.png)
Archive for Top News
Good e-Reader Week in Review – May 20th 2012
Posted by: | Comments
During the last week a ton of news has come out with new devices getting ICS and rumors about an updated line of Kindle e-Readers.
Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight - When we reviewed the brand new Simple Touch with Glowlight last week, we discovered a new feature. There is a hidden web browser that you can use to access the internet via Wi-Fi. We also did a huge review of various 3rd party lighting options and discuss how they rate against the glow feature.
Should College Students Be Forced to Buy Digital Textbooks? - Forbes asked this very question and has a very good introspective on universities and colleges. Digital versions can save students up to 60% and the schools can make a hefty markup on each book sold from the publisher.
Bridgestone stops e-paper development – Bridgestone has been demonstrating its color e-paper technologies for a few years at various conferences and trade-shows. We have caught up with the representatives on many occasions and talked to Bridgestone’s major partners like Delta Electronics. Last week the company announced that it was getting out of the e-paper arena and leaving their partners to fend for themselves.
Plastic Logic Gets Out of the e-Reader Business – Plastic Logic has been working on e-reader and e-paper technology for the last few years. They never really gained any traction in the market and saw a very limited release of an e-reader in Russia. The company decided to stop manufacturing e-readers and plans on focus on developing their e-paper technology for other companies.
Jenny Lawson Speaks to Good e-Reader – Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, was at the Barnes and Noble Peachtree location in Atlanta to give a reading and sign copies of her New York Times bestseller, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. Her humorous memoir has held the #1 spot for four weeks now and Lawson has been on a nationwide book signing tour for several weeks as well. We caught up with her and she spoke to us about writing, her books, and more.
Harry Potter eBooks Come to Kobo – Kobo has just landed a deal for the seven new Harry Potter ebooks. Kobo customers across the globe will have access to them in many different languages, such as English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish at first, and more languages on the way. The books are available on the website now and it redirects you to the main Pottermore website for purchase. This was an excellent move by the company to tap into the millions of fans wanting to get these books in digital format.
Amazon Createspace Launched in Europe – Amazon has just launched their seminal self-publishing service Createspace in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe today. This will allow authors to publish their books and have them distributed all over Europe and North America. UK and European authors can now publish on Createspace and they can have their books, audiobooks, and digital content distributed in many different countries. This is a huge benefit for the local self-publishing scene and now makes digital publishing a bit easier. If you have any questions, check out our Amazon Europe frequently asked questions or contact Member Support.
Updated Android App Store Client – The Good e-Reader Android Market Client saw a massive update a few days ago! We augmented the app to work with all Android Phones and all Android Tablets! We fixed a ton of bugs and errors, and you can tap into an ecosystem with over a thousand apps. We are extremely proud to offer this free client and service to all of our readers that find their tablet has a lackluster selection of apps and games.
The Corporate Battleground for Your Digital Book Business
Posted by: | Comments
The current ebook market climate is riddled with uncertainty as corporate giants do battle with each other for your digital content. Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and other major publishers are fighting it out online and in the courts for your business.
Amazon launched the Kindle Reader in 2007 and Sony in 2006. At first, both devices lived on the fringe with early adopters. Since that time, many new entrants have entered the fray with both e-readers and content distribution systems. The e-readers themselves became more refined over the years and many devices give you wireless internet access to purchase books directly on your reader. They also came down in price to under $10o, while getting faster processing and more robust page turns.
There are a myriad of reasons why people decide to go digital in the first place. Some people do it to save money, some to conserve shelf space, and others for a lightened travel load.
The battle for your dollars is in full swing and has coalesced into ongoing legal battles between the US Justice Department and major publishers. This stems from Amazon’s veritable monopoly on ebooks and their ability to purchase content at wholesale rates and undercut their competition. Apple, Penguin, and Macmillan are currently engaged in an ongoing legal battle to maintain their ebook fixing cartel to promote a competitive landscape.
