| Sony has been heavily invested in e-readers and eBooks since 2007 and was one of the first companies actively developing products in this space. During the last few years Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo have all been out pricing Sony on eBooks and e-reader prices have fallen dramatically, due to cutthroat competition. This has resulted in Sony abandoning their Reader Store in North America, Europe and Australia and sourcing all digital sales to Kobo. Japan is the last country where the Reader Store is still going strong and Sony is doubling down, to focus all of their energies in being the top player. In an exclusive statement to Good e-Reader, Vice President of Marketing for Sony Tony Smith said “We are increasing sales in Japan by concentrating our focus on offering a wide range of reading opportunities across various compatible devices, and on enhancing the store services and the selection of digital content. We aim to develop the Japanese business further by increasing the range of digital content working with publishers or partners, expanding the lineup of compatible devices, such as Xperia or PS Vita, cooperating with CRM platforms such as My Sony Club, and enhancing the accessibility of the store service such as offering extending it to PCs, and enriching IPhone/iPad experience.” The digital gambit for Sony in Japan is not without massive resistance by some very important sectors. Newspapers still remain immune to going digital, although they enjoy a more loyal subscriber base than those in North America do. Professor Hayashi Kaori of the University of Tokyo said that "Newspaper circulation figures remain remarkably high in Japan. Among the major national papers, the Yomiuri Shimbun — Japan's largest — puts its circulation at slightly less than 10 million. The number two, Asahi Shimbun, has an official circulation just shy of 8 million. Japan's regional newspapers typically reach 50 percent of households in their market, and a fair number boast a penetration rate of 60 percent or higher.” Many of these nws companies employ elderly people to distribute the papers to stores and customers. It is thought that if digital is given a priority that they would have to lay some of these people off, and this is something they are not willing to do. Sony does not have the best track record when it comes to developing new mobile reading platforms and executing them. In 2012 they were actively developing a Storyteller app for the Playstation Vita, which never saw a commercial release. Nintendo also beat them to the punch with launching a kids bookstore on the DS. Exclusively focusing all of their energies on a singular market, with one major language does have obvious benefits. Sony was born in Japan, and that puts them in a better position to leverage their overall brand to duke it out with Amazon or Kobo. The chief concern is if Sony can execute any of their planned enhancements for their mobile apps or the PS Vita? The Sony Reader Store is a New Priority in Japan is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
The Sony Reader Store is a New Priority in Japan
Amazon Sync for GoodReads Now Available in the UK
| GoodReads introduced a new feature this past April in North America and Australia that allowed people to sync all of their Amazon book purchased with their GoodReads account. This bulk import feature certainly makes life easier for those who want to have every book they have ever read or intend to read on their main public shelf. Today, Amazon Sync is now available to residents of the UK. The ability to import your print and Kindle titles into your GoodReads shelf is officially in early access. The feature is not available to everyone yet, and you can access the import feature HERE. The UK Amazon Kindle Store is not only used by residents of the United Kingdom, but also countries such as Ireland, Scotland or other commonwealth territories. The GoodReads syncing update is not country specific but works with all titles purchased from the main Amazon.co.uk website. Amazon acquired the social book discovery website GoodReads last year. This gave Kindle owners the ability to join the 30 million users who use GoodReads to form virtual book clubs, talk about specific authors or even just showcase what they are currently reading. The Kindle Paperwhite first and second generation models recently got GoodReads integration in the main navigation bar, to make it ridiculously easy to join in on the fun. Amazon Sync for GoodReads Now Available in the UK is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kobo, Aquafadas Launch Innovative Digital Magazine Publishing Tools
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"While there are many barriers to entry in the world of digital publishing – time, money, manpower, the list goes on – Kobo and Aquafadas essentially break them down and offer publishers a way in, without creating more work for either party," says Claudia Zimmer, CEO, Aquafadas. "By using Aquafadas Cloud Authoring to convert magazines into digital-friendly versions, all publishers need to do is provide Kobo with their magazine PDF files, which have already been created. The entire conversion process takes place behind the scenes and in the cloud." Using the same PDFs that publishers’ teams of designers make for print editions, Kobo can then seamlessly turn those into digital editions without delay or lengthy reworking. "We're extremely pleased with the power and versatility that Aquafadas Cloud Authoring offers in terms of digitizing content," says Michael Tamblyn, Kobo's president and chief content officer. "Publishers now have easy access to a global market across virtually any device or platform. Their digital offering becomes robust, intuitive and visually engaging – just as they intended. By offering publishers this conversion service, we are able to not only save them time and money, but quickly give them an entirely new revenue stream." One of the new features is the Guided Reading function, which creates a smoother experience for interacting with a digital edition by eliminating the need for touch-based panning and zooming. This also allows the creation of exciting features like an interactive table of contents and the ability to access a complete library of both books and magazines all from within the one user account.
