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“I think short form helped make it culturally acceptable that your work doesn’t have to be 70,000 words before you can charge for it,” sated Matthew Cavnar of a Vook, a site that pioneered immediate-to-market yet high-quality consumable content. “That’s been one of the biggest impacts I’ve seen it have — it’s freed people to charge for what they’ve written and helped them realize that 10,000 words can make them as much money as 100,000 — provided they’re the right 10,000 words.” Interestingly, Amazon has essentially freed readers up to judge a book by how long it will take them to read it, as the site includes a section where titles are designated by reading time. Of course, Amazon’s other contributions to innovative reading–like its Kindle Worlds licensed fan fiction titles–can also be found in a separate section. Amazon’s own dedicated site for short non-fiction pieces are also represented. Short Reads launched with some impressive content, including titles by HP Mallory, John Grisham, and Veronica Roth, giving home to content that was already available but that didn’t have its own dedicated consumer space to highlight its benefits. Also included on the front page are self-published titles and how-to works, two areas where authors have felt the pinch of lack of promotion. This isn’t the first wave of short fiction titles in recent months, as subscription-reading platform Rooster launched this spring as the answer to Scribd and Oyster’s all-you-can-eat models. While those sites offer members full-length works in an unlimited model, Rooster speaks to the needs of readers who just want something quick to fill the time and therefore opt for a lesser expensive serialized concept.
Amazon’s One-Sitting Short Reads Meets Need for Fast Fiction is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Amazon’s One-Sitting Short Reads Meets Need for Fast Fiction
Ingram Adds New Publisher Content to MyiLibrary
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“At Ingram, we continue to develop our platforms and collaborate with publishers to make the broadest selection of content available to readers worldwide,” said Dan Sheehan, Vice President and General Manager, Ingram Content Group library services. “We are pleased to add tens of thousands of new e-book titles to our MyiLibrary platform for more public and academic libraries, and their patrons to enjoy.” According to information on the platform, “Ingram’s MyiLibrary platform is an easy-to-use, comprehensive online e-content solution for libraries that provides a single source for content hosting, archiving, discovery, access and purchasing. Thousands of academic, professional and public libraries around the world have integrated the platform into daily lending activities, and have access to hundreds of thousands of titles that cover all major disciplines. Through the platform, library patrons can read content online, or download to a smartphone, tablet or computer.”The most recent publishers to make their content available are Hachette Book Group, O’Reilly Media, Kensington Publishing, Royal Society of Chemistry, CN Times Books, Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers, and several other entities.
Ingram Adds New Publisher Content to MyiLibrary is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Retro Review – Amazon Kindle DX
| The Kindle DX Graphite edition was the last 9.7 inch e-reader that Amazon Hardware The Amazon Kindle DX has a 9.7 inch display screen with 1200 x 824 pixel resolution at 150 ppi, 16-level gray scale, 10:1 contrast ratio. There is a built in gyroscope and accelerometer and switches between landscape and portrait mode automatically. Unlike most modern e-readers this does not have a touchscreen and instead is reliant on physical keys. There are left and right page turn buttons, home and settings menu. The D-Pad functions as your scrolling and navigation utility and clicking it is basically the OK button. One thing that Blackberry and old school users will like is the full QWERTY keyboard. It is much easier to write notes using this, then a software driven solution. The keyboard also has a number of quick launch keys. For example, if you click alt and the spacebar you will automatically play whatever audiobook or music file you were listening to last. One of the great things about the DX is the inclusion of text to speech and the two speakers. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Sony have all abandoned audio in their last few generations of e-readers in order to cut down on manufacturing expenses and compete against each other on price alone. The DX was last e-reader from Amazon that had built in audio, and many people who have vision problems flock to this model. There is only 4 GB of internal memory and no ability to increase it via the SD card. You want to make sure you always have room enough to buy the next great read from the Kindle bookstore. Overall, the DX is one of the few e-readers available to Western Europeans and North American customers that is easy to buy and accessible. Currently this model just got discontinued for the second time ever a few weeks ago, but you can buy them used or scoop up deals on Ebay. Over the course of the last year the prices on the DX dramatically decreased to a paltry $199.99. Software One of the big reasons why the DX fell out of favour with the majority of customers was the lack of firmware updates. It never received GoodReads integration to discuss the books you are reading with the largest community in the world. It also never got X-Ray or Whispersync for Voice or translation dictionaries as found on the current generation of Paperwhite e-readers. It has been said that the DX has an older