| This week a number of new apps and games have come out. One of the more interesting aspects of this week, is the varied kinds of apps and games. Mobage has a new one and a number of mainstream games have been released, lets look at the best new apps. Agro – Agro provides a riveting mix of luck and light strategy by combining uniquely-skilled heroes with pinball-inspired gameplay. Fashiolista – Fashiolista helps you save & share your greatest fashion finds from all over the web. Browsing other people's fashion finds is a great way to get fresh inspiration. Discover the style of top fashion bloggers and influencers from all over the world. Blue Jeans – Blue Jeans makes business quality video conferencing easy, accessible and affordable. The Blue Jeans app works with the Blue Jeans service to provide true universal, multi-party video calls on the go with a variety of video conference systems such as Polycom, Cisco, LifeSize, Tely, Microsoft Lync, and more. With the Blue Jeans app, users can host or join video conferences from anywhere. Blue Jeans helps businesses of all sizes have collaborative, productive and engaging meetings without the hassle or expense of dedicated hardware. Spermy’s Journey – Help Average Joe and his friends (The Mailman, The Cable Guy, The Athlete and the IronPants Tech Geek) in their race for reproduction. Use your speed and stamina to reach the egg before dying and killing off mankind. Ok, so maybe that is a little dramatic, but this is one fast paced sperm racing game that you don't want to miss. Top Gear : Race the Stig – Dodge traffic, jump caravans and speed through famous Top Gear locations in an epic race that will push you to your limits as you go head-to-head with The Stig. iM5 – M5 is a social application to inspire real-life action through the sharing of ideas. It can be anything from discovering cool things happening in your area, achieving personal goals, or collaborating to create social change. This is your daily go-to app for anything you want to do. Roll Up The Rim To Win 2014 – No purchase necessary. Game ends on 4/25/14 or while contest cup supplies last, whichever occurs first. All prize claims must be redeemed by 5/18/14. PRIZES are regionally distributed across North America. Cups will have either a Standard Roll Prize or a Bonus Roll Prize or no prize at all. Cups will not have both a Standard Roll Prize and a Bonus Roll Prize. Cristiano Ronaldo Footy – Cristiano Ronaldo Footy! – The official football game from team Ronaldo. Show off your Football skills in a spectacular 3D action football (soccer) game. There are new Leagues to climb, powerful special moves, customizable teams, and much more! Talking Larry the Bird Free – Unleash your inner musician by making Larry whistle along to everything you play – and share your amazing songs on Facebook or YouTube! Car Fiend – Car Fiend is a free, fun way to share your automotive passion. Browse and post photos, link to videos, and fill your virtual garage with the ultimate car collection. From American muscle to vintage Concours Italian – and everything in between – Car Fiend is the home for all car enthusiasts. Top 10 New Android Apps of the Week – March 11 2014 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Top 10 New Android Apps of the Week – March 11 2014
China’s eBook Space Comes into its Own
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One of the most difficult but content-starved countries where retailers can maximize their promotional efforts is China. While the ebook space is still rather small compared to both population size and device penetration, consumers within the country are quickly playing catch up to countries who were early adopters of the format. Unfortunately, China is still a landscape that confounds publishers, despite the abundance of English-language consumers who could presumably purchase ebooks. Publishers have been asking for far too long how to go about bringing content within the borders, and are still just as far from setting up shop as they have been all along. In an article on the Chinese ebook space for Futurebook, Patrick Crowley sums it up: “What became clear to us very quickly is that the market in China is quite fragmented. There are a number of industries in the hunt for e-book revenues: online retailers, hardware manufacturers, social networks, telecom operators, search engines and even traditional brick-and-mortar stores…China National Publications Import & Export (Group) Corporation or CNPIEC regulates over 90% of the publishing content available in the marketplace. CNPIEC is a vital cog in the Chinese publishing market. They have been the leader in importing and exporting printed books to China for some time. CNPIEC recently made a major commitment to build and market an e-book publishing platform for both Chinese and other than Chinese language titles to the institutional market in China. That platform is now active.” With opportunities going by the wayside in the US under Amazon’s dominance of the market, smart digital retailers, publishers, and authors will have to learn to adapt to a brand-new marketplace in order to reach an audience hungry for content.
