TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Want a non-stop stream of recently digitized ebooks to choose from? Check this out

By Paul Biba

I reprint this in full from Resource Shelf. What a great (can I say it?) resource!

A Never Ending “Virtual Stream” of Digitized Text
by Gary Price, Senior Editior

When Chris Sherman and I were writing and then giving book talks and presentations about The Invisible Web, we said John Mark Ockerbloom’s Online Books Page was an essential resource for anyone interested in digitized, full text books. Now referred by most as eBooks. More than eight years later I feel the same way about this awesome and well organized collection.

Where do you begin with a site so full of content? For me, that’s easy. Monitoring the latest additions to the catalog/page. I am always blown away by the amount of new listings (when does Ockerbloom sleep?) and the number of organizations digitizing books. If you think it’s only Google digitizing books (of course they are a major player) but not they’re far from the only one doing this type of work. Just look for yourself. The page even has an RSS feed.

[Read rest of post]

No Comments »

Quick Note: Nook sold out for the holidays

By Paul Biba

According to Engadget, via the NY Times, the Nook is sold out and the next round of readers will ship out around January 4.

If memory serves, didn’t exactly the same thing happen to the Kindle 1?

2 Comments »

New Sony e-store for books, movies, music and apps is coming, says company—but it ‘is not imminent’

By David Rothman

Now that Sony has revealed plans for a new iTune-like store—offering e-books along with music, movies and apps—I was curious if this might just help pave the way for a multimedia tablet. You think Sony would answer that question directly right now? Dream on. But spokesperson Valerie Motis tried to be helpful on other matters within the inevitable limits. Her full statement to TeleRead:

“I don’t have any info on the new store plans. This was very recently announced at a management meeting and I think it’s safe to say that it is not imminent. In the Reader group, we’re focusing very much on the near term—getting the Daily Edition out and flipping the store over to ePub. I know you are aware of our offer to update all the PRS-500s in the field. We’re working on this as well in anticipation of the store changeover in just a few short weeks. All that said, I really couldn’t say anything about what the store Sir Howard refers to will look like.”

Thanks, Val, and keep us posted—especially on hardware matters and DRM issues involving the current and planned stores.

No Comments »

enTourage eDGe opens ebook store

By Paul Biba

The capital-letter-challenged eDGe is now offering ebooks in their new store. They have cut a deal with Ingram Digital for ebooks and with LibreDigital to provide ebooks and over 175 periodicals. They are also connected with the Google Books for download from that source.

I poked around their store and it seems that all the books I looked at were in PDF format – not very reader friendly – even though the machine will read EPUB. However, the ereading part of the unit is 9.7″ so maybe it can do a decent PDF display. There is no mention that I can find of whether the books have DRM or not. We have previously reported on the unit here.

3 Comments »

Scanning, printing and downloading services from Kirtas

By Paul Biba

Kirtas is a maker of automatic book imaging systems. They also have a POD service that is open to the general public. I poked around their book site after getting an email from them and here’s what I found.

Take, for example, the book A catalogue of English and foreign bookbindings offered for sale by Bernard Quaritch Ltd.. I can download it for free, get a softcover version for $8 or a hardcover version for $18. I can also preview how the POD cover will look (pictured above). They have books from the Rochester Institute of Technology (654), Kirtas Classics (99,799), University of Pennsylvania (224,199), McGill University (37,921), New York Public Library (317,934) and others.

You might want to poke around. The only problem is that the digitized copies are in PDF format, which means that I certainly will never download one. I don’t like reading on the computer and there isn’t a good portable alternative for PDF reading yet. However, the prices are pretty reasonable I can certainly see ordering a hard cover book or maybe finding an unusual book and having it printed to use as a Christmas gift.

2 Comments »

Kindle to get folders? Apparently

By Paul Biba

Is Amazon about to address a gripe of many serious e-bookers—and give the Kindle folders, so people can organize their e-libraries better?

Apparently. Fron the Kindle Facebook page:

“Kindle Customers, We have heard from many of you that you would like to have a better way to organize your growing Kindle libraries. We are currently working on a solution that will allow you to organize your Kindle libraries. We will be releasing this functionality as an over-the-air software update as soon as it is ready, in the first half of next year. – The Kindle Team.”