Not only are publishers fighting it out in court for a fair shake at digital book prices, but this has also transcended into the retail sphere. Recently Target has decided against carrying Amazon e-readers and tablets in their stores. This is mainly attributed to Apple wanting a more exclusive relationship with the chain and trying to phase out their direct competition.
Apple and Amazon have been fighting for a number of years. One of the main elements that contributed to their ongoing battle was Apple’s mandate to control all in-app purchases on their iOS ecosystem. Amazon decided against paying Apple 30% for each book sold in its official app and now faces the predicament of not being able to sell books directly within their app.
Apple seems to have it out for Amazon and is influencing publishers and retailers to curb their relationships with them. This is undoubtedly affecting Amazon’s ambitions to be the number two tablet company in the world. Last year Amazon shipped 4.8 million Kindle Fires and reached a critical mass during the holiday shopping season. They basically increased their market share in the tablet market, but fell to only 728k units in the first quarter of 2012. It seems as though the Kindle Fire has reached critical mass and everyone who wanted one, now has one.
Barnes and Noble recently got a 300 million dollar investment from Microsoft to bundle their bookstore in Windows 8. This will allow users all over the world to purchase textbooks and electronic books. This was a necessary move for B&N for their international expansion, something that they have had no success in doing in the past. Microsoft also benefits from this new partnership because they also have had little success in the ebook market.
The digital book market on a whole has been seeing massive success over the last few years. The UK market has seen over 366% growth in 2011 and ebooks now account for 7% of the entire publishing industry’s revenues. Meanwhile in the USA, the Association of American Publishers said that 31% of all adult trade sales in February, up from 27 per cent in the same period a year ago, with their share of the children’s and young adult market jumping from 10% to 16% in a year. The entire USA market is estimated to do a brisk 2.5 billion dollars in sales in 2012.
e-Readers are currently the best way to read your digital books and the Yankee Group projected that the industry will sell over 8.2 billion dollars worth of devices by 2014. Most companies like Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble used to focus exclusively on the USA market, but in the last year have aggressively adopted a stance of international expansion. Kobo and Amazon both have started marketing their readers and bookstores in UK, Spain, Germany, France, Denmark, and are both branching into South America later this year. B&N is the odd man out in expansion but is making inroads in the UK market and should release a new reader and bookstore later this year.
e-Readers, tablets and digital books are enjoying unparallelled success in the last few years. More money then ever before is at stake and companies are trying to cornerstone the entire industry. Google, Kobo, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon are all fighting hard for your money. Some are offering discounted hardware and some are offering millions of free books. If you thought things are getting complicated with the USA Justice Department and backroom dealings with major publishers and hardware companies, you haven’t seen anything yet.
- I recently did a great interview with Barney Jopson of the Financial Times on this very subject! Everyone is suggested to check out his great article that was published today! You can read it HERE.
Kyobo Mirasol e-Reader Now Available in Canada and the USA
Posted by: | Comments
The Kyobo Mirasol e-reader has finally made the long trek from South Korea to North America. This is the first ebook reader on the market that utilizes the new Mirasol Color e-paper technology. Utilizing Android 2.3, it allows you to install your own apps and download new ones from the Amazon App Store.
The New Kyobo Mirasol e-Reader has only been around for a few short months and is totally amazing! It features a 5.7 inch capacitive display with a resolution of 1024×768. It really does pack a punch in terms of how good things look on this small screen and we noticed comics, books, and images often look better than on competitive devices such as the Kobo Vox. Underneath the hood lurks a 1 GHZ Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 processor and 512 MB of RAM. This Mirasol e-reader might not have the dual core punch that the Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet has, but it is enough to do common tasks without long delays in programs opening or web browsing.
This new e-reader runs Google Android 2.3 and ships with many reading apps to get you right into reading. It comes with Moon+ Reader, Aldiko, Nook, Kindle, and Kobo for Android. It is also bundled with services to allow you to install your own apps such as the Amazon Android Market and our own Good e-Reader App store.
You can order it right now for $399.99 from Shop e-Readers and have it delivered anywhere in Canada, USA, and internationally fairly quickly.