processor, less RAM and all of this combined would be a sub-par experience, which is why Amazon likely never patched this unit. The DX is fairly barebones when it comes to the home screen. It basically just lists the books on your device, in text format. There is no cover art or progressions to let you know how far you are in a book. This was the standard way Amazon presented the menu system until they gave it a dramatic overhaul with the original Paperwhite e-reader. New users to e-readers might feel a bit discombobulated with the DX. There is no menu system, UI or navigation bar for you to easily access the store, settings or the experimental internet browser. Instead, the Menu key is your catch all solution to access the Kindle Store, Bookmarks or options. The settings button changes its internal options depending if you are on the home screen, reading an eBook or surfing the internet. The entire UI of the DX feels woefully out of date. It takes at least a few weeks to orientate yourself on what keys do what, depending on where you are. The internet browser engine is fairly old, it automatically tries to load the mobile version of a site, even if the site you’re visiting doesn’t have one. It struggles loading websites like Good e-Reader that has lots of CSS and Javascripts. Reading Experience When it comes to reading and buying eBooks the Kindle Store is fairly well the same on the DX, as it is on any modern reader. You have access to all of the core categories, such as Kindle Singles, Kindle Worlds, Kindle Books and even a small Audible category for audiobooks. When I say a small category, there is only a single title available to download. When you read a purchased eBook from Amazon or one you loaded in yourself there are few options available to augment your reading experience. There is no way to change the font-type, only the font size. There are seven different options to change the text from smaller to larger. When you resize the font, it all happens dynamically, so you get a sense on that your own personal sweet spot. The DX makes a very good eBook reader in the respect that older people or folks with vision problems can get a lot out of it. Large font print books often cost double or triple the cost, compared to your average book. Bookstores only have a dedicated shelf when it comes to these texts, so finding something you want to read can be painful. The DX has basically 10 inches of screen real estate that you can easily read, by pumping up the font size. If you have really crappy eyesight you can take advantage of the text to speech function and have it read aloud to you via the speakers or the 3.55 mm headphone jack. The Kindle DX does a fair job when it comes to reading PDF files, but pales in comparison to modern rendering engines made by Kobo or Sony. About the extent of your options is five different levels of zoom. You get a small preview box that shows you how much text will appear on your full screen. I found you can never really truly find that sweet spot, in which a split column PDF book looks good. This makes newspapers and magazines unfeasible to read, but technical documents, Maps or DND materials look fairly solid. Wrap Up When an e-reader has been on the market for over three years and people are continuing to buy it, sometimes it pays to take a second look at an old reader. The DX in the modern era will appeal to someone who wants a 9.7 inch display, but doesn’t want to spend the $300 to $500 that Pocketbook, Ectaco, Icarus or Onyx charge for their premium models. It tends to stress out when reading PDF files and with large files often load fairly slow. If you are buying it for a dedicated eBook reader, it does a tremendous job. PROS Free 3G internet Access CONS Short keys are not clearly defined Rating: 7/10 Retro Review – Amazon Kindle DX is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Simon&Schuster Signs eBook Backlist Deals with Scribd, Oyster
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When subscription-based ebook reading was first introduced, publishers and consumers alike were slow to get excited about it. The publishers maintained legitimate fears about author compensation and less-grounded concerns about piracy; since the publishers weren’t quick to put their content in the providers’ catalogs, consumers–even those who initially jumped on the idea–quickly dismissed it as being a monthly surcharge to read a less-than-enthralling catalog of titles. But with the recent launch of these platforms and the current climate of stronger digital focus, publishers are more willing to venture into subscription reading. Today, Simon & Schuster announced its deal that will put its ebook backlist into both Oyster’s and Scribd’s catalogs, both from its US imprints and from worldwide imprints for which it holds the rights. "Consumers have clearly taken to subscription models for other media, and we expect that our participation in these services will encourage discovery of our books, grow the audience and expand our retail reach for our authors, and create new revenue streams under an author-friendly, advantageous business model for both author and publisher," said Carolyn Reidy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Simon & Schuster, in a statement. "We are delighted to work with Scribd and Oyster to offer this exciting new model for readers to find and read eBooks, and to do so in a manner that respects the value of our authors' creative endeavors and supports our mutual goals of selling the most possible copies of their books." Oyster and Scribd already offered a catalog of over 400,000 titles each to their tens of millions of combined users, and Scribd also offers an additional million-plus titles of user-generated content.
