Tuesday, September 3, 2013

The Bad Guys Take Over for DC’s Villains Month

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Warning: Spoilers ahead for Justice League and Trinity War!

DC Comics is known for its good-guy superheroes, but this month they will turn all that upside down.

The DC brass has dubbed September “Villains Month,” and they will turn their New 52 comics over to the bad guys, with standalone stories featuring the most notorious villains of the DC Universe.

But that’s not all: Also this month, DC is launching a new seven-issue series by Geoff Johns and David Finch, titled Forever Evil, whose centerpiece is the Crime Syndicate of America, the evil counterpart to DC’s Justice League of America that arrived at the end of the recently concluded the Trinity War crossover event. In this series, the CSA sweeps in most the other villains, except for Lex Luthor, who isn’t much of a team player—he sets up his own army to fight them instead.

Meanwhile, each of the New 52 stories will spotlight a different super-villain. Some are origin stories, while others shed light on their motivations, and in order to get them all in, there are extra issues of some comics; so, for instance, there will be issues 23.1, 23.2, 23.3, and 23.4 of Batman this month, each featuring a different villain. In Batman 23.1: The Joker, we see one of The Joker’s early adventures and get a sense of his origins as a villain. If you’re wondering where Bane is, he shows up in Batman 23.4. Some of the other comics look interesting as well. Superman meets his exact opposite, created by Lex Luthor by manipulating his DNA, in Superman 23.1: Bizarro. I’ll also point you toward Justice League of America 23.1: Deadshot because it’s scripted by the very clever Matt Kindt, so we can expect some twists in the story.

In an interview with USA Today, DC co-publisher Jim Lee explains that heroes and villains aren’t all that far apart: “When you look at a character as determined and obsessed as Batman, and you look at the flip side of that and see a horrifying villain in Joker, you see why Batman’s a hero. You see the line that separates him from the dark side,” he said.

The Bad Guys Take Over for DC’s Villains Month is a post from: E-Reader News

Wattpad Unveils Exclusive Content from Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy

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Today, to coincide with the global release of Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam, Wattpad and Doubleday have teamed up to share an exclusive essay from Atwood revealing insights into the development of the critically-acclaimed dystopian trilogy which also includes Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. This behind-the-scenes glimpse into Atwood's inspiration for the series mixes her famous wit with a earnest exploration of the increasingly blurry line between speculative fiction and fact.

"Wattpad is such a welcoming and highly engaged community of readers. With its millions of users from all over the globe, we truly believe it's the perfect place for us to get our writers in front of an even larger audience," said Judy Jacoby, Advertising Director at Doubleday Books. "We are thrilled to be using Wattpad as part of our marketing strategy surrounding Margaret’s MaddAddam release, and we look forward to bringing more Doubleday authors into the community in the near future."

Margaret Atwood and Wattpad have had somewhat of a love affair since last year. In 2012 she shared an original serialized fiction with the release of The Happy Zombie Sunrise with award-winning author Naomi Alderman. Atwood is also a judge of the Atty Awards, an annual poetry competition on Wattpad. Author and eBook company are both proudly Canadian, so you can see the synergy that has developed.

"Margaret is a great supporter and true friend of Wattpad and we are excited she's continuing to share her work with the community," said Wattpad CEO Allen Lau. "Wattpad is a place for for writers of all stripes to showcase their stories to millions people looking for their next great read." he added.

Wattpad Unveils Exclusive Content from Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy is a post from: E-Reader News

Barnes and Noble Announces College and University Newspapers Program

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Barnes and Noble has added hundreds of college and university newspapers to their Nook line of e-Readers and tablets today. Major newspapers from leading colleges like Harvard, Columbia, Louisiana State University, Northwestern University, University of Michigan and University of Texas at Austin, can now be purchased for as little as $0.99 cents per month. Most of these newspapers are free from the websites and RSS Feeds, but now they are all in one place.

"Through NOOK's exclusive partnership with UWIRE, we are providing a new and convenient way to stay connected with your favorite college or university," said Jonathan Shar, Vice President & General Manager, Emerging Content, NOOK Media LLC. "NOOK is now the only place that provides easy access to over 500 digital editions of college and university newspapers, delivering them to students, alumni, faculty, and sports fans, across all NOOK devices and NOOK reading apps."