Hands on with the Barnes and Noble Simple Touch with GlowLight
Posted by: | Comments
In New York today, Theresa Horner, VP Digital Content from Barnes and Noble, gave us a private tour of the new Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight! This is the first e-reader to employ technology that lets you read your books in a dark room.
We sent one of our freelancers, Jennifer Gracen, to check out the latest device from Barnes and Noble and she mentioned “The event was was held on the rooftop of the hotel, and I soon realized why. Very clever of them – they brought me outside, by the pool, to show me how the new Nook looks in bright sunlight, especially when compared to other products. They had the Amazon Kindle Fire, Apple iPad and Kindle Touch available as benchmarks. It blew them away, easily. It was the only one you could see the screen without problem. Then we moved back inside, where they had a darkened cozy corner with a bed (yup, you read that right) for me to climb onto and compare the products again. You could really see the difference; the new Nook had light, but no glare, not horribly bright, nice and soft light.”
The new Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight features a 6 inch e-ink display with a resolution of 800×600 pixels. It has an IR touchscreen which allows you pin-point accuracy when you interact with menus and eBooks. This device is 5% lighter in weight than regular Nook – exactly .695 ounces. Battery life on average should last you about 1-2 months depending on use and goes into sleep mode to conserve battery life when you are not using it.
The GlowLight technology has LED lights embedded into the side of the frame. This solves the big issue of e-ink devices not having light emitting from the screen to read in low-light conditions. You can activate the glow feature by holding down the N button for two seconds and the screen will light up. You can configure the brightness settings of the glow feature in a dedicated menu in your settings. In order to turn this glowing feature off, you tap the center of the screen and it will display a little light icon that lets you disable the feature.
Finally there is some new designer covers that will be available on May 1st when the Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight is released for $139.99. If you live outside of the USA you can order this device from our retail website Shop e-Readers for $169. You will get to choose cases designed by Kate Spade, Jack Spade, Jonathan Adler, Lilly Pulitzer, and exclusive Beatles covers that only Nook has rights to.
Good e-Reader Week in Review – April 9th
Posted by: | Comments
Forbes wrote about the rise of Research in Motion and other mobile vendors. The premise of the article is how industry leaders can quickly lose market share and become irelevant. “The violence with which new platforms have displaced incumbent mobile vendor fortunes continues to surprise,” says wireless industry analyst Horace Dediu. He notes that Nokia’s Symbian platform went from 47% share to 16% in three years, Microsoft’s phone platforms went from 12% to 1%, RIM’s went from 17% to 12%, and other platforms went from 21% to zero. Meanwhile, over a two year period, Google’s Android OS went from zero to 48% and Apple’s iOS went from 2% to 19%.
Next Media finally launched their new app for Android that is a paid magazine subscription service. It is run by a consortium of publishing giants such as Conde Nast, Meredith, News Corp, and Time iNC.
Pew Research released some new figures on people’s reading habits on mobile devices. Interesting statistics from the Project revealed that 42% of respondents read ebooks on a computer and a nearly equal number of people read on a dedicated e-reader device. The surprising data included the result that only 23% of users read ebooks primarily on tablet devices, and another 29% read ebooks from the screens of their smart phones. Understandably those numbers total more than 100%, but it is because the Project allowed respondents to indicate if they read on more than one device or platform.
Marvel launched its first print comic that takes advantage of their new Augmented Reality app for the iPad. X-Men vs. The Avengers is the first comic that gives you unique features such as live animation, concept art, and even digital video from the artists. It certainly is interesting as a first effort, but when you face your camera towards an image it tends to be hit or miss.
The Harry Potter eBooks have been taking the world by storm and remain high in the charts at Overdrive. When you want to buy an eBook you are directed to Pottermore, which is J.K. Rowlings own interactive website. This is actually very interesting because she is the only author ever to have the clout to dictate terms to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and others.
Apple, Pearson and Macmillan continue to fight the US Justice Department in reaching a settlement over their agency eBook price fixing. Meanwhile, CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster Inc, HarperCollins Publishers Inc, and Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group just want it to be over. Sources close to the situation claim it might be resolved soon and threats are being issued by both sides.
