Magazine Association Revises Name to Match Digital Age

NYTimes.com: "The Magazine Publishers of America is being renamed MPA — the Association of Magazine Media (dash and all). The dispatching of “publishers” from the name is meant to signal how readers can engage with magazines beyond the printed page through nontraditional means like Web sites, mobile devices, tablets, events, social media, books, retail presences and even branded merchandise."

Head-to-Head with Kindle: Borders Releases Competitively-Priced Kobo Wi-Fi

InformationWeek: "Kobo, an e-reader maker closely aligned with bookseller Borders, has released a Wi-Fi version of its namesake device that's the same price as Amazon's cheapest Kindle. The Kobo e-reader, which had sold for $130 without Wi-Fi, was available as of Wednesday for pre-order for $140 on Borders' website and for $139 on Kobo's site. The new e-reader is scheduled to start shipping next month. ..."

Spanish eBookstore Leqtor to Launch App for iPad

Nate the Great, the Digital Reader: "Leqtor, an ebookstore with titles in Castilian and Catalan, announced yesterday that they will launch an iPad app on 15 October. The app will support in app purchases as well as all ebooks previously purchased from Leqtor, but it’s not clear yet of it will support ebooks purchased elsewhere."

One Librarian's Take on the eBook Summit

Matt Phillips: "I’m glad I was able to attend but I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed. It was well put together. The interface was slick. They tried to recreate the conference feel online and mostly were able to pull it off. I visited all of the booths and I’m sure I’ll get lots of bacon from this conference. The keynotes were ok. If you like two famous futurists who talk about the future of eBooks without really mentioning their impact on libraries then those talks were for you. Awe-inspiring ideas and thoughts that left me feeling a bit overwhelmed. ..."

"The Book Futurists"

This is a new video series from the Moveable Type Literary Group. Here's episode # 1. Jason Allen Ashlock, Principal at Movable Type Literary Group, interviews Andrew Malkin, VP of book content at Zinio.

Dell to Launch 7-Inch Tablet in Weeks Ahead

WSJ.com: "Dell Inc. will launch its seven-inch tablet in the next few weeks and a 10-inch tablet within 6-12 months, Dell Greater China President Amit Midha said Wednesday. Texas-based Dell has joined a host of computer makers rushing to offer tablets, which are generally smaller than laptops but larger than mobile phones, following the launch of Apple Inc.'s iPad about five months ago. The iPad has a 9.7-inch screen. ..."

Xerox To Sell On-Demand Espresso Book Machines to Retailers

Repeat after me: Dead on arrival. Engadget: "When we got our first glimpse of the Espresso Book Machine from On Demand Books we were of course thoroughly charmed by the Rube Goldberg nature of the thing, but were left feeling unconvinced of the practicality of it -- would people really pay money for custom-printed physical copies of classic books they can download for free? Is it really a viable choice for self-publishing? We may be skeptics, but Xerox is a believer, putting its reseller weight behind the machine (which uses not one but two of the company's printers internally) ... "

BlackBerry PlayBook vs. Apple iPad: Specs Compared

Nick Mokey, Digital Trends: "RIM can’t hold a candle to Apple’s app collection, but with the PlayBook, it has successfully managed to outspec Apple in a number of key categories. The PlayBook’s small size makes it eminently more portable than the iPad, its high-quality cameras will appeal to business users who want to Skype with family and coworkers from across the globe, and a dual-core processor will even tickle the fancy of performance geeks – not something RIM is used to doing. The PlayBook will also appeal to BlackBerry’s core constituency with the same tight enterprise support as its phones, BlackBerry tethering, and smartphone integration that will allow owners of both devices to switch back and forth between both devices seamlessly – starting an e-mail on a Bold 9700, for instance, then finishing it on the PlayBook."

iPad Owners: Younger and More Male. Kindle Owners: Richer and Better Educated

Fortune Tech: "As part of Advertising Week's Mobile Ad Summit Tuesday, the Nielsen Company released the results of a survey of 5,000 consumers who own a tablet computer, eReader, netbook, media player or smartphone – including 400 iPad owners. The survey found some curious demographic differences."

Ray Kurzweil's e-Reader Turns a Page

Beyond Binary - CNET News: "... it has taken Blio a lot longer than planned to bring the software to market. In the months it has taken Kurzweil's team to deliver the first version of the software, the giants of the e-reader category have managed to get versions of their reader programs available for PCs, Macs, BlackBerrys, and Android phones, not to mention the iPhone and iPad. And, they too are planning for a future in which the e-book means a whole lot more than just text on paper. In short, Blio has reached the market, but I'm not sure that the market opportunity ... still exists." Download Blio here.

Blio Reader - Fail, Fail, and more Fail

Nate the Great, the Digital Reader: "The Blio reading app was finally available for download today, and I got it as soon as I could. I was really looking forward to this; the demos were impressive. The faux 3D mode looked interesting, the TTS sounded good, and there were hints that even better features would be coming. Given how wonderfulness of the demo, I’m a little surprised at how awful my reading experience was."

WattPad App For PlayBook

eBookNewser: "Yesterday BlackBerry unveiled its plans for a new tablet computer called the PlayBook and since then it seems that all of the eReader app companies are getting into the action. Kobo released a social eReading app for the new tablet, which is expected out in early 2011. Amazon announced their Kindle app for the tablet. And now eBook community site WattPad has their app ready to go."

In Scholastic Study, Children Like Digital Reading

NYTimes.com: "Many children want to read books on digital devices and would read for fun more frequently if they could obtain e-books. But even if they had that access, two-thirds of them would not want to give up their traditional print books. These are a few of the findings in a study being released on Wednesday by Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter books and the 'Hunger Games' trilogy. "

Amazon Introduces Kindle for the Web

NYTimes.com: "Amazon is continuing its cover-all-the-bases approach to digital books online with the test launch of a new product called Kindle for the Web. It lets digital book buyers read books on the Web and also offers the ability to embed book samples on blogs or other Web sites, similar to the function offered with video clips on YouTube. The new feature brings books directly in the browser without the need to download software and install applications on a computer or tablet-like device."

Riggio Wins Barnes & Noble Battle

NYTimes.com: "The company still has a large number of shareholders who question its strategy, but it won some breathing space on Tuesday after shareholders backed its three candidates for the board, including its chairman, Leonard S. Riggio, over a slate led by the investor Ronald W. Burkle. A preliminary tally showed that about 44 percent of the shares voted for the Barnes & Noble slate, while 38 percent voted for the candidates named by Mr. Burkle’s investment firm, the Yucaipa Companies. Shareholders also rejected a proposal by Yucaipa to remove a poison-pill plan aimed at limiting Mr. Burkle’s holdings to under 20 percent."

Borders to Open 25 "Pop-Up" Stores for the Holidays

NYTimes.com: "Borders, making a push to sell e-readers and books during the holiday season, plans to open 25 so-called pop-up stores in cities like Minnetonka, Minn.; Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; and Scottsdale, Ariz., beginning in early October. Most of the pop-ups will be in malls where Borders once had stores. The company has closed more than 200 stores in the last year, most of which were its smaller Waldenbooks outlets in malls. 'Where it didn’t make business sense for us to operate stores on a permanent basis in these areas, we can open a seasonal store and serve the holiday shopping needs of our customers,' Mike Edwards, the chief executive of Borders, said in a statement."

Kindle App Coming for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet

Crave - CNET: "Amazon already has a Kindle app for BlackBerry, so it's not surprising that it announced that it will release an app for BlackBerry's upcoming PlayBook tablet, which has a 7-inch touch screen and will be released in early 2011. In case you hadn't noticed already, part of Amazon's strategy for selling e-books and expanding the Kindle platform is to make sure that its Kindle app is available for a variety of mobile devices, the more the better."

Kno Offers a Second, Lighter Tablet Computer For College Market

NYTimes.com:

Most of the companies that hope to take on Apple in the white-hot market for tablets are industry giants like Dell, Google, HP, Microsoft and Samsung. But among the startups looking to become tablet contenders, Kno stands out.

I first wrote about Kno in June, when the company unveiled a dual-screen tablet aimed at college students. The knock against the chunky, 14-inch screen was its heft; it weighs 5.5 pounds, or nearly four times more than Apple’s iPad, and each slab was more than half an inch thick.