Simon&Schuster Signs eBook Backlist Deals with Scribd, Oyster is a post from: Good e-Reader |
HBO Television Shows Now Available on Amazon Prime
| Amazon Prime has just inked a deal with HBO to bring all of their television shows, limited series and movies over. The first installment of content is now available for residents of the US who want to watch The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Deadwood, and Rome. There is also shows available via Prime that are currently on television such as True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, and Treme. These shows reflect the first wave of HBO content that is crossing over to Amazon. Sadly, the super popular current shows such as Game of Thrones, Veep, the Newsroom and Girls will not be available for at least a year or two. Customers will have to rely on the HBO GO app that will be available in the Amazon App Store soon. “We’re thrilled to deliver this collection of groundbreaking, beloved content from HBO to Amazon Prime members for unlimited streaming at no additional cost,” Brad Beale, Amazon’s director of Digital Video Content Acquisition, said in a statement. “Given the number of customers who purchase these titles from Amazon, we know how much customers love these shows.” HBO Television Shows Now Available on Amazon Prime is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Back to the Future theme tune, played by disk drives
| YouTuber Arganalth has an interesting hobby: music production using disk drives. His channel contains a whole host of musical masterpieces conducted using an array of various disk drives, programmed to make the arms in the drives retract in very specific ways to generate the right sound. Until now he’s been using a PC which sends the data to an Arduino Uno. For some time he’s wanted to use a Raspberry Pi to replace the need for the PC and power supply unit – and now he’s back with a new setup. He’s put together a musical octet of disk drives, and chosen the theme tune from the 1985 SciFi comedy classic Back To The Future for his opening Pi performance: Arganalth has adapted the setup shown in Sammy1Am’s YouTube tutorial; he’s used a mixture of floppy drives and and hard disk drives, it’s battery-powered and the latest iteration of the ensemble is housed in a suitcase, so he can always carry the party with him wherever he goes! Some other songs performed, in the pre-Pi days include Daft Punk’s Get Lucky, the Portal song Still Alive and the Zelda theme. We look forward to more Pi powered musical treats. This is a really nicely realised project: it just goes to show that if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. The project also highlights how a Raspberry Pi can take the place of a desktop PC, providing as much flexibility but with the portability and low power of a microprocessor. |
Amazon Compiles Bestsellers, Most Well-Read Cities Lists
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According to news from Amazon, the bestselling title activity for the current period by city is: “Inferno by Dan Brown was the best-selling book overall in Alexandria, Va., followed by Divergent by Veronica Roth and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Divergent was the most-read book by Goodreads users in Alexandria. While Alexandria, Va. bought the most books overall, Cambridge, Mass. bought the most print books, and Knoxville, Tenn. purchased the most Kindle books. Seattle, Wash. made the biggest gain this year, jumping from the #13 spot in 2013 to #4 this year. Cambridge, Mass. continues to grow more budding entrepreneurs than any other city, ordering the most books in the Business & Investing category. Top titles include Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and perennial best seller StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. Looking only at cities with more than one million residents, San Diego, Calif. is the most well-read.” As for cities where more book purchases are happening, Alexandria, Virginia, has held onto the top spot for a number of years, and other cities have shown marked leaps in ranking. The top cities for print and digital book, magazine, and newspaper sales are: Alexandria, Va.
Amazon Compiles Bestsellers, Most Well-Read Cities Lists is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Summer Reading Programs Kick Off as School Years End
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Called Imagination Destination, this year’s program offers parents and teachers the same great tools and tips that they’ve come to rely on. In addition, kids who complete their summer reading logs can bring those in to a local B&N location and receive a free book from a curated list of titles. For parents who want to stay on top of their students’ summer progress, the free NOOKApp is available, which can enable them to be prepared with age-appropriate and grade-level minded titles at a moment’s notice. "Our Summer Reading Program encourages kids and their parents to engage their imaginations all summer long so the learning never ends," said Sarah DiFrancesco, Vice President, Business Development for Barnes & Noble, in a statement. "It's so much fun for a parent to see a child's face light up when they turn in their completed journal sheet and get to choose a free book from the store display. Parents, educators, and librarians love the program, too, because they also want to encourage children to read during the summer months. Add our reading groups, weekly Storytimes, Hands-On Learning events, special promotions and the best lineup of summer skills workbooks, and Barnes & Noble is the best destination for reading fun, learning and savings, all summer long.” To access the free summer reading kit and its activities, visit bn.com/summerreading.