China’s eBook Space Comes into its Own is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Indie eBooks Need to be Segregated
| Industry analysts are claiming that by 2020 50% of all digital books will be written by indie authors. This is going to create massive problems for online bookstores who constantly wrestle with eBook discovery. Simply put, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo did not design their systems to take into account 25,000 new indie titles submitted to their services every month. They were designed for traditional publishers. Without spending hundreds of millions of dollars in redesigning their entire infrastructure, there is a simpler, more elegant solution. Indie authors need to have their books segregated from traditionally published books. Traditional publishers are beginning to feel a financial pinch due to the dirge of self-published eBooks. Recently Harlequin stated, “The proliferation of less expensive, and free, self-published works could negatively impact Harlequin's revenues in the future.” Self-Published books have basically forced the company to shed staff and overhead costs in order to remain competitive. Forget 2020, right now the onslaught of self-published titles is causing chaos in online bookstores all over the world. Last October a massive firestorm erupted due to hundreds of adult eBooks with topics ranging from threesomes to incest were being listed in the same category as kids’ books. Major booksellers such as WH Smith shuttered their digital bookstores, resulting in thousands of customers unable to buy books at all. This was basically a Kobo problem, since WH Smith actually has a license with Kobo to sell digital books. Not only did Kobo get dissected by mainstream media, but they pissed off authors by deleting over one thousand titles from vanity presses and their own Writing Life platform. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo all have self-publishing platforms that allow writers to submit content right to their websites. Other companies such as Smashwords and LULU have distributing programs that allow their own pool of authors to submit content. There is no quality and control over the books when they are put up for sale, other than abiding by general formatting principles. Since there is no vetting process, there are hundreds of thousands of indie titles listed side by side with traditional publishing. Not only do we have a massive problem with adult content still creating problems in every major bookstore, but eBook discovery is also being hampered. Indie writers are using keywords they shouldn’t use. Instead of being realistic they are using keywords from other popular books so they show up when customers do search queries for existing titles. Amazon is actually cracking down on this process, but there are too many titles being uploaded to manually get them all. A few days ago, I wrote a piece about self-publishers not being considered real authors. You are only considered a real author if you can make your living solely from the book sales. If you can’t, you are merely a writer, which is still fine. The reason I wrote that post is the industry needs to define the good writers from the bad. The primary way we can do this is by sales figures; if authors make their living from publishing, they are often considered good writers. Once we can define a good writer from a bad, we can start to segregate them. All major bookstores have indie titles listed side by side traditionally published books. Normally, traditionally published books have an expectation of quality in editing, cover art, formating, and foreign translations. I am not saying all traditionally published books are good, but there is some expectation of quality in being able to read it. Indie titles have no quality and control, often they are merely submitting a Word document to Amazon and clicking publish. Having indie books listed alongside properly published books is causing massive issues. My suggestion is for all major online bookstores that take submitted indie content to create their own sections for self-published writers. These titles should not be listed side by side with the traditional press. Indie titles should have their own dedicated sections until such time as they reach a certain threshold in sales. Once they can attain an arbitrary sales milestone, they are drafted to the big leagues and listed in the main bookstore. This idea has merit as every single sports organization in the world as the minor leagues and the big leagues. The minor leagues hone talent and develop them into good athletes who eventually get the call up. Once you can separate indie authors from traditional published ones, it will solve a ton of issues facing the publishing industry. You will solve the problem of eBook discovery and readers will once again find a solid read faster. Searching algorithms do not have to be totally redone, you just need to have one for indie titles and one for real books. You will not have adult XXX content listed in the kids section or have people stuffing their books with negative keywords. Traditional publishers will seem more appealing and they can tap into the draft pool of indie writers to sign them to long-term book deals. Finally, the issue of Public Domain Books being repackaged as new books will be squashed for good. If bookstores do not segregate self-published writers their entire ecosystems will be ruined. There will be so many titles listed on their bookstores that you will not be able to casually browse your favorite genre, hoping to find a good read. Take Smashwords for example, what normal human being browses that bookstore to buy and read books? It is a cesspool of poorly edited, poorly written and has no quality or control. These same books are being distributed to every major bookstore, basically creating huge problems. Right now, check out the Amazon bookstore in the Romance section. Even on page 1 is nothing but self-published books, with terrible cover art. These titles need to be culled, ASAP. Indie eBooks Need to be Segregated is a post from: Good e-Reader |