There was a ton of misconceptions regarding the ending of Google’s eBook affiliate program. We were contacted by Jeannie Hornung, spokesperson for Google, who did confirm that the affiliates program will still continue, and “booksellers will still be highlighted in the ‘Buy this book’ section of Google Book search, supported with our affiliate program and have access to free Books APIs.” While that information was contained in the blog post Google put up today, Hornung also confirmed that the program and support of bookstores will continue after the reseller program is discontinued in January 2013.
Rumors abound that Amazon will be releasing a new Kindle model in the next few months that will have a front lite e-Ink display. The technology was originally developed by Oy Modilis and Amazon purchased them in 2011. This acquisition lends credence to the latest developments out of Taiwan.
Finally, RIM has confirmed that the Sideloading support for Android Apps in the Blackberry Playbook will be suspended very soon. Many developers that are being courted to develop for the beleaguered tablet don’t like the fact it is so easy to pirate apps. I disagree on it being easy, converting Android files to the Playbook BAR format using signing keys and 2 third party programs is anything but simple.
Good e-Reader Acquires Shopereaders.com
Posted by: | Comments
Today Good e-Reader and parent company Oak Branch Media Inc has acquired e-reader company Shop e-Readers. This move was to bolster our ability to better serve educational institutions and deliver a wider array of products to customers internationally.
Shop e-Readers is a Vancouver, BC based company focusing on e-readers and tablets in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Asia. Their approach to business is focusing on markets that don’t have a wide variety of e-readers and tablets to choose from. All of their devices ship with a DVD that teaches you how to use your device and advanced features. They also ship 100 free ebooks with each purchase so you can get reading right away.
In 2011, Shop e-Readers began a mandate to help universities and K12 schools in Canada to adopt digital learning in the classroom. They currently have their e-readers being sold in Simon Frasier University and Vancouver Community College.
The purchase of Shop e-Readers will allow the company to expand further into the educational market across Canada and internationally.
Customers will end up benefiting from our new Good e-Reader App Store! When you purchase an e-reader you have now the ability to select a number of apps to be pre-loaded on your tablet. For example, if you purchase a Kobo Vox, you can opt into having Kindle, Nook, Sony, or Aldiko loaded onto your device. If you want to be empowered more you can also opt into selecting our Good e-Reader Android Market on your device so you can easily load in over 500 apps on your new gadget.
We are super excited about our first major purchase of another company and this basically will allow us to have our say in which e-readers are available for sale. The entire Good e-Reader team reviews tablets and e-readers every day, and we know what ones are terrible and what ones are good. Going forward, we only want to stock the good ones, so anything available has our seal of approval for being a solid investment. Finally, the deal was cash and the exact amount is confidential.
About Good e-Reader
Good e-Reader is the leading news site on the internet covering the latest digital publishing, ebook, e-reader, and tablet pc news. It is the definitive source on the North American market and was voted into the Top 5 Tech blogs by Freescale Semiconductors. The company produces a wide line of e-reader and tablet video reviews and tutorial videos to help people decide what device is for them. Their newest project is the Good e-Reader App Store that has 1000 Android and Playbook applications free for download.
About Shop e-Readers
Shop e-Readers is the worlds leading online store focusing exclusively on e-readers and tablets. They have the widest selection of devices available and ship internationally. The company current is dealing with various K12 and Universities to digitize the classroom.
Good e-Reader Week in Review – March 4th – 8th
Posted by: | Comments
Welcome to the Good e-Reader Week in Review! Many things have transpired this last week in the publishing and e-reading world. Marvel has launched a few new programs, and the Department of Justice is looking into the Price Fixing Cartel with the Big 6 publishers, spearheaded by Apple.
The Blackberry Playbook Led Sales Charts in Canada – The RIM tablet featuring the latest OS2 upgrade was the number one selling tablet in Canada over the course of the last few weeks! That the price was decreased to $199 for the 16 GB model sure helps and the ability to load in your own Android Apps is a big draw. The drawbacks include that fact that the Playbook can only handle apps written in Java and written for Android 2.1. If you have a Playbook, check out our Blackberry Playbook App Store!
