Sunday, October 6, 2013

Video: PDF Reading Experience on the Sony PTS-T3 and Kobo Aura

IMG_4757

There was a time when Sony was the undisputed King of the PDF experience on their entire line of electronic readers. During this era the majority of readers did not feature a touchscreen display to pinch and zoom, so we had to make due to advanced settings. Kobo has slowly been making inroads in usurping the crown away from Sony with their PDF rendering technology.

Today Good e-Reader compares the new Kobo Aura and the Sony PRS-T3 and looks comprehensively at the overall PDF experience. Both of these devices allow you to pinch and zoom, and they handle this in completely different ways. Kobo has moved into more of a tectonic gesture based control scheme, while Sony still puts a heavy emphasis on reflow and zooming.

The video below shows you two different PDF books to check out exactly how these two readers stack up. We have a very small Biology book, that is under 2 MB and the very complex D&D Monsters Manual.


Video: PDF Reading Experience on the Sony PTS-T3 and Kobo Aura is a post from: E-Reader News

Digital Comics Best-Sellers for October 6, 2013

Forever Evil 2

Evil triumphs this week as the second issue of Forever Evil pops up on three charts, while the ponies run wild over at iBooks.

ComiXology

1. Forever Evil #2
2. All New X-Men #17
3. All New X-Men Special #1
4. Earth 2 #15
5. Green Lantern #24
6. Mighty Avengers #2
7. Hunger #3
8. Detective Comics #24
9. Lazarus #4
10. Iron Man, vol. 5 #16

ComiXology’s best-seller list leads off with the second issue of the DC crossover Forever Evil, the crossover that launched as the central event of DC’s Villains Month. The first issue is at number 13 on the comiXology chart, so some folks must be playing catch-up. All the titles in the top ten are new this week, and Marvel has a slight edge, with five titles, compared to four for DC and one for Image.

Kindle

1. The Sandman: Overture #1
2. The Sandman: Overture #2
3. Injustice: Gods Among Us #36
4. Stephen King’s N
5. Astonishing X-Men, vol. 1: Gifted
6. Forever Evil #2
7. Spider-Man: Big Time
8. Justice League, vol. 3: Throne of Atlantis
9. The Sandman, vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
10. The Hedge Knight: The Graphic Novel

Kindle readers are ahead of the curve, as three of the titles on this list—the first two issues of The Sandman: Overture and George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight graphic novel—are pre-orders. That Astonishing X-Men title is a graphic novel on serious markdown, from $10.99 to $3.99. Unlike comiXology shoppers, who didn’t buy enough 99-cents Ultimates titles to have even one crack the top ten, Kindle users love a bargain.

Nook

1. Forever Evil #2
2. It’s a Dog’s Life, Snoopy!
3. The World According to Lucy…
4. Snoopy at the Bat
5. Sandman #1
6. The Walking Dead, vol. 1
7. Injustice: Gods Among Us #1
8. Big Nate: Game On!
9. The Walking Dead, vol. 2
10. Injustice: Gods Among Us #35

Nook readers jump on the Forever Evil bandwagon as well, but aside from that the best-seller list is almost identical to last week, fueling my suspicion that very few books are actually selling, and that the numbers are mostly holdovers from previous weeks.

iBooks

1. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #11
2. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #8
3. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #10
4. Injustice: Gods Among Us #36
5. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #9
6. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #1
7. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #2
8. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #7
9. My Little Pony: Micro Series #8 – Celestia
10. Batman: The Killing Joke

The ponies have it at iBooks, with Injustice: Gods Among Us over with—only the last issue makes the chart—and Batman: The Killing Joke providing a grim counterpoint at the end.

Digital Comics Best-Sellers for October 6, 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News

Book Sales in New Zealand Fall by 15% while eBooks Soar

selected-works-bookstore-cat_101

The New Zealand Book industry has fallen by over 15% in the last six months as major publishers abandon the print sector. Several international publishers have pulled out or scaled down operations in recent months. Hachette said in July it would close its New Zealand publishing unit, following the lead of Pearson Education. While the traditional bookselling industry is plummeting, eBooks are continuing to grow.

Sam Elworthy, of the Publishers Association of NZ, said “We can’t document eBook sales easily. The New Zealand market has grown from nothing 12 months ago to now the same proportion as the US.”

Hachette boss Kevin Chapman whose new company, Upstart Press, is starting to take off in New Zealand. He knows the market has tons of potential and is still in its infancy. He says what was happening here was the same as had happened in the US and Britain five years ago. An initial drop in physical sales levelled out. “I think we’ll see a bounce in print sales.”

Part of the reason New Zealand is seeing a decline in book sales is due to paltry amount that are printed locally. It is estimated that only 5% of books being sold right now are printed and published in NZ.

Book Sales in New Zealand Fall by 15% while eBooks Soar is a post from: E-Reader News

eBook Review: These Colors Don’t Run by Andrew Galasetti

these_colors_kickstarter_cover

Verdict: 5 stars

I love an incredible, unputdownable surprise of a book, and These Colors Don’t Run is it. In this title, indie author Andrew Galasetti combines impeccable writing with his talent for building a story that will later continue in his work, To Breathe Free, which will continue the story of runaway slaves in the pre-Civil War southern United States.

What sets Galasetti’s story apart from other fictionalized slave narratives is its unique setting and its recognition that any human being is capable of evil, especially if the root cause for it is to save his own life. Moreover, there are a hundred ways to manifest regret and just as many ways to let unrepentance eat at you.

When young slave Samuel watches as his mother is beaten to death on the plantation, he begins a spiral towards isolation that seems almost unrecoverable. After spending his days chained together with other slaves to work in the fields, witnessing horrible callousness towards human life and brutality, he adopts a nothing-to-lose attitude but vows he will not stay in his current state. An accident causes the chain binding him to other slaves, giving him the opportunity to escape, dragging one other slave with him. As the other slave’s screams threaten to give away their location to the overseer, Samuel does the unthinkable and kills the slave.

As he finally finds refuge with a Seminole tribe who houses runaway slaves in order to grow their numbers against the US Army’s attempts to remove them from their land, Samuel slowly begins to build a life for himself, even if the face of unthinkable tragedy and adversity.

These Colors Don’t Run is available where ebooks are sold and through the author’s website, AndrewGalasetti.com.

eBook Review: These Colors Don’t Run by Andrew Galasetti is a post from: E-Reader News

Zinio Now Offers Free Back Issues of Magazines Through Public Libraries

A few months back I posted about how Zinio now offers hundreds of magazines for download for free through public libraries. It’s kind of like borrowing ebooks from libraries, except with magazines you never have to return them, and you can download as many as your library carries. Being able to download dozens of popular […]