Kobo, Aquafadas Launch Innovative Digital Magazine Publishing Tools is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Onyx Book i63ML Newton has Carta Screen and Android 2.3
| Onyx International has announced the release of a new ebook reader for the Russian market called the Onyx Book i63ML Newton. It has a 6-inch 1024 x 758 resolution display and is now the third ebook reader behind the Kindle Paperwhite 2 and Tolino Vision to use the latest screen technology from E Ink, called […] |
OverDrive adds bestselling Japanese eBooks for libraries and schools worldwide
| We are pleased to announce a strategic alliance with top Japanese publisher aggregator MediaDo. The alliance, called OverDrive Japan, will enable distribution of popular and bestselling Japanese content, including manga and adult fiction, through the OverDrive network of libraries and schools worldwide. In addition, the new venture extends the OverDrive platform and catalog of more than 1 million eBook and audiobook titles to Japanese libraries and schools. OverDrive Japan is designed to deliver on the following initiatives: 1) MediaDo's content to be distributed through OverDrive's network. OverDrive will make available to its worldwide network of libraries and schools MediaDo's Japanese eBook titles aggregated from 200 or more publishers. These titles enhance OverDrive's broad catalog of popular and bestselling titles in all subjects and in 52 languages. 2) Develop and expand digital library business in Japan. MediaDo and OverDrive will provide OverDrive's industry-leading platform system services and deliver Japanese and overseas eBooks to public, school, government, and corporate users inside and outside of Japan. 3) OverDrive's content offered in Japan. Japanese libraries and schools will have access to OverDrive's digital catalog of more than 1 million titles including eBooks, audiobooks and videos from more than 5,000 publishers, and lend them to authenticated users. "We are honored to join MediaDo in forming OverDrive Japan," said Steve Potash, OverDrive's CEO. "Japanese content has proven popular throughout the world, and we are delighted to lead the world in making it available to libraries and schools around the world, initially in the Japanese language and ultimately in English and other languages via translation." As one of the leading aggregators of premium published materials in Japan, MediaDo supplies and delivers eBooks from many publishers including majors such as Kodansha and Shogakukan. MediaDo has played an important role in the rapid growth of the domestic eBook market in Japan. MediaDo has already secured nearly 9,000 Japanese eBooks for distribution through OverDrive's network of libraries and schools around the world, including classic literary works and prominent manga titles. Yasushi Fujita, MediaDo's CEO, said "We are extremely pleased to form a strategic alliance with the world's No. 1 digital lending system platform company, OverDrive, and are excited to work with them to making the best lending system available in Japan. In addition to strive for making eBook reading most convenient to users in Japan, we are looking forward very much to provide 'cool Japan content' together with OverDrive to all the readers in the world." OverDrive Japan aims to develop digital library services in Japan by integrating both MediaDo's and OverDrive's system infrastructures. This continues the accelerating global trend of eBook usage worldwide, and builds on OverDrive's industry-leading knowledge and experience serving 28,000 libraries and schools in 36 countries with digital content in 52 languages.  |
Tough topics revisited
 Last year, I wrote a blog post that talked about a special collection of titles that dealt with difficult issues children and teens face. The tough topics – ones like substance abuse, suicide, divorce, pregnancy, eating disorders, depression, self-harm and many others. In honor of May being National Mental Health Awareness month here in the U.S., I decided to take the time and add some of the new content we added over the last year to the list, like The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and many others. What was true almost a year ago about a list like this one is just as true now – teens and children need titles like the ones on this list. Often they are reluctant to reach out to parents, mentors, and friends. However, in the information age, they are much more likely to look elsewhere when they want a sense of companionship. Novels that do not shy away from discussing the tough topics are so important because they give voice to experiences that most hope they never go through, but touch, in one way or another, everyone's lives. Take a look at the list below and help make a difference.