Barnes and Noble Holding Android Event March 19th – B&N is expanding to the UK with its Nook Tablet and Nook Simple Touch Reader. They are looking for UK based App Developers to make custom programs for the localized version of the App Store. The new e-Readers are set to debut at the London Book Fair in Mid-April. Incidentally, we are looking for someone in London to cover this event for us, please send us an email if you want to get paid to cover some great news!
Digital Textbooks, What’s Stopping Us? - Across the globe, paper textbooks are slowly being relegated to “thing of the past” status to make way for enhanced digital textbooks. South Korea has already put into place an initiative to digitize all textbooks in public schools and higher education. India has rolled out several models of minimalist cost-effective tablets aimed at public school students, even in outlying areas. So why has the Book Industry Study Group, (BISG), found that only 11% of higher education students in the U.S. have utilized digital textbook rental services? Why did 75% of those students surveyed in American universities say they still prefer print over digital for their school reading?
Scholastic Launched Storia – Scholastic Publishing and Books is launching a new program currently in beta called “Storia.” It is a proprietary ebook platform for selling and distributing its content to end users and schools. The beta test features 1,300 titles with the vast majority published by Scholastic. Deborah Forte, executive v-p and president of Scholastic Media, said she expects Storia to have about 2,000 titles when it makes its official debut in the fall.
Android Market Renamed to Google Play - Google eBooks has been integrated into the Google Play platform. Google Play is basically the Android Market renamed because it has more than just apps. You can watch videos, buy books, and download apps and games. The big rumor we broke a few days ago was that there is a hidden newspaper and audiobook section. No word when it will launch.
Apple Launches a New iPad – Unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard of the new iPad. It features a retina display that gives you higher resolution than any HD TV on the market. It also has a quad core graphic processor, so streaming video and playing games will be crazy! We are excited about the prospect of how magazines and enhanced ebooks will look on it. Mercy wrote a great article on how industry professions weigh in on the matter, check it out HERE. Finally, you don’t need a new iPad to experience new features. Apple updated iBooks, which brings in new highlighting features and real page numbers.
Pottermore to Launch in April - It has been six months in beta testing, but it looks like the interactive free website called Pottermore will launch in April. It is basically an online destination aimed at kids to live the life of a student at Hogwarts. You can join the adventures of Harry Potter and his merry band of wizard cohorts for fun. The launch finally comes with the full series of eBooks in DRM-Free format.
Price Fixing Scandal Invested by Department of Justice – It all started in Europe last year, when the UK government found out about a price fixing cartel spearheaded by Apple and adopted by the big 6 publishers. Now the USA Department of Justice is investigating the matter and Apple is taking tons of heat. The short story is that Apple, when it was launching the iBookstore, met with all the big publishing companies to break Amazon’s monopoly on ebooks. They decided to adopt Agency pricing on books for a unified price for an even playing field. Sounds good in theory, but price fixing is illegal is most countries.
Marvel introduced Augmented Reality and Free Comics - Marvel has done a few cool things last week that should stimulate comic sales! The first step was giving away the digital version for free when you buy the printed edition. This will initially take place during the X-Men vs. Avengers event happening in a few months. Today the company announced a new Augmented Reality program to give you multimedia enhancements. Select comics will give you audio, video, and animations when you point your phone or tablet at it. Apps for iOS and Android will be launched in the next few weeks.
Good e-Reader Weekend Roundup
Posted by: | Comments
There has been a ton of news in the e-reader and publishing sphere in the last three days and these are some of the stories you might have missed!
Vancouver Public Library now loans books via Overdrive! This means most people in the lower mainland of British Columbia can now borrow books electronically from the VPL.
Speaking of Overdrive, they have an official App for the Blackberry Playbook that allows you to borrow ebooks and audiobooks.
Random House is increasing the cost of ebooks sold to libraries by over 300%.