It seems as if the criticism was heard. On Monday, months before the first tablet, called the Kno, will ship, the company is unveiling a second model. The new Kno is a single-screen version of the previous device. Both are expected to begin shipping in December.

“From the college perspective, the overwhelming feedback is that the dual panel is great, but some students think a single panel is better for them,” said Osman Rashid, a founder and the chief executive of Kno. ...

Review: ibis EPUB eBook Reader

Project Gutenberg News Blog: "Ibis Reader is probably the best online eReader around at the moment, allowing you to read all your DRM-free EPUB’s in any modern web browser on many different mobile devices, including Google Android and the Apple iPad/iPhone. Developed by Threepress Consulting, their EPUB reader is the next generation of the Bookworm project (now hosted at O’Reilly), boasting a vastly improved user interface and new features."

With BlackBerry PlayBook, R.I.M. Returns to Corporate User Roots

NYTimes.com: "Research In Motion, the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, introduced its first tablet computer on Monday at a developers’ conference in San Francisco. But in a return to its roots, the company said that the new device, the BlackBerry PlayBook, would be aimed mainly at business users. ... "

Sharp Galapagos Android Devices to Enter Tablet Fray

PCWorld Business Center:

Sharp plans an aggressive foray into the tablet market this December--well, sort of. Sharp plans to launch a new online content service and two tablet devices, but it is positioning its tablets as e-readers rather than going head-to-head with tablets, and the Galapagos service and tablets will only be available in Japan--at least initially.

According to the Sharp press release, "Two models of the e-book readers have been developed--a mobile type featuring a 5.5-inch LCD screen that reads like a paperback book, and a home type featuring a 10.8-inch high-resolution HD LCD that allows users to enjoy magazines formatted across a two-page spread."

Sharp intends the devices primarily as a means for engaging with its Galapagos books and publications, but the Galapagos devices have a bit of an identity crisis. While Sharp considers them e-readers, the tablets use the Android mobile OS, have color displays, and will have Web browsing and social networking capabilities. Other e-readers have similar features, but the Android roots mean the devices could be capable of much more.

Barnes & Noble/Burkle Fight Ends Today

The Associated Press: "As proxy fights go, the one between bookseller Barnes & Noble and billionaire investor Ron Burkle has been a page turner, and it could come with a cliff-hanger ending Tuesday. At stake are the future of Barnes & Noble's brick-and-mortar stores and how it plans to grab more of the electronic book market. The company put itself up for sale in a surprise move in August and has increasingly focused on e-books as a path to growth. The contest is too close to call at this point, Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom said. 'It could really come down to an 'every vote counts' situation,' he said." From ER: I've got a hunch Burkle will end up the winner. ISS recommended going with him, and many large insitutional investors are required by their charters to vote as ISS instructs.

The New Yorker Launches iPad Edition Using Adobe Tools

Adobe Digital Publishing: "The New Yorker, the iconic magazine title from publisher Conde Nast, today released an app for the iPad using the Digital Magazine Solution from Adobe. Available on the Apple App Store, The New Yorker tablet edition preserves the look-and-feel of the print publication, and adds interactive audio, video and slideshows to supplement the magazine’s signature mix of reporting and commentary. Adobe collaborated with The New Yorker to launch the iPad edition, in part because the publication’s design challenges represented a different end of the magazine publishing spectrum. ..."

PW: Evolving Standard Deal for eBook Originals - No Advance, 50/50 Split of Net Proceeds

This is exactly how my firm, New Street Communications, is structuring things. Publishers Weekly: "Most e-book original publishers interviewed by PW do not offer advances, explaining that the rules in the e-books world are different from traditional print publishing. Waxman said that while he won't rule out offering an advance to the right author, currently Diversion is not giving advances. Angela James, executive editor of Harlequin's e-book original imprint, Carina Books, said something similar: 'Carina Press does not offer advances, because the digital-first business model works differently.' The new business model is different largely because it works more like a partnership: the author supplies the text, the publisher pays for production, and they split the return down the middle (after the publisher recoups production costs). That's exactly how Diversion works. 'We put up money for the production costs and we recoup those costs as first revenues. That seems to be the model that makes sense in the nascent business at this time,' said Waxman. Open Road, the most visible publisher of e-book originals, also works on a 50/50 profit share, offering no advances. James said that in exchange for sacrificing the advance, Carina authors get 'increased marketing support, higher digital royalties on cover price, and more frequent royalty payments.'"

Ingram Launches VitalSource App for Apple Devices

Publishers Weekly: "Today Ingram announced the launch of VitalSource Bookshelf, an iOS (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) app for its VitalSource program, which enables access to digital textbooks for academic institutions and students. This is a major step in making Ingram’s academic content easily accessible to students and faculty, and in making the iPad an increasingly useful device for students. Like the Kindle and Nook apps, the VitalSource app syncs reading between devices and retains all reader highlights and notes. VitalSource has a catalog of over 60,000 titles from many textbook publishers."

D-Day for Riggio/Barnes & Noble

WSJ.com: "Tuesday could be the darkest day in Leonard Riggio's storied career as a bookseller. The Barnes & Noble Inc. chairman faces a fight for re-election, as activist investor Ronald Burkle makes his own pitch for the board in what is likely to be the retailer's most contentious annual meeting."

Essay: Death of The Bookstore

Daily Princetonian: "When I returned home this summer, my local bookstore had undergone not only a facelift, but also gastric bypass, tonsillectomy and an appendectomy. My favorite haunts — history, politics, current events, philosophy and religion — were compressed into a small section of the store to make way for toy displays. I even received an e-mail hawking children’s Halloween costumes. And right inside the front door is an apparently permanent kiosk showing off the company’s new e-reader."

Ideo Video: The Future of Digital Publishing?

The people at Ideo offer an interesting and well-produced video summarizing their vision for the future of the book. Meet Nelson, Coupland and Alice.

Stupid (aka: Dangerous) "Justice" Department/NSA Ideas 2.0

NYTimes.com:

... [Federal] officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.

James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had “huge implications” and challenged “fundamental elements of the Internet revolution” — including its decentralized design.

“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,” he said. “They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.” ...

Business Impact of Transisition to Digital: Books vs. Periodicals & Music

Mike Shatzkin: "... the problems caused by digital change for newspapers and magazines and record companies were so much more grave than they were for book publishers (so far). It is simply stated. For those businesses, the unit of appreciation does not match the unit of sale. By that I mean that record companies sold us albums when what we wanted were songs. That’s what their economics were built on. The minute we could buy songs, it blew up their business model. Newspapers sell us the weather when what we want are the box scores, or the horoscopes when what we want are the comics. There are many books which will be read cover to cover. Newspapers and magazines are rarely read cover to cover. ..."

Happy Banned Books Week!

Here it is. That time of year when we celebrate the very best in literature - the daring, the true, the heroic, the real. Fire up your Kindle or Nook or iPad or what-have-you, and enjoy a story that would make a prude blush, a fascist fume, a hypocrite sweat. Go forth and read freely.

Target Gets iPad October 3

Electronista: "The move expands the iPad's distribution at a critical point in the holidays but also puts Apple into more direct competition with the Amazon Kindle. Target was the first retail presence for Amazon, which is new to retail and is only just reaching Best Buy at an undefined point in the fall. The new deal gives the rivals closer retail overlap."

How Many Kindle Books Has Amazon Sold?

About 22 million this year, give or take.

E-book Numbers Hint at Amazon Domination: Tech News

Approx. 75% market-share: "In a blog post on Wednesday, mystery and horror author J.A. Konrath – who’s been one of the most proactive authors in self-publishing, taking the reins of his unpublished works by self-publishing in e-book format — revealed, in great detail, exactly how many e-books he’s sold and where. What did the tally show? Quite simply, that his share of e-book sales through Kindle is exactly what Kindle claims for the entire market: About 75 percent."

The Amazon Bookstore of the Future: Pay to Preview Content?

Eric Engleman's Amazon Blog (TechFlash): "What will Amazon.com's bookstore of the future look like? A newly granted Amazon patent hints that people may have to pay if they want to preview excerpts of a book before deciding whether to buy it. The patent, which lists Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos among its inventors, envisions a system in which consumers 'pay different amounts to view portions of content from the electronic form of a work,' including individual chapters, pages, even words."

