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While many critics from all corners of the industry have taken issue with these reports, the math is quite simply sitting in front of their faces. The results of this quarter’s report have led to a startling look at what has happened to the Big Five publishers since winning their hard-won battle against Amazon to be allowed to set their own prices. Spoiler alert: they’re losing their iron-fisted grip on the bestseller lists now that their prices have gone up. According to the report,”Since we started pulling this data, the average price of an ebook from a Big 5 publisher has gone up 17%. Compare this to a difference of 5% for self-published titles, or the increase of 7.5% across Amazon imprints. The prices for Big 5 published ebooks have risen quite steadily, rather than a sudden surge since the return to agency.” And now for the correlating shocker: “In the last three months, the Big 5 publishers have seen a 26% reduction in the number of titles on Amazon's Best Seller lists. This means fewer titles are selling well enough to make these lists, and it also means fewer titles are receiving that added visibility.” It’s interesting to see that consumers really do care about price. The long-standing belief has been that fine literature sells itself and readers are willing to pay for quality. That doesn’t appear to be the case across the board, especially in scarier economic times. What we also see is that consumers do read, but if the price is out of their reach, they’ll simply find some other work to enjoy now that there’s an abundance of titles to choose from. For a solid yet condensed look at the May 2015 Author Earnings report, check out Passive Guy’s post, complete with many of the pie charts that the AE team is famous for. For the full report, click HERE to go to the AE site.
How Agency Pricing Has Affected the Bestseller Lists is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Thursday, May 7, 2015
How Agency Pricing Has Affected the Bestseller Lists
Does Your Android or Blackberry App Need an Update?
| The Good e-Reader Android and Blackberry App Store is the largest in Canada and in the top 10 globally. Developers and the site staff always uploading the best new apps from around the world. Sometimes apps are out of date and require an update, how do you get the latest version? Good e-Reader has a system that allows you to automatically notify the App Store Admin Team and let them know an Android, Blackberry 10, or Blackberry Playbook app needs an update. Using the system is really easy! Every app has a version number and next to it is a notification flag. If you click on it, it automatically sends an email to the Good e-Reader App Store team and they make sure its promptly updated. Does Your Android or Blackberry App Need an Update? is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
What is the Source Material for Anime?
| Anime, as a form of entertainment, has become so popular over the decades that the world collectively refers to this one country's animated content by name, rather than simply calling them Japanese cartoons the way we would any other country. Perhaps this comes from the uniquely stylised art, or perhaps from the sheer number of anime series produced over the years, or perhaps a combination of the two. But just where are anime producers finding the material for this much? There is a constant stream of new material, with anywhere from 2 to 10 new anime released each month. Anime can only come from two places: original ideas, or adapted from another source. Original ideas, though not scarce, are not nearly as commonplace as adaptions. With this in mind, let's take a look at the various sources anime can be adapted from. Almost every anime is adapted from manga. As a term in Japan, 'manga' simply refers to any comic done in Japanese, much the same way 'anime' refers to all animation released in Japan. Outside of Japan, the term has come to be recognised as a specific type of comic, with certain traits and art styles shared by all. These traits and art styles have been a heavy influence on the world, from Chinese 'manhua' to the French movement 'la nouvelle manga.' Manga covers a wide range of genres and story types, from long-running action epics to simple, one-shot love stories. While it is rare to see an anime adapted from a one-shot, almost every manga with even a shred of popularity will get an anime adaption. Not every manga, however, is published the same way anymore. With the rise of the Internet came a new way to share material, and the rise of 'webmanga' began. These are manga published online, sometimes serialized in online magazines and sometimes published entirely by the author themselves. Most webmanga that reach a certain popularity level, and thus productivity level, become published as manga and adapted into anime. Two of the most notable examples are the recent Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun, and Hetalia: Axis Powers. Along with this new age comes a new form of storytelling: the visual novel. Most people who have never