Kate Seivertson is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.  |
PebblyPi smart doorbell
| A quick poll of the office reveals that none of us knows anybody with a smart watch. But we know you’re out there, smart watch owners: this one’s for you. (Let us know in the comments if you really exist: Gordon says he thinks there are only about five of you. I am prepared for Gordon to be very wrong on this.) The first we heard of this project was this tweet… …and this video. Daniel Garden has used a Pi in a very simple but effective (as long as you remember to wear your watch) project that spots a switch being flipped (in this case a doorbell push-button), then sends an alert to your device – in this case a Pebble watch – and plays a notification sound. The vibrating alert means that this is a great option for people with hearing difficulties: and it’s always nice to see an honest-to-god use case for a smart watch that doesn’t involve doing the Dick Tracy thing where you have to chat to your own wrist like a not-very-good spy.
I hate to contemplate what Douglas Adams might have thought of smart watches. There’s a nice writeup of the project at Daniel’s blog, and if you’re in Cambridge you can head down to the Makespace (where several of the folk who work at Pi Towers hang out on occasion) to ask him more about the build. Thanks Daniel!
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Debate Continues over Books in Prisons
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The UK ban came about following the growing problem of smuggling. Items like drugs, cell phones, weapons, and other contraband have made their way into prisons through books sent to inmates. A recent incident in the southeastern United States, while not currently sparking legislation, led to the arrest of more than thirty individuals who were smuggling drugs into one county jail inside the tabs that denote the different books of Bibles. This ban resulted in outrage and protests, but so far the government has refused to even meet with authors or members of advocacy organizations. In Italy, which has the second highest rate of prison overcrowding in the EU, a new bill approved in Calabria and headed to Parliament would allow inmates to reduce their sentences by three days for every book they read, with a limitation placed on how many days they can earn each year. This initiative follows Brazil’s 2012 law that allows prisoners to earn four days per book, but still has its critics as those opposed to the bill question the legitimacy of simply turning pages in a book in order to get out of jail. But in both the UK and Italy, the problem isn’t books or reading, it’s format. In both cases, ebooks stand to have a tremendous impact while still maintaining safety and security. Depending on device security (such as the option to disable internet access, or limiting devices to only those that require a cord connection to update books), inmates in the UK could still enjoy books, even those that are gifted to their accounts by friends or family members, without the very real security concerns of contraband. At the same time, officials in Italy could not only track how much time an inmate spends interacting with an ebook using the same technology that parents and educators use for young readers, but they can also verify the user’s annotations, highlights, or comments before assigning credit for having read the book. While ebooks have been applauded for their features and convenience since the most recent rise in digital reading, new adaptations for the technology present themselves all the time. Officials who are willing to think beyond their own parameters for a book may be pleasantly surprised by ebooks’ ability to solve problems.
Debate Continues over Books in Prisons is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Monday, May 12, 2014
Amazon Strong Arm Tactics Result in Delayed Shipping of Hachette Print Titles
| Amazon regularly employs strong arm tactics when negotiating better book deals from publishers. This normally occurs when the existing contracts expire and its time to renew it. Amazon is the largest seller of digital and print titles in the world and this gives them tremendous bargaining power. Publishers simply cannot afford to not do business with them and give up heavy concessions. Amazon and Hachette are currently redoing their contract and in order to gain a better deal, Amazon is delaying the shipping of physical titles. Popular bestseller authors David Baldacci, Malcolm Gladwell and James Patterson print titles are experiencing massive shipping delays. Other affected Hachette titles include Kate Adie’s memoir The Kindness of Strangers, Antony Beevor’s The Second World War and Cressida Cowell’s How To Train Your Dragon. Hachette said that, “for reasons of their own,” Amazon is holding minimal stock and restocking some of its books slowly, causing “available in 2-4 weeks” messages to appear when customers try to order. Hachette said that it was “grateful for the patience of authors and all Amazon readers as we work to reach an agreement and to encourage Amazon to be back to offering Hachette Book Group’s books within normal shipment times”. Amazon is well known for their heavy handed negotiating tactics from past cases. The company pulled 5,000 eBook titles from the Independent Publishers Group in 2012. In 2010 they pulled all Macmillan eBook titles over a storm that brewed for over a year. Macmillan wanted Amazon to increase digital prices from $9.99 to $15.99 and needless to say it was easier to pull the titles than set a precedent for expensive titles. Amazon Strong Arm Tactics Result in Delayed Shipping of Hachette Print Titles is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Sony DPT-S1 PDF Reader Selling for Ridiculous Prices Online
| Sony is one of the most perplexing companies sometimes. They led the way into the dedicated E Ink ebook reader market; they opened ebook stores in several countries—now just a few years later they’ve decided to back out of the ebook industry almost entirely. Sony may have given up on ebooks, but they are still […] |