With a Friend Like Hachette ...

Philip Jones, FutureBook: "[The Agency Model has] been badly implemented in the UK already. Maybe there are reasons for this, mostly legal for sure, but retailers we've spoken to appear to be unclear why Hachette set a fixed 'D-day' for some, but not—most noticeably for Amazon—others. Some retailers are unhappy that a measure brought in to fix Amazon has actually given the company a huge window of exclusivity at this key period. This is more than a problem of availability and the ugly messages that now appear on some retailers' websites when a Hachette title is picked, consumers planning their Christmas purchases are unlikely to plump for a device with such a demonstrably flakey back-end. If I'm Waterstone's I'm wondering why Hachette has just kicked me in the teeth, when I'm basically on-side with agency pricing."

Brick & Mortar Bookstores Now Selling To The Rats

Mike Cane's xBlog: "The best customers have left the physical stores. What’s left at bookstores right now are the rats. Everyone else has departed in the digital lifeboats. You can tell who the rats are too. They’re the ones who look at a display of eBook devices and ask out loud, 'Why do I want to buy this?' Since they buy a whole two or three books per year, guess what? They don’t need to buy it! They’ll just stop reading altogether when they find out they can’t get something in print!"

E-book Sales Jump 150% in July

Publishers Weekly: "After increasing by 'only' 118% in June, e-book sales jumped 150.2%, to $40.8 million, at the 14 publishers that report e-book sales in July. Sales for the first seven months of the year were up 191%, to $219.5 million. The $40.8 million in e-book sales generated in July came within $20 million of the July sales generated by the nine mass market paperback publishers that reported results to the Association of American Publishers. The e-book gains also came in a month where all print trade segments reported a decline in sales." Italics mine.

The Ron Burkle Mystery: Why Does He Even Care About Barnes & Noble?

Mark Lacter's blog - Forbes: "Beverly Hills billionaire Ron Burkle may or may not win the battle for Barnes & Noble’s (NYSE: BKS) three board seats, but he’s most certainly losing the war. With the company’s annual meeting less than a week away, shares are down more than 5 percent this morning, or a drop of better than 30 percent from its 52-week high. That suggests investors are voting with their feet rather than waiting for this drawn-out and expensive proxy fight to be resolved. ... "

Taking a Break, Wednesday/Thursday

I am headed 12 miles east over blue water to Block Island. Concurrent with this, I'll enter a self-imposed cone of digital silence for the next 72 hours or so. Back to the mainland, the blog, and other things, sometime Friday AM.

Major Setback for Riggio in Barnes & Noble Proxy Fight

NYTimes.com:

Barnes & Noble sustained a setback on Monday when a powerful proxy advisory company endorsed directors proposed by the billionaire investor Ronald W. Burkle over the company’s own slate, which included its chairman, Leonard S. Riggio.

The endorsement by Institutional Shareholder Services could be crucial, coming just a week before the annual shareholder meeting on Sept. 28. Some large institutional investors are required to vote their shares in accordance with I.S.S.’s recommendations. ...

In its 25-page report, Institutional Shareholder Services supported Mr. Burkle’s contention that Barnes & Noble’s corporate governance needed to be improved.

Yucaipa raised questions about the company’s executive pay practices and some of its deal-making, including the purchase of a college bookstore business owned by Mr. Riggio. Investor lawsuits about that deal are pending.

“We believe the dissidents have demonstrated a compelling case that change in the BKS board is warranted,” I.S.S. analysts wrote, referring to the company by its stock symbol.

The report also pointed to the slide in Barnes & Noble’s stock price as another reason for change. Shares in the company have tumbled 28.9 percent in the last year. ...

Mr. Riggio, who fashioned his empire starting with a single Manhattan bookstore 39 years ago, argues that the company has a promising future running bookstores while expanding in a digital marketplace anchored by devices like its Nook e-reader. But Mr. Burkle says the company’s strategy needs change, though he has declined to elaborate. ...

Net Neutrality Activists Target Google as Talks Heat Up

Digits - WSJ:

Net neutrality activists and left-leaning interest groups are launching an online advertising campaign targeting Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for the company’s recently announced agreement about web traffic delivery with Verizon Communications.

Google has long been a supporter of net neutrality – the idea that Internet providers can’t deliberately block or slow data traffic – however the company’s recent legislative proposal with Verizon prompted some activists to suggest the search giant had sold out on the issue.

The Google-Verizon proposal would have given the FCC limited authority to police Internet lines. But it would have allowed Verizon and other Internet providers to create special prioritized lanes of Internet traffic for companies willing to pay extra. It also wouldn’t have imposed net neutrality rules on wireless Internet networks.

“We’re continuing to rally the public, including techies in Silicon Valley, against Google’s decision to be evil and harm the free and open Internet,” said Jason Rosenbaum, senior online campaigns director for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a left-leaning political interest group, in a statement. ...

Interesting Interview with Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis

CBC News: "When we started this as a pilot project at Indigo, we talked about numbers like two to three per cent [market share of all books] in five years. I think everyone is astonished at where we're at today, let alone five years from now. At the end of the first quarter this year, some of the top-tier publishers talked about being around nine per cent, so what does that mean at the end of the fourth quarter? Fifteen, 13, 12, who knows? It's happening faster than anyone expected."

Tom Foremski: Is Apple’s Porn Ban Damaging the Future of Media?

Maybe Jobs's ban against porm on the iPad is something more than just a fascist denial of the First Amendment. Maybe it is also a strategic technological and business mistake. memeburn: "I’ve long been an admirer of the porn industry’s innovative business models as applied to technology and media. ... Every time a new technology has been introduced, way back to the printing press, sexual content has helped drive that technology and develop thriving business models that others have been able to adopt and prosper with. ... "

The Sad Economics of an iPad Magazine

Gizmodo:

When you turn the latest Sports Illustrated iPad issue to the portrait position, like a book, nothing happens. Just an error message. That's because Sports Illustrated is too poor to offer it in anything but the landscape format.

The issue, says Time's Josh Quittner, who's been guest editing the iPad edition of SI, is that offering an alternative view taxes already overburdened designers. It's 33 percent more work. And they can't hire more designers. They want to! "Well, if we were able to build a real business, with subscriptions that offered our iPad versions to readers at a reasonable price, that would be a no brainer. But we can't yet..." Emphasis mine: SI needs subscriptions to be a viable business as an app, is what Quittner's saying.

Subscriptions the single largest pain point for publishers dealing with Apple, who've otherwise come running to splash themselves on the iPad, one desperate belly flop for print salvation. The sticking points have been many. Apple doesn't want to hand out valuable subscriber info willy nilly; publishers don't want to give a third of subscription revenue to Apple in perpetuity, as current App Store guidelines would dictate. So there've been no subscriptions. Until now, maybe. ...

Britain: In Response to Force-Fed Agency Model, Hachette eBooks Removed from Waterstone's, WHS, and Book Depository Web Sites

Who will blink first? From theBookseller.com:

Hachette e-books have been removed from the websites of Waterstone's, W H Smith, Tesco and The Book Depository after the publisher said it would move to agency terms from today (20th September). But Amazon.co.uk is still selling Hachette titles on the Kindle, and appears to still be setting the prices.

The Bookseller reported late on Friday that Hachette planned to move to the agency model, whereby it sets the prices of e-books, from Monday, with Gardners, which wholesales e-books, telling its customers that this arrangement included Amazon and Apple. An email sent by Gardners read: "These are not Gardner terms, but the publisher's and may I suggest that should you wish to 'discuss' the terms, direct the queries to the publisher."But as of Monday morning Amazon is continuing to set prices of Hachette e-books below that of Apple, which is already on agency terms.

Other retailers, including Waterstone's, Tesco, WH Smith and The Book Depository have removed the e-book editions from sale. Titles such as the Breaking Dawn e-book are listed as "out of stock" on the The Book Depository. On Waterstones.com and Tesco.com they simply do not come up in the search, while on W H Smith's website they are listed as "not available".

Kieron Smith, managing director of The Book Depository, which is supplied e-books by Gardners, said the company had taken the decision to remove the books from sale and did not plan to sign the agreement.