College and university newspapers will be delivered to NOOK customers and will feature an intuitive design that makes it even easier and more fun to read newspapers digitally. Subscribers to these newspapers will have new issues automatically delivered to their NOOK Libraries™ as soon as they are available to read across all NOOK devices and Free NOOK Reading Apps. In addition, NOOK Newsstand already features the largest digital collection of the top 100 bestselling magazines available for both digital subscriptions and single copy sale in the U.S., plus a large selection of leading daily and weekly newspapers, all available to try free for 14 days.

Barnes and Noble Announces College and University Newspapers Program is a post from: E-Reader News

Amazon Announces Kindle Paperwhite 2

kindle-paperwhite-front-freetime-parentAmazon traditionally holds press events for new product launches, but today they announced a new e-reader very quietly. The 6th generation Kindle has just been announced and you can think of it as the Paperwhite 2. It is available for pre-order right now from Amazon and Shop e-Readers.

The new Kindle Paperwhite does not deviate design wise from the prior model and still maintains the six inch display screen with 212 ppi. Amazon has confirmed they are using a new front-light which should give you a brighter screen. The company is claiming that they have increased the page-turn speed by 25%, which should appeal to voracious readers. It also has 2 GB of internal memory  and no expandable memory.

The big changes with the Paperwhite 2 are mainly software driven and now has GoodReads integration. On the main home screen is the G logo that allows users to have a customized e-Ink version of the social eBook website and aids in book discovery. You can check out the books that are recently added to the system and rate/review books right on your e-reader.

Another big change is Page-Flip which allows you to jump accross chapters and pages, without losing your current place. This will certainly help if you are say reading the Hobbit and want to jump to another page that has a map of Middle Earth.

Smart Look-up is yet another new feature, which integrates a full dictionary definition with other reference information about a word, character, topic or book via X-Ray and Wikipedia. For example, using an ordinary dictionary to look up "credit default swaps" in Michael Lewis' The Big Short would give the individual definitions of "credit," "default" and "swaps." Smart Lookup recognizes this is an important topic and phrase in the book, and gives you the correct definition of "credit default swaps" via X-Ray.

Finally, two other new features are New In-line Footnotes, with a single tap, read the complete text of each footnote in-line without changing the page or losing your place in the book. New Kindle MatchBook allows customers purchase Kindle editions of print books purchased from Amazon—past, present and future—for $2.99 or less.

The new Kindle Paperwhite is only $119. Kindle Paperwhite is available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com and begins shipping September 30. The new top-of-the-line Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi + 3G is only $189. Customers can sign up to be notified when Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi + 3G is available for pre-order at www.amazon.com. Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi + 3G is expected to ship November 5.


Amazon Announces Kindle Paperwhite 2 is a post from: E-Reader News

Back to school, back to marketing

Click to learn about the School Library Design Contest

With the start of the 2013 school year, we're excited to announce the School Library Design Contest.  The idea is to have students create promotional materials for your digital collection. We'll share our favorites on the blog and award prizes to the schools who submit the most creative entries. Click on the image to learn more about the contest.

 

The start of the school year is the perfect time to promote your digital collection. In the Marketing & Outreach section of our Partner Portal, we have recently added some great materials for schools.

We love seeing all the ways schools are promoting their digital collection. Feel free to share your ideas with us at librarypartnerservices@overdrive.com.

 

Cassie Renner is a Marketing Specialist with OverDrive

Local Content in OverDrive Marketplace

Give your digital collection a personal touch while increasing your holdings and circulation at no additional cost by adding local content to your digital library website in OverDrive Marketplace! On the Local Content tab, you can upload new content or edit existing content for which your library has copyright, such as historical documents, local author interviews, community resources, and more.

 

Local content is supported in the following formats:

 

  • eBook: EPUB, PDF
  • Audiobook: MP3
  • Music: WMA
  • Video: WMV

 

eBooks uploaded in EPUB or PDF format will appear on your digital library website within 24 hours. All EPUB files will be added to a processing queue where an OverDrive Read version of the title will be created.

 

MP3, music and video files will be submitted via FTP to OverDrive for processing, ensuring they are optimized for viewing or listening in OverDrive Media Console.

 

OverDrive Marketplace users with high level permissions have automatically been enabled with the 'Local content' user right.  If you think you should have access to 'Local content,' contact your library's Marketplace administrator to enable this for your account.