OverDrive, MediaDo Partner to Bring Japanese eBooks to Libraries
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In addition to the ability for OverDrive members around the world to access these Japanese-language ebooks, the formation of OverDrive Japan means that the Japanese library market can now benefit from OverDrive’s one million title catalog. "We are honored to join MediaDo in forming OverDrive Japan," said Steve Potash, OverDrive's CEO, in a press release. "Japanese content has proven popular throughout the world, and we are delighted to lead the world in making it available to libraries and schools around the world, initially in the Japanese language and ultimately in English and other languages via translation." This is exciting news not only for patrons who may wish to enjoy Japanese-language titles, but also for OverDrive’s academic and K12 library partners. With an increased focus on foreign language instruction in grades as young as elementary school, many institutions currently offer Japanese as a foreign language course. This partnership will make native language titles accessible to teachers and students for a more immersive learning experience. The manga titles can offer students not only the entertainment factor that the genre commands, but also a visual to accompany the Japanese text in order to make it more understandable. According to Yasushi Fujita, MediaDo's CEO, "We are extremely pleased to form a strategic alliance with the world's No. 1 digital lending system platform company, OverDrive, and are excited to work with them to making the best lending system available in Japan. In addition to strive for making eBook reading most convenient to users in Japan, we are looking forward very much to provide 'cool Japan content' together with OverDrive to all the readers in the world."
OverDrive, MediaDo Partner to Bring Japanese eBooks to Libraries is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The first book that truly changed me
| Books, whether they are paper and ink or files on a device, have the power to change us. These changes can happen on a grand scale, like when someone says how a motivational book inspired them to turn their lives around. But they can also happen on a smaller scale, changing our emotions one sentence at a time. Countless times, books have moved my emotions in ways few things can (The Fault in our Stars, anyone?) but I will always remember the first book that truly broke my heart: Where the Red Fern Grows.
I read this book around the same point in my life that I dealt with death for the first time. My best friend and I, barely ten years old, were in his family room when his father passed away suddenly from a stroke. I remember it like it was yesterday. I couldn't possibly comprehend what was happening around us. Despite having adults to talk to and counselors to help work through what I felt I don't think I truly grasped what loss meant. This book helped me cope.
When I opened this book for the first time twenty years ago I was prepared for a great adventure – a story of a boy and his dogs. I was not prepared for the lifelong impact that it would leave on me. That's what is so great about books though. They change us. What was the first book that changed you? Adam Sockel is a Marketing and Communications Specialist with OverDrive and completely obsessed with his pups.  |
Gallery Books’ Belles on Wheels Book Tour Crosses US
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The tour includes authors Emma Chase, Alice Clayton, Kresley Cole, Kyra Davis, Lisa Renee Jones, Christina Lauren, Jennifer Probst, S.C. Stephens, and Kristen Proby. “A tour like this introduces us to new readers,” explained Jennifer Probst, author of the Searching For… series. “Kresley (Cole) might have a lot of fans who haven’t heard of us yet, and vice versa.” One of the interesting aspects of a “whirlwind” tour such as this one is the authors spend a lot of time interacting with each other as they travel from city to city, allowing them the opportunity to recharge and spend time immersed in an atmosphere where others understand the challenges of being a bestselling author. “And we get to meet new friends,” explained Kresley Cole, New York Times #1 bestselling author of series in erotica, romance, and young adult paranormal. “And they’re such cool people, too.” Too often, the world of publishing means authors are singular entities, especially in terms of self-publishing and hybrid publishing, in which they feel somewhat isolated in terms of genuine interaction with readers and fellow authors. Events like book signings and tours and writing conventions can be some of the only times that authors get to enjoy the actual social aspect to their work. “I was on my own little solitary island,” said Kyra Davis, author of Just One Night, as well as other romance and mystery titles, of the opportunity to join with other authors for a mass event to promote each others’ work. Organized events like this one can be costly and logistically difficult to prepare for, but Dwyer spoke about the benefits of collaborating on a large-scale event like this, which can even have implications for indie authors who wish to pool their resources in order to promote their works. “This is a way for our authors to meet each other and meet their readers, and a lot of these conferences help that same way,” Dwyer said. While a major conference can expect to have attendance in the thousands, though, a smaller scale event like a book signing or book tour gives authors a chance to connect in a little more personal way with their fans. In conjunction with the Belles on Wheels tour, which will end in New Orleans on May 14th at the RT Booklovers Convention, Gallery Books is hosting an Instagram contest. “One of the great things we’re doing is getting all of the social media on board. People can use the #BellesonWheels hashtag to post to Instagram their favorite road trip reads, and we have a sweepstakes at the end for a grab bag of goodies we’ve collected at every stop. We’re also hosting a Twitter chat and getting Facebook activity going, all around the book tour.”