Pocketbook will be bringing to North America a new six inch touchscreen e-reader with Pearl display. It looks fast with the RAM and Hardware underneath the hood, but will their high price turn off many prospective buyers?
Barnes and Noble is giving away free Hunger Games Movie tickets with purchase of a Nook e-Reader. You can also get free ebooks by Suzanne Collins with purchase too.
A cool infograph has appeared letting you know about the future of ebooks by 11 different authors and thinkers.
The Good e-Reader Playbook App Store now has close to 200 newspaper, magazine, e-reading, social media, and other apps optimized for the Blackberry Playbook! We also launched our new Playbook Client App.
Good e-Reader Android APP Store Client Updated!
Posted by: | Comments
We have released the final version of our official Good e-Reader Android App Store client! This marks the complete and finished product that allows anyone with a tablet or device geared towards reading to take full advantage!
The New App features a ton of new enhancements that are sure to impress! You can download one app to your Kindle Fire, Kobo Vox or any other device and install any apps we offer. You can now become notified when new updates are available for the apps you install in “My Apps.” If you have questions or would like to leave a rating you can easily register to do so. Registration is not mandatory and you can fully use the app, get new apps and receive updates without doing any sort of registration!
We aim for simplicity of use and unlike many App stores out there, we do not have every crappy app under the sun. Instead we focus on the apps everyone always emails us about. Where is Netflix, Where is Hulu+, Kindle Reader, Nook Reader, Aldiko, Droid Comic View and Google Currents are but a few of the apps we offer. You can think of our app store has our editors picks of the best Android Apps out there. We focus on quality and not quanitity.
Our New App Client is available for free and is suitable for people who love to read and stay informed. You can download the new version to any tablet or Android smartphone by opening up this link in your devices internet browser. http://goodereader.com/apps/android-app-stores/android-app-stores/?did=171
Finally, we would recommend anyone who has installed the earlier versions of our App Store to upgrade to the new version. Any feature app upgrades to our app or any other will give you pushed notifications.
Blackberry Playbook OS2 Update Is Finally Available!
Posted by: | Comments
The Blackberry Playbook is finally relevant again with a major software upgrade that spent almost a year in development. The new OS2 update is available in your settings menu where you select “update.” It will give you some amazing new features that will give you the quintessential RIM experience.
The new OS2 update gives users something everyone has wanted from day one and never received. The dedicated e-mail, calender, and contacts listing is the most prevalent addition that everyone will use on a daily basis. In the past you had to have a Blackberry Smartphone and the Bridge software that ported emails and everything else directly from your phone.
There are also new social elements that give you direct feeds to your email via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Fancy yourself a reader? There is now an Amazon Kindle App for the Playbook so you can finally get a solid reading solution to buying and reading books. This is great because most users had to rely on Kobo exclusively to get their content, and now there is some competition.
One of the most important elements to this update is the ability to use Android applications on your Playbook. Behind the scenes in the firmware is a Android Player that will give you access to tons of new apps. Speaking of apps, make sure to check out the revised Appworld for plenty of new programs, games, and productivity. The most exciting thing for me is how easy the process is for existing Android apps to be converted over to the RIM format, so you can expect a massive influx for new content soon.
This OS2 update really is what the Playbook needed from day one and never received until a year after the release. Hardware wise it gives you a great dual core processor and you can multitask with impunity. The HDMI out is something most other mainstream tablets lack and is a deal breaker with most business people who need it for presentations or for average users who want to stream videos to their television. Speaking of TV, you can use your Blackberry Phone as a remote for your Playbook, so if its connected via HDMI to your television set. You can actually control your tablet with your phone!
Stay tuned for our full hands-on video later on today where we walk you though all of the new features found in the OS2 update! For Canadians, you can buy the Playbook 16 GB model for a cool $199 at Futureshop and Best Buy.
Update: Many people are asking about the Android Apps in the revised Blackberry App World. There is no specific category to find Android apps, they are mixed in with all of the other apps. The Kindle App was removed quickly after hitting the market due to bugs. We are working on a Playbook Section in our own Good e-Reader Android App Store and will offer tips/tutorials on how to easily load them on your Playbook.