 

For additional information, including steps to get started with local content, view the Marketplace User Manual located on the Support tab in OverDrive Marketplace. Please contact your OverDrive Account Specialist with any questions.

 

Heather Valentine-Gold is an Account Specialist with OverDrive

 

 

Amazon Kindle Matchbook Offers Readers Print and Digital

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Amazon announced a brand-new value-added feature for its consumers in its new Kindle Matchbook program. Under this new structure, readers can have a low-cost shook edition of any book they have already purchased in print, dating back to 1995. There are already over 10,000 titles approved by their publishers for inclusion in Matchbook, some going back as far as eighteen years ago.

"If you logged onto your CompuServe account during the Clinton administration and bought a book like Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus from Amazon, Kindle MatchBook now makes it possible for that purchase—18 years later—to be added to your Kindle library at a very low cost," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "In addition to being a great new benefit for customers, this is an easy choice for publishers and authors who will now be able to earn more from each book they publish."

Authors who self-published their titles through Amazon’s CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing platforms also have the option as the rights’ holders of their works to include their titles in Matchbook simply by logging into their KDP dashboards and enrolling their content.

This program is something that digital publishing proponents have clamored for since the current state of ebook sales. The ability to bundle content in this way has been experimented with, but this is the first full-scale model of making any title available at the publishers’ discretion.

Amazon Kindle Matchbook Offers Readers Print and Digital is a post from: E-Reader News

Pre-Orders for the Kindle Paperwhite 2 Now Available

So I just got done posting the article about how the details have leaked about the 2nd generation Kindle Paperwhite. At the time I was writing the article, the description page for the Kindle Paperwhite 2 at Amazon wasn’t working. But then I was thinking about adding the link to the article in case Amazon […]

Kindle Paperwhite 2 Details Leaked

Earlier today Amazon slipped up and accidentally started displaying the new product listing page for the 2nd generation Kindle Paperwhite. They have since taken the product listing page down, but not before someone snapped some screenshots listing the new features. The Kindle Paperwhite 2 appears to be an incremental update. Not much has changed and […]

First Look at Sony Reader PRS-T3 (Video)

The folks over on Librista.es, a Spanish-language blog, have somehow managed to get their hands on the new Sony PRS-T3 ahead of launch, which is expected to come as early as tomorrow. There really aren’t any new details about the reader that we haven’t already seen in the earlier leaked documents, but there is a […]

Help fund computing labs for girls in Afghanistan

Will Goldie is a Boy Scout in California, working on his Eagle project. It’s an ambitious one: working alongside Trust in Education, a group that organises educational, economic and business development programs in rural Afghanistan, he’s raising funds to equip a computer lab for a girls’ school. The Pi will form the centrepiece of what Will’s doing, and he has an Indiegogo running, starting today, to raise the money.

Will’s been emailing with Eben about his idea for a little while now, and we’re really pleased that he’s been able to start putting it in place. The major cost here is the monitor (display technology remains an aggravatingly expensive part of the equation when you’re buying everything as new); Will’s calculations say that it will cost $190 to set up each computer when peripherals are taken into account. He’s aiming to raise sufficient money for ten, but if he exceeds that goal any extra money will go into providing more computers for the girls. It goes without saying, but we would very much like to see him exceed his goal.

This project presses all my buttons. Teaching computing, reaching girls in environments hostile to their education, enabling young women to access opportunities and options that were previously closed to them: making a big difference with a small device. I’ve put my money where my mouth is on this one, and have funded the project – I really hope you will too.

Amazon Japan Overtaking the Competition

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One of Amazon’s most recent global marketplace initiations has been in Japan, where device manufacturers at one time found a slow adoption of digital reading. Rakuten, at one time the leading e-reader manufacturer in Japan–and now parent company of Kobo–reigned supreme, but that’s quickly changing, due in large part to Amazon’s model as much as to its devices.

So what is Amazon doing that the other guys like Sony and Rakuten are not? First, the competitive pricing–a tactic that certainly did not win the world’s largest digital retailer and friends in the US, as evidenced by the excuses born out of the recent Department of Justice investigation and lawsuit against Apple and several publishers–that Amazon could support made e-readers finally something more of a tool than an investment. Until the Kindle made an appearance, devices were just too costly to support the everyday reader; Amazon was able to discount the devices and make up the difference in not only ebooks, but also in other products it sells from its online marketplace.