Smith said: "One of the many reasons is we want to apply consistency of offer to the customer. One of the stipulations is we can't offer coupons or discount vouchers. If we did an e-book offer we would have to have a massive list of exceptions for Hachette titles. We are not being straight with the customer. Unless I can control a customer's experience, selling e-books with the price set by the publisher is not something I want to do."

In an email seen by The Bookseller, Gardners, who provides e-books including Tesco, The Book Depository and independent bookshops, said: "[Retailers] shall agree that it shall not alter the customer price of any e-book without [Hachette's] prior written consent." The wholesaler said booksellers must sign up to the agreement if they were still to continue selling Hachette e-books. ...

Barnes & Noble Agonistes Continued

NYTimes.com:

Just over a week before Barnes & Noble shareholders convene for their annual meeting, Mr. [Len] Riggio remains locked in battle with the billionaire investor Ronald W. Burkle over three board seats, including Mr. Riggio’s. And Barnes & Noble has begun seeking potential buyers for the entire 1,350-store chain. ...

The fight over Barnes & Noble may seem disproportionate to what is at stake. The company’s market value has shrunk to less than $1 billion, and bookselling has been squeezed by Amazon.com on one end and Wal-Mart Stores on the other. But as Mr. Riggio says, the battle touches on deep reservoirs of sentiment about an empire he fashioned starting with a small bookstore 39 years ago. ...

Mr. Burkle said he was not seeking control of the company through the proxy fight, but wanted to have independent directors on the board. “I want someone in there who doesn’t say, ‘That’s the most amazing thing I ever heard’ every time Len opens his mouth,” he said.

Mr. Riggio’s biggest challenge remains grappling with the Internet, and he argues that digital bookselling is the biggest opportunity since the paperback revolution. Barnes & Noble’s e-reader, the Nook, has been making headway in sales, he said. (The company says it controls about 20 percent of the e-book market, based on information from publishers.)

He also pointed to growth at the company, which reported net income of $36.7 million on a 31 percent gain in revenue, to $5.8 billion, for the year ended May 1. For its most recent quarter, Barnes & Noble reported a 21 percent jump in overall revenue, to $1.4 billion, though it posted a $63 million net loss as a result of the legal fight with Mr. Burkle and weakening sales of print books.

Many analysts and industry executives do not share Mr. Riggio’s optimism. Shares in the company have tumbled 28.9 percent in the last year. An analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded Barnes & Noble to “underperform” last week, arguing that the company’s digital strategy faced major challenges from wealthier rivals like Amazon and Apple. ...

French Enhanced eBook Teaches Photoshop with Interactivity, Text and Video

Tutorials are, of course, a natural for enhanced books. theBookseller.com: "Editions Eyrolles has unveiled what it claims to be the first French enhanced e-book. Photoshop Elements, Special Debutants [for beginners] by Cyril Bruneau and Bernard Richebe, includes 45 minutes of educational videos and was conceived as a tutorial composed of practical files, the company said. The aim is to 'give a real added value to professional works, where a savoir-faire in a given field needs to be demonstrated and explained,' the publisher said."

Interview: Steve Potash, CEO of OverDrive

cleveland.com: "The former defense lawyer with a penchant for computer technology oversees a fast-growing digital-media company. OverDrive distributes more than 100,000 digital books, audio books, music titles and videos to a network of 6,000-plus libraries and online retail websites. ... "

Potash: "All of us are consumers, and we're in a consumer-driven market, so having a young team [is important]. We recruit and hire a lot of talent off college campuses. We're at the point in time -- thanks to Amazon and Kindle, Apple and iPad and Barnes & Noble and the Nook and iPods and iPhones -- that I don't have a lot of explaining to do to get someone to see the opportunity they have in joining our team and being part of an evolving marketplace. We're attracting folks who have a passion to be part of that change."

For Sale: the Web Domain ebook.com

Check it out: "DNAML Pty. Ltd., the leading eBook solution provider, has announced that it will sell the domain name, eBook.com. Viant Capital, LLC, a San Francisco-based investment bank, is managing the auction process for ebook.com. eBook.com is the #1 organic search result for the keyword 'ebook' across Google, Yahoo, Bing and all other major search engines. The site has produced over 4.7 million eBook downloads over the past year alone, with only 12,000 titles in inventory. eBook.com is the premier domain for eBook retailing. Its next owner will be able to generate tremendous traffic and dramatically improve their brand visibility without having to invest significantly in search engine optimization or paid search."

What's Wrong With This Picture?

I find it intriguing that when I open articles on the digital edition of The New York Times, I'm confronted with a prelude full-screen ad for the print edition of The Economist. Hmmmm ...

Another Damned, Thick, Square Book

"Another damned, thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr. Gibbon?" - the Duke of Gloucester to Edward Gibbon, whose magnum opus, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes over the course of 12 years (1776-1788). I've got all six volumes on my Kindle - no longer thick and no longer square, though perhaps still damned.

Book Review - The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

Check Joy Lo Dico's review of Nicholas Carr's intriguing new book. This comes from The Independent: "The headline-grabbing concept of The Shallows is that the internet is rewiring our brains to negative effect. Carr recognizes that he is placing himself in a proud tradition of Jeremiahs bemoaning technological advancements, from Socrates, who fretted that the written word would create 'forgetfulness', via the Gutenberg press naysayers, to those who were disturbed by the unfettering of the written word, the speed of the telegram, and finally the internet, a vast, seething jungle of distraction and inanity. ... "

Love this from Carr: "The bond between book reader and book writer has always been a tightly symbiotic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization. The words of the writer act as a catalyst in the mind of the reader, inspiring new insights, connections, and perceptions. And the very existence of the attentive, critical reader provides the spur for the writer’s work. It gives the author the confidence to explore new forms of expression, to blaze difficult and demanding paths of thought, to venture into uncharted and sometimes hazardous territory. 'All great men have written proudly, nor cared to explain,' said Emerson. 'They knew that the intelligent reader would come at last, and would thank them.'"

In Carr's view, prolonged exposure to the rapid and varied flood of information on the internet has caused a sort of societal ADD: a general inability in individuals to think long and deeply on any one subject.

I'm not so sure. I note that Carr, though he diagnoses himself with this malaise, has nevertheless been able to think long and deeply enough to come up with yet another carefully researched and reasoned tome.

In my view, the internet is just like any other tool. The benefit, or lack thereof, derives from how one uses it. If the internet is simply your connection for playing a lifetime's worth of Halo with strangers, or mindlessly "surfing" from one wave to another as so many do, then, yes, it'll rewire your brain to negative effect. If, on the other hand, it is your lifeline for collaboration on serious work with colleagues around the globe ...

Digital-Textbook Design Formula Proves Elusive

NYTimes.com:

"The most complicated form in print media is the textbook,” Josh Koppel of ScrollMotion explained to me. “You have a 1,000-page math text with 10,000 more pages of homework assignments. You’ve got the graphic side, the text side, notation, assessment, remediation. And we need to make this all live well digitally without being subtractive.”

Early this year, a consortium of educational publishers, including McGraw-Hill; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; and Kaplan, signed up with ScrollMotion to produce their products for the iPad. In trying to nail the tablet-computer design, Koppel has papered his office wall with old baseball cards, tears from Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogs (1880s and 1960s), a military edition of Thomas Beer’s “Mauve Decade,” the final issue of Weekly World News — the most inspired text and graphic solutions from years past. He says his fear, as we shift from analog to digital textbooks, is that some content — and with it some culture — will fall by the wayside. “This is what we have to fight: ‘Oh, we lost another thing!’ ” Koppel says. “Pretty soon nobody even knows we’ve lost it." ...

In Case You Missed It: Apple Launched the iPad in China Yesterday

Of course, the tablet has actually been available in China, on the gray market, for months. WSJ: "Another big difference with the iPhone launch: today’s kick-off in China comes a mere five months after the iPad was launched in the U.S. By comparison, Apple didn’t start selling the iPhone in China—the world’s biggest mobile phone market–until last October, even though it was released in the U.S. in 2007. (Apple still hasn’t announced plans for China for the iPhone 4, which went on sale in the U.S. in June—though there are signs it may arrive in China soon.) Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group, says the iPad could give Apple a boost. 'I see the iPad as a major win for Apple in China,' he said. 'There’s not much competition in the market' and consumers say 'they can’t wait for it.'"

