as well Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:20:46 +0100 814184 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/YItlU-LYaKE/ The worst-kept secret in recent tech history, Apple’s iPad, was unveiled last week. Some folks were wowed by the announcement while others were left asking, “is that all there is?” I was somewhere in between. A buddy called me that day and said he bet Jeff Bezos was…, well, requiring an undergarment change. I told him I doubted it. Not because the iPad won’t have a significant impact on the Kindle…it will…but because Wednesday’s announcement was the confirmation of something Amazon, like the rest of us, already knew about. I’ll get to the Kindle effect in a moment, but first let me say why I think every publisher on the planet should warm up to the iPad. One word: Pricing. Not device pricing but content pricing. Ever since the Kindle arrived in late 2007 Amazon has led us on this downward path to lower and lower prices. On the one hand, I don’t blame them for this. After all, we, the publishers, are the ones trying to build a significant business around quickie print-to-e conversions.Amazon has been more than an accomplice in this regard though as they’ve developed a device that discourages and effectively prevents publishers from enriching their content offerings. Two plus years into the life of the Kindle and they’re just now announcing plans to open the platform to third-party developers?! Are you kidding me? Did they not notice that the App Store is one of the keys to the iPhone’s success? Compare the functionality of the Kindle to what the iPad will offer. Look at the rich content opportunities the iPad presents. Your newspaper won’t just be a lousy text feed with a few grayscale images; it will be full color with video and audio built in. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:47:35 +0100 814187 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechsourceBlog/~3/0d-LjwKqKbU/the-apple-ipad.html On Wednesday, the most anticipated technology product announcement of the last few years took place (video of the event here), and Apple finally showed off their tablet computer, the iPad. The iPad is going to dominate the technology discussion for the next several months, but here's a first-blush look at the tech specs and features that are going to be important for libraries and education. as well as what's missing and what we should be worried about. First up, the specs: the iPad is a roughly  9.5 x 7.5 inch slab of glass and aluminum, .5 inch thick, and weighs in an 1.5 pounds. The 9.7 inch LCD screen is LED backlit, and has a 1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch. Apple is producing 6 unique versions of the iPad, 3 different storage capacities with 2 different wireless connectivity options. Here's a table summarizing the different options:     16GB 32GB 64GB Wi-Fi $499 $599 $699 Wi-Fi + 3G $629 $729 $829 The iPad runs a version of the iPhone operating system, and does indeed look a great deal like an oversized iPod Touch. It will run all of the existing Apps that are available for the iPhone/iPod touch, at either the original resolution (windowed on the iPad screen) or something that Steve Jobs referred to as "pixel doubled" at full screen. Apple claims that the iPad will have 10 hours of battery life on Wi-Fi. For libraries,these are probably the interesting most details: Jobs announced a new iBook store and corresponding application on the iPad, putting the device squarely in the eReader category. Apple verified that it will use the EPUB format, but unfortunately Abode also verified that it won't be using Adobe DRM. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:46:40 +0100 814049 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/7MtDa-5T8Sk/ From the press release I received: Offered as a free e-book for one day only, February 1: Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. “[Johns] traces the tensions between authorized and unauthorized producers and distributors of books, music, and other intellectual property in British and American culture from the 17th century to the present. . . . The shifting theoretical arguments about copyright and authorial property are presented in a cogent and accessible manner. Johns’s research stands as an important reminder that today’s intellectual property crises are not unprecedented, and offers a survey of potential approaches to a solution.” —Publishers Weekly http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ebooks/free_ebook.html Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:29:26 +0100 814189 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/OoXUHMXRqcU/ It is time for me to give an ereader a serious shakedown. In Slow Reading, I asserted that print books are still the superior technology for reading anything of length or substance; that view remains. However, it is clear that the writing and publishing world is changing. I am discovering excellent writers who are publishing their material independently, often as ebooks. I want to read this material, but not on a computer, and without printing it. A specialized reading device might fill the gap. Amazon’s ereader, the Kindle, came to Canada in late 2009. No doubt there are good reasons not to buy a Kindle. Personally, I find Amazon’s competitive practices too aggressive (such as disabling the buy button for publishers who do not use their print-on-demand service). Also, I was vaguely aware that Kindle uses Digital Rights Management (DRM) to try to restrict access to it content, unlike Sony’s Reader which uses the open epub format. I am better informed now. However, Amazon was the first to offer a wireless reader in Canada. I was curious and felt the need to play. I put the Kindle on my Christmas list. The Kindle was not previously available in Canada because Amazon had not reached a deal with local wireless providers. Even now the deal is limited. In Canada, Kindle wireless only permits access to Amazon’s store and Wikipedia. In the US, users can also browse the web, read blogs, and email documents to the device. My hope is that the Canadian wireless deal will eventually match the American one. Amazon has said as much about their document delivery service. Sony later followed with wireless capability but the equivalent product costs a hundred dollars more. I ordered the Kindle 2 with six-inch display for $259.00 CAD. (Just recently the larger Kindle DX has become available internationally.) It arrived very quickly, left on my front porch even though no one was home. It was a Christmas wish so I had to wait until Christmas to open the present. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:15:05 +0100 814007 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/3A-uMltGP4E/ Recently the folks at Amazon have been put into a vicious corner. They are trapped between a growing consumer base who they are diligently serving and a recalcitrant supplier who wants to redraw the balance of power. Make no mistake folks the “balance of power” in e-book pricing is finally being firmly challenged by a major publisher. As Chris Meadows wisely reminded us Amazon is currently trapped in an economic death funnel. The only way forward is through Macmillan and there are literally a million plus people pushing Amazon further into this quagmire. If I were Jeff Bezos I would be thinking about whether or not I can hold out much longer. Windowing releases and/or charging Amazon exorbitant prices is one thing but outright bullying is another. Unfortunately, for e-book aficionados our window to prevent the raping of e-books is closing in on us.As Chris reminded us in Economics there is something known as resale price maintenance in which a supplier dictates terms to a distributor. Where he left off I will begin by highlighting two concepts, one known as Cartelization, the other Path Dependency. Amazon is being pressured by publishers who are slowly circling their wagons and deciding to either alienate or ostracize Kindlers. Their power as gate keepers is being threatened by the rapid growth of e-books as well as self-publishing with their $9.99 and under equilibrium price. For months a divided yet spirited Kindle community has fought a good fight and emboldened Amazon into actually adhering to its initial “low price-high volume” model. But like the Bible’s warrior Samson this remarkable duo has a glaring weakness: their insatiable need for high quality books. Traditional publishers excel more than anyone else at meeting this demand when they avoid the “normalization of deviance” concept which I covered in an earlier piece. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:00:08 +0100 814008 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/02/01/nasa-publishes-its-first-e-book-free/ NASA has recently released its first e-Book titled, “X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight by Dennis R. Jenkins.” You can access a copy (it’s free) on the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate website. This e-Book and others to come are available for the Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle, and Amazon Kindle DX. NASA e-Books will also “eventually” be available for the nook. From the Description: The X-15 was the ultimate “X” vehicle. Built in the 1950s, she became the fastest and highest-flying winged aircraft of its time. During 199 flights from 1959 through 1968, she collected data about hypersonic flight that was invaluable to aeronautics and to developers of the space shuttle. This book describes the genesis of the program, the design and construction of the aircraft, years of research flights and the experiments that flew aboard them You can also purchase a print version of the book Another Title Coming Soon + “Apollo of Aeronautics: NASA’s Aircraft Energy Efficiency Program, 1973-1987″ by Mark D. Bowles This NASA RSS feed should keep you current with new eBook titles and release info. Chris Meadows at TeleRead has more info. He reports the files are actually .prc and .pdf. and then goes on to say that he had no problems opening the .prc file on his PC but, “it may be a little much for mobi-handheld readers to handle,” since the e-Book contains so many photos and charts. Sources: Latest Gadgets Blog, TeleRead, NASA (Source: ResourceShelf) Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:15:35 +0100 814015 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/0xiqNuWeME8/amazon-defeat-macmillan-ebook-row • Amazon to give in over publisher's price demands for book downloads• Row had seen Macmillan titles withdrawn from sale on AmazonAmazon has conceded that it will have to give in to Macmillan in a row over the pricing of ebooks that saw the publisher's titles removed from the retailer's virtual shelves this weekend.After a meeting between the two parties on Thursday ended in deadlock, Amazon stripped books from Macmillan – including Hilary Mantel's Man Booker prizewinner, Wolf Hall – from its website in the US.In a posting on its site, Amazon said the talks stumbled over Macmillan's push to switch to a pricing model where $12.99 to $14.99 is charged for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases. Amazon, which has long been under fire from the publishing community for selling ebook bestsellers at $9.99, sought to paint Macmillan as the pricing tyrant."We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for ebooks," the online retailer added."Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling ebook. We don't believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced ebooks as an alternative."Thursday's price spat with Amazon – home of the Kindle ebook store and reading device – followed the news that Macmillan was one of a handful of publishers to be the first in Apple's new iBookstore. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:10:58 +0100 813956 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/hTyh8HPixUc/amazon-ebooks • This weekend's big story has been the row between Amazon and Macmillan, the publisher, over ebook pricing. After temporarily pulling all Macmillan books - including physical ones - from its site as they argued about who can set the price of ebook downloads, Amazon has now relented. The particulars may have come and gone over the course of a weekend, but this argument has only just started.• The fallout from Google and China continues - mainly because a lot of people are now turning their attention to the subject of internet espionage and hacking. The latest piece of news? a leaked MI5 report, seen by the Sunday Times, which suggests that China "represents one of the most significant espionage threats to the UK".• And we're finally seeing the war of promises ahead of an upcoming election in Britain touch on technology. To trump the government's plan to get everyone 2Mbps broadband by 2012 (announced a year ago), the Tories now say they want 100Mbps lines to the 'majority' of homes by 2017. What next? And will it change your vote?You can follow our links and commentary each day through Twitter (@guardiantech, or our personal accounts) or by watching our Delicious feed.Amazon.comEbooksGoogleBroadbandBobbie Johnsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:00:00 +0100 813960 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/booksquare/~3/PorVpPjpT2Y/ Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it. Consumer expectations will rise if prices do Over the weekend, we rode a rollercoaster as Macmillan laid out its demands for ebook pricing to Amazon, and Amazon responded by pulling (nearly) all Macmillan titles from its store. Late Sunday, Amazon announced they would “capitulate” to Macmillan’s demands on pricing. It almost goes without saying that this will be the go-forward model for all major publishers, and maybe their independent brethren as well. Publishers have gotten what they want. Man, it seems like a victory doesn’t it? In a way it is. I’ve been of two minds on this topic since the entire concept of the “Agency Model” was announced (rough definition below). Setting aside the fact that it’s still opaque to parties with a vested interest (authors, agents, even other retailers), I have a natural aversion to wholesalers (book publishers) forcing prices on retailers (Amazon, et al). I believe price is an important tool in the arsenal of retailers. And, as a consumer, I’m not yet willing to pay more for the vast majority of ebooks being released today. More in a few paragraphs. On the other hand, I love that this approach (finally) levels the playing field for all retailers. Sort of. Some have argued that this battle is not about DRM, but it is all about DRM. DRM is the tool retailers use to lock in consumers. Amazon does it. Sony does it. Barnes & Noble does it. Apple does it (or rather will, in the case of books). Every retailer who has a device has a proprietary DRM scheme. And publishers encourage this. They demand DRM. These DRM schemes lock other retailers out of the devices. They allow companies to dominate the marketplace. Why would I shop IndieBound when I can’t load the books on my preferred device? Ah, the battles on the horizon! It’s going to be a bumpy year. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:44:29 +0100 813965 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/k0ul7hc6FQA/ It appears the feud is over, with the publisher winning this time. Turns out Amazon’s pulling Macmillan titles was just a token gesture. Amazon has posted the following announcement to its Kindle Community forum: Dear Customers: Macmillan, one of the "big six" publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases. We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative. Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy! Thank you for being a customer. I can’t help but find this decision disappointing. As I said before, allowing the publisher to set the standard retail price is anti-competitive. (Attorney C.E. Petit explains more about that aspect, in a post Paul Biba has since reprinted on TeleRead.) If the publisher is allowed to dictate these terms to every e-book vendor, then it becomes harder for consumers to find a bargain. On the other hand, it’s interesting that Amazon doesn’t mention that Macmillan claims its $14. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:23:00 +0100 814009 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/ODYg6uAzW7w/ Found via Wired: NASA has added a free e-book section to its website, and posted its first title—a history of the X-15 rocket plane test program which was an important part of space research in the 1960s. The book is available in DRM-free “Kindle” and “Sony Reader” formats—though mousing over the links reveals they are really MobiPocket .PRC and PDF formats respectively—and NASA promises a Nook (eReader?) version soon. The .PRC version opens just fine in the MobiPocket Reader desktop app on my PC, but it may be a little much for handheld Mobi-compatible readers to handle—it contains so many photos and charts that it clocks in as a 10 megabyte file. That’s larger than the entire on-board memory of the Palm III PDA! A hard copy of the book, including an insert CD-ROM with photo gallery and charts, can be ordered for prices starting at $4 with standard shipping. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:49:17 +0100 814010 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/k0ul7hc6FQA/ It appears the feud is over, with the publisher winning this time. Turns out Amazon’s pulling Macmillan titles was just a token gesture. Amazon has posted the following announcement to its Kindle Community forum: Dear Customers: Macmillan, one of the "big six" publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases. We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative. Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy! Thank you for being a customer. I can’t help but find this decision disappointing. As I said before, allowing the publisher to set the standard retail price is anti-competitive. (Attorney C.E. Petit explains more about that aspect, in a post Paul Biba has since reprinted on TeleRead.) If the publisher is allowed to dictate these terms to every e-book vendor, then it becomes harder for consumers to find a bargain. On the other hand, it’s interesting that Amazon doesn’t mention that Macmillan claims its $14. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:40:00 +0100 813843 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/QP5dMbIvVPA/amazon-macmillan-ebook-reverse In an abrupt turnaround, the bookselling giant has reversed the stance it had taken with Macmillan over ebook pricingAmazon has given in over the pricing of ebooks which prompted a row with the publishers Macmillan - to the extent that Amazon stopped selling both Macmillan's ebooks and its physical books in its US store.The initial move had generated a great deal of entirely acceptable heat for Amazon, which wanted to be able to set the prices of ebooks and was prepared to use its power in selling physical ones to do it.We wrote about that earlier today: "Describing the move, Macmillan chief executive John Sargent signalled the impasse may not be resolved any time soon, sparking speculation that the row could affect Amazon operations outside its home market, including in the UK.""Amazon and Macmillan both want a healthy and vibrant future for books. We clearly do not agree on how to get there. Meanwhile, the action they chose to take last night clearly defines the importance they attribute to their view. We hold our view equally strongly," said Sargent."Wiser heads now seem to have prevailed at Amazon. In a new posting on its site (which is certified Amazon official - we don't want any old bod turning up claiming to be speaking for Amazon), the Amazon Kindle team says: "We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don't believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. ... Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:00:43 +0100 813954 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/O2UQdl0gjxo/amazon-shelves-macmillan-titles Amazon withdraws all Macmillan books from its US operation after fallout over download pricingA bitter pricing row between Amazon and the publishing industry intensified this weekend as the online retailer stripped books from Macmillan, including Hilary Mantel's Man Booker prizewinner, Wolf Hall, from its website in the US.The drastic move, which could be followed around the world including in the UK, followed tense talks between the two parties over the price of ebooks last week. Fresh from a deal to become one of a handful of publishers in Apple's new ­iBookstore, Macmillan sharpened its demands on Amazon to help ensure the "long-term viability and stability of the digital book market".The world's biggest online retailer and home of the Kindle ebook store and reading device has long been under attack from publishers for selling digital books at $9.99 (£6.25) a title, which they argue risks undermining hard copies. Apple, which is potentially providing Amazon's biggest ebook challenge yet with the iPad, is expected to allow publishers more freedom to set their own prices.Amazon stood its ground in the latest battle, according to Macmillan's reports of the meeting, and just hours later the retailer started removing Macmillan hardcopy books for sale from its US site and also stopped selling the electronic versions in the Kindle store.Describing the move, Macmillan chief executive John Sargent signalled the impasse may not be resolved any time soon, sparking speculation that the row could affect Amazon operations outside its home market, including in the UK."Amazon and Macmillan both want a healthy and vibrant future for books. We clearly do not agree on how to get there. Meanwhile, the action they chose to take last night clearly defines the importance they attribute to their view. We hold our view equally strongly," said Sargent. ... Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:11:00 +0100 813760 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/ovu3AIctbZw/ The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has an overview article on Epub – what it is, how to publish in it, what it’s problems are. The short article, written by Steven Sande, is a good overview and has some hints for Mac people that are hard to find elsewhere. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:48:16 +0100 813845 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/01/31/all-about-epub-the-ebook-standard-for-apples-ibookstore/ From the Article: EPUB is the same format used by the popular Stanza [free, iTunes link] app for iPhone and iPod touch. It’s a free and open standard format created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), and it’s designed for reflowable content that can be optimized to whatever device is being used to read a book file. The IDPF has championed EPUB as a single format that can be used by publishers and conversion houses, as well as for distribution and sale of electronic books. The format is meant to function as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale. It supports digital rights management, something that’s sure to warm the cockles of the hearts of publishers, but there’s no DRM scheme that is currently specified as part of the format. Access the Complete Article (This primer is worthy of your time): Source: The Unofficial Apple Weblog (Source: ResourceShelf) Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:40:53 +0100 813897 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/k8kXTsY4DFs/ The National Library of Medicine, an arm of the National Institutes of Health, has received a grant to digitize items from its historical medical collections. Digital versions of thousands of medical materials will be done, some of the items dating back to the 17th century. The 30,000 digitized volumes will be made publicly available and there are plans to allow web access to the collection. For more info see this Resource Shelf article. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:05:28 +0100 813847 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/Aim-fcaPgP8/ No Shelf Required has a “lovely conversation” with author Rita Toews who is the founder of Read an Ebook Week. Sue Polanka runs a wonderful site and you should go and check it out. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:10:38 +0100 813848 http://www.shore.com/commentary/weblogs/2010/01/noodling-with-nook-first-impressions-of.html My wife was bugging me before Christmas for a nice toy that I would like as a gift, so I thought that it couldn't hurt to get Barnes & Noble's new Nook ebook reader, which, at the time, was due for delivery before the holidays. With a hybrid eInk display for text and Android-driven touch interface for navigation combined with ePub-formatted documents, at least it would be a "walking the talk" gizmo that reflected how I saw what publishers should be doing with ebook distribution.Unfortunately on Christmas day I got a nice new traveling case and screen protector, but only a placekeeper for the unit itself, which finally arrived the day that the Apple iPad was launched. Hmm, interesting timing. There's really no comparison, though, between the "whats" and the "whys" of an ebook reader like the Nook and a device like the iPad. The nook is all about simplifying and in some ways enhancing the process of relating to printed material, where the iPad is about the multi-sense world of Web media, with books a nice part of its capabilities but one not necessarily likely to appeal to many of its core Web-raised customers.The Nook definitely has a leg-up overall on its Amazon Kindle rival, in the sense that it combines both the sophistication of a touch interface with a very simple and enjoyable page-turning experience via its eInk interface. I had my doubts about this combination, but, while not perfect, it works out pretty nicely overall. You can swipe your finger across a row of book, newspaper and magazine titles like you would on a touch-screen phone interface, tap once and start digging in. A second or two after your text is displayed, the color touch interface powers down and you're enjoying crisp eInk text, which only improves its readability in bright daylight. That's a boon when on a beach or in a sunny train or plane seat where moving to a better spot is not an option.The physical controls of the Nook are bone simple. ... Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 813991 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/D5LT8fVMQY8/ CEO John Sargent of Macmillan has posted an open letter to Macmillan authors, illustrators, and literary agents giving Macmillan’s side of the dispute with Amazon. He talks about wanting to create “a level playing field” on which all device manufacturers can compete. He provides the details of what Macmillan wants to accomplish: Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time. The agency model would allow Amazon to make more money selling our books, not less. We would make less money in our dealings with Amazon under the new model. Our disagreement is not about short-term profitability but rather about the long-term viability and stability of the digital book market. Of course, Amazon knows that consumers are reluctant to pay over $9.99—and wants to keep that low price advantage to better compete with the iPad. “Perceived High Prices” There is no better illustration of this than the way authors who dare to complain about Amazon’s behavior or support Macmillan’s pricing position are, rightly or wrongly, being attacked in comments on their blog posts or forum discussions as cheap bastards. (Examples: John Scalzi, Charlie Stross, Jeffrey A. Carver.) Of course, given that their livelihoods are on the line, it is entirely understandable they would be worried. ... Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:40:35 +0100 813685 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/JAJXoHKmVUM/ SB Sarah is reporting that AllRomanceeBooks and OmniLit are offering 50% off on every title in their stores. The sale ends at 11:59 PM Mountain Standard Time. To get the discount you must enter the code SBTBARe1. SmartBitches says that they don’t get a commission on the sales. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:04:46 +0100 813547 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/CB-EsoJG300/ More information has emerged about the Amazon/Macmillan spat I mentioned last night, in which Amazon pulled almost all Macmillan titles from its store. An update to the New York Times “Bits” blog article I originally linked adds that, according to the blogger’s colleague who spoke to someone at Macmillan: Macmillan offered Amazon the opportunity to buy Kindle editions on the same “agency” model as it will sell e-books to Apple for the iPad. Under this model, the publisher sets the consumer book price and takes 70 percent of each sale, leaving 30 percent to the retailer. Macmillan said Amazon could continue to buy e-books under its current wholesale model, paying the publisher 50 percent of the hardcover list price while pricing the e-book at any level Amazon chooses, but that Macmillan would delay those e-book editions by seven months after hardcover release. Amazon’s removal of Macmillan titles on Friday appears to be a direct reaction to that. The iPad is still months away, but already it seems to be making waves in the publishing industry. It’s either agency, says Macmillan, or windowing. Given consumers’ anti-publisher reaction to the first windowed Kindle book, not to mention many consumers’ stated aversion to e-book prices higher than $9.99, I wonder if Macmillan is aware of the risk it is taking. Meanwhile, Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing calls both Macmillan’s and Amazon’s positions “farcical” for different reasons. He makes some good points: just because Amazon wants to keep e-book prices down to $9.99 does not mean it is the consumer’s friend, given the DRM and obnoxious licenses it slaps on its e-books. However this squabble turns out, it will probably have big implications for the e-book industry. I don’t doubt that the rest of the big publishers are watching closely to see how it goes before they make their own moves. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. ... Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:25:43 +0100 813548 http://www.librarystuff.net/2010/01/30/ebooks-%e2%80%93-who%e2%80%99s-doing-it-right/ Chad Haefele – “I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking (and writing) about eBooks, usually taking a pretty negative slant toward existing eBook publishers and vendors. DRM, distribution models, even publication timelines – much of it is a huge mess. But I don’t want to seem too negative – I still think eBooks as a concept hold massive promise. It’s just many of the current implementations that’re flawed. So who’s doing it right? Here’s a handful of companies and products which I think are on the right track” (Source: Library Stuff) Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:49:55 +0100 813543 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/58bTU5Bj3tY/ In previous articles, I have speculated on the future of ebook hardware and on the future of the bookstore . But how about the publishers and content providers? What will their role be? I think the role of the publishing house, certainly when viewed from the standpoint of being a content gatekeeper authors must pass through to reach the market, will diminish substantially. What we will see instead is the rise of the educated critic—in other words, some blogger or reviewer of influence (or several) will become the Oprah(s) of the internet book world and people will increasingly rely on them to filter through the boggy mass of the great internet Slush Pile and lead them to the good stuff. Things like Amazon ranking or some other rating system will be very important. People will browse by rating and the cream of the content will hopefully rise to the top. This could be bad news or good news for the publishing houses of today, depending on how swift on the uptake they are with this. What they need to do is leverage the power of their on-line stores in some of the ways I describe in my future of the bookstore article; to give one example, the cross-promotion really has to be the way of the future for them. Instead of having someone’s Nook offer them a mere free cookie, have it be a free cookie based on a recipe in a certain book, and give them a free sample to read while they are eating the cookie in the store. Or if I buy a book that is a prize-winner, put together a freebie anthology for me with samples from other books which have won the same prize. Publishers need to spend less time writing silly DRM programs and preventing people in the UK from spending money and more time actually promoting their authors and selling copies of their books. ... Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:25:29 +0100 813549 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/IrKNMf_Ofsc/ 30,000 books, a stack which is a kilometer long, have had to be moved from the National Library of Luxembourg because they were attacked by fungus. This will cost €200,000. This can’t happen, of course, with ebooks, but I guess the equivalent would be a case of bit-rot in the books’ DRM servers. More info on Resource Shelf, on the fungus, that is, not the bit-rot. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:00:08 +0100 813551 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/aQHwshrWWxY/ Dedicated e-readers won’t die, Ficbot posted. But Lee Fyock compared them to dedicated word processors, now dead. Then Travis Butler posted the following, which merits a pickup in the main TeleBlog. Photo shows a dedicated word processor. – Chris Meadows. I think Lee was talking about dedicated word processing computers; systems from companies like Wang Laboratories or IBM that could only run built-in word processing software. Which are indeed dead, dead, dead, to the best of my knowledge. And I believe that was Lee’s point; dedicated word processing computers were popular in the 70s and early 80s, but died when word-processing software on ordinary personal computers got good enough to do most of what dedicated word-processing equipment could do—even if personal computers weren’t quite as good, they were good enough. And not too long after that, Word-processors on PCs far surpassed dedicated word-processing hardware; the keyboards were just as good if not better, they ran faster even with the overhead of a full general purpose OS, software could be tweaked and customized to a far greater extent, bitmap displays allowed WYSIWYG formatting, and laser printers reproduced that formatting well enough to put the daisy-wheel printers of dedicated systems to shame. I can easily see the same thing happening with dedicated e-book readers, over the next few years: Software will never be an advantage; the new generation of tablet hardware already has the performance to run everything mentioned in this article, and software on a general purpose device will be even more open to tweaking by and alternatives for the end-user than a dedicated device will be—just as PCs give users far more WP options than IBM ever produced for the DisplayWriter. Don’t like your current reader app’s interface? Use a different one. Want a different format? Get a reader app that supports it. ... Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:41:00 +0100 813422 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/865HuwuLohU/ The dogs wouldn’t eat the dog food. Many customers hated iTunes’ proprietary DRM, a fact that Apple’s rivals acted on. So Apple negotiated with the biggies in music and removed DRM from iTunes, so customers could play their purchases on a variety of machines. Lesson learned for the new iPad—touted by some as a salvation for e-bookdom? Nope. The iPad’s Apple e-book software uses the company’s own DRM with the nonproprietary ePub standard, rather than the Adobe DRM system found on many readers and forthcoming devices.  DRM in most any form is obnoxious, of course. But at least Adobe-DRMed e-books are a little less so. Such issues have just made the prestigious Financial Times in an article linked from the home page. FT notes Amazon’s multi-platform approach for Kindle software and correctly wonders if Apple’s e-book format could end up being “more closed than Amazon’s” despite the use of ePub. At least Amazon allows Kindle books to be read on PCs and has BlackBerry and Mac e-reading software in the works. And unless the killjoys at Apple interfere, the existing iPhone Kindle app will run on the iPad. “With the iPad still two months away,” writes FT’s David Gelles of the Apple e-book strategy, “there are many unanswered questions. For example, it is unclear whether users will be able to download non-DRM e-books from the web and read them, and what impact a Kindle app on the iPad will have on Apple’s own digital books sales.” Bravo to FT for helping to educate consumers. Along the way, FT quotes Hadrien Gardeur of Feedbooks (who comments on the possibilities of DRM-related tensions between Apple and publishers), as well as me on Apple’s proprietary approach (“It is not good news for consumers”). To round things out, let me say I dislike DRM even with the so-called multiplatform approach since even Amazon can’t keep up with all the hardware out there, especially future gizmos. ... Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:20:00 +0100 813423 http://www.hiddenpeanuts.com/archives/2010/01/29/ebooks-whos-doing-it-right/ I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking (and writing) about eBooks, usually taking a pretty negative slant toward existing eBook publishers and vendors. DRM, distribution models, even publication timelines – much of it is a huge mess. But I don’t want to seem too negative – I still think eBooks as a concept hold massive promise. It’s just many of the current implementations that’re flawed. So who’s doing it right? Here’s a handful of companies and products which I think are on the right track: 1. SpringerLink Much of my thinking centers on the consumer publishing eBook panopoly – the Kindles, Nooks, and similar devices of the world. But there’s of course an academic side to things too. I have major beefs with a lot of the vendors and publishers who provide eBook packages to universities & colleges. Most of these are a topic for another post. But one thing I want to cover here: Many of them commit one of my pet peeve sins by making the books non-downloadable. They can’t be used on any kind of personal eReader device, or even viewed on a PC without an internet connection. But the SpringerLink collection that we subscribe to at UNC provides simple, clean, downloadable PDFs. There’s no password protection on the files, no DRM, no clunky web client we’re forced to use. They trust users to download a chapter and use it responsibly. As a result they’re the first eBook collection I search and show to students. Sure, I wish SpringerLink had a more flexible format than PDF, but this is a step in the right direction. While other vendors like eBrary are rushing to finish off what will no doubt be limiting device-specific apps for their content, Springer lets readers choose how to consume their text. 2. Fictionwise Fictionwise. ... Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:37:06 +0100 813303 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/HDolEsHx4gs/ Kara Swisher of AllThingsD’s BoomTown has a video interview with tech review maven Walter Mossberg, including capturing a conversation between him and Steve Jobs. AppleInsider has a summary for those who would rather read than watch. Of particular interest to TeleReaders: battery life for playing back mp3s will be on the order of 140 hours with the display turned off. Jobs does not believe the 10-hour display time for reading e-books will be a major drawback compared to the Kindle. Because you just end up plugging it in. You end up docking it or whatever you’re going to do with it. It’s not a big deal. 10 hours is a long time. Because you’re not going to read for 10 hours. Jobs seems to have moderated his “people don’t read anymore” stance to “people don’t read for ten hours at a time”. Wonder if it’s still just as true? (Moved to near top of blog. Posted ealier. – D.R.) Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:10:03 +0100 813426 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/24w-vkex_5U/1 Illustrators picture their favourite authors (found via Carolyn Kellogg, who has nice commentary).• Dovegreyreader comes down with secondhandbooklust.• What that Apple ebook device should have looked like.• Samuel Johnson, near-imp.Peter Robinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:50:20 +0100 813100 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/kftiO4XNIsM/ Resource Shelf is reporting on Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates, a new book from the University of Chicago Press. The book can be purchased as an ebook outright, or for 30 or 180 days. You might think that prior to the 20th century, “piracy” only referred to nautical shenanigans. But English stationers in the 17th century labelled colleagues who printed unauthorised versions of other people’s work “land-pirats”. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:45:27 +0100 813194 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/Z8RBHEOYTsw/ That is the title of an editoral by Edward Nawotka, at Publishing Perspectives, about what Apple may have in mind for the future. Go read it. Apple is, if anything, the master of keeping it simple and, very often, attractive. And this is, I believe, one of the reasons that the launch of iBooks should give pause to many publishers. Now that Apple is in the “book space” with its own branded retailer, it’s only a short leap before they become publishers themselves. Just look at what Amazon has done since the launch of its Kindle, with the company launching a variety of publishing and self-publishing initiatives under their umbrella. In fact, on Tuesday, Amazon announced the first four original manuscripts to be published under it publishing imprint, AmazonEncore program; all discovered through its own Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. I would argue that Apple is in an equally strong position to become a publisher. Apple’s iPhoto software already offer users the opportunity to create photo albums based on templates which can then be easily converted into attractive bound books. It would take only a little effort for Apple to add similar functionality to its iWork software and to allow users to easily convert a document and images into an e-book, which could then be instantly uploaded to iBooks for sale. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:23:39 +0100 813195 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/5FqODH40tAI/ A webinar from +Plastic Electronics and IntertechPira, discusses the evolution of e-paper for the e-reader market and will be held on February 18. The webinar will provide an overview of e-readers to date, technology advances in three key areas: flexibility, colour and video and will also discuss future applications for e-paper displays. It will be given by Ian French, a principal scientist at Prime View International (PVI). Taiwan-based PVI is the leading supplier of e-paper displays to the burgeoning e-reader market and recently acquired E Ink,the sole supplier of e-paper frontplanes for e-reader devices. Thanks to E-Ink-Info for the link. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:57:21 +0100 813196 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/vP9q-MgjmOo/ Is the title of an article at ZDnet by Larry Dignan. What gets fuzzy quick is whether the iPad and Kindle are truly on a collision course. You can spin in a circle and hit someone that thinks the iPad will render the Kindle useless. These folks argue that multipurpose devices will trump the Kindle and e-readers. These devices are relics. However, it’s not that simple. After giving the iPad vs. Kindle battle some thought—I basically held my Kindle purchase to scope out the iPad—I’d argue these devices may converge at some point, but for now can coexist. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:39:54 +0100 813197 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/d6vLbbWkEwk/ Most of the focus in the ebook world is usually on you and me, the individual person. From the hardware we purchase to the ebooks we buy, vendors and other digital providers are continually working to gain our interest. However, from a library point of view, things are completely flipped. By necessity, we librarians work with multiple users on a daily basis, anywhere from 5 to 500 different individuals. As such, any ebook purchase for the library takes on far more implications. As much I would like, libraries simply don’t have the budget to purchase ebook readers for everyone, leaving us in a dilemma. What does my library do? How do I as a librarian bring the ebook world to my patrons? For some of us, the answer is OverDrive. Overwho? OverDrive Located in Cleveland Ohio, OverDrive is a major player in the world of ebooks as well as other forms of digital media. Perhaps not as well known by individual consumers, OverDrive strikes partnerships with both publishers and libraries, becoming a “middleman” of sorts between them and providing access to digital materials for library patrons and other customers of their services. A good example of this can be found here in Ohio with Digital Downloads. This project includes both OverDrive and several libraries such as the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Grandview Heights Public Library, Greene County Public Library, and others. So what? Using Digital Downloads as our example, patrons can successfully check out ebooks of several types from Adobe PDF to ePub and even some digital music and video. Using my Sony PRS-505, I’ve been able to catch up on several new titles that I would have had to wait for on reserve otherwise. However, the selection has been slim at times due to budgetary cutbacks in the state or popularity of the titles, and even the unfortunate hassle of DRM, which is included in the resources provided. It’s not a perfect solution by any means, but it’s a start. ... Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:14:27 +0100 813198 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/Qm-6M0si8-A/ In an interview with Fujio Noguchi, deputy president of Sony’s ereader business he said: Readers are the best sellers on their US Sony Style website and sales volume has quadrupled year over year. Sales were so high over Christmas that registrations brought their servers down on Christmas day. The best selling model is the Touch edition which surprised them because they thought the low priced Pocket edition would take that place. Sony wants to use e-ink for its displays, not LCD, so it will wait until color e-ink is available before introducing a color reader. The e-ink displays used by Sony are manufactured to Sony’s standards and the e-ink display for the Daily Edition was developed solely for Sony. Thanks to E-Reader-info.com for the heads up. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:59:33 +0100 813199 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/Ky3Of48Z0Ag/ Editor’s Note: Erik follows up on Dan D’Austino’s piece mentioned above. You can find Dan’s piece here. PB Many of the issues and concerns that are brought up in Dan D’Augustino’s piece are very relevant. When eBooks first arrived it was like eJournals, everyone was trying to figure out what they had and the best way to use it. Dan mentions that buying eJournals was you may only need a few but you have to take the thousand others you don’t need. Many of the eBook aggregators out there don’t follow that model, that’s why they have perpetual access, subscription models and the ever-increasing patron or demand driven approach. We have to remember some key points though, eBooks for Higher Ed/Libraries are unique in their use and function then the retail or consumer market eBooks. In Higher Ed/Libraries they have different applications they are being used for. The specialized way in which the content is being used and the function they serve presents new challenges. To lump them all together as just eBooks without the separation of purpose or their specialized needs will cause nothing but confusion and misunderstanding. eBooks serve different purposes in each area and how you approach buying an eBook and using an eBook changes within that dynamic. Dan raises some great questions, with Google Books, are libraries collections threatened? I don’t see that, first off many of these titles are ones the publishers are doing nothing with and second of all, you are very limited in what you can do with Google Books. You cannot connect to other resources, you cannot copy and paste text with a citation to follow and biggest of all, you cannot search full text, after all, these are just images of the book, not the text that you could use in another way. Google Books will make a dent, sure, it’s big enough and they have a lot of money to throw behind. ... Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:00:55 +0100 813200 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/l7-IN2iEQ7Y/ I met these folks at Book Expo America last year and they told me of this great idea they had for a new ebook store. Why not sell not only whole ebooks, but also provide just the chapters people need. It’s a perfect idea for travel books, for example. They have gotten everything up and running and here is part of their email to me: We just sent out a joint-press release with Wiley & Wrox Press, who are helping us kick-start the eChapter program. The store currently has over 235K eBook titles plus about 2500 eChapters. The eChapter catalog, which is a big focus for us, has hundreds of free chapters in PDF from the various Wiley imprints (Dummies, Frommer’s etc.) and over 2000 PDF chapters from Wrox. In future we’ll be adding a lot more from a variety of publishers as they get comfortable with the idea (we actually have our own proprietary tool, called the “Chapterizer” that can automatically split PDF books into stand-alone packaged chapters with cover, back pages etc. We’ll be making that service available publically in the near future). And we also offer the entire O’Reilly Media ePub catalog. More details in their press release and you can visit their site here. They are currently offering 65% off on new releases and NYT bestsellers to celebrate their opening. Another new idea in publishing that comes from ebook people -  not the publishers, themselves. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:15:56 +0100 813201 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/S_G4YTQsyjs/ In Amazon’s fourth quarter financial announcement, Jeff Bezos had a bit more to say about the Kindle than he usually does. Comments made at these times have to be accurate or a company could have SEC problems. Thus, we can be pretty sure that Bezos is not just puffing: “Millions of people now own Kindles,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting 27 months.” Thanks to Aaron Pressman for the link. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:00:22 +0100 813203 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/01/29/the-committee-on-institutional-cooperation-signs-agreement-to-purchase-major-ebooks-collection-on-sciencedirect-platform/ From the Announcement: Elsevier announced today that the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) has agreed to acquire the complete ScienceDirect eBooks collections for 2008, 2009, and 2010. As a result, libraries and patrons in CIC member institutions will be able to access over 1,300 titles across 18 science, technical and medical subject areas. CIC member institutions include Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [Snip] CIC chose to acquire the eBooks collections based on evidence gathered from increasing patron adoption of retrospective content from the HathiTrust Digital Archive as well as robust uptake of current publisher content from a variety of sources. A careful analysis of current ebook usage among consortium member institutions was conducted last year, and participating schools found “that when they worked together to make a critical mass of content accessible, it was immediately noticed and used by faculty and students,” said Kim Armstrong, Assistant Director, CIC Center for Library Initiatives. [Snip] Later this year, ScienceDirect will partner with selected libraries from CIC to conduct joint usage studies to better understand the value of these ebooks in driving world-class research, teaching and learning. Findings from this study will be shared with the global library and research community. Source: Elsevier (Source: ResourceShelf) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:21:04 +0100 813222 http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2010/01/readability-makes-web-pages-easy-to-readprint.html Readability is a simple tool that makes reading on the Web more enjoyable by removing the clutter around what you're reading. This is a work of minor genius. We all get faced with pages that are too small to read properly, or too dense, or covered with adverts or other extraneous material. These same pages are also usually a real pain to print out. Along comes this tool, which is a simple add-on to your browser bar. First of all, decide how you want to read material - the style can be newspaper, novel, eBook, Inverse of Athelas, size from extra small to extra large, and the margin from extra narrow to extra wide. Once you've made your choice, drag the bookmarklet into your browsers bookmark toolbar. When you get to a page that's difficult to read, click on the bookmarklet and the magic happens. You can turn this page from the BBC: Into something that looks like this: I had chosen 'newspaper style, medium size and wide margins' as my default - a slight annoyance is that if you wish to change this it's necessary to delete the bookmarklet and go back to the site, choose new settings and save over. Another slight issue is that Readability doesn't work well with front pages, such as the BBC site - it works much better once you get into an article and are faced with a reasonable body of text. However, to balance that out it works with Arabic and Hebrew text by keeping the flow of text correct, and the latest version boasts a 99% success rate. This really is a superb took, and I can see just how well it's going to work with people who have visual difficulties, children, and users who rely on screen readers. The resource has been going for less than a year and is produced by Arc90, who can be followed on Twitter. Take a look - it'll take you two minutes tops and I guarantee you'll find it useful! (Source: Phil Bradley) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 813175 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/ddV1YfLgueA/ We all know that a controversial topic today is climate change. Yes, this is about climate change, but no, it isn’t about whether there is global warming or not. Instead, this is the story of what happens when the editor goes missing. The story begins with a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations-affiliated group. Five glaring errors were found in the report, errors serious enough to warrant an apology from the scientists who wrote the particular section under scrutiny. The section dealt with glacier melt in the Himalayas and the prediction that the glaciers could all melt away by the year 2035. Alas, that prediction missed the mark by several hundred years — the year should have been 2350, not 2035. The scientist who discovered the errors admitted that the errors are neither significant in comparison to the findings of the whole report nor intentional, but they are significant enough to raise questions of credibility regarding the whole report. As a reader, imagine if this had been the drug book your doctor consulted when prescribing medication for you. Isn’t credibility at the bottom of every author’s book and every publisher’s name? When a new Stephen King novel is published, King’s credibility as an author whose books are worth reading is on the line, as is the publisher’s reputation for publishing interesting and readable (i.e., quality) books. If the new King novel is poorly written and edited, King’s reputation suffers, as does his publisher’s. Consequently, it behooves both King and his publisher to hire professional editors for a high-quality, professional edit. And what is true for fiction is trebly true for nonfiction! In the case of the IPCC, the scientist who publicized the errors noted, “It is a very shoddily written section. It wasn’t copy-edited properly.” Is this a cautionary tale for publishers and authors? It should be. ... Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:20:47 +0100 812951 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/zuNRzoRoe0c/ With all the new ‘convergence’ devices coming out these days—cell phone/media/gaming all in one—is there still going to be a demand for dedicated ebook readers? Would anyone buy a Kindle or a Sony or a Whatever when they could just read a book on their cell phone or magical tablet? Yes. There IS still a demand and will continue to be, but in a different fashion. The days of jumping on the bandwagon with a generic ‘reader’ device just to get in the game may be gone, but I think what we will see in the ‘dedicated device’ market will be an increasing specialization. Companies won’t make ‘general’ readers for casual customers, who may not read enough to justify a dedicated device and won’t care about fancier features. Rather, they will make specific devices optimized for certain markets. For example: 1) DEVICES FOR A SERIOUS READER These devices will improve on the more all-purpose experience of a convergence device by offering much better battery life for people who just want to read, and by offering feature sets designed to make this reading as seamless and meaningful as possible. Convergence devices will likely support the eventual winner or winners in the format war with ease, but the ’serious reader’ device will likely support numerous and plentiful past formats as these customers tend to be the ones who early-adopted and have sizable libraries already in numerous legacy formats. They will also be less dependent on cell phone plans or internet connectivity—on-board ‘whispernet’ type service like the Kindle, or limited free wi-fi like the Nook will be standard so that voracious readers will never be without the means to buy a book. ... Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:09:38 +0100 812952 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/ELo8RmHZgJo/ I’ve been keeping my eyes open to see if I could find out anything about the DRM that Apple will be using on their ebooks. It’s nice to see them using Epub, but if that Epub file has proprietary DRM it doesn’t really matter that it’s Epub. You won’t be able read it on another reader anyway. Well, the always excellent jkOnTheRun has this statement by Adobe, but they don’t give a link to the source. If anyone has any more info please let us know: Adobe is quick to point out that iPad content will not work on any other devices: “It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple’s DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers.” Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:43:03 +0100 812804 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/MK1DvRuLRJI/ Neat article today looks at the Taiwanese ebook scene. As we all know, Taiwan is the major source of ereaders nowadays. However, according to the article, if you live there you can buy a lot of readers, but not many contemporary books. Plenty of Chinese classics are available, but not much by way of current Chinese literature. According to the article the problem is that Taiwanese publishers are unclear of what impact ebooks will have on their paper sales. Sound familiar? The article says that the Taiwanese have near 100% literacy and are big readers, but evidently they are not reading the newest books on their newest gadgets. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:31:21 +0100 812805 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/AXrOXiovbJI/ According the Bookseller.com , publishers are excited about the new iPad. Cannongate fees that the price point is fine for a multi-purpose device and it sees some signs that publishers will be able to set their own prices. Mills and Boon feels that the price point will help the ebook market and a number of agents interviewed by the Bookseller.com are excited as well. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:05:30 +0100 812807 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/_iHqFOyjaSM/ I’m an Apple fan—the owner of a MacBookPro and MacBook Air and a compatible home network—and I’ve gone through tons of iPad stuff. Should I buy one? My preliminary conclusion is, No. Here’s why: –The iPad  will make a lousy ebook reader. What good is a reader with only 10 hours of battery life? You certainly can’t use it when traveling – you can’t even get to Hawaii, Japan or Australia on it. One major benefit of e-ink devices is that their batteries last forever. A couple of weeks on my Kindle and Sony if I’m careful with the wireless. If I go away for a week or more I don’t even need to bring a charger. I just can’t see using such a short-lived device like the tablet. –Second, the iPad uses AT&T as the 3G carrier. In the New York area, where I live, AT&T’s service can, charitably, be called horrible. Dropped calls are common and if you go into the City you can pretty much forget about getting 3G service, and the iPhone’s constant searching for a 3G connection drains the battery at an alarming rate. When you are with any large group of people who have iPhones, such as at Digital Book World, the concentration of phones in one area is guaranteed to kill AT&T’s 3G and it is common for not only data service but also phone service, as well, to become blocked. At DBW I got a kick out of all of us iPhone users bitching to each other about how our phones didn’t work. What use will you get out of the iPad’s Safari browser in this environment? Nope, at least for the present, I’ll keep my money and hope that the iPhone becomes available on Verizon. If it does I’ll use the cash to break my contract with AT&T and get a new iPhone (even though my 3GS is almost brand new) on Verizon’s network. Digg us. Slashdot us. ... Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:56:31 +0100 812808 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/IbyLAB17PCA/ Related: Chris Meadows on the written word vs. the competition in the era of the iPad and other multimedia machines.. – D.R. Tell the truth. How many print books did you read in the last week? How many e-books? In the last month? The last year? Are you reading more or less than in the past? Share the numbers in the comment area if you’d like. Here are my answers. Print books: Two books in the last week, six in the last month, and 50 in the last twelve months. E-books: One in the last week, two in the last month and eight in the last twelve months. My totals of books read are higher now than they have been in the past few years because I realized recently that I was reading fewer and fewer books; as with so many people I meet, my work and much of my play seems to have migrated to the Web. To help me read more and concentrate more on what I am reading, I recently started a Web site where I conduct long form interviews with writers. This has meant committing myself to reading books and thinking about them before talking to the authors. And that has certainly enabled me to read more books—I have thus recommitted myself to the joys that deep engagement that long form writing and committed reading enable. Most likely,  TeleRead community members read more in general and especially read more books than most Americans. It’s also a pretty safe guess that if you are being honest, the number of books you read today is much lower than it was five, ten, fifteen years ago whatever your background or book reading history. In fact, you may have purchased just as many books as you did in the past, maybe more. You have more money than in your youth, and books are still relatively inexpensive cultural investments. If you’re like most heavy readers, you buy books based on the notion that you will read these books, or that you should read these books, a sort of self-imposed cultural belief system. Books are indicators of our intellectual life, after all. ... Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:48:48 +0100 812809 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/jxit48e-8eA/ BookTrix’s David Wilk interviewed me for Writerscast—I get into topics ranging from e-books to coin-operated libraries—and you can find the results here. David did a great job. As for my end—well, I’m thinking of farming this stuff out to Thackeray. A few of David’s earlier interviewees: –Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media. –Joe Esposito and Brian O’Leary, both well-regarded publishing gurus. –Jennifer Estep, author of the novel A Spider’s Bite. –Douglas Gayeton, who wrote a nonfiction book called Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town. –P.W. Catanese, author of a children’s book called Happenstance Found and a related series. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:41:00 +0100 812811 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/davidleeking/~3/OXn7MYmuLro/ I don’t attempt to predict stuff very often, but I think this one’s safe – I think Apple’s new iPad is most definitely a game changer. Why? Because it combines so many things into one handy, easy-to-use device. Just watching the video about the iPad and poking around on the website a bit, you find out all that the iPad will supposedly do, including: web browsing email photo viewing watch videos (even YouTube videos) listen to music (it has iTunes built in) buy and read ebooks a cool map note taking a calendar Contacts list iWork (Apple’s answer to Microsoft Office) is rebuilt for the iPad, so you have word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software The App Store works here, too, which opens up 140,000 apps that all do different things And of course, it’s multi-touch. So instead of having to use a mouse or keyboard shortcuts to operate the thing … you just touch the screen. I’m just amazed that Apple seemingly rolled up a Microsoft Surface, a tablet PC, a video player, a netbook, an iPod, and an ebook reader, and came out with something light, cool, and truly unique. Except maybe the name – sorry Apple, but the iPad is a silly name. Apple could turn this thing into a student’s best friend. Instead of carrying a heavy backpack around, students could use the iPad to carry all their textbooks (assuming Apple partners with textbook companies), any multimedia they need to watch, their word processor to write papers (or they could just use Google Docs via a wifi connection), multiple ways to take notes, communicate to classmates and teachers via email/IM/Facebook/Skype/etc. And still have their favorite photos, their grand music collection, and a couple of fun games with them, too. How about for libraries? Think Reference Desk and roving reference here. It’s the same price as a netbook laptop. ... Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:24:12 +0100 813573 http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2010/01/first-thoughts-on-the-ipad.html Well, now we know. Well, we know some of it, though there's still lots of things that are not entirely clear. I thought I'd take a look at a few of the plusses and minuses of what I've seen this evening, and make up my mind a little bit. Physical appearance. Well, it's just a big iPhone, which is what I'd expected really - though it's a lot thinner and the weight isn't too bad at 1.5 or 1.6 lbs. The edge, or bezel doesn't cause me a problem either, although a few people are moaning about it already. No multitasking. This is a pain I guess; no listening to music while wandering around the web, or reading the morning newspaper. For me, this one of the really big minus points about the iPad. Does this mean that I won't buy it? It's certainly not a deal breaker in the slightest - if I want to listen to music I've already got my music player - my iPhone. And if I'm going to be using it for what I'd intend to - as an eBook reader, it's not an issue.Lack of camera. I honestly don't get why this is a problem for some people. It's not meant to be a camera! It's too big to be a camera - can you really see yourself trying to use it to take a photograph with? And you've already got a camera on your phone, or some other sort of camera. Sure, a webcam for video meetings would be nice, but there is an option to add one on as a peripheral, though I agree, that does mean more lugging around of devices. If you take photographs you already have a camera, and if you don't, you're not going to want one. Time to move on...Keyboard. Until I can actually try the keyboard I have no idea what it'll be like, but I can just about type on my iPhone, so something rather larger isn't going to be a problem at all. ... Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 812572 http://wulibraries.typepad.com/bionews/2010/01/publications-from-wu-biology-department-january-2010.html Prof. Schaal in the news: Thai hill farmers help preserve genetic diversity of rice [Genetic structure and isolation by distance in a landrace of Thai rice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106(33):13880-5. PubMed abstract & fulltext for subscribers, free 6 months after publication] Braude S. 2009. Life table analysis. pp.63-68 IN An Introduction to Methods and Models in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology, eds. S. Braude and B. S. Low. Princeton University Press. More info. Galant A, Arkus KA, Zubieta C, Cahoon RE, Jez JM. 2009. Structural basis for evolution of product diversity in soybean glutathione biosynthesis. Plant Cell 21(11):3450-8. PubMed abstract & fulltext for subscribers, free 12 months after publication. Herzog ED, Taghert PH. 2010. Circadian Neural Networks. pp.179-194 IN The Circadian Clock, ed. U. Albrecht. Springer. Abstract & fulltext for Springerlink Biomedical & Life Ebook subscribers. Kern M, Eisel F, Scheithauer J, Kranz RG, Simon J. 2010. Substrate specificity of three cytochrome c haem lyase isoenzymes from Wolinella succinogenes: unconventional haem c binding motifs are not sufficient for haem c attachment by NrfI and CcsA1. Mol Microbiol 75(1):122-37. PubMed abstract & fulltext for subscribers; free 18 months after publication. Khosravi AR, Jacquemoud F, Mohsenzadeh S, Menke M, Mummenhoff K. 2009. Phylogenetic position and taxonomic classification of aethionema trinervium (Brassicaceae): A morphologically variable subshrub from southwestern Asia. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 96(4):564-574. Abstract & fulltext for BioOne subscribers. McDaniel SF, von Stackelberg M, Richardt S, Quatrano RS, Reski R, Rensing SA. 2010. The speciation history of the Physcomitrium-Physcomitrella species complex. Evolution 64(1):217-231. Abstract & fulltext for subscribers. Minguillon C, Gibson-Brown JJ, Logan MP. 2009. ... Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 812980 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/rBnFNjpxsn0/apple-ipad-tablet-computer-kindle Apple launches the iPad, its 9.7" colour screen tablet, which aims to rob Kindle of growing ebook market and be hottest gadget in technology historyThe veil was finally lifted on one of the most hotly anticipated gadgets in technology history tonight as Apple's Steve Jobs held aloft the iPad, a tablet-shaped computer which he hopes will win Apple domination of the ebook market.Looking like an oversized iPhone, and sporting a 9.7in colour screen – the same size as Amazon's black-and-white Kindle ereader – the iPad would "open the floodgates" for the sales of ebooks, said Jobs, Apple's chief executive.In front of an excited crowd, he showed off web surfing, email, games, presentation software and various other tricks. But it was clear ebooks are, at least initially, Apple's highest priority for the touchscreen iPad, as Jobs unveiled a program called iBooks to let people "discover and purchase and download" ebooks directly on to the device from iTunes.The company has signed deals with five major publishers – HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette – to sell ebooks on the iPad.Reaction online was mixed, but the publishing industry – keen for a digital salvation in a form that does not obliterate its profits – was generally effusive, as were voices from the education sector.The iPad would help "attract millions of new readers to the world's best books", said John Makinson, chairman of the Penguin Group.If the iPad ousts the Kindle, currently dominant in ereading, it would mark the third business that Apple has set its sights on conquering. It first took on digital music with the iPod, and more recently has been overhauling larger incumbents such as Microsoft in the smartphone sector with its three-year-old iPhone. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:20:43 +0100 812535 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/VOC2Db2bIXQ/ Untangling and understanding the ebook supply chain Peter Balis, John Wiley and Sons; Niel Del Young, Hachette Book Group; Leslie Hulse, Harper Collins; Andrew Weinstein, Ingram Digital; Mark Coker, Smashwords Ingram: in ebook supply chain a lot of posturing going on and in a gawky stage. Roles are still shaking out. Still a role for wholesaler in the supply chain. They provide multi-publisher aggregating platform for retailers. They keep track of all the retailers selling the publishers’ books. For majority of US publishers, enforcing territories by the billing address of the purchaser seems to be becoming the standard. Adobe platform is something to watch for 2010 – they are trying to foster innovation. No shortage of 4 color ebooks out there, but since Amazon/Kindle dominates the conversation this means that most people don’t even know about them. Wiley: understand how supply chain operates, but don’t have a standard operating procedure for digital, but upstream and downstream. Basic formats are PDF and Epub. One reason that ebooks may not have cover is that the publisher could not get the digital rights to the image. Especially true of older books. Wiley can’t afford to deal with small retail accounts and an aggregator makes sense for them. No good way to audit sales make by retailers. Majority of titles they see are not hacked ebooks, they are primarily manuscripts, galleys and scanned paper books. Blio/Microsoft should be watched in 2010. Harper: had to do a big effort to get the digital rights and establish the royalties for digital. Many times had the digital rights but no royalties were established. Need wider adoption and implementation of Onix. Incomplete integration with Onix is hurting ability to get ebooks distributed. Is a need for an independent auditing body for digital sales. Dark horse for 2010 is Blio/Microsoft. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:48:58 +0100 812595 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/pAIljfCh988/ Ebook Challenges: Competing with free and getting the timing right. Mindy Stockfield, Hyperion; Robert Gottlieb, Trident Media Group; Steve Ross, formerly of Harper Collins; Michel Tamblyn, Kobo; Brian O’Leary, Magellan Media Partners and hurts because publishers’ margins are very small. Products releases should be windowed. Had same question in the ’50s when introducing mass market editions. Decided to release them later. Same with DVDs. Represents authors and so asks if you give it away for free what is author’s share of zero? Be careful on innovation in pricing because you can create a market expectation that you can’t deal with later if you model doesn’t work. Ebooks great for mid-list authors who can’t get a publisher to take them on. Ebooks as a small percentage of the industry can cause massive damage to the whole industry if not priced right. Electronic sales are not counted in best seller lists and difference in place in list is not much. If ebooks syphon off sales this can drop a major book on the list. Kobo: giving first volume of a series, especially an old series, can work,and is also good as “training wheels”. Free commercial titles are a relative rarity so hard to develop information yet on what’s happening. Ebooks are a new release business. The first 90 days represents at least half of sales and windowing radically reduces the amount of sales. No evidence yet that low prices have hurt the industry as a whole. Hyperion: came from Disney Channel, where they had a windowing strategy for every one of their shows. Feels it should be don’t on a title and author basis, especially since there is so little data available yet. Need to try a lot of new stuff to develop a database of what’s going on. Finding that if give away part of the book it pulls a lot of ebook sales. No need to give away the whole book. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:22:21 +0100 812477 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/pAIljfCh988/ Ebook Challenges: Competing with free and getting the timing right. Mindy Stockfield, Hyperion; Robert Gottlieb, Trident Media Group; Steve Ross, formerly of Harper Collins; Michel Tamblyn, Kobo; Brian O’Leary, Magellan Media Partners. Publishers’ margins are very small. Products releases should be windowed. Same question arose in the ’50s when introducing mass market editions. Decided to release them later. Same with DVDs. Represents authors and so asks if you give it away for free what is author’s share of zero? Be careful on innovation in pricing because you can create a market expectation that you can’t deal with later if you model doesn’t work. Ebooks great for mid-list authors who can’t get a publisher to take them on. Ebooks as a small percentage of the industry can cause massive damage to the whole industry if not priced right. Electronic sales are not counted in best seller lists and difference in place in list is not much. If ebooks syphon off sales this can drop a major book on the list. Kobo: giving first volume of a series, especially an old series, can work,and is also good as “training wheels”. Free commercial titles are a relative rarity so hard to develop information yet on what’s happening. Ebooks are a new release business. The first 90 days represents at least half of sales and windowing radically reduces the amount of sales. No evidence yet that low prices have hurt the industry as a whole. Hyperion: came from Disney Channel, where they had a windowing strategy for every one of their shows. Feels it should be don’t on a title and author basis, especially since there is so little data available yet. Need to try a lot of new stuff to develop a database of what’s going on. Finding that if give away part of the book it pulls a lot of ebook sales. No need to give away the whole book. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:22:21 +0100 812596 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/UXfP0dCNTqw/apple-ipad-tablet-reactions We asked a panel of leading commentators in a range of industries for their reactions to the launch of Apple's iPad tablet computer. Here are some of their thoughts …Jonathan Glancey: Guardian architecture and design correspondent Without holding one in my hands and trying one out, I can only say that the universally-hyped iPad looks very much like a giant iPhone.And none the worse for that. Designed by a team led by Jonathan Ive, Apple's British-born head of design, the iPad is slim, sleek and to use an overworked, yet appropriate word, minimalist. It reflects Ive's clearly expressedadmiration for the work of the self-effacing and supremely talented German designer, Dieter Ram – 45 years Ive's senior – whose electric and electronic products for Braun have been a byword for fine, simple design for half a century.Computer and communication buffs will have to tell us how well the iPad performs. If I works as well as it probably does, then it will sell like hot cakes – raising the perennially fascinating issue of why so very many people, worldwide, otherwise oblivious to such coolly sophisticated design, will fork out good money for Apple's latest gizmo. Because it's a gizmo is the most probable answer. Would a Jonathan Ive or Dieter Rams style house, or pad I should say, sell as well? I very much doubt it.Bigger than a mobile phone and smaller than a laptop, the iPad will be carried around the house and in bags to and from schools, colleges and workplaces. Will its shiny plastic and metal surfaces scratch? How will it cope when it drops on floors and pavements? Will it need, and does it come with, a special bag to carry it about in and protect it? Just how robust will it be?Apple has surely addressed such questions, yet the proof of the digital pudding will lie in the e-ting. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:58:36 +0100 812536 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/15Q25yqAUgk/ Tim McCall, Penguin Group USA; Michael Tamblyn, Kobo; Kassia Lrozser, Booksquare; Ginger Clark, Curtis Brown, Ltd.; Laura Dawson, KNJ Dawson Ebook pricing: what they should cost and why Penguin: have to start with the intrinsic value of the material and the format. Need to look at cost – from the time its bought to the time it goes to the consumer. Ebook should not be looked at on its own, especially since ebooks are such a small point of the total market ( (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:01:25 +0100 812478 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/RACkunO3V9I/ The Apple tablet is “the best gadget ever made” and includes an an HDTV tuner, according to  Jason Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo.com, after a claimed hands-on. True? And what might the TV angle mean? I’ve always believed that e-books could piggyback on mobile gear with a high-quality display for TV. Will this happen? Quoting Calacanis is the Wall Street Journal, which includes links to specific Tweets. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:47:32 +0100 812479 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/3dCp7ujPLsg/ Larry Kirshbaum, LJK Literary Movement; Ken Cader, PUblishers Lunch; Ken Brooks, Cengage Learning; Evan Schnittman, Oxford University Press; Mike Shatzkin, moderator If you were publishing a book this month and did an ebook simultaneously what percentage of total sales would it sell?: They answer: 17% at highest to 5%; 10% now and 35% lifetime; 6% to 15%; 10% Apple and Google enter the market, what will this do?: They answer: good news for publishers because add big players to compete with Amazon; Amazon will continue to grow but its share will fall; Apple is just an experiment at this point, but Google will have a major impact; Amazon becoming device agnostic with release of Blackberry app and huge potential for further growth; industry needs Amazon, bookstores and big box stores and has to find a model that works for all of them Erights: new Amazon 70/30 deal will not affect major best sellers but will be beneficial for smaller titles International rights: will territorial rights survive with ebooks? don’t see why it should change anything and technology may mak e it easier to enforce; defining territories will be a real mess – where you are, where you bought the device, where you are when you buy the book, etc?; maybe better to split rights as “world English” and “translation”; Will legacy publishers need to scale down in the next few years: physical infrastructure will need to go down; fixed costs will be cut throughout the supply chain; publishers have cut to the bone and don’t need to be smaller they need to be more responsive; large publishers have one major thing on their side – they can still create “magic”; science of aggregating audiences may take away from the necessity for “magic” Other comments: in audiobook world a Netflix model has been very successful and this will work well and get bigger in the library model; Digg ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:52:12 +0100 812480 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/XZmn4COSGuI/ Liza Daly, ThreePress Consulting, discussed problems often found with current ebook production. Typical problems with current ebooks: plain text cover as opposed to photo; often have to step through blank pages, irrelevant copyright info, wrong ISBNs, table of contents with chapter numbers that are irrelevant content and readers hate this (if use samples then up to half of sample is often irrelevant pages), misspellings, bad line breaks (in some cases the pirated version is actually better than the professionally better one). Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:47:42 +0100 812416 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/tCszIAwIVSU/ Angela Bole, Book Industry Study Group; Kelly Gallagher, Bowker. First presentation of data from a major industry survey ofebook consumers. 95% confidence level Demographics: male 51%, female 49%; income over 75K 37%, 35K to 75K, 38%, under 35K, 25%; 23% RURAL, 24% URBAN, 43% suburban Whey e instead of P?: in order 1. affordability, 2. easy to download, 3. readability, 4. instant access, 5. portability 34% decreased their purchase of hardcover books What extras would you pay for: in order 1. connect with other readers, 2. color photos graphics, 3. give/lend 4. wireless access 19% now purchase ebooks exclusively and 25% now purchase mostly ebooks When asked about the major benefits of ebooks three of the major benefits relate solely to price. Would you wait to buy an ebook after print book comes out? 30% will wait, 24% will buy the print book, 34% not sure Effect of DRM on ebook purchases: 38% don’t know, 34% not an issue, 28% concerned Most popular devices: 47% computer/laptop, 32% Kindle, 11% iPhone Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:26:08 +0100 812417 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/L5xznzVkveE/ Amid all the excited headlines today about the Apple tablet or other technology, one of the more important doesn’t mention the A word at all. It’s from the New York Observer and reads: After three months, only 35 subscriptions for Newsday’s Web site. Just in case you haven’t heard, we’re in the worst global recession since the 1930s—something that may yet turn into a Depression. So I would urge publishers to keep down the prices for books on the Apple and not use multimedia as a price-raising gimmick, just when it really would help. Even the tendency of some users to pay for mobile content, but not the usual desktop content, isn’t enough. Granted, Newsday is a newspaper and it is free to cable subscribers, reducing the market for paid subscriptions; but the same idea applies to books in this frugal era. I myself like the idea—advocated by some smart people in publishing—of e-books typically costing less than $10 and going down from there. Talk about ways to combat piracy and grow the market! Ideally the machine itself will go for $500 without a subscription, or drop to that level quickly, but this is hope, not prophesy since—as I’m writing this—I don’t know what the price will be. Meanwhile Engadget has run an image “of what certainly looks like a prototype Apple tablet” bolted down. A genuine photo or a fake? This afternoon—and maybe through leaks before?—we’ll find out. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:10:14 +0100 812418 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/UQqxFxbdOTM/ Bill McCoy discusses this at great length on this Books 2.0 blog. Here’s the fist little bit: I often receive queries like: I am converting the Word file of my book to a PDF (a bit later in epub). To be read on as many devices as possible, is PDF or PDF/A better? PDF/A-1a or PDF/A-1b? This may seem like a rather nit-picky question, and the bottom-line answer is straightforward: stick to PDF/A to maximize portability, and the lower conformance level “b” is fine. But some interesting strategic points are illustrated by the details underlying this answer. … Technorati Tags: Adobe, e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, Paul Biba, PDF Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:37:01 +0100 812419 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/b-3H4uRP1uM/ Editor’s note: Part 1 of this article can be found here. PB The best way to think of eBooks is as just another format, the content is the same as the print; it’s the format that has changed. Historically, students/patrons are accepting of such change. Think of e-journals, they have multiple platforms for the journals and each publisher presents theirs in a unique way with features and options, but the core content is still the same. Access Models In regards to access models we have to look at what the state of the industry is. In a conversation I had with Jay Henry, former Director of Blackwell Digital Services, he sums it up nicely. “What I mean is, the current state-of-the-art is really the result of compromise between what would be ideal, and what is possible—this is true in both the realm of technology and copyright/royalty-land” What Mr. Henry is referring to is that the access models are a result of what we have to work with. There is a certain field or constraint that the aggregators abide by and limitations that are in place that they must work with. Their is no grand scheme to make it harder for libraries or some evil plan hatching, everyone is simply working with what they have and can only do so much in those regards. Currently there are four types of access, Single User, Multi-User, Subscription and EBL’s Non-Linear access, which you can also partner with Patron/Demand Driven. I’ll go into each of the three and how each agg has applied them to their platform.EBL: EBL offers two types of access to their eBooks, first up is the Non-Linear model, what this means is that multiple, simultaneous use of an eBook is available with a usage limitation of 325 uses of a title in a year. A use is defined as a patron accessing the title beyond the FREE browsing period. Only after this FREE browse period that they decide to look at the title more is it a use. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:00:07 +0100 812422 http://www.shore.com/commentary/weblogs/2010/01/ipad-launches-winner-epub-and-web.html With the media industry salivating over Apple CEO Steve Jobs' announcement of the new iPad as if it were awaiting an injection of Viagra, you'd think that the machine would do everything except change a flat tire. Well, the hoopla is over, and the iPad is...a large iPhone, essentially. Nice, sexy, though functionally not really a breakthrough device compared to the impact that the original iPhone had on mobile markets. However, then the other shoes started to drop after the klieg lights on the announcement stage began to cool off a bit. The two key factors: price and e-book packaging. First, the price. At $499, the iPad is coming out at a blow-away price point that will make its purchase an attractive and simple alternative for many people who would otherwise be considering a PC or Mac as their next step-up from a mobile phone - or a slightly more pricey unlocked Google Nexus One superphone. This matters in a big way to global markets, where billions of people who are experiencing Web content for the first time on mobile phones will be looking for their next step-up device for content consumption. Keep your eyes open also for possible subsidies on this price point as mobile network-enabled versions of the iPad hit the market. Just as King Gillette figured out how to give away razor handles to sell disposable razor blades, Apple will find many ways to lower the cost of hardware acquisition to lock people into their software and ecommerce services. Since the iPad technology and apps are largely warmed-over iPhone components, one assumes that not much R&D was required to launch this model, so there must be a good amount of "wiggle room" in the iPad's pricing for such deals. Its aggressive price point also pegs the iPad as a highly attractive alternative for educational markets, the original market that launched Apple's growth years ago as a scrappy alternative to then-crude PCs. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 812573 http://laurenpressley.com/library/2010/01/my-nooks-first-fieldtrip/ As you might know, I got a Nook for Christmas last week. (I actually had to look it up to see that it was that recent… I just finished my first book on it last night!) One of the features I was really interested in is that Barnes and Noble promised additional content/features when at the physical bookstore. I really like the idea of using technology to enhance the “real” world, so I was particularly intrigued with seeing this in action. We were visiting family for the weekend, and my parents live just a few blocks from a Barnes and Noble that serves a much larger population than the one that ours does, so I figured it was a good excuse for an excursion. So, without much ado, here’s what I found (please pardon the photos, I couldn’t figure a way to do real screen shots, and this was the best I could do): Special Offer 1: Look! Special offers! When you first enter the store, and get on the network (which happened automatically for me), you’ll notice a B&N logo at the menu bar at the top of the page. This lets you know you’re officially able to access the Barnes & Noble specials. Something popped up right away that indicated how to get to the specials, but I wasn’t ready with the camera, or thinking about documentation at the time. After that, I went to the shopping menu and found the specials at the bottom of the screen. You can see that here, with the “more in store” advertisement to the right. This basically just lets you know the types of things you’ll find in the in-store specials. Special Offer 2: 10% off a CD A good introduction, but nothing too exciting, so I paged over to the next specials screen. You can see the coupon on the left. I feel okay putting the picture up since to actually use the coupon you have to show your Nook to use it. However, I did think it was kindof a strange coupon for a Nook user. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:09:17 +0100 812234 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/sj4fPsT0rWA/ It’s time to take a new look at an essay we mentioned in 2003 and again in 2006. I will start out by looking at the essay in-depth, which we did not do either time we mentioned it before—and at the end I will talk about its applicability in the present day. Picard’s Syndrome Back in 2003, economic commentator Gary North wrote about his observation that millions of people had a bias against e-books and preferred to read physical books. Noting that, on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard was considered “eccentric” for preferring to read paper books, North called this phenomenon “Picard’s Syndrome”. The essay is interesting to read, and still mostly relevant even now that e-book readers are increasing the popular demand for e-books. North starts out by talking about the advantages of e-books in terms of searching, copying and pasting, and annotating. But, North writes, most people prefer printed books. “If a book doesn’t have a binding – if it isn’t suitable for reading in bed – well, it just isn’t a real book.” Manual Labor North then talks about how he is able to sell technical e-books he writes, on topics such as how to design an effective Yellow Pages ad, for three-digit-sums per copy because he targets them at very specific audiences and—more importantly—calls them “manuals.” He writes, “The document is not called a book, let alone an e-book. If it were an e-book, you would have to give it away.” I sell my 88-page manual for $176 – $2/page. For a businessman who wants to make his Yellow Pages ad work, $176 is not much money. He pays that much every month, or even every week, to run his ad. As for everyone else, they would not pay me $17.60 for such a report. Most would not pay $1.76. They are not interested in writing Yellow Pages ads. So, I sell my manual to a tiny market at a high price – high in relation to what paperback books at Barnes & Noble cost. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:48:01 +0100 812238 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/KA3IIDCVXs0/ One of my favourite trend-dissecting websites, Ars Technica,  goes into detail on how Amazon must adapt to sell ebooks to multiple devices, as Apple gets ready to release its tablet and just about every PC vendor prepares its own e-ink devices, slates or what-have-you. The article, titled “Why Amazon won’t launch its own tablet, but will use Apple’s“, says that Amazon must to now compete with vendors who will sell books for any screen, and will have to support the Apple tablet and others no matter how un-Kindle they may be. The article goes on to suggest that opening the Kindle to third-party applications will buy some life for the franchise, but by the end of the year it will be just one of a large field of dedicated devices and full-function computers that the e-book reading public can choose from. I can only hope that this also signals the beginning of the end of the proprietary Kindle book format. This is going to be a very interesting year. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:18:31 +0100 812240 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/JZogtSmvxQY/ Richard Nash, Cursor; Eoin Purcell, Green Lamp Media; Chris Morrow, Northshire Books; Angela James, Carina Press discussed this at Digital Book World. Notes: Northshire Books: physical bookstores still exist. Print on demand at the retail level. Installed an Espresso 2 years ago (similar machine in photo). Print 3 categories: self published, public domain, copyrighted books. With state of software, have been doing self published books and they make up 2% of his sales. Partnered with Google to download and print. For copyrighted books software is now available to get book where publishers make content available. POD is often an impulse purchase. Publishers set retail price. Is an alternate channel, not competition for regular print run. Carina Press: Digital first publisher. Harlequin’s digital first division. Going to do other genre fiction aside from romance. No advance, but get higher royalty based on cover price, not net. 30% for direct sales and 15% for resellers. No options clause. Take rights for only 7 years. No DRM, cause customers in this area are used to this in this genre. Trying to develop a brand in the genres they will be working with. Reader can print book using POD, they don’t don’t do it themselves. Cursor: Taken lessons from Softskull Press. Cursor is a portfolio of branded publishers. First imprint will be Red Lemonade and then two to four a year. Each imprint wants to capture all value under the demand curve. Pricing will be between $8 and $30. Classes, limited editions, all done in a systematic way. Not just volume. In the area from $0.99 to $10 the current industry is doing its best not to monetize. There is absolutely no evidence that low priced books cannibalize high priced one – for example, fashion business, cosmetics business. Cursor will try to do it. Still do supply chain print books. Three year licenses. ... Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:56:41 +0100 812241 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/BSwqteTSU_U/ How to optimize ebooks so they look spiffy and are as fun and easy to use as possible? Is E Ink really the ultimate? Are today’s e-readers good enough? Chewing this over at Digital Book World were Josh Koppel of ScrollMotion (product in photo), Andrew Malkin of Zinio, Brad Inman of  Vook, Maja Thomas of the Hachette Book Group, Eric Freese of Aptara and Laura Dawson of LJNDawson, the moderator. Some notes on the various panelists: ScrollMotion: Joseh Koppel founded the company because he was disappointed that a digital book was defined as just high resolution text. iPhone is what inspired him. He demonstrated Iceberg. Paginated experience. Important to maintain cause page number always changing was disappointing for a user. Tried to come up with good method of brewing. First to do individual apps as books and has been very successful. Over 6,000 apps. Trade books easy compared to graphic and kids books. New kids reader – Iceberg Kids. Can move around the image and still allow full zoom. Can add recordings. Has magazine product. Pagination in a magazine not very important so added an easy scrolling mechanism instead of a paginated experience, with a good search engine and table of contents. Zinio: 50,000 magazine issues. Adding books. 24 languages and 140 countries. Moving into mobile devices. Good application for verticals. Just launched iPhone app. Should grow to 200 magazines on iPhone. Will be on Android and Symbian. Partnering with hardware manufacturers and consumer sales outlets. Vook: Creating a new category of books and a new form. Showed a Vook of Shakespeare Sonnet 40. Video, animation, annotation. Publish between 500 and 750 titles this years. Putting filmmaker and author together creates a new form of work. Still experimental. Cost of books is from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Filmmakers get base and royalties. 750 – 1,200 books is when begin to break even. ... Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:33:59 +0100 812242 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/1-XYH8d7kWE/ Dedicated e-book readers won’t be the easiest sell if you go by Verso’s 2009 Survey of Book Buying Behavior—presented at DigitalBookWorld.  On the positive, the overwhelming majority of owners say they do not pirate e-books. Participating were 5,640 respondents, 48% male and 51% female. Here are Verso’s questions and findings, with a 1.6% margin of error and a 95% confidence level. Are you likely to buy an e-reader (survey conducted in November/December of last year): 49% not at all likely; 23% not sure. In the 65+ year old category over 60 % say not at all likely. Of e-reader owners, planned e-book purchases in the next year: not sure 35%; 10 or more 6.5%; 5-9 11%; 3-4 12%; 1-2 25%; none 8%. Bundling: "would you buy a "deluxe" hardcover if it included and ebook for a modest surcharge?": 19% likely; 19% somewhat likely; 35% not sure. Maximum amount to pay for an e-book: not sure 37%; less than $10, 27%; over $10, 28%, sweet spot seems to be between $10 – $18. Piracy among e-reader owners: none, 63%; 1 – 2, 13%; 3 – 4, 7%; 5 – 9, 3%; 10 or more, 6% Hot spot of piracy is males 18 – 34. Survey overview: no near term tipping point e-reader penetration could reach 12-15% in 2 years undecided at 38% are swing faction resistance among 45+ consumers The full data will be available tomorrow at versoadvertising.com. It is well worth your going there to look at the full presentation. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:24:19 +0100 812243 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/4fkfk164YAs/  –Janet Evanovich can get a CD of all of her books on eBay for $11. –Sherrilyn Kenyon shows 29 hits on VUZE. –All five of top fiction and non-fiction books available as pirated editions. Some of the hits have all of her books. –28% of e-reader owners have used file sharing sites to download free e-books, according to a Verso study. Piracy is the most important issue facing digital publishers, says Brian Napack, Macmillan president, and he cited the above examples at Digital Book World. Agree or disagree? Speak up in our comments area. Napack said—remember these are his opinions—that piracy took a big chunk out of music business, where he spent a lot of time. A college textbook called "Leinger, Principles of Biochemistry" was adopted all over, Napack said, but sales never took off because of piracy. What can we do? Here’s Napack speaking: Piracy happens when motivation meets opportunity. Motivation: love of authors, genres; perceived high prices; lack of availability; restrictive formats; distain for media companies. Opportunity: more digital content; more file sharing sites, broad availability of titles, more pirate ready devices. His plan: target facilitators – takedowns and lawsuits; target pirates – target individuals and companies; pursue legislation and enforcement; create viable consumer marketplace – implement consumer-friendly DRM; protect content in-house – most common stuff found is pre-publication manuscripts, found very few legitimate e-books have been hacked; protect content in the marketplace – DRM limit free and open e-book programs; engage in public education. Napack’s key points: most common stuff found on line is pre-publication manuscripts; have found very few legitimately protected e-books have been hacked. Amazon Kindle has shown that people will pay for content. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. ... Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:00:49 +0100 812244 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/7yiWbqYALiA/ The biggest opportunities are in smartphones and netbooks and notebooks, not dedicated e-readers with E Ink, says Amanda Edmonds, Google’s director of strategic partnerships. Her points at DigitalBookWorld: Google wants a model that simplifies life for consumers and publishers. Consumers will be searching for a lot of backlist books. Google Editions wants to monetize book searching and buying. Can purchase print and digital editions. Search traffic from smartphones increasing faster than search rate for PCs. Has ability to share notes; 39% of people who access cloud computing say that they do so for sharing purposes. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:26:35 +0100 812245 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/cfQgHqxkF7I/ Edited news release…  Wattpad, the popular e-book community, has partnered with Lulu, a leader in open publishing, to provide Wattpad writers with a Wattpad branded marketplace on Lulu.com to print, sell and promote their works.   “This year the number of titles published on Wattpad will exceed that of traditional publishing as a whole,” said Allen Lau, CEO of Wattpad.  “This partnership will bring the authors of these 300,000 titles an opportunity to monetize their work.”  “The Wattpad Marketplace on Lulu.com” expands Wattpad’s offerings. It also helps Wattpad authors overcome typical sales and marketing challenges and reach a wider audience. The marketplace is powered by Lulu, which has deep expertise in technology and the online market, and provided through Lulu’s Publishing Partner Program.  "Helping authors succeed is what Lulu is all about," said Krishna Motukuri, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Lulu. "We are excited to have partners like Wattpad that share the mission."  “The Wattpad Marketplace on Lulu.com” is now available. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:15:14 +0100 812246 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/TZeovHoRLRY/ Here is an article from the University of Georgia Office of Public Affairs News Service about a six-month study in Athens, Georgia on using the Kindle DX as a replacement delivery method for newspapers. The study found that, while participants did like the readability of the Kindle’s screen, most did not feel it made a good overall replacement for a newspaper. For younger adults, the Kindle fell short when compared to their beloved smart phones, with touch screens and multiple applications—from music to surfing the Internet—available in a single small package. The e-reader felt “old” to them. Older adults were overall more receptive to the concept of an e-reader. However, the Kindle failed to include aspects of the traditional newspaper they had grown fond of, such as comics and crossword puzzles. Participants also felt that the DX’s price tag of $489 was too much to pay for reading a newspaper. The study did focus solely on using the Kindle as a newspaper replacement, however, rather than for books and other media as well. I found it interesting how the attitude of the younger adults in the study mirrored what Andrew Savikas said in the Tools of Change article we discussed yesterday: Attributes like convenience, portability, price, immediacy, and connectivity are more important to these customers than attributes like paper weight, coating, or smell. So it’s no surprise that we’re seeing the quickest growth in smartphone reading outside of established markets. Perhaps there’s something to this “disruptive innovation” thing after all? Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:56:18 +0100 812248 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/oktKWyOit9E/ The rumored Apple tablet, shown in the unofficial concept image, could go on sale March 1 in Germany for $500-$600 with a contract and perhaps $999 without. So go reports that MacRumors is passing on from Europe. Note the operative word here, the name of the publication; but at least this is fun water-cooler talk. Significantly, the info is based on a tweet that a major Germany electronic retailer went on to delete. Standard media line is that the tablet could remake the e-book business. Perhaps: I’ve always liked multiuse devices with decent screens. But at $1,000 without a contract—assuming the rumors are true? Just what will Apple need to make the tablet a success in e-books and other areas? [Update: The MacRumors report turned out to be from a fake Twitter account that did not actually belong to the business magazine it was named for. —C.M.] Other links of interest today: –As expected, many developers are gung ho on the Apple tablet’s possibilities. Hmm. I wonder if the tablet could finally be the excuse for Amazon to unleash a version of Stanza that could read the Kindle’s DRMed format. Stanza is far, far more customizable than Amazon’s current Kindle for the iPhone. –The Kindle, especially the DX, flunks as a news e-reader for students—at least for now, when it lacks the color touch screen that young people cherish on smart phones.  So finds a study at the University of Georgia. What do you think, gang? I say, “Depends on the user, and college students are on the go and don’t want to worry about toting a larger device, especially a DX-sized one. And yet the Kindle could be fine for some stay-at-home retirees.” –And speaking of news readers, the New York Times has appointed someone to oversee reader apps—sorry: I can’t find the item with  the link. ... Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:51:22 +0100 812082 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/OHkffLdFwrY/ A Charlottesville, Virginia, school is using them with a group of 8 and 9 year olds. It is a grant-funded project and the reading teacher, who teaches all the schools 3rd graders, feels that it books the students’ reading and critical-thinking skills, regardless of reading level. Text to speech is valuable here, she says, because it helps the students learn difficult words without having to spend all their energy decoding them. Thanks to Resource Shelf for the link. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:25 +0100 812086 http://www.traffick.com/2010/01/is-your-search-marketing-knowledge.asp It's becoming a truism that search engine marketing as practiced by busy in-house marketing managers, and others in similar positions who may drift in and out of direct responsibility for those initiatives, need serious "brushing up" every year or so. That used to be described as "changes in the search ranking algorithms you need to keep up with." Now the issue is broader, with changes in the paid search algorithms, new search products, blended search, and more.Much like going to the dentist, it's polite to claim that you go in for a refresh every six months, and it's polite to tell the dental people that you really do floss every day. But if it's been one, two, or three years since you took a close look, well (cough cough), we'll look the other way and point out that it's what you do next that matters most -- not how many months or years you've been away.How silly are some of the outdated paid search theories of the past? Well, I couldn't quite believe it when I came across this old piece by myself, pre-Quality-Score, in 2004. (As an added bonus, it was published on a site by my friend Mike Grehan (then being called Mike "Merlot" Grehan) and with associate editor Christine Churchill, another great in the biz.) The piece talked about a narrow tactical debate about high CTR's and whether racking up a strong account history based on overbidding might actually get you discount prices to stay in high spots later on. The CTR history would create a "seal," insulating you from competitors for a long time, unless they bid ridiculously high.In reality, it was a flukey and inconsistent strategy at the time, as Google already made it clear that CTR (important in the PPC ranking algorithm) was "normalized for ad position". ... Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 813925 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/J1nPLfQg5vI/ From their blog: We’re starting to share early betas of the Ibis Reader mobile UI for iPhones, Nexus Ones, and other Android devices with a limited group of testers. If you’re interested in joining the beta program and testing on other phones, tablets, and laptops, please email info@ibisreader.com. You may be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement. More info on our upcoming ereader is available in our announcement post. The reader will support iPhone OS, Android and Palm webOS and will support Epub. It will use the Bookserver ecosystem from the Internet Archive. Technorati Tags: e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, iPhone, Paul Biba, Android, Palm, WebOS Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:07:00 +0100 811892 http://lisnews.org/kan_you_handle_kandle_your_kindle The Kandle ebook light is compatible with any of the hundreds of eBook readers that will be flooding the market. The Kandle’s dual pivoting arms allow it to fold up to a slightly more compact form factor, but it also allows the light from the 2 LEDs to be directed as needed. (Source: LISNews.org) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:15:24 +0100 811859 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/NnxY79R3Yjo/ …says Kassia Krozser in an article in Publishing Perspectives today. Kassia says that ebook publishers are not doing a good job with image/text flow, cover art/cover content, adapting the book to the medium, quality checking, bringing the book up to date, navigation and usability. That pretty much covers everything, doesn’t it? Being a huge ebook reader I can vouch for her criticisms. No point in repeating my opinions here when she does it so well in her article. Take a look. Technorati Tags: e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, Paul Biba Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:07:05 +0100 811896 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/GIu0NmccnhU/ That’s the title of a great article by Andrew Savikas at Tools of Change. Andrew argues that complaints about a 3.5″ screen being to small for reading miss the point. The Kindle, etc. Andrew says, are continuations of the current book reading model. However, “small screen”, or mobile reading is disruptive in that it is appealing to a new class of readers who value things other than page size. They want convenience, portability and connectivity, among other things. The article goes on to point out, and I agree with this 100%, that designing ereaders is fine for existing readers, but by ignoring the new, and potentially larger, disruptive market publishers are falling into a strategy trap. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:20:58 +0100 811899 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/ilY5DtpYkYQ/ 2EPUB is a free online converter that allows you to convert various types of documents and e-books to ePub format. 2EPUB supports the following formats: · input: doc, epub, fb2, html, lit, lrf, mobi, odt, pdb, pdf, prc, rtf, txt. · output: epub, fb2, lit, lrf, mobi. Upload limitations: 5 files, 25 Mb maximum If anyone has used it, please post your comments here. The reviews on the site are all very positive. Technorati Tags: e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, EPUB, Paul Biba Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:23:52 +0100 811900 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/mWJcdmY1MmE/ The free ebook site at the University of Adelaide is now offering its collection of classic works of literature, philosophy, science, exploration and travel in Epub format. Just download the zip file to your machine.  They don’t make it very clear,  but the zip file is actually the Epub file, see comment below.  According to the site’s blog the files work fine with Stanza on the iPhone. And our reader Raymond writes: I like the formatting of all the public domain books on “eBooks@Adelaide.” Last year, I downloaded many HTML books from them and converted to Mobipocket format. Now they offer all their books in EPUB. I downloaded “Flatland.” Opening it in Adobe Digital Editions, some of the Table of Contents lines on the left got scrunched up. Don’t know why. The way to download their EPUB books is to go to the authors page, pick an author, then click on the green downward pointing arrow beside each book: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/meta/authors.html Technorati Tags: Australia, e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, EPUB, Paul Biba Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:40:21 +0100 811904 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/faebjuzUpCQ/ This major British author, of The Cement Garden the The child in Time fame, signed a deal with independent ebpublisher Rosetta Books last summer. His agent discloses that Rosetta doubled his royalties to 50% and got an exclusive deal with Amazon for his back catalog in the US. More info here. Technorati Tags: Amazon, e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, Paul Biba, England, Britain Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:26:55 +0100 811905 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/SAwdjMV2C-A/ Tech blogger Jesse Vincent begins his story by saying: Barnes & Noble have, without a doubt, the worst customer service of any company I have dealt with in the past decade. They’ve made repeated promises to me that they’ve failed to keep and told me that it’s my fault. They’ve put out _press releases_ about how generously they were taking care of the customers whose nooks failed to arrive for Christmas and then turned around and flatly refused to honor that promise. If you want a hackable linux-based ebook reader with a great user experience and great customer support, buy a Kindle. and ends by saying: At this point, I have little hope of ever seeing any sort of compensation from Barnes & Noble. They’ve strung me out past the limit of their 14-day return policy, so I couldn’t even return the device. I don’t really know what’s next for me and the nook. I can tell you that Barnes & Noble are never getting another dime of my money. I hope you think twice before giving them any of yours. Somewhat coincidentally, Amazon announced the Official Kindle SDK this week. If you want a hackable linux-based ebook reader with a great user experience and great customer support, buy a Kindle. (Yes, I make money if you click that link. Actually, if just four people buy Kindles because of this post, I end up with the $100 Barnes & Noble stiffed me.) Technorati Tags: Barnes & Noble, ebook readers, eReader, ereaders, Paul Biba, Nook Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:18:27 +0100 811906 http://lisnews.org/o039reilly_drops_ebook_drm_sees_104_increase_sales O'Reilly drops ebook DRM, sees 104% increase in sales It's been 18 months since O'Reilly, the world's largest publisher of tech books, stopped using DRM on its ebooks. In the intervening time, O'Reilly's ebook sales have increased by 104 percent. Now, when you talk about ebooks and DRM, there's always someone who'll say, "But what about [textbooks|technical books|RPG manuals]? Their target audience is so wired and online, why wouldn't they just copy the books without paying? They've all got the technical know-how." So much for that theory. (Source: LISNews.org) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:10:49 +0100 811860 http://pfplreaders.blogspot.com/2010/01/ebooks-available-through-library.html Effective January 25, you can borrow eBooks through the library for use on your Barnes & Noble Nook or your Sony Reader. You can search them on the same page that you search for downloadable audiobooks - go to pburglib.org and click on ListenNJNW. You will need to download and install Adobe Digital Editions eBook software on your computer - instructions are available on the web site. (Source: Book Lover's Blog) Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 812825 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/griffey/~3/ajmEVwr6E0c/ I just realized that I had yet to post my Trends from Midwinter 2010. I will say that I was incredibly pleased with being on the panel with such a great set of librarians, and was overly nervous about the whole thing right up until we started talking. I know it’s silly, but Top Tech Trends is the event that I’ve been attending since my first ALA, and it immediately became a personal career goal to someday be a Trendster. The fact that I actually got to do it still hasn’t really sunk in, especially so early in my career. I was planning on linking out to a ton of stuff, but this amazing page of links collects pretty much everything that anyone talked about…awesome job putting that together! Without further ado: My trends, exactly as written before the panel started. I went off the tracks a bit once I started talking, needless to say. The Year of the App 2009 was the year of the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch App Store….over 1 Billion Apps were downloaded in the first nine months of the App Store, the second billion only 5 months later, and only 3 months from that for Apple to announce 3 billion downloads. 2010 is the year that Apps show up everywhere…small, specialized programs that do one thing in a standalone way are going to be everywhere: every phone, printers, nearly every gadget is going to try and leverage an App Store of some type. Libraries have started down this road with the OCLC Worldcat iPhone App, the DCPL iPhone App, and more coming. The Death of the App 2010 is also the year of the Death of the App. Many developers are using Apps because they allow functions that were non-existent in other ways. Many of the reasons to program stand-alone Apps disappear when the HTML5 and CSS3 standards become widespread. ... Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:38:41 +0100 811949