Gallery Books’ Belles on Wheels Book Tour Crosses US is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Heston, we have a potato.
| Heston Blumenthal’s production team got in touch last year to talk to us about an idea they’d had for his new series, the first episode of which was going to be based around pies. Given that we are a well-known British manufacturer of something that sounds a lot like pie, they thought we might like to get involved; we had a chat about what they might be able to do with a Raspberry Pi, and after having discounted sous-vide cooking as being insufficiently visual, we put them in touch with someone I thought might be able to help do something that’d look spectacular on TV. The Pie episode of Heston’s Great British Food aired two weeks ago on the UK’s Channel 4, and we did manage to get a Raspberry Pi on it; sadly, you didn’t see it or hear it mentioned, but you did get to see what it was doing. Namely, this:  Slightly shonky photo a result of taking snaps of the TV with my phone. I’ll let our friend Dave Akerman, high-altitude balloon record holder and immoderately scary driver, explain what was going on. You can read this post where it was first published, and learn much, much more about high-altitude ballooning with the Raspberry Pi and how to get started yourself, at Dave’s website. This fun project started with a call from a TV production company who were working on a series for Heston Blumenthal. They'd heard that I fly the Raspberry Pi and wanted to include it in their Pie episode. The idea was to fly a potato as that was the first vegetable to be grown in space. Fast forward a few weeks, we had the challenge of finding a day that had good wind predictions and good weather, and would fit in with the filming schedule and Heston's diary. Not easy, as you can imagine. However we did find such a day, with Heston available throughout, and I prepared a payload to fly. That needed to contain 3 GoPro cameras, including one looking down and one out sideways, plus a Raspberry Pi to send telemetry and live images from the flight:
On top of this I placed some foam blocks to hold everything in place, then a further camera to record the balloon burst:
On launch day, the first to arrive was Jon who'd made this wonderful retro-styled rocket, piloted by a King Edward with a familiar face:
We worked together to mount his rocket to my payload, using a shaped piece of balsa wood fixed to the underside of each:
With the main payload finished, plus a spare back tracker, we waited for everyone else to arrive. Julie served bacon butties to all. Heston was a bit late, and his bacon was sad and solid by then, but he still ate it :-). Here he is posing next to my BaCoN shirt
… and with Julie …
After this it was time to go and launch. The film crew were very unobtrusive so I found it easy to just get on with the launch, chatting with Heston and explaining how it all works.
There was little wind so the launch was easy. After feeding up the balloon and payload …
… I just stood back to let Heston do that to camera:
Next job of course was to chase the flight. The prediction had it going from Berkshire to Essex, so there would be little chance of getting there before it landed even without a film crew so slow things down! We saw some great images throughout the flight from the SSDV system, and had good telemetry also. Here's an image (from a GoPro) during the flight:
When we got to the area, some time after the flight landed, we got a very strong signal from near the road, and my direction-finder swung round rapidly as we passed the landing spot. Someone in one of the other chase cars saw it in a field as we passed! We then stopped to check maps and find the easiest way to get close to the payload. It was then a short drive to get to the field, where we donned wellies and made our way to the potato before it took root!