used a visual novel before have a hard time grasping the concept. It's much like a video game, but with the structure of a book. Remember those choose-your-own-adventure books you read so much as a kid? Visual novels are the same idea, only told all through illustrations and presented electronically. Visual novels are a prime material from anime adaptions. As the novels follow multiple storylines, the anime will usually choose to adapt the "perfect" or most popular option, leaving the other storylines as possibilities for second seasons or special episodes. Another medium is the video game itself. One of the most popular and enduring anime is Pokémon. Originally beginning as a pair of video games, Pokémon has grown into a franchise that spans all across the globe. And it isn’t the only popular anime to come from a game. Persona, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy and Tales of Symphonia name a few. Occasionally, anime will be adapted from actual books. This isn't much of a popular option; more likely than book series are the light novels, a genre of short novellas often accompanied by illustrations. But classic literature has also been seen adapted, like Romeo x Juliet, The Count of Monte Cristo, and almost as many Alice in Wonderland interpretations as there are in Western entertainment. So far, all anime source materials we've seen come from Japan, and it is true that anime producers like their content home-grown. Every once in a while, an anime from an outside source will come along. Comics such as Iron Man and X-Men have had their own short-lived anime adaptions. One notable venture lies in Deltora Quest, an anime based off a series of popular Australian children's novels. The possibilities for anime adaptions have been growing greater and greater over the years. While classic manga will continue to be the largest contributor, it is possible that sourcing for anime will grow past its borders, possibly even to the Western hemisphere, and that is a possibility to look forward to – admit it, you’ve always wanted to see your favorite book series adapted as an anime. What is the Source Material for Anime? is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon Doubling Down on their Advertising Network
| Amazon has been slowly growing their internal advertising network, which allows companies to showcase their products and services on Kindle e-readers and tablets. The company also has the ability to run advertisements on their extended network of websites, such as IMDB. Lately, Amazon has been establishing ties with new companies to advertise in non-conventional ways. When you buy a new Kindle e-reader or tablet there is the option to pay less money and go with the “Special Offers” edition. These variants display advertising on the screensaver and also on the navigation bar. Companies such as L’Oréal were early adopters and helped the Amazon Media Group grow. In a world dominated by Google, Amazon has an upward battle to promote their advertising platform. According to eMarketer Amazon only accounts for 0.75% of the digital advertising market, in terms of revenue. In order to facilitate growth, Amazon has reached out to new companies for some very innovative advertising campaigns. Amazon Media Group’s vice president of global advertising sales Seth Dallaire revealed that they recently did a deal with Land Rover to help distribute an e-book adventure story written for the brand by an established author, on the Kindle platform. Dallaire said: “We saw very high engagement from customers in terms of reading it. It was not promoted as a pure advertisement, but rather content, and the author that created that content is what brought customers in to engage with it to begin with. It was a great learning for us.” Elsewhere, in Japan, Amazon worked with Nissan to create e-book brochures for new vehicles. Amazon is working with automakers to measure how many people visited a car dealership or drove away with a new vehicle as a result. Dallaire said that the campaign worked so well in Japan — a country that has really taken to digital brochures — Amazon may look to extend that type of format to other markets. “Most people don’t associate Amazon with cars; we don’t sell cars on the platform. But customers trust Amazon to provide objective opinions about a product or a brand … we will work hard to show that there is some attribution to that level of investment that drives business results, even if it doesn’t happen on Amazon,” Dallaire said In the end, most of the internet population is likely well aware of the Amazon affiliate program, which allows anyone to advertise a product that is sold and earn a small commission. The Amazon Media Group primarily targets businesses to advertise on their e-readers, tablets and network of websites and is not very well known. Hopefully this will change with more personalized relationships and innovative ways to tell a brand story. Amazon Doubling Down on their Advertising Network is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Digimon Adventure Tri Announces Voice Cast and Release Plans!