Bookbaby Signs Agreements with eBookPie, Baker & Taylor, and Gardners
Posted by: | Comments
Bookbaby is one of the leading self-publishing companies in the world that authors employ to distribute their books to many different platforms. It leads the charge in the sheer number of electronic book stores that you can opt into when you submit your books. Today the company is even more appealing because of new agreements with eBookPie, Baker & Taylor, and Gardners.
Currently Bookbaby submits published books to all of the mainstream stores, such as Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Amazon, and Sony. The real benefit is the sheer number of indie and alternative stores that could account for an author’s overall sales. Let’s take a look at some of these new companies Bookbaby is dealing with and give you some introspective on what they’re all about.
Baker & Taylor has been in business for over 200 years and is a leading distributor of books, videos, and music products to more than 36,000 libraries, institutions, and retailers in over 120 countries. B&T currently has more than 1.5 million books in their database. One of the lesser known facts about this company is that it is responsible for the Bilo software suite, which is heralded as the world’s most advanced, flexible, and engaging e-reader software application. Built on state-of-the-art video gaming technology, Blio is a three-dimensional, interactive application that will bring your eBook to life.
Gardners Books is Britain’s leading book, DVD, Blu-ray, and music CD wholesaler, with over 4.5 million books and 150,000 ebooks available in their catalog. When you submit your book to the online database, your eBook will also be available in Gardners’ wholesale catalog for independent bookstores, online venders, and other 3rd party retailers. Gardners also provides an ebook lending model for a number of libraries, under which library members are restricted to one concurrent loan per purchased ebook. When your book is sold through this company, you will garner 60% of each sale you make.
eBookPie is the newest company that Bookbaby started to deal with and it has a respectable 300,000 books in its catalog. It has an innovative tool for publishers and content partners called eBookSlicer. This enables publishers to quickly and affordably split ebooks and other documents of any length into stand-alone, fully packaged content chunks, including eChapters, eSections and eArticles. Publishers can instantly extract valuable content from both frontlist and backlist titles to create new, fully formatted, and packaged stand-alone eContent. Like buying a slice of a CD from iTunes, consumers want the option of purchasing just a slice of a book, and the Chapterizer simplifies the process of creating that slice.
For example, with just a click the Chapterizer can instantly turn a 15-chapter ebook into 15 or more fully packaged eChapters. Each eChapter can include a cover, customized front and back matter, and a customized marketing page. This is great because you can sell content by the chapter instead of buying the whole book. This is especially interesting for science, math, and history books when you might be interested in a specific chapter for a report.
Notion Ink Adam Receives ICS Beta Update
Posted by: | Comments
Notion Ink has officially launched the Google Ice Cream Sandwich update for its first tablet PC, the Adam. The new update gives you a slew of new features that either were not working on the Alpha build released last month or are totally new enhancements.
If you were showing tremendous disdain for the slow 3G speed you had before, the ICS update comes with super fast internet access. The WIFI was refined as well. HDMI video is also updated, and you can now get full HD videos appearing via the HDMI input or on-screen. With this update also comes better sound, Youtube videos, and working USB.
This update is the first really refined version and full instructions on how to install and trouble it are found HERE and HERE.
Can Publishing Companies Adopt the Pottermore Model?
Posted by: Michael Kozlowski | Comments (7)The Pottermore website has done something in the digital publishing industry that no one has managed to do. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Sony, and other major websites direct customers from their websites directly to Pottermore to purchase the Harry Potter line of ebooks. The best part is the books you purchase are DRM-Free! This basically means you can freely transfer them to your other devices without having to rely on using Adobe Digital Editions. Can other publishers adopt this model and is it economically feasible to make serious money in today’s digital world?
J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter franchise topples billions of dollars in revenue from the books, movies, and licensing agreements. They have an amusement park and cups at 7-11, proving that it has permeated into most facets of our lives. Rowling was famous for being anti-ebook for the longest time and remained a staunch holdout in digitizing her content in the current Wild West of ebook distribution. For the longest time Amazon was throwing around huge amounts of money to gain the digital rights and were summarily shut down.