Heston had gotten more and more attached to the potato during the day, and he genuinely seemed unwilling to mash the thing up by the time it was recovered! This was all back in October 2013, and the show didn't go out until May 2014! If you missed it, watch for repeats on Channel 4 or 4Seven, or watch it on 4oD. Here’s the flight video from the show: And here’s Heston talking about the potato on Alan Carr’s Chatty Man. |
Kobo is Considering a New Social eBook Club
| Kobo has slowed down their torrential pace of international expansion and is now focusing on software and hardware development. The company has received a dramatic influx of new customers, due to them taking over Sony’s entire eBook business in North America, Europe and Australia. Could a virtual book club be next on Kobo’s agenda? A new survey has been dispatched to select Kobo e-reader owners and people who typically buy a ton of eBooks. It is worded as if the Book Club will be launched and they are asking key questions about the social media aspect. Most of the queries centered around connecting it to various social media networks like Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest. A number of other questions asked if social was even important at all, or if you merely want to discuss books with like minded souls. Kobo has experimented with community based programs in the past with Kobo Pulse. It was a short lived initiative that was only implemented in their iOS apps. It let people know how many people were reading the same book as you were and how many people have completed it. The intention was to foster community based discussion and to prevent spoilers from ruining the experience. They even brought in Gena Showalter to talk about her book to the community, but engagement was low and Kobo abandoned it.Could Kobo make a virtual book club succeed in the modern era? The company sorely needs a competitive edge against GoodReads, which Amazon purchased last year. Digital reading is a solitary endeavor, you buy and read the books in the comfort of your own home. Being able to socialize with fellow readers is a very compelling value proposition. If done right, it could be integrated into all existing and future Kobo e-readers and their official apps for Android, iOS, Blackberry and Windows. Kobo is Considering a New Social eBook Club is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Smashwords Authors Benefit from B&N eBook Pre-Orders
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But a new post from Smashwords’ founder and CEO Mark Coker explains that authors have an option that gives them a leg up on booksales and bestseller rankings, one that Amazon only makes available to select indie authors and publishers: pre-orders. “In a nutshell, here’s how the dynamic works at B&N, Apple and Kobo: Let’s say your book is listed on preorder for 60 days in advance of your official onsale date. Let’s say that at B&N (or iBooks or Kobo) your book accumulates 15 orders per day. After two months of order accumulation, you’d have 900 orders. These 900 orders would credit all at once on the first day when your book goes onsale. “Since every retailer’s bestseller charts are based upon unit sales, and all charts give greater weighting to sales credited during the most recent 24-hour period, it’s like selling 900 copies in a single day. And that’s before counting the additional sales that come once the book goes onsale. With 900+ sales at any retailer in a day, you’re going to land near the top of your book’s genre or category list, and probably also within the store’s top-10 or top-20 store-wide bestseller list. “You don’t need to accumulate 900 orders to receive a boost from preorders. Even 10, 20 or 30 accumulated orders will give you an incremental discoverability advantage.” That advantage that Coker mentioned has been in place since Smashwords launched its pre-order feature, but until now it wasn’t understood that all three of those major retailers could incorporate the pre-orders as sales rank on the day of the book’s release. With the ease of launching a pre-order platform for a specific title, there’s no reason not to take advantage of the potential for discoverability and the possibility of increased initial sales ranking as a way to stand out. Smashwords Authors Benefit from B&N eBook Pre-Orders is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Sunday, May 11, 2014
eBook Review: Time’s Echo by Rysa Walker
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Books like this one make me love digital publishing. Not only do I have something to read while suffering through the interminable wait between Timebound and Time’s Edge (book 2), but I get a whole new perspective on the storyline, thanks to author Rysa Walker self-publishing this novella-slash-teaser while we wait for Amazon Publishing’s Skyscape imprint to put out the next book. Fans of Walker’s 2013 ABNA Award winning YA time traveling adventure will enjoy seeing this side of the story as Kiernan Dunne hops around looking for clues as to what happened to Kate at the end of the World’s Fair near the end of the nineteenth century. He has a few clues, but has to jump around without destroying anything–easier said than done in time travel, it seems–in order to seek the information. The interesting thing about authors who release these novella-length or alternate POV stories is the readers’ reactions. Some are so involved in the original novel that any additional insight is welcome and sought after. On the other hand, purists often get frustrated with the alternate narrator or the shorter length, and end up feeling dissatisfied with the new title. Fortunately, Walker brings her same level of detail and character development to this shorter work, meaning sure, it flies by, but it was certainly worth the time. Walker’s second full-length book in the CHRONOS Files series is due out in October 2014.