| Following a NicoNico marathon of the original Digimon Adventure anime series, the staff for the upcoming Digimon Adventure tri. Has finally released more information about the cast and release date! The staff announced the voice cast of the "Chosen children" (Digi-Destined) as well as their original digimon companions! The staff has also announced that the anime will be part of a 6-part film series, with the first film to be titled "Sakai" (Reunion) and will be premiering on November 21st . Atsuya Uki will provide the character designs, Yuuko Kakihara will act as series script supervisor and Ketitaro Motonoga (Rayearth) will direct. The original cast of the Digimon partners in the 1999 anime will be returning for the new series though the cast of the human characters are completely different this time around and will star: Natsuki Hanae as Taichi Yagami The anime is a bit longer of a wait than we had anticipated, I’m excited to see this series as a feature length and not to mention the art style, while vastly different from the original series has a sense of maturity to it. Not to mention the end scenes with Omnimon and the mysterious black digimon looked very promising! Digimon Adventure Tri Announces Voice Cast and Release Plans! is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Mobile Google Search Has Surpassed Desktop
| Google implemented a new policy last month that had the entire digital publishing world take notice. If a website has a mobile friendly design it would have a higher placement in the search engine results and older websites would plummet in the rankings. This is not a decision that Google made lightly, primarily because for the first time ever mobile search has outweighed desktop. The company says that "more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan." Google declined to elaborate further on what the other countries were, how recently this change happened or what the relative volumes of PC and mobile search queries are now. When it comes to smartphone and desktop usage, the digital publishing industry doesn’t really have any concrete data. The only information that has been available was from Comscore who recently released a report and graphic. They said in the last quarter of 2014 US mobile queries (tablets + smartphones) were roughly 29% of total search volumes. This is across the entire industry. Apparently this information in Google’s eyes is totally incorrect and smartphone search has grown significantly. In order to tap into the growing smartphone segment Google has given publishers and e-reader companies a new reason to use Adwords. There are new options to include picture-heavy ads that show users a gallery before directing them to a website, and e-book ads that sandwich together availability, prices, user reviews, and pictures into a compact mobile format Smartphones are clearly the way that people search for a new e-book or read reviews. It is critically important that if you sell digital content such as audiobooks or e-books that a mobile friendly design is paramount. Mobile Google Search Has Surpassed Desktop is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Using the OverDrive app with the Apple Watch
| As you may have heard, Apple made some news recently by adding a new product to their line of devices, the Apple Watch. Wearable technology has been trending One of the exciting pieces to the Apple Watch is that app developers now have a chance to create new experiences for users to interact with. We are currently in the process of looking into developing a unique experience for OverDrive users but in the meantime you can use Apple’s “Now Playing” feature to use our app with your brand new Apple Watch! Simply open the app on your phone and start playing your audiobook of choice. Your iPhone and Watch are synced via Bluetooth meaning that you can then control your playback options right on your phone. It’s never been easier to enjoy free audiobooks from your library and the Apple Watch provides an even more convenient way to access these titles.  |
lately ever since fitness trackers like the FitBit and the Nike+ Fuelband becameCheck out the latest eHighlights catalogs!
| The Collection Development team worked diligently to put together the latest editions of our eHighlights catalogs. There have been some great releases in April and May for Kids & Teens. We are finally seeing trends towards summer! Pool by Jihyeon Lee is the beautifully drawn story of a swimming pool, and of course we have Stingrays! Underwater Fliers, which will excite all little marine biologists. Then, of course, there are teen romances like City Love, 99 Days, The Summer After You and Me and Saint Anything (major fangirling is happening at OverDrive for Sarah Dessen's new book). June and July bring some blockbuster releases for Adults with new books from Harper Lee, Ernest Cline, Judy Blume, Meg Cabot, Aziz Ansari, Brad Meltzer, Paula McClain, Candace Bushnell, Janet Evanovich, Brad Thor, and Stephen King – there is something for everyone. This all-star lineup cannot be missed so make sure you stock up on titles for your patrons. Stay tuned for upcoming editions of our catalogs! For past issues, click here. 
