Will Amazon discount the Paperwhite 4?
The Kindle Paperwhite 4 has only been available for just over a month and it has already received some early promotions. In the past week Amazon launched a six month free subscription to Kindle Unlimited when you bought the PW4, but it has since expired. The Paperwhite 4 also received a slight discount in the United Kingdom, but so far no other country has received a price reduction. Will Amazon put the new Paperwhite on sale from now until Christmas?
Listen to audiobooks? Here are the Top Bestseller Lists and Review Sites
Audiobooks are the fastest growing segment in publishing, but it is hard to find resources. Hardly anyone is reviewing them on a regular basis and it is difficult to know what new titles are coming out or if the narration is any good. In order to assist audiobook lovers, Good e-Reader would like to review our resources list, which keeps tabs on everything new coming out and if they are any good.
The best ebook and e-reader Cyber Monday Deals
Cyber Monday puts a heavy emphasis on digital content to populate your new e-reader. There are dozens of retailers that are offering discounts on ebooks, but there are still a few hardware deals around. During the next 48 hours, this post will be constantly updated once more companies announce their plans for Cyber Monday. If you hear about a new deal we have not published yet, drop a comment below.
Amazon
The Kindle Paperwhite 3 is on sale. The regular price is $139 and the deal price is $79 without Special Offers. The Kindle Paperwhite 3 Essential Bundle comes with a case and a charger. The regular price is $179, and it is on sale for $119. Best Buy is also selling the Kindles at the same price as Amazon, so you can buy one at the store or on their website, available in both black and white.
In Canada, the Paperwhite 3 is retailing for $99, which is $40 off the regular price. The Kindle Oasis 2 is on sale for the first time, only in Canada. The regular price is $389 and the sale price is $329, which is $60 off, this is a good deal.
Amazon is running a series of Kindle book sales in the States. You can get over 350 titles that are 80% off. They are also running a sale on a couple hundred of indie books that range from $1 to $3. There are just over 2,000 books in Kindle Countdown deals. They are offered directly by the authors. The countdown mechanism is that the price of the book goes up gradually. At the beginning it’s usually $0.99, after a couple of days it’s raised to $1.99, and so on.
If Kindle Unlimited is something you want to try, there is no time like the present. You can save 96% on three months of Kindle Unlimited – the deal is active through November 30, 2018. You can get the 3-month subscription for $0.99 instead of $29.97. It means you save as much as 96%. Existing Kindle Unlimited subscribers are not eligible to take part in the promotion,
Over a third Black Friday purchases were made on the phone
Black Friday was all over various news channels the past couple of days and Adobe has reported that 33.5% of online Black Friday sales were completed on smartphones , last year only 29.1% of purchases were made on one. Black Friday pulled in $6.22 billion in online sales, up 23.6% from a year ago and setting a new high. Adobe tracks transactions for 80 of the top 100 internet retailers in the U.S. like Walmart and Amazon. So these figures are the best we are going to get.
While it’s not clear exactly what prompted the uptick in phone-based shopping sprees, Adobe’s Taylor Schreiner credited it in part to stores crafting “better mobile experiences.” We’d add that the phones themselves might provide more enjoyable shopping through larger screens — it doesn’t feel quite so much like you’re shopping through a porthole. Whether you thrive on Black Friday or just see it as consumerism run amok, the data suggests that a growing number of people are comfortable leaving their PCs behind when they make big-ticket purchases.
Amazon has discounted hundreds of ebooks this weekend
The Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are still ongoing and there are dozens of e-readers and tablets on sale. In order to populate your device full of digital content, Amazon has discounted hundreds of Kindle books. Each of these titles are written by indie authors and some bestselling ones, the prices range from $1.00 to $3.00. Amazon is also running a huge weekend deal that just populated by bestselling authors such as Michael Connelly, George R.R. Martin, J.A. Jance, and Neal Stephenson. Open Road has also put all of their ebooks on sale and can be purchased not only from Amazon, but also B&N and Kobo.
E Ink is expanding their manufacturing capabilities
The e-Reader industry has enjoyed a tremendous resurgence in the past twelve months and many companies are seeing success with their ebook readers. There were more e-readers released this year, than any other year. E Ink has disclosed that they are getting so many orders that they plan on expanding their manufacturing capabilities next year, to keep up with demand.
President Johnson Lee said their current capacity is now fully booked and their plant in Linkou, northern Taiwan, will not be sufficient to satisfy demand. As a result, the company is considering using part of the capacity at its plant in the US for production in 2019 in addition to the current focus on manufacturing e-book reader applications, Lee added.