(Thanks to John Hagewood for the link)

3 Comments »

Ebooks not greener than print says publisher

By Paul Biba

That’s what Karen Christensen says. She’s an academic publisher and author and co-editor of the forthcoming book The Business of Sustainability. According to her:

… the debate around green issues behind producing books had so far largely ignored the “vast” impact of data centres and the computer and mobile communications industry.

“I can’t think of an issue where our beliefs about an issue are more out of line with the realities,” Christensen said, whose book is due out in January.

“Both print and digital publishing have an impact on the environment, and we need to get over the misconception that digital publishing is inherently better than publishing on paper. It might be a lot worse.”

9 Comments »

Sony to sell e-books along with music and movies and apps in new store: Multimedia tablet coming? Just a GUESS

By David Rothman

The Sony eBookStore shown here has been around for a few years for Sony Reader owners.

But now comes word from BusinessWeek that Sony will also sell e-books elsewhere—in the new Sony Online Store, the current name.

This one will sell music, movies and downloadable apps, too. The feeling among Sony watchers is that the new Sony store will use an iTune-ish approach.No startup date has been announced. 

I’m curious if or how the new Sony store may works with the existing eBook Library software. What’s more, might the current eBookStore vanish? I don’t think so, but who knows?

Is Sony in time going to do the e-book-capable multimedia table that Apple is supposed to offer us? That certainly would jibe well with Sony’s history as a hardware company and the store’s multimedia approach. I’m just extrapolating and guessing. But if you work for a publisher and need to anticipate future possibilities, add this one to the brew.

Also, what e-book format will the new Sony store use? ePub? And what about the DRM situation? Will Adobe-DRMed ePub be the norm? And what if publishers don’t want DRM? Will Sony in fact offer publishers a choice, as I believe it’s indicated?

[Read rest of post]

1 Comment »

‘Harlequin Horizons,’ new self-publishing venture, draws the ire of RWA and Mystery Writers of America

By Paul Biba

“Harlequin Horizons,” the romance publisher’s new self=publishing arm, has stirred up a hornet’s nest.

I put the name in quotes because Harlequin has announced that it changing the name of its new venture effective immediately.

According to a press release, authors expressed concern that the original name would cause confusion between this venture and Harlequin’s traditional publishing business.

[Read rest of post]

No Comments »

Preliminary approval for the Google Book Settlement granted

By Paul Biba

The court has given preliminary approval and the following dates are of interest:

December 14: supplemental notices about the amended agreement to be sent
January 28: objections to amended agreement be filed with the court
January 28: opt in date for those members of the class who had previously opted out
February 18: hearing to determine whether the agreement is “fair, reasonable and adequate”

No Comments »

Pogue previews pretty perfectly-priced Palm Pixi

By Chris Meadows

David Pogue’s latest column in the New York Times concerns the new Palm Pixi, the Pre’s precocious kid sister. The official price is $100 with a 2-year Sprint contract, but Amazon is selling it for $25—plus $2,309 in monthly fees over the course of the contract.

The phone is tiny, light, and thin, weighing in at 3 ounces. The design is nothing fancy, and it cuts a few corners (for example, no wifi—connection via Sprint’s cell network only—and an overall slower processor). In fact, for just $55 more you can have the somewhat more featureful and faster Pre.

But at least it shows that smartphone prices are definitely falling. Now if only they could rein in the calling plan prices, too. (Even if, as the article notes, Sprint’s are overall significantly less than AT&T or Verizon’s prices.)

Presumably, the Pixi will run the same e-book applications that the Pre will, so this may look like a reasonable option for people wanting a cheap smartphone. On the other hand, taken as a percentage of overall cost over two years, upgrading to the more-capable Pre is just a drop in the bucket.

No Comments »

Smashwords acquires BookHabit of New Zealand

By Paul Biba

From the Smashwords press release:

Los Gatos, Calif. and Wellington, New Zealand – November 19, 2009 — Silicon Valley based Smashwords, Inc. has acquired Wellington New Zealand company BookHabit Limited, consolidating Smashwords’ position as the world’s premier ebook publishing and distribution platform for independent authors and publishers.

BookHabit was founded in 2008 as an ebook publishing platform for independent authors. During that time, BookHabit developed relationships with 340 authors who collectively published over 600 books.

[Read rest of post]

No Comments »

The Great Hunt – Wheel of Time Volume 2 – released

By Paul Biba

I just got it from Amazon at $7.99 for my Kindle and I understand that it has been released on the Sony platform as well.

Eoin Purcell raises an interesting question in his blog:

But riddle me this?