Also, Amazon finally brought Japanese consumers ebooks that they could purchase one time and read forever, unlike the original digital reading models that sprung up which only allowed ebook rentals.

But more importantly than even price or availability of content was possibly the company’s brand itself. Amazon bills itself as a meet-all-needs market portal, and has an easy to use interface that consumers readily enjoy browsing. The recognizable brand and the reputation for stellar customer service all lead readers to stop by Amazon’s website to browse and shop.

Of course, content isn’t hurting. In the nearly one year that Amazon Japan has been open to consumers, it has grown a large catalog of Japanese-language titles, adding several thousand titles each month. This also includes access to Amazon’s English-language titles, as well as the self-published titles through Kindle Direct Publishing from authors around the world.

Amazon Japan Overtaking the Competition is a post from: E-Reader News

News Corp Announces New Digital Newspaper Advertising Exchange

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News Corp is developing a new advertising exchange network for their big digital newspaper and web properties. This will allow the company to cut out the middle man and do away with their various affiliates and third party advertisers.  The intention is to have more control and be able to deal with advertisers directly.

The Sun and Times in the UK and the Wall Street Journal are News Corps flagship newspapers and all of them have adapted the paywall approach. In some cases this strategy has not worked out, for example, the Times traffic has dropped by as much as 90% since the launch of the new paywall. Advertisers are often fairly fickle with investing in digital newspaper websites, as the reach is quite low.  News Corp intends to leverage every single one of their properties under one banner and allow advertisers to place ads across a wide spectrum.

The News Corp Global Exchange, will bring together the ad space of 50 websites and mobile/tablet products including Times.co.uk, TheSun.co.uk, NYPost.com, TheAustralian.com.au, MarketWatch.com and News.com.au.

“Content aggregators would like to commodify our content, while data scrapers would like to aggregate our audience,” said Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp. “The only way to reach the world’s greatest content and the most prestigious and lucrative audiences is directly through our digital properties. Third parties are no longer invited to the party”.

One potential monkey wrench in News Corps plans is the announcement that Yahoo is launching their own advertising exchange network.  The Yahoo network is based in Australia and recently conducted a trial with 50 major online entities. This is notable because News Corp owns The Australian newspaper and The Australian already signed a contract with Yahoo to use their network. This situation has to be resolved in short order and is likely a huge priority with the upper echelon of News Corp. management.

It will be very interesting to see how much time and energy is needed to build brand awareness in the News Corp Exchange Network. Something like this is going to take a ton of time and money to build proper momentum. Likely, other newspaper publishers are going to monitor this entire project closely for their own properties.

News Corp Announces New Digital Newspaper Advertising Exchange is a post from: E-Reader News

Monday, September 2, 2013

Microsoft Announces the Purchase of Nokia

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Microsoft are the new owners of Nokia. In a move which took many by surprise, Microsoft will now own the Finnish company's devices and products division in a deal worth $5 billion. Another $2.2 billion will go towards acquiring licenses of all of Nokia's patents so that the entire deal works out to $7.2 billion. All this while everyone thought Nokia is working hard to regain its status of being among the top handset makers in the world with active collaboration with Microsoft. The above deal is also reminiscent of the search giant Google acquiring Motorola last year.

"We announced some exciting news today: We have entered into an agreement to purchase Nokia's Devices & Services business, which includes their smartphone and mobile phone businesses, their award-winning design team, manufacturing and assembly facilities around the world, and teams devoted to operations, sales, marketing and support," revealed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a letter to Nokia employees.

The above deal will also mark a return of Nokia CEO Stephen Elop who had left Microsoft to join Nokia as its chief executive. He will now be back at Microsoft as the executive vice president of the devices and services division. Elop though is also in the race to replace Steve Ballmer once the latter's tenure comes to an end by next summer.

Microsoft termed the deal as a 'smart acquisition', which is quite relevant given the less than commanding position that Nokia is into right now which also is a shadow of what it was even a few years ago. The above deal also reinforces the Richmond based company's ambitions in the smartphone segment. The Windows Phone 8 platform has emerged as the third largest so far, beating BlackBerry 10 in the process but is way beyond both iOS and Android, the segment leaders right now. WP8 market share has jumped to 8.2 in Europe while its worldwide share of the smartphone market grew from 3.1 percent to 3.7 percent in Q2, 2013. (As per IDC).