Summer Reading Programs Kick Off as School Years End is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Still time to enter the OverDrive in the Classroom Contest
| Do you have an original classroom resource, such as a PowerPoint, class outline, worksheet or activity related to using OverDrive in the classroom? To better help teachers incorporate digital media in the classroom, we are reaching out to our school partners in hopes that you can share your experiences, lesson plans, ideas and activities. Enter the OverDrive in the Classroom Contest by submitting your original classroom resource(s) for a chance to win some great prizes!  To enter the contest, you need to open a free shop on TeachersNotebook.com. Don't worry – setup takes only a few minutes:
If creating an account, enter the requested information and click register to create your account (the username you select will be used in the link to your shop). Within five minutes, you will receive an email confirming your account.
As part of your shop setup, you need to specify an existing Dwolla or PayPal account to which you would like to receive payment (even if you plan on only offering free products, you still need to go through this process). Setting up the associated Dwolla or PayPal account is something you need to do directly with Dwolla.com or PayPal.com, separate from TeachersNotebook.com. Remember, linking a payment account is to receive payment for selling your products, Teachers Notebook will never charge you for a free account.
We hope to see more entries pour in from our school partners. If you have any questions about the contest, please let us know!
Cassie Renner is a Marketing Specialist at OverDrive.  |
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Pocketbook Ultra e-Reader Available in July
| Pocketbook used to be known for their budget e-readers with woeful hardware specs. The company is really turning things around this year with a completely new hardware lineup using top of the line screen technology and innovative features. The Pocketbook Ultra is their new flagship e-reader that seeks to do battle against the Kobo Aura and Kindle Paperwhite. The new 6-inch e-Reader features a e Ink Carta display screen with a resolution of 1024 x 758 pixels and 212 dpi. LED frontlight helps to enjoy reading, even in low light conditions due to the new interface it's even more convenient to adjust brightness. Paging buttons at the rear panel allow to use the entire surface of the e-reader efficiently and give the user more options of holding the device. The Pocketbook Ultra supports more than 20 popular text and image formats, and also contains a set of preinstalled ABBYY Lingvo dictionaries. You will have 4GB of internal memory and a slot for microSD cards allow to keep a whole library at the fingertips, while a powerful 1 GHz processor and 512MB of RAM provide smooth and rapid page turns. One of the most compelling aspects of the Ultra is the 5 megapixel camera with autofocus on the back of the device. Built-in LED flash allows to make high-quality images regardless of lighting. Pictures can be used as screen savers for the device and transmitted to a PC, the bright color photos will become good addition to the family archive. Pocketbook developed an app that can recognize text and convert it into editable formats. The availability of scanning and recognition of printed text is particularly useful in learning and working with documents. With the camera and the preinstalled software PocketBook Ultra can also read and recognize bar and QR codes. I can see people using this to scan books or to create their own OCR files. With new PocketBook Ultra it is also possible to listen to your favorite music, with built in MP3 support. This will allow you to listen to audiobooks or turn on some tunes while you are devouring the latest eBook. This e-reader will ship out this July in the Ukraine and will likely have more internationally availability soon after. It will retail for the equivalent of $220 US. Pocketbook Ultra e-Reader Available in July is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kobo Writing Life Unveils Author Pages and Reviews
| Kobo Writing Life is one of the strongest alternatives to Kindle Direct Publishing. Authors who elect to self-publish with Kobo often find themselves able to market their titles in more international markets. Writing Life is working on two new compelling features that are currently in testing and will be unveiled soon. In the near future, Kobo will begin featuring book reviews for anyone that self-publishes eBooks. Customers will be able to write reviews and choose star ratings for titles and post them on the book page. This new system is created in-house and does not rely on any 3rd party review company such as GoodReads or iDreambooks. If you are a current author who publishes with Kobo you can check out how it will look HERE. Kobo Writing Life Unveils Author Pages and Reviews is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Challenging the Status Quo