Tablets: Media Outlets Ponder Options as Free Web Editions Compete with Paid Subscriptions

My hunch is that the publishers of The Economist know whereof they speak:

... The [iPad] contains a web browser as well as an app store, bringing together the world of paid content and the open web, where print content tends to be free. It is as though a news-stand carried two versions of every magazine—one costly, the other inferior but free. Media firms that were already coming to believe that the web is a mediocre advertising platform have drawn a stark conclusion: they should pull back from the free web.

Time magazine has begun to hold back some stories from its website, on the ground that it is now providing a decent digital alternative. Time Inc is moving towards all-access pricing, in which content is available on all platforms to people who pay for it. This is in line with the “TV Everywhere” plan developed by Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive. Others are likely to follow. James Moroney, publisher of the Dallas Morning News, says the release of a paid iPad application later this year is likely to coincide with the erection of a paywall on the Dallas.com website. It is illogical to charge for one but not the other, he says.

Yet obstacles lie in the path of media firms that want to move in this direction. The first is that many print publications do not have enough information about their customers to enable them to sell across platforms. Ken Doctor, a media analyst at Outsell, points out that American newspapers tend to sort their readers by address rather than by name. The second obstacle is Apple. The firm has made it difficult to sell subscriptions on the iPad, and is reluctant to disclose much data on buyers. This is a particular problem for magazine firms, which use customer data to push other products and to sell advertising. ...

Dynamic Books, College Open Textbooks in Pact to Offer Affordable Textbooks

Publishers Weekly:

Dynamic Books, a publishing platform and line of customizable digital textbooks from Macmillan, announced an agreement with College Open Textbooks to identify quality public domain or open licensed textbooks that can be integrated into the Dynamic Books platform. College Open Textbooks has identified 27 open textbooks on a variety of academic subjects that will be made available through Dynamic Books beginning in January 2011 for a fee of $20 per student per term.

College Open Textbooks is a nonprofit coalition of 15 institutions formed to help reduce the cost of textbooks by finding and promoting the use of public domain, peer reviewed textbooks. COT identifies and promotes the use of these texts (either found in the public domain or licensed under a open Creative Commons copyright) to more than 2000 community colleges around the country. ...

Publishers Weekly E-Book Rights Panel Set for September 28

I'm not going. I'm not paying $49.95 to hear Aiken whine about how publishing eBook editions simultaneous with first edition hardcovers, and low eBook prices, constitute a combination that will eventually destroy all life on the planet.  E-Book Rights Panel Set for September 28: "The first event in PW’s fall discussion series is set for September 28 at Random House’s headquarters in New York City. Four panelists will discuss the hot topic of e-book rights—who owns them, who should own them and how they can best be exploited. Set to speak are Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken, agent Scott Waxman, attorney Lloyd Jassin and Neil de Young, executive director of Hachette Digital. Breakfast begins at 8:30 with the panel discussion running from 9 until 10:30. Admission is $49.95 ... ."

Barnes & Noble Expects $1B in Digital Book Sales by 2013

PCWorld:

Book retailer Barnes & Noble expects to generate US$1 billion in revenue from sales of digital books, including e-books and e-textbooks, by 2013, the company said on Thursday.

The company hopes to capture a 25 percent share in the e-book market by then, said William Lynch, B&N's CEO, in a letter to shareholders detailing the company's business growth strategy.

Revenue from B&N's digital division, B&N.com, totaled $144 million in the first quarter of 2011, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 9. The division accounts for e-commerce, device and digital newsstand sales. The company reported $1.4 billion in revenue for the quarter. ...

Revenue from B&N's digital division, B&N.com, totaled $144 million in the first quarter of 2011, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 9. The division accounts for e-commerce, device and digital newsstand sales. The company reported $1.4 billion in revenue for the quarter.

Great Britain: Amazon Embraces Free Market, Publishers, Agents & Society of Authors Whine

Across the pond, publishers, agents and the Society of Authors sound just like old-media American publishers, agents and the Authors Guild. PS: Waterstones.com is not going to "work." theBookseller.com:

"Amazon is offering exceptional discounts on key autumn e-books as it seeks to drive Kindle sales ahead of a change to agency terms and the launch of rival devices. The highly aggressive pricing could mean a 'game-changing autumn' for the high street, according to literary agent Jonny Geller ...

One agent said while publishers have now broadly accepted the view that an e-book price will be 20%–25% cheaper than the print r.r.p., they are unhappy with Amazon’s massive discounts on top titles. "Amazon is setting the e-book price and they just have to lump it. It gives them no pleasure," he said.

Jonny Geller, m.d. of the books division of Curtis Brown, said the situation was "a re-run of the mid-’90s removal of the Net Book Agreement" with a retailer vastly reducing price as it looked for market share. "I think this autumn is going to be carnage," he said. "I suspect it is all about selling the hardware and Apple don’t seem to be as engaged [with books] as Amazon. It’s an extremely strong autumn for titles, I don’t remember such a good one, and this is time to have the war." He warned: "On the high street it is going to be a game-changing autumn. Waterstones.com has got to work."

Literary agent Ed Victor commented: "Amazon is educating consumers to think £7 is the price of a new hardcover book and we have an industry that has educated consumers to think it is worth twice that. They will end up ruining the industry as e-readers take hold." Tom Holland, chair of the Society of Authors, said: "I think it’s a huge mistake. It’s trashing the brand."

You're a Step Closer to Being Able to Print From Your iPad

Nick Bilton, NYTimes.com: "Apple announced on Wednesday that it would give developers who create applications for the iOS platform access to a beta version of a new app, AirPrint, which will enable wireless printing on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. AirPrint will eventually be available to all customers of iOS 4.2, an updated version of the operating system that is expected to be rolled out in November."

Brit Pubs: Digital Promos to Dominate Xmas Books Campaigns

theBookseller.com:

... Pan Macmillan marketing manager Rebecca Ikin said this autumn would demonstrate a "step change" in the link-up between traditional and online marketing. "There are new platforms for the e-book in a way that didn’t exist before, so our digital publishing team, our marketing team and our digital marketing team are working in an integrated way," she said. "We are not now having the two-week or four-week advertising campaigns, we are having three-month campaigns and they are much more complex." ...

HarperCollins promises "whizzy digital plans" yet to be revealed for Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook Two. Brand will also be reunited with fellow "Sachsgate" culprit Jonathan Ross for a Hackney Empire event (30th September).

Penguin will use a "suite of video assets" in a pre-awareness campaign for Michael McIntyre’s autobiography Live and Laughing (14th October), with the author doing a 20-date signing tour.

Nigella Lawson’s Christmas title Kitchen (Chatto) will be part of an unspecificed "new digital initiative" being launched by CCV in the autumn, according to publicist Mark Hutchinson of Colman Getty.

There will be an app for The ­Armstrong and Miller Book by ­comedians Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller (Little, Brown, 7th October), ...

"Dracula" App Coming from PadWorx Digital - Their First Item Up

PadWorx releases their first app this Halloween. The video demo is intriguing.

WSJ's Mossberg Compares the Three Most Popular iPad E-Reader Apps

A review that'll be of use to novices just starting to use iPad for reading books. Old news for everybody else, This is purely a comparison of software interfaces/ergonomics, and book selection, rather than hardware. Walt Mossberg, WSJ.com: "For this review, I compared Apple’s own fledgling e-reader software and store, called iBooks; Amazon’s Kindle iPad app; and the newly revamped Barnes & Noble iPad app, called Nook. Overall, they are more similar than different. Each is free and operates much like the pioneering Kindle device, offering access to an online library of books you already own and an online store to buy more. Each remembers where you left off in your books, and includes built-in search, dictionaries and the ability to enter notes and to highlight text. All also offer the option to search for more information on terms in your books, using Google or Wikipedia. ... "

Print Magazine Readership Off Sharply Among Increasingly-Digital Affluent

Advertising Age - MediaWorks:

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Magazine readership among the affluent plunged 16% in the past year as the group spent 12% more time using the internet and sharply stepped up purchases of e-readers and tablet computers, according to the annual Ipsos Mendelsohn Affluent Survey. ...