“Today’s agreement will accelerate the momentum of Nokia’s devices and services, bringing the world’s most innovative smartphones to more people, while continuing to connect the next billion people with Nokia’s mobile phone portfolio,” revealed Ballmer and Elop in a joint statement.

The deal though is still awaiting shareholder and regulatory approval and is expected to come to a conclusion by Q1, 2014.

Microsoft Announces the Purchase of Nokia is a post from: E-Reader News

Kobo Aura, Kobo Glo and Kobo Aura HD Triparison

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Welcome to another Good e-Reader Comparison Video! Today we compare all of the current generation Kobo e-Readers directly against each other. Conduct a nighttime reading test of the Kobo Glo, Kobo Aura and Kobo Aura HD. This will give you a sense on how the same book looks on all three devices.

The Front-lit screens that allow you to read in the dark has undergone constant refinement as each generation is released. Many people often wonder how the glowing display looks side by side and if its a viable reason to upgrade devices. We have seen from our own data that e-reader owners are the least likely to upgrade whenever a new model comes out. If you have the Kobo Glo, should you upgrade to the Aura? In this video we lay it all out, so you can judge for yourself.


Kobo Aura, Kobo Glo and Kobo Aura HD Triparison is a post from: E-Reader News

Sony PRS-T3 e-Reader Revealed

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The Sony PRS-T3 has been leaked before the official press event in a few days and we now have a sense on what it looks like and the finalized hardware. On the surface it looks very much akin to the T2 and only has marginal enhancements.

The Sony PRS-T3 has a six inch e-Ink Pearl HD display screen with a resolution of 1024×758 pixels. You can pinch and zoom to have more control over your internet and PDF experience. This is the same type of functionality that the new Kobo Aura has. You have 1.2 GB of internal memory to play around with when you take it out of the box for the first time. This will be enough for most users, but you can increase it up to 32 GB via the Micro SD Card. The exact dimensions are 107 x 160 x 8.8 mm. and you will get around eight weeks of battery life out of the e-Reader.

This device does not read a ton of different eBook formats, but you can read the popular ones with ePub, PDF, TXT. There is also a photo section with the support of JPG, GIF, PNG and BMP. Buying books is fairly simple using the dedicated Sony Reader Store, although the Spanish website that sent us all of the photos does not have access to the store yet.

On the software side of things Sony is still using the Android operating system. You can borrow eBooks directly from the library using the Overdrive app, but it is only available in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland. The T2 main selling point was the Evernote and Facebook integration and the new T3 model has both of these still on it. This e-Reader also has WIFI, so you can simply connect right up to the Sony Store, Overdrive and the internet.

Sony has maintained the quintessential drawing app, that allows you to take notes with a freestyle approach. You can use a stylus for more precision and actually take notes in the book. The one thing Sony has always done well is allow readers to make underlines or take notes directly on the book. This is useful because with PDF’s you can simply draw all over it and save the book in its current state. This will allow you to basically have two copies of the book, one virgin and one with your changes. Useful for students and people who are doing research or even belong to a book club.

There is no front-lite on this e-reader and many people should be all up in arms about it. Sony has publicly proclaimed that they fail to see the point of an illuminated screen. The T3 does come with a case, but does no have the reading light that was leaked a few weeks ago. Instead, you have to buy this additionally and should cost around $60.00. Speaking of prices, the T3 e-Reader is poised to retail for $189.99.

Thanks to Estudio Dos of the Librista website for answering a million questions and taking a bunch of custom photos for this reveal!


Sony PRS-T3 e-Reader Revealed is a post from: E-Reader News

MagPi issue 16: out today!

There are a few changes at the MagPi, the free community magazine about the Raspberry Pi. First of all, you’ll notice they have a new website, with a new and easier layout. And as of today, as many of you have requested, some articles from the magazine are being converted to be readable in HTML format as well as published in the usual whole-magazine PDF form. So far, the team at the MagPi has converted Issue 13, and they’re planning on converting their entire back catalogue to HTML over the coming months, so eventually all articles from all the back issues should also be available to view as separate web pages. It’s a bit of a labour of love, and the team is made up entirely of volunteers, so please be patient while they work! They’ve also set up a blog for MagPi announcements, which you can find at www.themagpi.com/blog/.