eBook Review: Time’s Echo by Rysa Walker is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New Look at How Titles Sell Across Genres
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Robertson looked at the bestseller lists on Amazon and used those rankings to compare to the method of publication, and found some interesting results. According to his post on the genre bestsellers, romance, science fiction, and fantasy titles in the top spots were doing as well as or better than traditionally published titles, with typically half of the top titles having been self-published. But when the titles moved into genres like mystery or thrillers, the number of self-published titles at the top dwindled rapidly. Only 11% of the titles in the top 100 for those two genres were self-published. Robertson quite freely admits that he only looked at a very small sample for each genre compared to the total number of titles published, and unlike the Author Earnings report with its thousands of titles to base its report upon, the focus of this glimpse wasn’t sales, but how publishing method affected ranking. One thing Robertson was kind enough to point out–apart from stating very eloquently that self-published authors do sell a lot of books–is that authors in the thriller and mystery genres may want to keep their options open when it comes to choosing to publish traditionally, with a small press, or by themselves. Robertson’s full breakdown of how the genres fared for each publishing method, as well as how these figures related to total Kindle sales, can be found HERE.
New Look at How Titles Sell Across Genres is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New Attacks Against Amazon’s International Expansion
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Literary agent Andrew Wylie of the Andrew Wylie Literary Agency is known as “The Jackal” in the publishing industry, and that’s when the people who are disparaging him are feeling generous. Long accused of “poaching” authors away from other agencies or publishers, Wylie has a decidedly unapologetic stance when it comes to offering his clients–and apparently, the clients of other people–a deal that allows them to continue to write and support themselves well. But Wylie, who was in Argentina for the Buenos Aires Book Fair last week, brought a decidedly painful message to the country: Beware of Amazon. According to an article for the Buenos Aires Herald, Wylie spoke out at the event and to reporters on Amazon’s predatory behavior, citing specifically the alleged wrongdoing that five of the then-Big Six publishers were accused of. Those accusations led to most of the publishers settling out of court in order to avoid even more costly legal fees, a factor that Wylie says Amazon played a part in by providing documents to the Department of Justice at the time. This is an interesting turnaround for Wylie, who launched a digital imprint in 2010 with the express purpose of selling titles strictly through Amazon’s Kindle platform. Of course, only last fall Wylie gave an interview to the New Republic that called Kindle users “fools” and warned publishers to take their titles off of Amazon so that fewer fools had the opportunity to read them. But even if Wylie has a point and takes it upon himself to embark on a global mission to warn new markets of Amazon’s practices, will anyone listen? Or is it too little, too late for people who feel as Wylie does, that Amazon is seeking to destroy publishing in the same way that Wylie stated Apple destroyed the music industry? However the industry chooses to listen or not, no one can say the Jackal sat by and did nothing will Amazon marched forward on its global domination quest.
New Attacks Against Amazon’s International Expansion is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New Onyx Boox i63ml Newton e-Reader has Google Play
| The Onyx Boox i63ml Newton has just launched in Russia and has a few major competitive advantages against their competition. The device is running Google Android 2.3 and users will be able to download any reading or comic book apps they want via Google Play. The Onyx Boox Newton features a six inch display screen with a resolution of 1024 by 758 pixels. One of the most exciting elements about this new device is the inclusion of e Ink Carta technology. The Kindle Paperwhite 2 and Tolino Vision are the only others on the market that currently have it, making the Newton cutting edge. The crux of Carta is faster page turns and the elimination of full page refreshing whenever you turn a page. The Newton allows users to read in the dark with their front-lit display. I actually like the fact they bill it as “moonlight,” which gives them the ability to market it more effectively. Underneath the hood is a single core 1GHZ processor, 512 MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. This should store over 10,000 books, but if you feel like you are installing a ton of apps from Google Play, you can buy an SD Card. Open e-Readers is becoming a major trend in 2014 with the core operating system switching from Linux to Android. Sony and Barnes and Noble have always used Android in their e-readers but it has been a very locked down version of it, having no ability to load in your own apps. The Onyx Newton has Google Play built into it, which likely does not have official certification from Google, but hey, Onyx is a Chinese company after all. Android 2.3 is quite limiting to be able to install all of the latest generation e-reading and comic book apps, since most depend on Android 4.0 to run effectively. Still, there are a ton of apps out there that will allow users to be able to craft their own e-reader experience, much like a stock vanilla Android tablet. This e-reader is exclusively available in Russia for 6990 RUB, which is the standard for a top of the line e-reader. Onyx normally makes really good products, so this likely will be one of the best ones released all year in that market. New Onyx Boox i63ml Newton e-Reader has Google Play is a post from: Good e-Reader |