Magazine readership has slipped modestly in some prior years of the annual survey, which this year garnered more than 13,800 responses, but this is the first double-digit decline, said Ipsos Mendelsohn President Bob Shullman.

Mr. Shullman said the year-over-year shift represents something he's seen daily on his commute into Manhattan over the past year: the widespread disappearance of magazines and print material in favor of e-readers and other mobile devices.

"I was talking to the guy who runs the newsstand at my rail station," Mr. Shullman said, "and he said, 'Bob, I'm basically doing half what I was a year ago.'" Mr. Shullman said he believes much of the shift also comes from traditional media stepping up efforts to drive people to their websites. ...

"The consumer is getting more and more comfortable with the alternative platforms," he said, adding that he believes affluents are simply getting their content in a different format, not doing away with it.

The Magazine Publishers of America agrees. "It has become increasingly recognized that traditional ways of audience measurement are not capturing the total magazine readership footprint," the group said in an e-mail statement. "Affluents are among the early adopters of new technologies, and thus it's more likely that they would be first in migrating some of their magazine readership to various new digital platforms."

The Ipsos survey was completed in June, only two months after the launch of Apple's iPad, but it already shows nearly a million of the nation's more than 44 million affluent heads of household owned tablet computers and another 2 million owned e-readers. ...

In Your Face: eBook Typos

Rich Adin @ The Digital Reader: "It means that errors are more noticeable by and more annoying to readers in ebooks. What might be overlooked in pbooks is not overlooked in ebooks. It means that the editor’s role in preparing an ebook for publication is even more important than it is in preparing the same book but for pbook distribution. It also means that a final proofread should be performed on an ebook reading device — it should mimic the reader’s reading experience. It is this last step that is missing. ... the current process seems to be that that a digital file (hopefully the same digital file that was used to print the pbook and not a scan file, especially an unproofed scan file) is simply sent to a producer like Amazon who then undertakes the conversion process. This takes the file out of the publisher’s hands and into a third-party’s hands, a third party whose name doesn’t appear in the credits of the book and who is not the target of consumer anger if the ebook file is riddled with errors. Perhaps this is the wrong approach to the conversion process. ... "

Apple to Announce Subscription Plan for Newspapers

San Jose Mercury News:

Apple is expected to announce soon a new subscription plan for newspapers, which hope tablets like the iPad will eventually provide a new source of profit as media companies struggle with declining print circulation and advertising revenue. ...

The Cupertino company has agreed to provide an opt-in function for subscribers to allow Apple to share with publishers their information, which includes vital data that news organizations use to attract advertisers, industry sources say. ...

While a handful of national papers already offer app subscriptions to iPad users, major metropolitan papers across the country are getting ready to roll out their own publication apps and have been in discussions with Apple. Industry leaders hope tablet devices and subscription-based digital editions can help newspapers stem, if not reverse, losses incurred after they began offering content online for free years ago. ...

Blio for Windows Coming 28 September

Nate the Great @ The Digital Reader has the skinny and complete press release: "At long last, the Blio Reader will be available for download on 28 September."

Parceling e-Editions of Klosterman's Essays, Piece by Piece

Jacket Copy | LATimes:

Chuck Klosterman's essays will be sold individually and packaged by theme as ebooks, his publisher Scribner announced. The works go on sale today.

Individual essays by Klosterman are priced at 99 cents each, just as individual songs once were on iTunes -- lately, I find all the songs I want cost $1.29, which might mean essays have room to rise. Anyway, the idea is to offer, at a tiny price, a single unit for multiple re-listenings -- or in this case, re-readings.

Can Klosterman, with his high name recognition and strong opinions, lure readers to purchase older material for a modest price? Will well-loved essays sell better than those that are less known?

The essay collections are already available as ebooks, but now Scribner has also parceled them out and repackaged them by theme. Typically, essay collections wind up being chronological, but these sets -- 10 to 14 essays for $7.99 -- are grouped by topic. There is "Chuck Klosterman on Sports," "Chuck Klosterman on Media and Culture," "Chuck Klosterman on Rock" and so on.

Whether or not this proves to be a fruitful experiment, it's interesting to see a big publisher trying new models in ebooks ...

Author Jim Hanas Talks eBooks, eReaders And Giving Away Content For Free

Dianna Dilworth, eBookNewser: "Author Jim Hanas has been dabbling in digital publishing for the last few years. We caught up with him to talk about eBooks, eReading and his new eBook short story collection Why They Cried, which will be released by Joyland and ECW Press this fall. ... "

Analyst: 35 Million eReaders to Ship by 2014

Report: "Despite stiff competition from the growing tablet market, eReader sales are expected to grow, according the analyst firm In-Stat. The firm's numbers indicate eReader shipments will increase from 12 million devices this year, to 35 million by 2014. ... "

Kindle Marketing Attack Against iPad is Misguided

PCWorld Business Center: "The new Kindle TV ads poke fun at the iPad for the glare that occurs when trying to use the tablet as an e-reader outdoors in daylight conditions. The backlit LCD display is a handicap when trying to view the display in direct sunlight--especially compared with the E-Ink display of the Amazon Kindle. However, the ad is slightly misleading in that the iPad is a better reading platform in a variety of scenarios where the Kindle is weak, and is misguided in that the iPad is not really Kindle's competition. While Apple is focusing on competing tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Amazon should be focused on its challengers--the Barnes and Noble Nook, and the Sony Reader being the primary competition."

Hack: Turn The Nook Into a Multifunctional Super Nook! - Gearlog

Gearlog: "For less than a third of the price of the cheapest iPad, you can buy Barnes and Noble's adorably-named, but often ignored e-reader: The Nook. One aspect of The Nook that is often overlooked is the fact that the little sucker is Android-powered. That's open-source Android-powered. Which, if you think about it, kind of makes The Nook the very first Android-based tablets (or tablet-like gizmos) that the nerdosphere has been buzz-buzzing about. Of course, The Nook's scope is a far cry from heavy-duty tablet territory--it's designed for basic e-reading first and foremost. However, with a few slight 'adjustments' you can pimp your Nook with additional functionality such as a Pandora and Twitter app. For free. ... "

Kindle Exclusive: 10 Books from New York Times Bestselling David Morrell, Including One New Title

Press Release: "Amazon.com today announced that internationally bestselling author David Morrell is releasing a new, never-before-published, full-length thriller, 'The Naked Edge,' along with nine of his previously published books, in electronic book format exclusively in the Kindle Store. This is the first time any of these titles have been available electronically. These Kindle editions will offer additional content for many of the books, including new introductions and photographs that reveal insights into the making of these modern classics. All 10 of these Morrell books are available starting today for download exclusively from the Kindle Store."

Barnes & Noble's Digital Textbook Rental Service Is Great, Except For The Downloading Your Textbook Part

The Consumerist: "Before you spend money on a time-sensitive e-textbook rental from Barnes & Noble's new NOOKstudy application, take a look through the complaints that have popped up in the past few days on the bookseller's customer forum. Several threads exist where students are complaining that their rentals aren't coming through, but it seems B&N's tech support was away for the weekend because there's been no official response yet"

Redesigned Scribd: An Attempt To Become A “Social Network For Reading”

Erich Schonfeld, TechCrunch: "Reading isn’t a particularly social activity, but talking about reading and sharing books, articles, and other documents is highly social. Book clubs are so popular because people identify with other people who share the same reading interests. Document-sharing site Scribd wants to become the place on the Web where a million reading clubs flourish . With a redesign rolling later today, it will now start calling itself a 'Social Network For Reading'. Scribd is already is seeing traffic to its site double every six weeks from social sharing through Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, and email."

2 New eReaders for US Market this Autumn

Nate the Great, the Digital Reader: "I’ve seen the Next1 before. It appears to be the same hardware as one of the devices Elonex had last week at IFA-Berlin. It turns out that I don’t have the specs (I thought I did). It doesn’t appear to have a touchscreen or Wifi, but it does have a 7″ screen 2GB Flash, and a microSD card slot. ... The Next2 is an Android tablet with touchscreen, Wifi, 2GB Flash, browser, Youtube app, and a microSD card slot."