| As a long time software entrepreneur and executive, my first "lesson" in how the publishing industry works occurred over a decade ago. As a founder of CreateSpace (now an Amazon.com company), we had developed a print-on-demand (POD) infrastructure that provided global inventory-free fulfillment of low velocity books. It had been adopted by tens of thousands independent authors and small publishers. Early on, we proposed our POD solution to a major publisher, with a clear value proposition: give us your out-of-print backlist, and for no effort earn incremental sales. The sales pitch could not have gone better. Lots of smiles, nods, agreement. But when we went for the close, the response from the large publisher was essentially, "it all sounds fantastic … but we are never the first to do anything." We solved a major publisher problem, yet the status quo prevailed. In our latest BiblioBoard venture, we identified a problem that seems even larger in scope and threatens the long-term role and viability of libraries in the digital age. The problem revolves around existing library eBook lending platforms and can be summed up as follows: - Patron usage of eBooks remains very low (6% or less), particularly compared to popular consumer products from Amazon and Apple (back in 2011, Amazon announced that eBook adoption had passed 50%). - Libraries are operating in fear of success, as higher patron usage (under the existing eBook circulation business rules) leads to increased wait lists, budget crises, or both. If they succeed, they create more problems. So we find ourselves again up against the wall of the status quo. If one were to look at the demand curve for a typical publisher catalog, we would find a large head (the "front list") and a very long tail. Intuitively we understand that most consumer book sales occur in the first year or two after publication. Publishers require that libraries use these artificially constrained eBook circulation rules to protect the value of their front list, perhaps 5% of the overall catalog. But they also applied the same business rules to the other 95%. This has resulted in an amazingly clunky user experience (long wait lists, cumbersome check out processes, limited reading periods, etc.) and, not surprisingly, low patron usage. And these circulation rules address a largely a made up problem, as usage stats illustrate that these rules are simply not necessary for most long-tail (lower demand) books. Ironically, this becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, as usage drives library priorities, budgets and funding. The result is a chasm has now been torn between the publishing and library worlds, an unnecessarily adversarial relationship with an incredibly influential industry. The reality is that publishers are also afraid. And not without justification, as their traditional business models have been materially impacted by market forces. They fear the negotiating power of Amazon, who has now moved into publishing. They fear the democratization of book distribution brought on by the success of self-publishing, which thanks to companies such as our CreateSpace alma mater, have demonstrated that independent authors have a legitimate place in the world of media bestseller lists. They fear cannibalization from library distribution. They fear the unknown, and they fear change. Or rather, as Ronald Heifetz once said "What people resist is not change per se, but loss." There is another way to bridge the divide. Let me paint a metaphor. Netflix has millions of users and is incredibly intuitive and engaging. Notably, users have no expectation when they subscribe to Netflix that they will get the latest content. Indeed, it is only after movies and shows have exhausted their prime consumer business potential (theaters, DVD, on-demand, etc.) does it become available to subscribers. This does not, in any way, imply that the service is not of high value. Moreover, the service has had little cannibalistic impact on sales, and it actually has many marketing benefits. After Netflix offered the Breaking Bad series, it drove millions of consumers to buy the latest season (myself included :). It also exposed new content and artists to millions of consumers who might not otherwise have discovered their resonance. Best-selling author Hugh Howey gets this, and uses his back list to drive sales of his front list. Library Journal recently found that over 50% of library users go on to purchase books by an author they discovered in the library. So the library has become an effective vehicle for independent authors to get discovered and build a marketing presence. Library Journal's SELF-e program addresses the fundamental challenge libraries face in this navigating self-published content. Libraries also have an important role in bridging this divide, where there is an interesting philosophical debate that surrounds the central question of whether it is the role or responsibility of libraries to provide patrons with access to best sellers at the same time as paying consumers. Many view it as a social responsibility to not "restrict access" to books that patrons might not be able to afford. One library received much attention for spending $23,400 for patron access to a single eBook title, "Fifty Shades of Grey." Putting aside the literary merit of this particular book, the question is really whether this is a good use of finite resources, when that money could be used to expose patrons to far larger pools of great literary content. Is the central role of the library to level the economic playing field between the content haves and have nots, or is it broadly promote literacy and education? Both libraries and publishers have a role to play in this drama. But an important first step is to understand the other's position and find a better model, because the current one just isn't working. Libraries can become the biggest advocate for publishers but they can't as long as they are understandably reluctant to recommend or promote content