Why do they not just sell it direct? The multi-publisher bookstore provides just the platform, they have created an incredible audience and the property is a very, very good one. I cannot understand this decision. Sure the rest of Macmillan also avoids ebook sales listing instead other sellers on their site bit surely the selling of a digital download is not THAT difficult? Is it?

3 Comments »

Two weeks with an Astak 5”: Formats and shortcomings

By Chris Meadows

Photo Note: My auto-focus digital camera had a little trouble getting good shots of the screen; no matter what I do, the shots tend to turn out slightly off-focus. The shots may look blurry, but suffice it to say that’s a problem with my camera—in person, the reader is quite as crisp and clear as printed text.

I’ve had more time to play around with the Astak, and the bloom is off the rose. Yes, the e-ink screen is truly amazing, and far clearer than the touch-sensitive Sony reader’s. However, it has certain other problems.

In Praise of Astak

Before I start talking about the Astak’s shortcomings, I should mention that the company itself has some astoundingly good customer service. For one thing, they monitor the Astak forums on MobileRead and pop up to answer questions.

Whenever I have posted a technical question on the forum, I have almost immediately been emailed by an Astak representative with suggestions and offers of advice. Now, granted, I do not know whether this is their default behavior toward all users, or just because they know I’m reviewing their product. I’d like to think the former is true.

Another nice thing about the device itself is that the firmware is remarkably easy to upgrade. Just put the firmware file on an SD card, slide the card in, and reboot into upgrade mode using a combination of keypresses.

My only complaint in this regard is that the instructions I found for upgrading on their website were not entirely clear. One of the buttons to be pressed is mentioned as the “increase volume key”. I assumed that meant the rocker switch on the right—but after that did not work and I searched some more, I learned that those instructions only applied to the 6” Astak reader devices; for the 5”, you press the page-forward button left of the screen instead. Just a little confusing.

Now let’s talk about some of those shortcomings.

[Read rest of post]

6 Comments »

New audiobook publisher on the horizon – AudioLark

By Paul Biba

AudioLark, who hopes to go live in March of next year, is a new romance audio book publisher. The innovative thing about them is that their selections will be priced at $4.99, $7.99 or $12.99, which is way bellow the typical $35 audio book price.

AudioLark is being run by Jennifer Fedderson, a freelance editor who runs of the Best of the Best Ebook Contest at her website, along with Celia Kyle, a published author.

I wish them the best of luck and also note that they are hiring voice talent and audio editors.

No Comments »

Nokia N900 tablet and phone is now pre-orderable in U.S.: Promising e-book reader?

By Paul Biba

The successor to Nokia’s line of internet tablets is now available on pre-order through Nokia’s Web site and through Amazon and others.

List price is $649, but Amazon is selling it for $560 after a $50 rebate.

The Linux-based N900 is able or soon should be able to run such e-book software as FBReader, which can read nonDRMed ePub. I checked the Maemo download site last night and found no e-reading software out yet, but it should only be a matter of time.

Specs: The Meomo 5 operating system (Linux), 3.5 inch touchscreen display, QWERTY slide-out keyboard, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss autofocus camers, 32 GB of internal memory and Mozilla-powered browser.

5 Comments »

Ex-HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman may back off from DRM: Way to increase profits on her Open Road e-books?

By David Rothman

Is ex-HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman about to change her mind on Digital Rights Management—and avoid it? Or maybe play it down in her new Open Read e-publishing operation?

“Do I really have to answer? I’m not sure,” Friedman told New York University publishing students after someone asked about Open’s position on DRM. “Initially, I was very against the idea of no-DRM. But now I’m not sure."

DRM as the Lysenkoism of big publishing

Ideally she soon will be sure—of the negatives of DRM for consumer trade publishing. Among big New York publishers, the DRM ideology is a little like the old Soviet genetics. If you were a geneticist and wanted to get ahead in the Stalin years, you toed the party line and favored Trofim Lysenko’s brilliance over the shaky, unproven theories of Mendel (sarcasm alert).

Like Lysenkoism, DRM is a laugh—since it’s so easy to scan paper editions of bestsellers and put them on P2P networks; and as for typical books, publisher Tim O’Reilly is right on the mark when he says obscurity is more of an obstacle than piracy. If you want to discourage pirates, the embedding of readers’ names in e-books would be far, far more effective than the usual DRM.

[Read rest of post]

No Comments »