New Smashwords Style Guide & Meatgrinder Blades

Mark Coker, Smashwords: "I released a new revision to the Smashwords Style Guide that makes it easier to produce, publish and distribute a great-looking multi-format ebook with Smashwords. In parallel, in the last 30 days we developed, tested and introduced new EPUB and MOBI Meatgrinder conversion blades that give authors and publishers better control over the final look and feel of their ebooks. ... The new Guide draws upon our experience helping over 8,500 authors publish nearly 20,000 books at Smashwords. We analyzed the most common formatting problems and then enhanced the Style Guide's instructions to make it easier for authors to use Microsoft Word to create higher quality source files."

Wi-Fi iPad Available in China and 5 More Countries Starting Friday

Of course, the iPads are assembled in China, but have not up to now been available as a product there. No word about 3G availability. Mobiles DNA: "Apple has officially announced the availability of Wi-Fi models of magical iPad in China from September 17 from Apple retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers from 10 AM. The price for the 16 GB model will be CNY3988 ($590), 32 GB model price will be CNY4788 ($708) and 64 GB model price will be CNY5588 ($827). According to Apple’s Latin American site, iPad will also be launching in 5 more countries including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru on Friday. ... However, there is no information when will the 3G iPad models will be available in China."

Perhaps Japan Will See Google Editions Before the U.S. Does

Yahoo! News: "TOKYO (AFP) – US Internet giant Google said Monday it would launch an electronic books service in Japan next year despite a chilly reception from major Japanese publishers. The Japanese version of Google Editions may have to start with a limited number of titles, said Yoichi Sato, a strategic partner development manager at Google Japan. Major Japanese publishers are still uneasy about handing over book data, especially of in-copyright titles, to the foreign IT giant, fearing that the content may be used for unintended purposes, Sato told a media briefing. Japanese copyright laws also require strict and complicated permission processes involving authors and publishers, before Google can use book contents for online searches and sales, he said. ..."

Joe Wikert: Bookstores Should Copy Best Buy's Approach

Publishing 2020 Blog: "Have you noticed you can buy a Nook or an iPad on Amazon? So if it makes sense for Best Buy and Amazon to offer all these devices, why don't the brick and mortar bookstores do the same? I think it's because the brick and mortars foolishly believe the only way they can win the ebook war is by selling only their device. The problem with that logic is they're focusing on the wrong goal. They're too busy worrying about device sales when they should be investing more in the content itself. Amazon gets this. That's why they have a Kindle reader on all the major platforms (e.g., Apple and Android). ... "

Review: Kindle for Android

Thumbs up. Craig Buck - Helium: "The most common way to read [Kindle books] is via a dedicated Kindle reader which supports wifi and 3G connections for downloading books onto the device. These devices are excellent but do come at a price so it would be nice if there was a cheaper alternative out there. The cheaper alternative actually turns out to be a free alternative if you own an Android powered smartphone. Kindle for Android is a free app which you can download from the Android market which turns your phone into a fully functional Kindle reader. ..."

Rumor: iPad Headed to Target on October 3rd

Engadget: "It's not quite the definitive proof that some boxes spotted in the wild would be, but a tipster has sent us a few pieces of a puzzle that seem to suggest that Apple could be expanding the iPad's retail presence into Target stores just in time for the holiday shopping season. That includes a list featuring a mysteriously unnamed product that's set to become available on October 3rd (in six different versions, no less), and a series of images from a Target PDA ... that seemingly show that the item numbers match the iPad prices exactly, and that it will be located in the Digital Audio section -- that's apparently also how e-readers like the Kindle are classified, in addition to iPods. Smoking gun? Not exactly, but it's certainly enough to get us to keep our eye on this one."

Transforming Stanford's Med School with the iPad

Stanford: "Stanford’s medical school joins a small but growing group of educational institutions across the nation experimenting with iPads as a way to lighten the load of textbook-toting students, and to learn how best to teach an extremely tech-savvy generation of students who’ve grown up in a wired world. ... The iPads are equipped with iAnnotate, a note-taking software program that enables students to write directly onto text, to sketch diagrams, to copy text and add highlights or underline with the drag of a finger."

Helping Haiti: Kobo Partners with Artists for Peace and Justice

Business Wire: "Stars Paul Haggis, Olivia Wilde, AnnaLynne McCord and More Share Their Favourite eBooks with Kobo; All Sales from Celebrity Reading List Go to APJ Fundraising Efforts in Haiti. ... Kobo is proud to announce that until the end of September 2010, it will donate sales from the celebrity book lists to APJ, a charitable organization founded by Canadian writer/producer/director Paul Haggis that is committed to improving the conditions for the children of Haiti."

Good Summary of the Current Scene re: Tech for Color eBooks

NYTimes.com:

BLACK-AND-WHITE movies have their film noir appeal, yet it’s glowing color that rules on most consumer displays these days, with one exception: the pages of e-book readers. There, color is still supplied the old-fashioned way — not by filtered pixels, but by readers’ imaginations."

Now that stronghold of austere black letters is crumbling. “We expect companies to market color e-book readers if not by the holidays, then soon after,” said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst specializing in consumer product strategies at Forrester, the market research company. “And some consumers will definitely opt for them.”

... Major e-reader companies like Amazon.com, which sells the Kindle, and Barnes & Noble, seller of the Nook, have not announced that they are offering color versions, or that they are committed to a specific technology for doing so. But some smaller entrants in the market have said they will be using liquid crystal displays, just as the iPad does.

The Literati by the Sharper Image, for example, has a a full-color LCD and will go on sale in October, priced at about $159. And Pandigital has said that the Novel, its full-color e-reader with an LCD touch screen, will be at retailers this month at a suggested price of about $200.

But LCD displays have disadvantages ... They consume a lot of power, he said, because they need backlighting and because much optical energy is lost as light passes through the polarizers, filters and crystals needed to create color. They are also hard to read outdoors ...
 
Other types of displays may also find a foothold with consumers — particularly low-power, reflective technologies that take advantage of ambient light and are easy to read when outside. The EInk Corporation in Cambridge, Mass., uses this reflective technology for its present product — the black-and-white displays in the Kindle, Nook and other e-readers — and will soon introduce a color version of the technology, said Siram Peruvemba, E Ink’s vice president for global sales and marketing. The technology will probably first be used for textbook illustrations and for cartoons.

The E Ink color displays, which have had many prototypes in the last two years, have not yet found favor with Kindle. “We’ve seen E Ink color displays in the lab and they aren’t ready,” Stephanie Mantello, a senior public relations manager for Kindle at Amazon.com, wrote in an e-mail.

Ken Werner of Nutmeg Consultants in Norwalk, Conn., and a specialist in the display industry, says that he has viewed the E Ink prototypes and that their reflective color technology is worthwhile.

“If you are expecting these reflective color panels to look like an LCD TV or an iPad, you’ll be disappointed,” he said. “They are not going to have that depth and range of color.” But, he said, the displays are valuable because of their low power consumption, thinness and light weight.

E Ink will ship its color displays to device makers in late fall, Mr. Peruvemba said. Hanvon Technology, in Beijing, a maker of e-book readers, will be one of the first customers, he said.

The color filters used in the displays block some of the light, but the loss is offset by an improved ink formulation that yields higher contrast, he said; the color display consumes no more power than previous monochromatic displays.

Reflective color displays from Qualcomm will also be on the market soon, said Jim Cathey, vice president for business development at the Taiwan office of Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, based in San Diego. The company’s color technology, called mirasol, will be shipped to device makers this quarter, and should be available to consumers in the first quarter of next year, he said.

Mirasol dispenses with color filters, as its name suggests — it combines the Spanish words “mira,” for look, and “sol,” for sun, into a play on the English word “mirrors.” The pixels in the display use tiny, mirrorlike elements in optical cavities to selectively reflect ambient red, green or blue light — much as sunlight bounces off a bird’s feathers. The pixels switch fast enough to run video, he said.

Ms. Epps of Forrester also thinks sales of e-book readers, whether in color or black-and-white, will withstand competition from the iPad and others. “We see the market bifurcating into two separate arenas with two different price ranges,” she said — with one group opting for multifunctional slates like the iPad, and the other for e-book readers.

Color is not likely to be the most important lure for those bookish buyers. “When you ask e-book consumers what are the features they care about, it’s not color,” she said. “Market expectations are driving that innovation. Readers care more about features like durability.”