eBook Search Site Al Kutub to be Launched Soon
| Al Kutub is the latest site for the Middle-east all dealing with ebooks, but what makes Al Kutub different from the rest is that the site acts more as a search engine rather than actually hosting the digital books on its servers. It functions by initiating an online search for the requested title and procures it from multiple sources such as forums, sellers, or even social sites such as Facebook. It’s designed to display the ebooks using iframe technology, where Arabic language titles are shown in PDF format. Users won't be aware of where the ebook has been sourced from; they won't even be served the link of the ebook source, which is a clever move as this will ensure users remain tied to the Al Kutub site. Nevertheless, the venture has already attracted a lot of attention, having garnered a subscriber base of more than 10,000 in just a span of 12 days. Mohammed Nemat Allah, who has been associated with Al Kutub for the past three years, has stated they plan to build a database of 120,000 or more titles, which will also include audiobooks as well. Nemat Allah is also confident that their business model is perfectly safe, claiming anyone who has issues with the books showing up on his site can go remove the ebook from the source site first. Al Kutub has a four tier usage model where users won't be charged anything for reading and downloading scanned copies. Soon users will be charged on a periodic basis for reading and downloading the books. Users will also have the option of placing an order for the paperback version of the ebook via Al Kutub. Lastly, users will be able to place an order for the paper version from Sour Al Uzbakiya, which happens to be a book hub in Egypt that hosts some of the oldest and rarest books from the region. Al Kutub also has other ambitious plans which include launching a social networking service having its own messaging and notification center. There will be a reading group where members can engage in discussions pertaining to books. The site will also let users read or borrow content online, while making such activity (including comments) visible to everyone or set to private friends. Nemat Allah also revealed a plan to diversify to other languages such English, German, Spanish, and Chinese in future. The site is currently in its beta stages and the final version will be launched soon. An iOS and Android Al Kutub app will be made available.
eBook Search Site Al Kutub to be Launched Soon is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kobo Developing New Customer Service Program – Click 2 Call
| Kobo has consistently been rated one of the worst companies to deal with for customer service issues. The Canadian based company realizes they are doing a poor job and are secretly developing a new program called “Click 2 Call.” The Leaked document says “In our ongoing effort to improve our Customer Experience, we are pleased to announce the introduction of the next phase of our customer contact strategy: Click 2 Call. Kobo Customer Care will introduce this new approach starting with our customers in English markets, then expanding to include all our supported languages. We will begin with North America on March 20th, 2014.” What will this new program accomplish? Reducing call times: The agent will have all the customer’s information on hand and will not need to spend valuable time collecting it. There will also be Reduced hold times: The agent will be able to investigate and troubleshoot the issue prior to calling the customer. All of these new features collectively will make it easier on the customer to not always have to give their data out, each time they speak to an agent. The new customer service portal is in testing HERE . It basically asks you for your Kobo account details and what version of the Kobo e-Reader or app you are using. Since Kobo devices are sold all over the world, it even prompts you to choose from a drop down menu where you purchased it from. There are different support options for you to correspond with agents. You can talk to them on the telephone, chat with them online, or engage in email support. I think this new Kobo customer service solution is a step in the right direction. There has been a thousand horror stories of getting lost in the existing infrastructure. It is basically a merry-go-round of getting bounced to different tiers of agents, who often never return the calls. Kobo Developing New Customer Service Program – Click 2 Call is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kobo Signs New Deal with Sesame Workshop