Emma Kanagaki is a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive  |
SSH shenanigans
| Password security is a big deal. No more so than when you've got smart kids who have learned about SSH, with a Raspberry Pi in their bedroom. The kids from Gurgleapps would like to show you what they've learned recently about the shell. We are impressed, and are reminded that we all need to change our passwords. The Gurgleapps folks have made a short tutorial available for those who aren't familiar with the shell – they've promised more tutorials soon, and we'll be keeping an eye on what they get up to! |
Amazon Kindle for iOS is Draining Your Battery
| The Amazon Kindle App for the iPhone and iPad has been a battery hog for the last month. Even when you aren’t reading an e-book and doing something else, the app remains in standby mode. The Kindle app was updated April 15th 2015 with the quintessential “performance and stability improvements”. This last update was the culprit and many people are finding their tablets or smartphones are not lasting as long as they should. I have an iPhone 6 Plus and most of the time I get about a day and a half of usage. The Kindle app has relegated it to about 15 hours, before it runs out of juice. I think the main problem is primarily due to a Whispersync timing issue. This is the Amazon system that fetches new content or books you purchased on other devices. There is no way to disable this with Background App Refresh, because Amazon does not have that feature on iOS 8. Amazon is aware of this issue and is working on a fix. Likely it will be pushed out in about a week. via Zednet Amazon Kindle for iOS is Draining Your Battery is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Confused About Overdrive? New Webinars Should Help
| Over the course of the last five years, libaries have embraced digital content in a big way. In North America, 95% of all libraries have an e-book collection, but there is m ore to a library than just books. Overdrive for example has audiobooks, magazines, music, newspapers, and videos. In order to get libraries educated on their portfolio and to address any questions or concerns, Overdrive has just launched a new webinar series. webinars are basically live video feeds where a series of people walk you through a concept or an idea and answer questions on the fly. This is something new for Overdrive, in the past they relied on their team to personally deal with libraries. On May 20th there is going to be a 60 minute series on audiobooks where a live discussion will talk about their merits. Another live video will take place on August the 4th, where they will discuss how to keep young adults engaged with audiobooks throughout the whole year. Why the infatuation with audiobooks? Well, apprently Overdrive launched their first videos at the end of April when they walked you through the basics of purchasing titles in Marketplace, using OverDrive Read and a live demonstration of the latest features with the OverDrive app. I have no idea where the archived videos are stored, Overdrive doesn’t seem to have any past content available for viewing yet. Confused About Overdrive? New Webinars Should Help is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Discover New Digital Manga with Jump Start
| Starting next week, Viz is giving two new manga a Jump Start. Next week, almost simultaneously to the release in Japan, we'll be seeing "Welcome to Shika High's Competitive Dance Club." This will be followed by "Devily Man" on May 25. As none of these manga have even had their Japanese debut yet, the story material and content are almost entirely unknown, although something named "Competitive Dance Club" should be fairly self-explanatory. "Devily Man" seems to be a oneshot, but with the potential for a further story. However, these two did beat out another manga having its debut this month in Japan called "Lady Justice." Viz Manga chose to run an English translation of the two over "Lady Justice,"so there must be something in them worth seeing. Jump Start is a program started by Viz Manga in an attempt to bring new and unknown manga to the forefront and help gain recognition. They'll run the first three chapters in Weekly Shonen Jump, and if the response is good, Viz Manga will consider running them as part of their weekly magazine. So if you read the chapters and enjoy them, pop on over to Viz and let them know! Discover New Digital Manga with Jump Start is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Best Inexpensive eReaders for Under $70
| It’s amazing how cheap ebook readers and tablets have become over the past few years. Back in 2009 when the Kindle 2 was first released it sold for $369. If you think that’s bad, the Kindle DX used to retail for $489. Now it’s possible to get a good inexpensive, multi-functional ereader for as little […] |
Onyx Boox i86 ML vs PocketBook InkPad Comparison Video
| I came across a video on YouTube that was uploaded yesterday comparing two 8-inch ebook readers, the Onyx Boox i86ML and PocketBook InkPad. The most interesting thing about the video isn’t the comparison itself, it’s the fact that the Onyx Boox i86 shown in the video, the i86 ML, has a frontlight, and the video […] |