This month’s MagPi is the fattest issue so far, with an article on PATOSS, the rescue-bird monitor we covered here in July, going into much more detail about the setup than has been available before, and explaining what progress Jorge Rancé has made since Pato and his broken leg hit the Raspberry Pi blog this summer. There’s more on the skutter robot (hurrah!), with tutorials on adding sensors. You’ll find out how to drive LCD displays, learn about FPGA, and read the usual smorgasbord of software tutorials. This month’s issue comes with two competitions for Pis and accessories – you can read the whole thing over at The MagPi.

fEnerGenie ePP2 eReader/ePaper Printer Set For IFA 2013 Launch

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Jostling for space among the plethora of new gadgets that's waiting to be unveiled at the upcoming IFA 2013 event will be a humble ereader device which, according to reports from its developer,addresses readers’ responsibility to Mother Nature. The ereader in question, the EnerGenie PP2 from Danish company Gembird, is very similar to any e-ink-based ebook reading device out there. However, its makers want to convince us the EnerGenie PP2 is in reality an e-paper printer.

Here is how the company behind the device is justifying it being labeled as an e-paper printer. When connected to the computer via a USB cable, the device is recognized as a printer. Pressing the print option will transfer the document to be printed onto the EnerGenie where it remains saved. The document can then be called up and displayed on the 9.7 inch e-ink display the device offers, any time it is needed. The 1600 x 1200 pixel display also helps the cause, though while this makes for a nice way to save paper, that's only as long as the document is in black and white. Also, it's a two-way journey with the documents, as the same can also be sent back to the PC.

Meanwhile, the EnerGenie PP2 also includes a stylus which can also make impressions on the display. What this means is that the pen can be used to modify the document or add a signature and so on. The rest of the spec story speaks of a 80 Mhz processor powering the device, together with a 256 MB RAM and 4 GB of internal memory. There is also a micro SD card slot to allow for more storage. The device runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, though it's unlikely users will be allowed access to the operating system. There’s a 2350mAh battery that will be providing the power, which it must be said will be quite enough given the power saving credentials that e-ink based displays are known for.

However, what comes as a downside is the intended pricing, which at 399 to 499 Euros translates to about $530 to $660. That makes us wonder if there will be enough buyers to splurge on an e-paper printer, no matter how committed they may be towards the green cause.

Meanwhile, here is a video of the device in action.

fEnerGenie ePP2 eReader/ePaper Printer Set For IFA 2013 Launch is a post from: E-Reader News

Readers Quite Negative on Pre-Ordering eBooks

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Many of the leading online digital book stores all offer pre-orders for eBooks that are not yet out. Many tend to only focus on books that are coming out within a few months and most never disclose their actual sales figures. According to a recent data report Good e-Reader ran, readers overwhelmingly are quite negative about ordering books in advance.

When you order a real book in advance, often you get it a few days or a week before the commercial release. eBooks on the other hand don’t give readers any real benefits of ordering them. There are no discounts or anything really compelling about ordering advance and our readers simply don’t do it. This data report is a strong indication on the mentality of your average reader that buys both real books and digital ones.

Readers Quite Negative on Pre-Ordering eBooks is a post from: E-Reader News

Brazilian National Book Fair Kicks off in Rio

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The Brazilian National Book Fair has just opened up to the public in Rio and is running from August 29 to September 8th. Every single major publisher from South America was in attendance and there was even special areas for foreign books, notably from Germany and France. Anyone worried that youth are distancing themselves from reading would have been warmed at the overwhelming presence of children and teens. Many were part of school visits or brought by their parents.

One of our readers Albert Silva attended the event on Sunday and mentioned “Digital books had an extremely modest presence, represented by Amazon and Kobo, but the impression was that their stands were about readers and technology. I saw very little mentioned of digital books themselves or the reading experience (dictionary, cheaper books, instant 24/7 buying, etc.) which seemed to be taken for granted.”

The Amazon and Kobo booths were about as far away from each other as possible. Albert elaborated that “I visited both, and even though it is quite understandable the only things on display were the readers and tablets, the representatives seemed entirely focused on the technological capabilities such as resolution and RAM. They also hyped up their financing options because electronics in Brazil are frightfully overpriced due to 70% import tariffs. ample prices, converted to US dollars are the Kobo AuraHD, which retails for US$270, or the Kindle Paperwhite for US$200.”


Brazilian National Book Fair Kicks off in Rio is a post from: E-Reader News