| Kobo has just inked a new deal with Sesame Workshop to make Sesame Street eBook titles available through the Kobo Kids Bookstore. Through the agreement, more than 50 Sesame Street titles including The Monster at the End of This Book, Count to 10, and How To Be A Grouch are available worldwide starting today at the Kids’ Store. "As it is one of the most popular reading devices around the world, we are excited to launch Sesame Street eBooks on Kobo," said Jennifer A. Perry, Vice President of Worldwide Publishing, Sesame Workshop. "We aim to reach children everywhere and our Sesame Street collection gives children and parents opportunities to read together, engage with favorite Sesame Street friends and learn wherever they may go with their Kobo device." Kobo’s Kids Store, offering nearly 100,000 titles, makes it easier to find the next great book for children and young adult Readers, with the latest bestselling series, Read Along books, and colourful picture-books. Kobo offers parents the ability to set up dedicated accounts for their kids so that they can safely explore the amazing books within the Kobo eBookstore. Kobo gives parents the ability to set spending allowances for their kids, pre-select eBooks, and adjust search settings to keep their kids reading safely. Parents can also set reading goals for kids and track their progress with engaging reading stats – all features designed to make eReading an educational, fun, and friendly experience. The dedicated Kids’ Store is currently available in North America. Kobo Signs New Deal with Sesame Workshop is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Bitcoin farming – on a industrial scale
| Jetlag’s grim. As you’ll have gathered from Ben’s post on Monday, I found that I was so tired on Monday I couldn’t speak coherently, much less read or write. So I ended up spending the day going through some YouTube videos I’d been pointed at, having decided that this required less energy than typing. One in particular demanded to be shared. Here’s a segment from KOMO 4, a Seattle news station. Last week’s news about the collapse of Mt Gox, one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges, has meant that there’s been lots media interest in Bitcoin, and this video talks about what it is…and, in doing so, visits one of the US’s biggest Bitcoin farms. We were struck dumb (really – jaws resting on chests, drooling slightly) when we saw the footage of how they’re mining: that’s an awful lot of Pis, and even more ASIC miners. We don’t think we’ve seen so many Raspberry Pis in one place outside the factory in Wales where they’re made. Fast forward to 3:08 for a detailed look.
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PubSmartcon: Reenvisioning the Writer’s Conference
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But now that authors are reimagining what publishing success looks like, conference organizers are finding that paying hundreds of dollars to have an agent peruse their work simply isn’t the draw it used to be back when several rounds of gatekeepers controlled the puppet strings on a book. Now, drawing companies like Pubslush, authors like Hugh Howey, and industry watchers like Porter Anderson are a bigger incentive to career-minded writers for the information they can share. PubSmartCon, a writers’ conference held in Charlotte, NC, next month, has shifted the focus away from desperately seeking an agent or publisher and chosen to focus instead of building in time for authors to network, both with big names in the industry and with their fellow in-the-trenches writers to uncover their keys to success. Miral Sattar, CEO of BiblioCrunch who will be speaking and exhibiting at the event, said, “Authors are looking for conferences that help them get the tools and skills to successfully sekf-publish and market their books. They are forgoing conferences that charge them several hundred dollars.” These authors also have vital resources such as Meetups and free conferences like February’s IndieRecon, which had over 18,000 attendees. “Publishers are also looking to successful indie authors to learn how to market self-published books,” continued Sattar. While still offering authors looking for information and critiques from the traditional industry an outlet for discovery, PubSmartCon has encouraged experts and authors from every dimension of publishing to come together at the event. With 50 faculty members and 30 exhibitors from companies within the industry taking part, the event is looking towards being an all-encompassing solution for authors, regardless of their publishing plans. PubSmartcon: Reenvisioning the Writer’s Conference is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Familiarize yourself with your digital collection
| An ILS can make the task of staying familiar with your analog collection a cinch for library staff, but what about your digital collection? OverDrive has the tools you need to keep yourself up to date on your growing digital collection. In your Marketplace account you can look at the varying reports available to you. The library statistic report is a great way to take a quick look at your digital collection. In this report you can view the following: how many titles you own based on format and lending model, what simultaneous use plans you own that are expiring, how many checkouts you've had, how many holds your collection has had, and more.  If you have questions about running your library statistics report contact your Collection Development Specialist or email collectionteam@overdrive.com.