The Sad Joke That Is the Hugo Awards
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It’s like being voted as the Homecoming Queen, only to find out later you’re the butt of a school-wide joke. Except in the case of this year’s Hugo Awards, it’s much, much worse. In order to be nominated for this award–whose previous winners have included Anne McCaffrey, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, and George R.R. Martin–titles are suggested by Worldcon members, then tabulated. The highest numbers of suggestions results in the nominees’ lists for each category. The ballots then go on to be voted on, again by Worldcon members, literally anyone who’d signed up to attend any of the conferences in 2014, 2015, or 2016. Unfortunately, this year’s nominations have allegedly been shanghaied by a small collective of people under the name “Sad Puppies” and a rival group “Rabid Puppies” who are disheartened with the “touchy feely” decline of science fiction into a genre that allows gay couples and women who don’t have giant breasts to exist. The groups have garnered enough voting support to send their favorites to the top of the lists, then have seemingly been quite open about achieving their goals. Sadly, one of the key members of Rabid Puppies is believed to be the owner and editor of a publishing house that now has several titles on the shortlist. The editor himself, Vox Day, is also shortlisted for two top editor awards. Basically, the groups managed to shift the lists not only towards their own agenda, but towards the financial gain of one of the groups leaders. Day is also one of the names associated with the now infamous Gamergate saga that pitted the video game world against three female game developers and resulted in threats of rape and murder of these women. The groups’ fight against recognizing diversity in both science fiction titles and science fiction authors has led to a serious backlash against this year’s Hugo Awards, with two authors withdrawing their works from nomination (refusing the honor, essentially), one fan writer nominee withdrawing from the awards, and one presenter stepping down from the awards event itself. The authors took this stance after learning that their works were in the slate of titles pushed by the groups, and have decided that no recognition is better than being used in this way. The Sad Joke That Is the Hugo Awards is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The next Reader’s Advisory project is coming soon!
| We're excited to invite your library and/or school to participate in OverDrive's next Reader's Advisory project. The project offers hand-picked titles to help users discover new favorites, leading to increased reader engagement and circulation for libraries. In March, libraries that participated in the Reader's Advisory initiative and curated the Read-Alike collection for OverDrive's Big Library Read title,Shakespeare Saved My Life, saw growth in circulation for the related titles. A case study of selected libraries and several titles included in the collection showed an average circulation increase of 255% for titles over one month (compared to one month before adding the curated collections). This round, we will be highlighting two collections: Book Club Picks for Adults and Fantastical Fairy Tales for Kids & Teens. Next steps Preview the collections here: If you plan to publish, please be sure to fill any gaps in the collection (or purchase additional copies in anticipation of increased demand) by Friday,May 15th. We will post in the blog to confirm when the collections are available. Your only action at that time will be to Publish the collection to the desired location on your public-facing website. To learn more about curating collections, you can: If you have any questions, please reach out to your OverDrive team (you can find the team members and their contact information in OverDrive Marketplace > Support tab in the right column).
Rachel Kray is a Collection Development Analyst for OverDrive  |
Meet the Raspberry Pi Creative Technologists
| In February Rachel Rayns, our Creative Producer, announced and opened entries for the new Raspberry Pi Creative Technologists mentorship programme. We selected final participants from the applicants at the beginning of this month – we’ve got a wonderful group of young people. Last weekend we held the induction weekend here at Pi Towers in Cambridge, which involved Pecha Kucha presentations (20 slides, 20 seconds per slide) from participants and mentors; introducing the CTs to their new Raspberry Pi starter kits; getting them up and running with their Pis with a Python and GPIO workshop using the CamJam EduKit and the camera module; and a punting trip through the heart of Cambridge. We then took the group on their second field trip – to Newcastle to visit Maker Faire UK and the Baltic Centre. Next up is a trip to Pimoroni‘s workshop for a hack weekend full of laser cutter fun, and we have plenty more in store. Meet the Creative Technologists
Andrew is 18, studying Computer Science at Queen’s University in Belfast. Readers of the blog will be familiar with Andrew as the developer of PiNet – he also runs the Northern Ireland Raspberry Jam.