that their patrons can't actually easily access, and thus causes them more pain. Our BiblioBoard Library platform also plays a role in addressing these challenges, helping libraries and publishers find common ground. An upcoming Publishers Weekly executive roundtable is focused on bridging this divide. The focus of BiblioBoard is exclusively on enabling an amazing patron experience (the three E's of software design that I outlined in my recent TEDx Talk: Easy, Elegant and Engaging), providing a shared software service that handles all the technical challenges of our mobile world, and an open platform with the freedom to deliver ANY content they want. And, of course, we continue to work with publishers around our PatronsFirst business model, and today have hundreds of publishers (and over 100,000 books) ready for the brave new world. Status quos are meant to be broken. Challenging the Status Quo is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The PocketBook InkPad is a Sexy New e-Reader
| Pocketbook has been making e-readers consistently since 2007 and the company has a number of great devices coming out this year. The Pocketbook Ultra and Aqua are very unique and distinguish themselves quite nicely in a crowded marketplace. Pocketbook has unveiled a new e-Reader today called the InkPad and it seeks to provide more screen area to read on with its giant eight inch display. The PocketBook InkPad screen is based on E Ink Pearl technology and has the highest screen resolution for such devices – 1600×1200 pixels. High resolution allows you to adjust the font size from the minimum to the maximum without losing definition. Exceptional image clarity will provide a special comfort of reading and the ability of E Ink screens to use only reflected light will make reading perfectly safe for eyes. Most e-Readers these days have an illuminated display to assist in devouring books in low light conditions. It has a special sensory area located above the screen, which eliminates the need to use the on-screen menu. A powerful 1GHz CPU and 512MB of RAM provide smooth pages turning and stable use of any application. 4 GB of internal memory expandable up to 32 GB will allow to collect a real library, which is always at your fingertips. It also has a 3.5mm headphone jack to listen to audiobooks or music. Pocketbook has integrated Text to Speech in this model, to have books read aloud. There is not many eight inch e-readers currently on the market. The only other new one to be announced this year was the Cybook Ocean, which is not out yet and dealing with FCC certification. There is no release date on the InkPad yet or price. The PocketBook InkPad is a Sexy New e-Reader is a post from: Good e-Reader |
PW Launches BookLife Self-Publishing Platform
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With the abundance of self-publishing opportunities available to authors now, and even opportunities like library distribution thanks to this morning’s announcement that Smashwords and OverDrive are pairing up on ebook lending, the real stand out will be in the ways that companies can offer book promotion to their clients. BookBaby has already made a name for itself as not only a digital distributor who does not take any portion of sales royalties, but also as a site that offers book discovery tools to its authors. More information on BookLife will be forthcoming at this year’s BEA event.
PW Launches BookLife Self-Publishing Platform is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New Retailer Emerges in US for Sony’s DPT-S1 Digital Paper PDF Reader
| I’ve got some good news and some bad news. A new reseller for the Sony DPT-S1 PDF Reader has emerged in the United States. The bad news is they are currently out-of-stock and aren’t selling any at the moment. At least one person on MobileRead was able to buy one, and without the hassle of […] |
OverDrive Adding 200,000 eBooks From Smashwords Indie Authors
| Smashwords and OverDrive issued a press release today announcing a new partnership to distribute Smashwords ebooks to libraries through the OverDrive network. This will add some 200,000 ebooks from 80,000 indie authors and small independent presses to OverDrive’s catalog of ebooks available to public libraries in the OverDrive global network. OverDrive is the leading platform […] |
Last day to sign up for Big Library Read
| Have you signed up for Big Library Read yet? The event runs from June 3-18, but the window to sign up is closing. The last day to sign up is Wednesday, May 21. Laurien Berenson's Melanie Travis Mystery, A Pedigree to Die For is the title for this Big Library Read event. Kensington Publishing has graciously provided the first book in the Melanie Travis mystery series so that millions of readers from around the world will have the chance to discover this captivating world Berenson has created. Big Library Read is an opportunity for users to read the same digital title at the same time without any wait lists or holds. To borrow the title, your users will simply log in to your digital collection. A Pedigree to Die For will be right on the home page ready to checkout. In the coming days, we will be providing more information about this summer's Big Library Read including links to a discussion board, a marketing kit and best practices guide full of great ideas from successful libraries, as well details for the author chat with Berenson. To sign up your library, simply email your OverDrive Account Specialist. Your readers are sure to love this fantastic title!