Pocketbook releases massive new update for the Inkpad 3
The Pocketbook Inkpad 3 is one of the best e-readers the company has ever made and the large 7.8 inch screen is really solid for ebooks. We reviewed this model earlier this year and were really impressed on the industrial design. Pocketbook has just pushed out a massive new firmware update that adds a bunch of new functionality, such as new audiobook player and revised internet browser.
Image Comics is no longer offering DRM-Free Editions
Image Comics was an early adopter of offering most of their comics without any digital rights management. Since 2013 they allowed users to shop directly on their website and download comics to their computer and easily load them on their smartphone, tablet or e-reader. A few weeks ago the comics publisher decided to no longer offer DRM-Free comics on their website and gave users until February 3rd, 2019 to back them up.
The news came from an email sent to customers from the Walking Dead and Monstress publisher. It states, “This is an email alert to inform you that ImageComics.com is discontinuing the sale of DRM-free titles through our site. Beginning on November 5th, 2018, DRM-free versions of our books will no longer be available for purchase and all sales of DRM-free versions through ImageComics.com will be discontinued.”
Xiaomi might be developing an e-reader
Xiaomi developed a prototype e-reader last year and it was shelved as the company started to focus on smart home accessories. It looks like they might be doing something e-reader related sometime in 2019, as they are trying to work out publishing deals, so they can sell ebooks right on the device.
Many executives a Xiaomi have responded recently on various forums and Twitter threads, verifying that they have plans for an e-reader. In the past few years the company has strengthened their sales and marketing teams all over the world and they have a recognizable brand.
Amazon accidently leaks customer names and email addresses
Amazon has emailed thousands of users to tell them their username and email address was leaked on their website. When contacted for comment, Amazon said that neither its website nor any of its systems had been breached and that it has “fixed the issue and informed customers who may have been impacted.” It did not reveal the number of accounts affected or which countries the users are located i
Wiley will be creating hundreds of new audiobooks
Wiley specializes in academic and business related ebooks. The company currently has over 2,000 audiobooks that are primarily sold through Audible, although other retailers only account for a small percentage of sales. Wiley has just ironed out a distribution deal with RBMedia and will be creating 650 audiobooks over the next three years. In this agreement, RBmedia will serve as the audio publisher and Wiley will be providing the narration. The audiobooks will be available for libraries and sold via audiobooks.com
Good e-Reader is now available on Amazon Alexa
Good e-Reader is now available as a Flash Briefing on Amazon Alexa. This includes the Alexa app for Android and iOS, in addition to the Echo line of smart speakers. Alexa will read all of the latest headlines and the news articles, which is ideal if you prefer the audio editions of our stories.
Amazon Alexa to get a special Newscaster Voice
Amazon is developing a customized Alexa Voice to read the news. Currently Alexa reads the news, but uses the same voice when you issue it commands or search results. Amazon has created a special version of the voice that sounds the same as a quintessential evening newscaster.
Everyone is familiar with the “newscaster” voice style; it has a unique flow and emphasis atypical in ordinary conversations. The newscaster voice makes it immediately clear that the user is hearing a news report while helping emphasize key points, break up the information, and state everything clearly.
Amazon says the new speaking style is enabled by by the company’s development of “neural text-to-speech” technology or NTTS. This is the next generation of speech synthesis, that use machine learning to generate expressive voices more quickly. Currently, Alexa uses uses concatenative speech synthesis, a method that’s been around for decades. This involves breaking up speech samples into distinct sounds (known as phonemes) and then stitching them back together to form new words and sentences.
Black Friday Deals for e-readers – Roundup – Updated Constantly
This Black Friday there are many deals and discounts for e-readers. Good e-Reader is running a promotion where every single device we sell will be discounted by at least $20 or more! Amazon, B&N, Onyx, Remarkable, Sony and a number of other vendors are doing their own promotions.
Book sales decreased by 3% at Barnes and Noble
Barnes and Noble has disclosed that this summer they saw a decline in book sales by 3%. The bookseller saw an increase in sales from adult hardcovers and saw a modest improvement on trade paper, kids, and young adult categories. Non-books increased 1.9%, led by toys and games growth, cafe and better gift results. Overall, B&N consolidated sales decreased $20 million or 2.5% to $771 million.
Hoopla launches a Book Club for Libraries
Hoopla is one of the largest companies operating in the digital library sector and their claim to fame was the per circulation transaction system, where libraries would get their entire catalog of audiobooks, ebooks, video and other digital content and libraries only pay when a user checked something out. It was designed to make collection managers lives easier, then picking and choosing on a per title basis. Lately, Hoopla has been losing market share to Overdrive and the Cloud Library, and in order to stem the bleeding, they have just launched a book club.