Laura Guldeman is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.
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Welcome to the newest member of the Raspberry Pi family!
| If you’ve emailed our info@ address in the last year, spoken to us about trademarks or talked to us on Facebook or G+, you’ll have bumped into the indefatigable Lorna. She went on maternity leave a couple of weeks ago, and today she had a little boy. Welcome to the Pi family, Ronan Peter: we’re very pleased to meet you! |
Come see our upcoming Roku channel and more at PLA
| Heading to Indianapolis? We will be showcasing our 2014 updated offerings at the Public Library Association Conference (PLA), including an ever-growing eBook catalog and effective features and tools to reach even more of the community. Stop by booth #721 to see demonstrations of the upcoming OverDrive Roku channel, the kids' eReading Room for public libraries, enhanced eBooks, Streaming Video, OverDrive Media Station (OMS) and much more. Every hour on the hour, OverDrive will host presentations in the booth. New this year, publisher representatives from Workman Publishing Co., Oasis Audio, Sourcebooks, Tantor Media and Blackstone Audio will join OverDrive staff in select sessions to update partners on the latest available content and what to expect for 2014. At the conclusion of each presentation, a Roku streaming media receiver will be raffled off for those who attended. The OverDrive Roku channel – coming later this year – will allow patrons to borrow audio and video titles from their library's catalog on their home television set. A Roku receiver will be set up in the booth for live demonstrations to show library staff members how this will work with their current collection of OverDrive MP3 audiobooks and Streaming Video. PLA attendees can also see a demonstration of "enhanced eBooks," which are expected later in 2014 and will incorporate synchronized audiobooks and text, interactive pages, fixed layout titles, and multimedia based on industry-standard EPUB3 and other formats. In addition, attendees can participate in hands-on exploration of three other recently added features:
OverDrive representatives will be on-hand to explain how all of these features can help you to reach and engage more readers in the local community. We're looking forward to seeing you at PLA!
Heather Tunstall is the Public Relations Specialist at OverDrive.
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Get a sneak peek at our new website
Take a look at our upcoming redesign with a sneak peek of our homepage! |
Monday, March 10, 2014
e Ink Based Onyx Ink Phone has an April Release Date
| Here is another take on the concept of a smartphone offering an e-ink display. The Midia InkPhone made its debut at the CeBIT show with rumors of it being finally ready to hit the streets soon enough. We have been seeing the unique phone design from Chinese manufacturer Onyx for over a year now and it's really good to see it emerge in its production ready avatar at last. Engadget has mentioned that the e-ink phone will be hitting streets in Germany and Poland where it will be cost 140 Euros, which comes to about $195. As for the salient features of the device, the biggest of them all is the 4.3 inch e-ink display that it comes with. Also with a resolution is 800 x 480, images and texts are pretty sharp too. Then of course there is the energy saving attribute that e-ink display have come to be known for, which in case of the InkPhone stands at 2 weeks of usage on a single charge. This no doubt will be a boon for business users or for those who'd prefer to give up on some fancy features just to gain battery life. The rest of the specs speak of a 1 Ghz Rockchip CPU, 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of storage. There is also a micros SD card slot, 1800mAh battery along with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth. The device runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. There is no camera though, something that is increasingly becoming the biggest USP of modern day smartphone devices. The black and white display together with slightly less screen refresh rates compared to conventional LCD panels wouldn't have made the InkPhone suited for photography in any case. Apart from photography, the other aspects that the InkPhone will be seen lacking will be its inability to playback video or game playing. The InkPhone will however serve as an excellent mobile ebook reading device and should serve well to die-hard ebook enthusiasts. Being equally readable in direct sunlight will no doubt be another definitive plus for the InkPhone. E-Book reading apps such as the Kindle too works well enough with the InkPhone as should other popular ebook reading apps such as the Kobo, B&N and such. Overall, the InkPhone may not be a mass market device but should serve well in a niche market, which again could be big enough if the device work delivers what it promises.