Bawar is 18, studying Maths, Computer Science and English at a Sixth Form in West London. He found out about the programme the day before entries closed – and stayed up all night making his video (but says it was worth it).
Connor is 19 and works in Operations at Ragworm. With his work he’s exposed to the maker community and regularly attends Maker Faires and hackathons.
Hannah is 20 and studies Creative Writing and Theatre at Lancaster University. She’s been writing stories since she was 6 and has an interest in exploring video game script writing.
Javier is 17 and Spanish; he lives and goes to school in Corunna in North West Spain. He his first languages are Spanish and Galacian (he also speaks English better than some of we do), and he’s been programming since he was ten, and he likes to disassemble gadgets. He’s also a fan of dogecoin.
Maddy is 17, studying Visual Effects at college in Nottingham. She spent 3 months creating an animated music video for a local band (it’s brilliant). She is constantly dancing.
Milton is 21, and works as a web developer in London. He loves code and wants to create worlds within worlds. He has a strange obsession with identifying as a dessert.
Owen is 17, studying Science subjects at college in Lewes. He’s lightning fast with a Rubik’s cube (better than Gordon and me), does magic tricks (all the time) and he wondered if we were looking for people like him…
Yasmin is 21, and works as a front-end web developer in Devon. She’s a keen and successful Vlogger, a games enthusiast, content creator, storyteller and musician.
Yasmin also created this video after the induction weekend – we love it! We’ll be sharing more information about the Creative Technologists as the programme continues and the participants’ projects are developed. It’s a 12-month programme and we intend to run it again next year. Register your interest and we’ll email you when information about the 2016-17 programme is available. |
Monday, May 4, 2015
Why Are e-Readers Great for Reading in the Sun?
| I am sure everyone has run into the situation where you need to hunt around for a bit of shade and get out of direct sunlight to read on your phone or tablet. LCD screens tend to reflect light like nobodies business because the average screen has multiple layers. Serious readers often turn to their trusty Kindles or Nooks because E Ink enabled displays are easily readable even in direct sunlight because the electronic paper reflect light like ordinary paper. People tend to think that smartphones, tablets and e-readers are the same thing if you read on the device. This is simply not the case and there is a a fundamental difference between an iPad and a Kindle. The Apple iPad for example, has in-plane switching (IPS), light-emitting diode (LED), liquid crystal display (LCD) that produces crisp, clear colors under normal conditions. It's not laminated the same way the iPhone screen is, so it's even slightly more reflective when it catches rays. E Ink technology relies on reflected, not emitted, light. This ensures text looks natural in any lighting condition. We have conducted many reading tests in direct sunlight with tablets and it is basically unreadable. How does an e-reader perform in direct sunlight? Today, we have a series of videos that demonstrate how a few six inch and a 9.7 inch e-reader fare when reading outside. As an added bonus we show you exactly why tablets are bad for reading in the sun. We show you the iPad Air, iPad Mini 2 and the iPhone 4 all together.
Why Are e-Readers Great for Reading in the Sun? is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New e-Reader with GPS Does Innovative Things
| A new e-reader has just hit the market that has built in GPS that will change key locations in an e-book. Basically, this means that the book makes references to the city or place the reader is in as he progresses through the novel. This new e-reader called The Tripbook features e-paper technology that will give you an experience similar to a Kindle or Kobo. It is a byproduct of the '365 Reasons To Smile' campaign, that Brazilian loyalty program Smiles developed as part of their 20th anniversary. The book was written by Brazil author Marcelo Rubens Paiva and the construction of the interactive digital edition was done by FCB Brazil. I think removing the notion of a specific "place" from a the body of a piece of literature can completely destroy the context. It's akin to dropping the Pyramids of Giza in Kansas. If you don’t own a Tripbook or live Brazil and can download the interactive eBook app for both iOS and Android devices.
New e-Reader with GPS Does Innovative Things is a post from: Good e-Reader |