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Boot from a 16MB SD card
| Call for guest posts! I’m going to be away for ten days, and Ben and Helen will be babysitting this blog. They’re looking for guest posts from you – do you have a Pi project you think we might be interested in? Email info@raspberrypi.org with your submission, and if the team likes it, they might feature it here. A little activity for you to try at home – if, that is, you’re able to find an SD card from the past. This one is 1000 times smaller than the one that’s in my Raspberry Pi today. I’ve no idea where I’d start looking for an SD card this small in 2014; get rummaging through your drawers and let us know if you have any luck. You’ll need a USB memory stick too, large enough to fit your operating system on, because 16MB isn’t going to cut it.  Read it carefully – that says 16 MEGAbytes. Mike Redrobe had nothing to do one afternoon, so he decided to make his Pi boot from something he’d found down the back of some prehistoric sofa. With a very minimal amount of work, he was able to put all the pre-boot files (9MB) for Raspbian on the SD card, put the boot image for Raspbian on the USB keystick, edit cmdline.txt and boot up. Read all about it on his website. I’m not quite sure why all of us here at Pi Towers think that this is so much fun, and suspect it speaks to the fact that most of us don’t have souls or a sense of humour.
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Smashwords, OverDrive Brings Indie Titles to Libraries
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As it stands right now, self-published authors must contact libraries individually and ask them to stock their titles. Even with advancements like inclusion in the Ingram catalog or CreateSpace’s expanded distribution option, libraries have had the ability to stock these titles, but really had no incentive to notice or find them them. And with library budgets being slashed to embarrassingly low amounts and shelf space shrinking for already cash-strapped libraries, the chances of them taking a risk on an unheard of author were not very high. But this agreement will enable indie authors to offer their books as part of OverDrive’s one million-plus title catalog, allowing libraries that option to find and stock the ebooks. With the typically lower price of ebooks through Smashwords, the opportunity for libraries to stock titles for their patrons and to increase author discoverability increases. “I think this is probably one of our most exciting distribution agreements in a long time,” said Mark Coker, CEO and founder of Smashwords, in an interview yesterday with Good e-Reader. “I was excited about our subscription distribution [to Scribd and Oyster], but this brings the excitement to a new level. We’ve been trying to crack the library market for the last couple of years. We know that libraries have access to hundreds of millions of readers but they don’t have massive budgets, we know that traditional publishers have been unfriendly to libraries, and we know that indie authors’ books are becoming some of the most popular books in the world. We have all these authors at Smashwords who are pro-library, and want to serve libraries.” The monetization of content from Smashwords will work just like it does for any consumer. When a library purchases the title for inclusion in its catalog, it is treated as a sale, just as when that same library purchases a title from a Big Five publisher. The key difference, of course, is that Smashwords’ titles are on average far less cost prohibitive than traditionally published titles, making them a more enticing choice for libraries who want to provide their patrons with an abundance of content. Also, given the single-checkout system that OverDrive follows, the Buy button will be in place on the book page within the library’s catalog; if a patron chooses to put a hold on a title so he can check it out when it becomes available, he will have the option to buy the title directly from Smashwords instead of waiting. This announcement follows closely on the heels of another major distribution agreement announced yesterday which will distribute the Smashwords catalog to Berlin-based txtr. While txtr’s market, much like Diesel, may not be one of the top players in the ebook market, as Coker pointed out those sales are sales that indie authors would not have made otherwise.
Smashwords, OverDrive Brings Indie Titles to Libraries is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New Yahoo Movies Digital Magazine Unveiled
| Yahoo has been rebranding all of their major properties with a new digital magazine layout. Yahoo Food and Yahoo Travel were two of the largest ones to launch this year and we can now add Yahoo Movies to the mix. The new movie website was designed with a new responsive theme that will look great on computers, tablets or smartphones. The content is geared towards trailers, celebrity Q&As, live streaming of awards shows, image galleries, and industry news. Yahoo also promises an onslaught of original content by a team of editors that will write essays on the film industry. Yahoo Movies also marks the first product launch under Josh Wolk, the former Entertainment Weekly senior editor recently brought on as executive editor of Yahoo Entertainment. Other recent editorial hires include a former "Page Six" editor to oversee Yahoo Travel, and Elle veteran Joe Zee as editor in chief for Yahoo Fashion. I think the new magazine layout template Yahoo is using with Movies, Food and Travel is a solid step forward. Over the last ten years the Yahoo brand has been growing really stale and not feeling fresh or modern. With the advent of solid hires on the design and editorial side, things are looking fresh. This new digital magazine system is also the testbed for the new Yahoo ad units, that blend contextual adverts amidst the regular content. New Yahoo Movies Digital Magazine Unveiled is a post from: Good e-Reader |