e Ink Based Onyx Ink Phone has an April Release Date is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Good e-Reader is the Media Sponsor of IDPF Digital Book 2014
| Good e-Reader is proud to be alongside Publishers Weekly as being the two main media sponsors of IDPF Digital Book 2014. This is now a two day conference that takes place May 28-29, 2014 at the Javits Center, New York City. This is the first year the conference has moved to a full two day format and many of the top publishers, tech companies and authors will be in attendance. This is the second year in a row that Good e-Reader has thrown in their support for the IDPF. The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) is the global trade and standards organization dedicated to the development and promotion of electronic publishing and content consumption. The work of the IDPF promotes the development of electronic publishing applications and products that will benefit creators of content, makers of reading systems, and consumers. The IDPF develops and maintains the EPUB content publication standard that enables the creation and transport of reflowable digital books and other types of content as digital publications that are interoperable between disparate EPUB-compliant reading devices and applications. The final list of speakers and sessions have not been publically released yet, but is one of the can’t miss events of the season. Good e-Reader is the Media Sponsor of IDPF Digital Book 2014 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Hugh Howey Gives Toxic Advice for Self-Publishers
| Hugh Howey is a self-published author who leveraged Kindle Direct Publishing to distribute his Silo Saga about a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They have sold over 300,000 copies in the US and have been optioned for a movie to be directed by Ridley Scott. You might say that Howey is a self-published professional author whot did well for himself. Lately, he has transcended from being a writer to perpetually standing on his virtual soapbox. Indie authors have elevated him to being a poster child for self-publishing and he is giving unrealistic expectations to writers who want to emulate his success. Wool was one of the breakout success stories for self-publishing. It has been featured on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, and was the number one bestseller on Amazon, where it was also named winner of Kindle Book Review’s Best Indie Book of 2012. He has signed international distribution deals with Random House to have the works translated into foreign languages. Aside from the success of his books, Hugh is a non-stop promotional machine. Most of his blog posts are endlessly dissected throughout the media and his new Author Earnings website tracks how much some self-published authors are making. In a recent report he said, “Indie authors are outselling the Big Five. That’s the entire Big Five. Combined. Indie and small-press books account for half of the ebook sales in the most popular and bestselling genres on Amazon.” Hugh is a whirlwind of interviews and Twitter chats that tend to make him accessible to almost anyone who asks. The more hype he builds, the more ebooks he sells. One blogger referred to him as a “patron saint of empowering authors” But there is a darker side to being Hugh Howey, more than anyone realizes. Indie authors have elevated him to practically a religious figure of the self-publishing movement. He has become the poster child for any writer who has a dream of making it big. He is consistently cited by journalists, bloggers, and indie writers as being a stalwart vanguard of self-publishing and a mirrored reflection of everything indie writers aspire to be. Recently Howey mentioned, “The key to making it as a writer is to write a lot, write great stories, publish them yourself, spend more time writing, study the industry, act like a pro, network, be nice, invest in yourself and your craft, and be patient. If you can do all of these things, you'll earn some money. Maybe enough to pay a bill every month. Maybe enough to get out of debt. Maybe enough to quit your job. Thousands of writers are doing this, and we are welcoming all comers with open arms.” You can see by this quote that some of it makes sense. It is also apparent that he is feeding people dreams and wants people to self-publish more. Howey also tends to make inflammatory remarks to drum up support for himself, his books, and self-publishers in general. “For a long time now, self-publishing has been dismissed as an act of vanity – mainly by frightened executives in publishing houses, who hold up terrible examples of self-published works and say ‘See? This is why we exist.’” You can see by this quote he is alluding that the traditional publishing industry is the evil empire, something self-publishers do not need. Quotes like this manage to rope in more writers who say, “I feel the same way.” Mike Shatzkin, publishing expert and founder of The Idea Logical Company, called Howey out, saying he is “a much