Instead of selling the ebook rights to a major company and letting them solely distribute it for a number of months before other companies entered the fray, she decided to do it herself. Pottermore was initially launched as a virtual world where people can play supplementary characters and run parallel adventures beside Harry Potter. A few months ago they launched their ebook section that sells the entire series of books and gives you a deal if you buy the complete set. Pottermore has made close to five million dollars in sales in its first month and shows no sign of slowing down. One of the best advantages of buying content from this website is that the books themselves are not digitally encrypted. This is a stark contrast to how most other booksellers operate and is a departure from the norm. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Sony sell all of their books in proprietary encryption formats. This prevents people from distributing the book to others on the internet or reselling the product. To counter theft, Pottermore does a digital watermark symbol on the books that have some of your private info. This means if you upload it to a file-sharing website, all roads lead to you. For the first time ever, a major franchise decided to distribute ebooks on their own and bypass the entire online bookseller scene. The funny thing is, its working and many companies are taking notice.
Earlier in the month, Macmillan removed DRM altogether from its TOR imprint of books, which was a huge positive step forward in making ebooks easily transferable to your myriad of devices. This is setting the stage for other companies to experiment with this business model and see if it’s viable. Obviously, there are piracy concerns and companies have relied on DRM for too long to just scrap it. Consumers can be complacent and resistant to change, which is why the encryption technology has not really been protested.
Can publishing companies adopt the Pottermore model of distributing their ebooks and make big booksellers direct customers to a third party website? I think the Pottermore phenomenon really caught lots of people off guard and is the exception and not the rule. A mega-franchise like Harry Potter comes along once in a generation and there was a predatory desire by the public at large to have these books in digital format. Rowling resisted so long at making the ebooks a reality that the demand for them was feverish. Before her books came out, you only had to look at popular file sharing sites to see millions of people were actively offering all of her books. Can any established franchises possibly have the clout to adopt the Pottermore model and can they make money from it?
Major publishers have hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to protect and are accountable to authors, agents, and the rail sphere. Pottermore, when it launched, had no accountability to anyone and hardly any overhead with the website in comparison to the infrastructure of major publishers. It would only take one of the big six publishers selling the ebooks through their own website to change the landscape of the industry.
Microsoft recently invested $300 million into Barnes and Noble and their online ebook collection. Redmond is betting on Windows 8 on tablets and PC’s to give customers the ability to buy tons of books through its own ecosystem. The essence of this deal was to give B&N access to international markets that have eluded the company thus far. Kobo is in the midst of a campaign of world domination with its new relationship with Rakuten. Kobo is leading the charge with expanding into tons of different markets and developing localized versions of their bookstore to accommodate people who speak different languages. There is a huge amount of growing investment into content distribution systems that these companies make the bulk of their revenue from. Amazon and all the rest could not afford to lose a big six publishing partner if the publisher delivered an ultimatum to redirect customers to its own website at the threat of pulling books from their stores. No major online company could afford to lose a big client and thousands of popular bestsellers, while the competition agrees to the publisher’s terms.
The current ebook scene is really in its infancy and will undergo a paradigm shift during the next five years. The current business model of books being locked into encryption and making their customers jump through a ton of hoops will be at an end. The average person has a computer, tablet, and smartphone and wants to easily transfer books to their devices without relying on third party programs. The elimination of DRM will continue to gain traction in the next few years with most major companies adopting alternative forms. Encrypting digital watermarks and behind-the-scenes metadata is the obvious solution to make people accountable for their online actions. Without being obtrusive, it allows people more freedom but penalizes the people who just love to pirate books.
In all honesty, I don’t think any major publishers will decide to sell books through their own website and make online booksellers redirect their customers to it. It requires too much infrastructure and a new forward way of thinking that does not have a proven track record. No “big six” publisher will be the first to pave the way and take all the risks. It would allow their competition to learn from it or overtake them in market share. The best thing we can expect is experiments with smaller imprints to test the waters and move very slowly.