Details: Samsung's Android Galaxy Tab

The Clarion-Ledger: "It took some digging and a look across the ocean to Berlin, Germany, for information on the Galaxy Tab, which will be Samsung's first tablet device that'll run Android operating system 2.2, also known as Froyo. It was announced Sept. 2 at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin. The market is about to be flooded with e-readers and tablet PCs from various manufacturers, but this device has the potential to attract a lot of attention and capitalize on the growing popularity of the Android platform. ... "

Hey Kids - Don't Forget Banned Books Week ...

... which commences on September 25th. At the very least, I hope people will make it a point to read a banned (or once-banned) book. Perhaps Howl or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Lolita or The Catcher in the Rye. Then there's also Beloved by Toni Morrison, and Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen, to name just a few.

The Line Between Book and Internet to Disappear?

Hugh McGuire, O'Reilly Radar: "A few months ago I posted a tweet that said: 'The distinction between the internet & books is totally totally arbitrary, and will disappear in 5 years. Start adjusting now.' The tweet got some negative reaction. But I'm certain this shift will happen, and should happen (I won't take bets on the timeline though). It should happen because a book properly hooked into the Internet is a far more valuable collection of information than a book not properly hooked into the Internet. And once something is "properly hooked into the internet," that something is part of the Internet. It will happen, because: what is a book, after all, but a collection of data (text + images), with a defined structure (chapters, headings, captions), meta data (title, author, ISBN), and prettied up with some presentation design? In other words, what is a book, but a website that happens to be written on paper and not connected to the web?... "

Updated Nook for Android

Electronista: "A new version of Nook for Android has been released in the Android Market, adding additional options for customizing the reading interface. In version 2.2, several options have been added to improve the overall experience, including additional line spacing options, the ability to turn text justification on and off, and an improved settings screen. An option for hiding the status bar while reading has also been added. Additionally, the update incorporates QuickActions, which makes use of pop-up menus to provide access to commonly used options, such as Details, LendMe, More By, and Buy Now. Nook for Android is a free download in the Android Market and requires Android 1.6 or higher to run."

Google Books - Rampant Bibliographic Errors

Laura Miller - Salon.com:

... everyone seems to agree that Google Book Search represents a revolutionary boon to scholars, especially people embarked on specialized research but without ready access to a university library. But is it? As UC-Berkeley professor Geoffrey Nunberg pointed out in an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education last year (expanded from a post on the blog Language Log), a research library is only as useful as the tools required to extract its riches. And there are some serious problems with the bibliographic information attached to many of the digital texts in Google Books.

Nunberg, a linguist interested in how word usage changes over time, noticed "endemic" errors in Google Books, especially when it comes to publication dates. A search for books published before 1950 and containing the word "Internet" turned up the unlikely bounty of 527 results. Woody Allen is mentioned in 325 books ostensibly published before he was born.

Other errors include misattributed authors -- Sigmund Freud is listed as a co-author of a book on the Mosaic Web browser and Henry James is credited with writing "Madame Bovary." Even more puzzling are the many subject misclassifications: an edition of "Moby Dick" categorized under "Computers," and "Jane Eyre" as "Antiques and Collectibles" ("Madame Bovary" got that label, too). ...

Best Buy to Sell Kindle E-Reader

WSJ.com: "Best Buy said the Kindle with built-in Wi-Fi and Kindle 3G will be available in the fall, with the Kindle DX model being added later on. The retailer also is the exclusive retail partner for Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Nook e-reader and carries several of Sony Corp.'s e-reader models. Last week, Staples Inc. also said it plans to sell Amazon's Kindle at its stores this fall. The Kindle also will be available through other retailers including Target Corp."

"Books in Browsers" Meeting - Internet Archive

Peter Brantley, HASTAC: "The Internet Archive is planning a meeting in San Francisco on Thu. Oct 21 - Fri. Oct 22 tentatively titled 'Books in Browsers'. The meeting will cover achievements in moving books to the web, including developments in OPDS Catalogs, vending and lending, and the design and effective deployment of ebooks and reading experiences for web environments. The portability of books and bookshelves, reader application interoperability, storage and transmission security (including encryption and caching), the legal and user consequences of book licensing vs purchase, and ramifications for user privacy and data protection are viable angles. ... I am interested in both specific proposals and general interest in attendance, which may be restricted for space. The meeting will be held in San Francisco at the Internet Archive offices."

The Future Of Reading | Wired Science

Jonah Lehrer, Wired.com: "I ... have a nagging problem with the merger of screens and sentences. My problem is that consumer technology moves in a single direction: It’s constantly making it easier for us to perceive the content. This is why your TV is so high-def, and your computer monitor is so bright and clear. For the most part, this technological progress is all to the good. (I still can’t believe that people watched golf before there were HD screens. Was the ball even visible? For me, the pleasure of televised golf is all about the lush clarity of grass.) Nevertheless, I worry that this same impulse – making content easier and easier to see – could actually backfire with books. We will trade away understanding for perception."

Kindle Firmware v3.0.1 To Enable On-Device Amazon Registration

SlashGear: "Amazon is offering limited access to an “early preview” of their upcoming firmware for the third-gen Kindle, promising “performance improvements” from the new software. Firmware v3.0.1 – available for both Kindle 3G and Kindle WiFi models – will also allow new owners to set up Amazon.com accounts directly from the ereader itself, rather than having to register online first. That functionality could make for easier in-store or gift purchases of the Kindle, especially when the recipient is not familiar – or lacks access to – a regular computer."

University of Texas at San Antonio Opens Nation’s First Completely Bookless University Library

EON: Enhanced Online News: "SAN ANTONIO--The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) announced today that it has opened its Applied Engineering and Technology (AET) Library, the nation’s first completely bookless brick-and-mortar library on a college or university campus. The 80-person capacity library, which caters to UTSA’s College of Sciences and College of Engineering students, is a satellite to the university’s larger John Peace Library. Electronic research is central to UTSA’s AET Library. Instead of storing printed volumes, the library offers students a rapidly growing collection of electronic resources including 425,000 e-books and 18,000 e-journal subscriptions. ... "

William Gibson Touches Amazon's Kindle for the First Time, Then Autographs Four of Them

Gearlog: "Is this a trend yet? If not, it's sure to be soon. After all, William Gibson is nothing if not harbinger of the future, right? The Neuromancer author has official given the thumbs up to Amazon's popular eBook reader, writing on his Twitter account, 'Actually, *touched* very first Kindle. Appealing unit, IMO.' Gibson didn't just like the unit, however, he signed the thing at a fan's request--in fact, he signed four of them during an appearance yesterday on Microsoft's campus in Redmond."

New: Kobo Desktop App for Windows & Mac OS

TFTS – Technology, Gadgets & Curiosities: "Interestingly enough, the release of the Desktop Application will also make it easier for readers to purchase something from the Kobo eBook Store and use it on another device such as the Sony Reader. After all, the Desktop Application allows you to purchase and download to your computer, which from there will require a simple sync with your other ebook reader. ... And as for those other devices, they include apps for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as Android smartphones, Android tablets, the BlackBerry and even the webOS smartphones. Though, that last one is noted as still being in beta."

Net Neutrality Agonistes

Time Magazine via Yahoo! News: "On a Thursday night in August, some 750 people crammed into a high school auditorium in Minneapolis to discuss the future of the Internet. Most of them went to beseech members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to act to protect Internet neutrality, the premise that all data on the Web should be treated equally. During the three-hour forum, organized by the pro-Net-neutrality coalition Save the Internet, an array of speakers warned that without safeguards in place, corporate behemoths would cut lucrative deals to prioritize some kinds of content and throttle others, turning themselves into the unofficial gatekeepers of the world's best leveling force. Net neutrality, said Senator Al Franken, is 'the First Amendment issue of our time.' In the weeks since Google and Verizon published a controversial proposal on the issue, Net neutrality has become the newest front in an ideological war waged by the pricey lobbyists, paid spokesmen, partisan media outlets and Washington ward bosses who feast on fractiousness. Relying on a now familiar playbook, a tableau of conservative interest groups has used the specter of a so-called government takeover of the Internet to mobilize Tea Party organizations. Liberal counterparts warn that corporate bigwigs are trying to cement their control of the Web at your expense. ... "