better author and self-promoter than he is a business analyst,” and warns authors his advice is potentially “toxic.” Hugh consistently makes inflammatory remarks, trying to build resentment towards the traditionally published industry. Recently, he said, "When I was a kid, everybody wished their father owned a candy store." Hugh's advice for publishers is to eliminate things that annoy him (non-compete clauses, length-of-copyright licenses, New York City offices) and to lower prices, give away ebooks with hardcover purchases, and pay authors monthly. His latest business inspiration — a call to arms suggesting to independent authors that they should just eschew traditional publishing or demand it pay them like indie publishing — is potentially much more toxic. Is he most interested in getting more authors self-publishing, or in organizing authors to demand better terms from publishers? Well both, as he is becoming a spiritual figurehead that indie writers with no voice can get behind. He is leveraging popular opinion to try and change the industry. The potential victims of this effort are the very authors he is trying to save. Likely, the outcome of this “revolution” is to widen the gap between self-publishing and traditional publishing. Instead of banging down walls, he is raising them up. Instead of building bridges he is arming them for detonation. Hugh Howey Gives Toxic Advice for Self-Publishers is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Podcast: Authors or Writers? Harlequin Market Share Diminished by Self-Publishing and Lots of News
| Welcome back to the Good e-Reader Radio Show, your definitive news broadcast on the world of publishing, eBooks and e-Readers. Today, Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield discuss the recent attempts to quantify authors in a more simplistic way. This is ruffling the feathers of indie authors that feel they should be called whatever they want. You can weigh in on the discussion HERE at Good e-Reader and HERE at DBW. Jeremy recently conducted a great interview with the CEO of Harlequin. They discussed the current business climate and how most romance/ertoica writers are self-publishing. This is creating a problem where not enough new writers are publishing the traditional way anymore and is forcing the publisher to get lean. The DOJ case against publishers in the USA is having reverberating effects on Canadian based Kobo. The Government of Canada is mandating that Kobo abide by the DOJ settlement terms, outside of the USA. Kobo contends the DOJ does not have jurisdiction in Canada to impose their will. We might see Kobo’s catalog dimmishing very soon. DBW is hosting a series of web lessons to help indie authors. You can find out more information on their latest one HERE. Podcast: Authors or Writers? Harlequin Market Share Diminished by Self-Publishing and Lots of News is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Raspberry Pi Projects: a big book by Andrew Robinson and Mike Cook
| Ben here – Liz is currently non-functional due to her body having no idea what time it was when she arrived at the office this morning after landing back from San Francisco at the weekend. Raspberry Pi Projects is a fantastic book from Wiley, the publishers of Eben and Gareth’s Raspberry Pi User Guide and Carrie Anne’s Adventures in Raspberry Pi. It’s written by two great Pioneers: Dr. Andrew Robinson (creator of PiFace) and Mike Cook (co-author of Raspberry Pi for Dummies and creator of many awesome hardware projects). The book comprises of 16 practical software and hardware projects for the Raspberry Pi – all put together and documented by Andrew and Mike (with help) that are designed to help you better understand the system and become more confident in development of a range of projects. The projects are handily presented in rough order of difficulty, starting with the easier ones to get you going – and move on to more complex ones. The book covers interactive text based games in Python, graphical games with PyGame, interactive game hardware, application with PiFace Digital, making a toy chicken send tweets, chaotic pendulum hamonographs, car racing and more – as well as a chapter on Minecraft by Sean McManus, and Home Automation by Jonathan Evans. I wrote on here recently about things you can do with your Raspberry Pi – and this book is crammed full of amazing examples. Books like this and Carrie Anne’s will guide you through a given project and provide you with learning points along the way, which is a great way to learn about Linux, Python, hardware hacking or anything. Beginner or not you’ll learn lots by following the guide set out by experts such as these. Here are some examples of the projects Mike put together: PacMan made in Python PyGame: Disco lights: See more previews of the contents of the book on Mike’s blog! Raspberry Pi Projects is available from Amazon and also as a two-part e-book from Wiley: Part 1 & Part 2 |
The original Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman
 If you're of a certain age, you probably remember with fondness the animated Rocky & Bullwinkle Show on television, with its occasional episodes of Peabody's Improbable History starring Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman and their wonderful WABAC machine (pronounced way back). Well, Mr. Peabody and Sherman are back for modern kids this month in a brand new 3-D DreamWorks theatrical release movie. We thought your young patrons (and their grandparents) might be interested in viewing some of the original episodes of the show from the 60s after they've seen the new movie—and we have 36 of them just waiting for you to purchase, along with four novelizations for different ages to go with the new film. For those who don't remember the series, Mr. Peabody, a historian who also happens to be the world's smartest dog, has adopted the boy Sherman. The two use the time travel machine Mr. Peabody has invented to travel back in history, where they often find that their intervention is needed to get history back on track, and they manage to get into hilarious misadventures in each episode. For instance, they visit William Tell, who must shoot an apple off the head of his son, but poor William has lost his spectacles and is nearly blind. Mr. Peabody saves the day by placing a magnet inside the apple to attract the arrow. The best thing about the program was that the dry humor is entertaining for adults as well as kids, and, of course, there was an educational aspect as well. Mr. Peabody's awful puns are not to be missed. Click below to go to the suggested list of titles: *Geographical rights may vary by region.
Cindy Orr is a Digital Collection Advisor at OverDrive.
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What Happens When Amazon Is the Last One Standing?
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Before Amazon emerged, there were six major publishing houses, each with several imprints; Amazon indirectly had a significant impact on their finances through the ebook price fixing investigation that resulted in settlements in the hundreds of millions of dollars from the publishers alone. As for bookselling, Amazon’s original purpose in life, the industry has already seen the loss of the Borders chain, the life support efforts of Barnes and Noble, the closing of the Sony Reader store 9US), and a significant drop in promotional efforts in the US from Kobo. Are companies throwing up their hands in defeat because they cannot compete with Amazon’s herculean efforts? Or are they more accurately signifying that Amazon simply does it better, and therefore consumers shouldn’t bother finding an alternative? In a post for Dear Author, Jane Litte provided an in-depth look at some of the numbers involved in being–and competing against–Amazon. The end result, according to Litte, is going to be a reduction in discoverability for titles and a reduction in profits for authors when there are no other options for bookselling. We’ve been asking the question for years: what will it take to bring down Amazon? For the time being, it seems like no one has the answer, and no one is looking for it.
What Happens When Amazon Is the Last One Standing? is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New Survey Demonstrates Rise in Library Spending
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The spending on print books, movies/DVDs, and CDs or other downloadable music was interesting, despite the easy availability of movies and music from other sources. While music circulation and spending has dropped, DVDs remain the single best investment with the circulation far outweighing the financial cost. The unfortunate reduction in print book purchasing could go either way; while ebook spending did increase for most libraries regardless of size, overall materials spending decreased in library systems who had suffered branch closing, reductions in staff, and reductions in operating hours. In even better news, every category of library size reported an overall increase in circulation for a total 2% increase. In a finding that speaks to the vital role that libraries play, it was those libraries that serve rural communities that reported the highest book circulation numbers, largely due to the lack of bookstores in these communities and the unavailability of “one day delivery lockers” or Sunday delivery from online retailers. Interestingly, libraries that reported a decrease in total book circulation actually pointed to ebooks as the culprit. With the ease of purchase and download and the more affordable price of digital over print, it appears as though consumers are quick to press the “buy it now” button instead of waiting for the book to become available through the library, either in print or in digital. This phenomenon has been shared for years from companies like Kobo and OverDrive, who’ve worked to convince publishers that library lending and ebooks are good for their business. The full report from Library Journal is available HERE.
New Survey Demonstrates Rise in Library Spending is a post from: Good e-Reader |
